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< 天 使 夜 驚 情 > DIRTY PRETTY THINGS
導 演 ： 史 提 芬 費 雅 斯 〈 歡 樂 洗 衣 店 〉
演 員 ： 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 〈 天 使 愛 美 麗 〉
芝 華 度 艾 席 霍 〈 斷 鎖 怒 潮 〉
沙 治 路 柏 斯
故 事 簡 介
法 國 影 壇 天 后 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 破 格 演 繹 首 齣 英 語 作 品 ， 聯 同 西 班 牙 影 帝 沙 治 路 柏 斯 大 鬥 演 技 ， 震 撼 歐 洲 影 壇 夢 幻 組 合 之 作 《 天 使 夜 驚 情 》 。 導 演 史 提 芬 費 雅 斯 回 歸 早 期 豪 邁 創 意 ， 繼 前 作 《 童 言 有 忌 》 後 ， 再 顯 超 水 準 表 現 的 作 ， 且 找 來 電 視 遊 戲 節 目 《 百 萬 富 翁 》 創 辦 人 執 筆 編 劇 ， 不 但 拍 出 反 諷 世 情 ， 更 將 懸 疑 氣 氛 滲 入 黑 色 幽 默 ， 痛 心 疾 首 之 餘 ， 喜 見 人 間 有 情 ， 哭 笑 不 得 。
影 片 揭 露 倫 敦 鮮 為 人 知 的 地 下 世 界 ， 非 洲 移 民 奧 加 芝 ( 華 度 艾 席 霍 飾 ) 日 間 任 的 士 司 機 ， 晚 間 則 是 酒 店 的 服 務 生 ， 在 這 位 於 倫 敦 的 酒 店 內 ， 聚 滿 了 來 自 各 國 的 非 法 勞 工 ， 猶 如 跨 種 族 文 化 的 異 地 。 一 次 奧 加 應 中 國 妓 女 房 客 求 助 ， 修 理 其 房 間 淤 塞 的 厠 所 ， 卻 意 外 發 現 水 槽 內 發 現 一 人 類 心 臟 與 ， 懷 疑 西 班 牙 藉 酒 店 經 理 ( 沙 治 路 柏 斯 飾 ) 利 用 酒 店 當 非 法 販 賣 買 器 官 的 中 樞 ， 更 識 破 偷 渡 客 為 換 取 居 留 權 而 捐 出 器 官 的 人 間 慘 劇 ， 尋 夢 代 價 的 確 教 人 匪 夷 所 思 ， 奧 加 決 定 聯 袂 土 耳 其 女 工 桑 妮 ( 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 飾 ) ， 偵 破 駭 人 罪 行 。
製 作 人 語
於 外 國 人 來 說 ， 倫 敦 無 疑 是 色 彩 繽 紛 的 旅 遊 境 景 點 ， 處 處 見 到 象 徵 著 富 裕 及 高 尚 文 化 的 歷 史 建 築 物 ， 然 而 ， 正 如 一 般 的 現 代 都 市 ， 真 實 的 倫 敦 同 樣 隱 藏 著 千 瘡 百 孔 ， 宏 偉 的 中 世 紀 的 文 物 遺 產 背 後 ， 不 僅 有 賴 旅 遊 業 的 大 量 外 幣 支 撐 著 ， 更 是 由 來 自 各 國 的 外 地 來 客 ， 匿 於 法 律 的 灰 色 地 帶 找 尋 發 財 投 機 ， 才 可 令 倫 敦 繼 續 繁 榮 下 去 。 坦 白 而 言 ， 他 們 實 在 有 推 動 國 家 經 濟 支 柱 的 功 勞 ， 可 是 他 們 的 故 事 ， 卻 不 是 大 家 在 日 常 生 活 中 可 見 得 到 ， 縱 使 他 們 常 與 倫 敦 市 民 擦 身 而 過 。
史 提 夫 費 雅 斯 的 《 天 使 夜 驚 情 》 以 倫 敦 的 黑 暗 秘 密 世 界 作 焦 點 ， 揭 示 普 通 遊 客 絕 對 看 不 到 的 光 怪 陸 離 事 ， 以 非 比 尋 常 的 手 法 處 理 一 部 主 流 劇 情 電 影 。 男 主 角 奧 琪 是 來 自 尼 加 拉 瓜 的 黑 人 非 法 移 民 ， 為 了 生 計 ， 白 天 當 的 士 司 機 ， 晚 上 就 在 酒 店 內 任 大 堂 服 務 員 ， 而 且 ， 還 要 租 借 酒 店 內 另 一 名 來 自 土 耳 其 的 女 工 桑 妮 的 小 房 子 ， 本 來 他 的 生 活 相 安 無 事 ， 直 至 他 偶 然 一 次 揭 發 了 所 屬 酒 店 原 來 是 賣 買 人 體 器 官 的 商 店 ， 隨 即 連 他 的 真 正 身 份 也 受 牽 連 ， 引 起 重 重 殺 機 。
劇 本 是 由 全 球 受 歡 迎 電 視 遊 戲 節 目 《 百 萬 富 翁 》 的 創 作 人 史 提 芬 奈 特 撰 寫 ， 他 一 直 將 藏 在 心 底 ， 後 來 才 與 其 好 友 保 羅 史 密 夫 ， 亦 即 是 本 片 的 監 製 將 劇 本 搬 上 大 銀 幕 。 「 史 提 芬 是 一 個 創 意 無 限 的 人 ， 多 年 來 他 除 了 不 停 構 思 不 同 種 類 的 遊 戲 節 目 之 餘 ， 及 撰 寫 了 多 部 處 景 喜 劇 ， 直 到 1990 中 ， 他 決 定 執 筆 寫 劇 本 ， 寫 了 《 天 使 夢 驚 魂 》 的 雛 型 。 」 監 製 史 密 夫 說 。
這 稿 子 立 即 便 送 上 了 給 史 提 芬 費 雅 斯 看 ， 二 話 不 說 便 被 題 材 吸 引 ， 導 演 本 身 在 80 年 代 出 名 鍾 愛 在 倫 敦 發 生 的 離 經 叛 道 故 事 ， 如 《 歡 樂 洗 衣 店 》 、 《 留 心 那 話 兒 》 都 是 教 人 津 津 樂 道 之 名 作 ， 最 後 導 演 便 著 手 處 理 ， 負 責 改 寫 劇 本 的 最 後 稿 ， 將 之 拍 成 電 影 。 「 若 你 追 求 一 些 新 鮮 及 原 創 的 東 西 ， 自 然 就 會 觸 碰 到 非 法 移 民 的 題 材 ， 他 們 對 英 國 人 而 言 的 確 是 嶄 新 的 題 材 ， 我 年 幼 時 ， 英 國 根 本 沒 有 這 樣 的 問 題 存 在 ， 如 果 拍 愛 德 華 年 代 的 電 影 ， 外 國 人 更 加 不 會 出 現 。 不 過 ， 要 是 想 緊 貼 時 代 脈 膊 ， 那 麼 ， 這 就 是 你 要 接 觸 的 話 題 ， 因 為 這 的 確 是 在 倫 敦 社 區 天 天 發 生 著 的 事 情 ， 更 可 以 說 是 英 國 的 民 生 時 弊 。 」
不 過 ， 最 吸 引 製 作 人 的 是 ， 運 用 了 一 個 非 比 尋 常 的 角 度 來 處 理 影 片 嚴 肅 的 內 容 ， 正 確 來 說 ， 《 天 使 夜 驚 情 》 是 一 部 圍 繞 社 會 政 治 題 材 的 驚 悚 懸 疑 片 。 「 的 而 且 確 ， 《 天 使 夜 驚 情 》 並 不 是 一 部 平 常 作 品 ， 不 能 以 常 見 的 故 事 模 式 來 為 影 片 分 類 ， 全 因 為 電 影 內 藏 著 的 無 限 動 力 ， 調 子 無 疑 是 灰 暗 的 ， 因 為 它 揭 開 了 一 個 連 倫 敦 人 都 不 想 承 認 的 事 實 ， 更 諷 刺 是 ， 這 些 不 見 得 光 的 事 ， 卻 是 倫 敦 的 經 濟 支 柱 ， 當 我 們 在 酒 店 及 餐 廳 見 到 這 些 非 法 移 民 的 時 候 ， 大 都 詐 看 不 見 ， 甚 至 充 耳 不 聞 ， 因 為 他 們 本 來 就 是 「 影 子 市 民 」 。 影 片 暴 露 了 他 們 在 倫 敦 的 窘 境 ， 他 們 被 迫 滯 留 這 裡 ， 強 迫 他 們 要 幹 一 些 他 們 不 願 意 的 工 作 。 而 影 片 更 有 多 重 曲 折 離 奇 的 劇 情 及 玄 妙 之 處 ， 保 証 令 觀 眾 的 心 靈 搖 擺 不 定 。 」
導 演 史 提 芬 再 補 白 : 「 故 事 不 僅 是 倫 敦 的 另 一 層 面 ， 更 揭 開 了 生 活 苦 澀 的 另 一 頁 ， 他 們 都 是 因 經 濟 環 境 被 迫 改 變 命 運 的 一 群 ， 慘 得 猶 如 一 部 駭 人 的 恐 怖 片 ， 卻 是 一 群 外 國 人 在 倫 敦 的 遊 記 ， 確 實 匪 夷 所 思 。 」
選 角 方 面 ， 單 看 故 事 的 背 景 ， 足 令 導 演 要 挑 選 非 白 人 及 外 國 人 來 拍 攝 。 「 男 主 角 方 面 ， 我 們 就 需 要 找 個 黑 人 演 員 來 ， 我 記 得 曾 經 跟 監 製 提 議 過 ， 影 片 其 實 可 以 在 美 國 找 出 色 的 黑 人 演 員 來 拍 攝 ， 即 使 要 找 丹 素 華 盛 頓 都 可 以 ， 不 過 最 後 我 認 為 應 該 在 歐 洲 找 個 黑 人 演 員 ， 用 不 著 跟 荷 里 活 演 員 打 交 道 手 。 」
導 演 在 英 國 舞 台 劇 《 Blue/ Orange 》 找 到 合 適 的 男 主 角 芝 華 度 艾 席 霍 後 ， 再 決 定 在 英 國 以 外 訪 尋 其 他 演 員 ， 且 找 到 了 在 法 國 憑 《 天 使 愛 美 麗 》 一 片 走 紅 的 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 。 「 大 眾 開 始 對 各 類 型 的 電 影 接 受 程 度 廣 闊 了 不 少 ， 尤 其 是 之 前 一 年 ， 演 員 像 班 尼 斯 奧 狄 多 露 、 艾 非 亞 巴 頓 、 當 芝 度 都 一 一 成 功 在 市 場 上 佔 一 席 位 ， 他 們 的 成 功 對 我 是 一 種 啟 示 ， 知 道 不 用 聘 任 荷 里 活 所 謂 的 「 標 準 」 演 員 。 」 故 導 演 就 找 了 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 試 鏡 ， 而 他 當 時 甚 至 仍 未 看 過 《 天 使 愛 美 麗 》 一 片 ， 只 是 有 人 曾 謊 報 她 是 法 裔 土 耳 其 人 ， 才 叫 導 演 有 興 趣 跟 她 面 試 ， 最 後 見 面 才 知 道 她 是 純 正 的 法 國 人 。
「 記 得 她 來 試 鏡 時 表 現 的 非 常 緊 張 ， 而 且 她 不 想 我 看 過 《 天 使 愛 美 麗 》 才 跟 她 見 面 ， 此 舉 無 疑 聰 明 ， 卻 又 很 與 別 不 同 ， 不 過 因 為 她 在 我 的 片 子 裡 要 演 活 一 個 較 人 性 及 寫 實 的 角 色 ， 故 她 不 希 望 我 看 她 《 天 使 愛 美 麗 》 之 後 留 下 印 象 被 定 型 ， 其 實 我 本 來 已 覺 得 她 很 不 錯 ， 當 我 看 了 《 天 使 愛 美 麗 》 後 ， 更 覺 她 非 同 凡 響 ， 我 甚 至 在 觀 片 過 程 中 ， 不 能 置 信 自 己 竟 可 以 找 到 此 最 絕 頂 美 妙 的 女 演 員 拍 攝 我 的 電 影 ， 她 簡 直 是 天 使 下 凡 ， 無 語 倫 比 。 」
雖 說 《 天 使 愛 美 麗 》 與 《 天 使 夜 驚 情 》 的 角 色 ， 有 不 少 略 同 的 地 方 ， 但 是 在 後 者 的 桑 妮 卻 是 喜 歡 深 藏 不 露 的 一 種 人 ， 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 花 了 不 少 心 思 ， 要 要 憑 在 《 天 使 夜 驚 情 》 的 角 色 ， 令 一 般 觀 眾 對 她 的 印 象 改 觀 ， 而 且 要 顯 然 她 堅 毅 不 屈 的 一 面 。 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 會 這 樣 分 析 她 的 角 色 「 比 方 說 ， 桑 妮 的 心 願 是 要 往 紐 約 定 居 ， 她 會 不 擇 手 段 令 的 目 標 達 成 ， 而 她 追 求 一 些 跟 她 以 往 生 活 不 同 的 事 ， 我 不 認 同 桑 妮 是 悲 慘 世 界 的 救 世 主 ， 亦 不 會 覺 得 她 是 可 憐 的 女 生 ， 她 只 是 強 蠻 ， 為 了 面 對 生 活 ， 需 要 自 強 不 適 ， 她 當 然 不 是 英 雄 ， 她 只 是 一 個 很 實 在 ， 在 追 求 夢 想 生 活 的 現 代 少 女 ， 即 使 影 片 內 有 一 些 浪 漫 化 的 地 方 ， 都 是 實 在 不 夢 幻 的 。 」
柯 德 莉 塔 圖 首 部 英 語 電 影
對 於 首 次 擔 演 英 語 電 影 ， 對 只 懂 法 語 的 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 來 是 一 項 艱 辛 的 挑 戰 ， 「 以 英 語 作 對 白 已 經 很 難 ， 但 要 用 土 耳 其 口 音 說 英 語 就 更 加 是 難 上 ， 作 為 我 首 齣 英 語 電 影 ， 我 希 望 全 力 以 付 ， 而 工 作 人 員 都 對 我 很 容 忍 和 諒 解 ， 記 得 有 一 次 試 過 拍 了 19 個 take 才 能 完 成 一 場 戲 ， 所 以 我 想 在 這 裡 衷 心 多 謝 跟 我 作 對 手 戲 的 芝 華 ， 多 謝 他 的 耐 性 和 寬 容 ， 是 次 拍 攝 對 我 來 說 實 在 跟 以 往 拍 的 法 國 片 分 別 很 大 ， 因 為 拍 攝 時 我 根 本 不 大 清 楚 有 沒 有 出 錯 ， 故 我 需 要 深 信 導 演 的 決 策 ， 而 且 ， 我 要 感 謝 在 場 的 英 語 老 師 。 」
拍 攝 前 ， 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 亦 尋 訪 過 在 英 國 的 新 移 民 ， 問 他 們 初 來 英 國 時 的 感 受 ， 更 了 解 到 他 們 在 英 國 定 居 了 一 段 時 期 之 後 的 感 受 等 等 ， 將 經 驗 及 情 緒 移 植 入 角 色 思 想 內 。 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 更 認 為 她 在 英 國 拍 片 令 她 的 角 色 有 莫 大 的 幫 助 ， 由 於 她 首 次 面 對 英 國 工 作 人 員 ， 對 她 來 說 全 都 是 異 鄉 客 ， 故 身 處 環 境 跟 片 中 人 物 不 逞 多 讓 ， 令 她 更 令 理 解 桑 妮 的 心 理 狀 況 。
而 導 演 就 認 為 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 對 英 國 的 陌 生 ， 對 影 片 有 莫 大 的 幫 助 ， 而 且 更 將 原 來 的 劇 本 注 入 新 元 素 ， 導 演 不 謂 言 ， 在 拍 攝 的 初 端 ， 柯 德 莉 發 表 演 頗 為 緊 張 ， 之 後 她 她 愈 拍 才 愈 對 自 己 所 說 的 語 言 有 信 心 ， 她 就 更 加 投 入 更 釋 放 自 己 ， 鑽 研 出 更 多 演 繹 方 法 ， 導 演 都 把 她 注 入 的 演 繹 方 式 都 放 進 電 影 內 。
演 員 簡 介
柯 德 莉 塔 圖 ( 飾 演 桑 妮 )--- 憑 《 天 使 愛 美 麗 》 成 為 全 球 矚 目 女 星 的 柯 德 莉 塔 圖 1999 年 初 登 大 銀 幕 ， 處 女 作 是 法 國 片 《 Institut 》 ， 即 憑 影 片 勇 奪 凱 撒 大 獎 最 佳 新 人 獎 殊 榮 ， 隨 後 拍 了 多 部 影 片 及 電 視 片 集 ， 長 片 包 括 《 神 婆 美 少 女 》 、 《 天 使 愛 過 界 》 《 Le Battement d'Aile du Papillon 》 、 《 Le Lebertin 》 、 《 Voyous Voyelles 》 、 《 L'Aruberge Espagnole 》 及 《 Les Marins Perdus 》
芝 華 度 艾 席 霍 ( 飾 演 奧 華 )--- 畢 業 於 倫 敦 音 樂 及 戲 劇 藝 術 學 院 ， 19 歲 時 學 校 推 薦 獲 得 在 史 提 芬 史 匹 堡 的 《 斷 鎖 怒 潮 》 中 演 出 ， 先 後 奪 2000 年 倫 敦 Evening Standrd 舞 台 劇 最 佳 新 人 獎 及 獲 2001 年 奧 利 華 大 獎 最 佳 男 配 角 提 名 ， 剛 於 倫 敦 國 家 劇 院 完 成 了 舞 台 劇 《 Blue / Orange 》 ， 現 時 正 忙 於 拍 攝 莎 士 比 亞 改 編 電 影 《 Twelfth Night 》 。
沙 治 路 柏 斯 ( 飾 演 Sneaky)--- 西 班 牙 殿 堂 級 巨 星 ， 前 年 憑 法 國 驚 慄 片 《 Harry, He's Here to Help 》 贏 盡 歐 洲 各 大 小 電 影 頒 獎 禮 影 帝 殊 榮 ， 其 他 演 出 作 品 包 括 《 Reines d'un jour 》 、 《 Decalage Horaire 》 等 等 。
王 。 斑 納 迪 ( 飾 演 關 義 ) - 活 躍 於 英 國 電 視 、 電 台 及 舞 台 劇 的 華 裔 演 員 ， 參 演 過 多 部 莎 士 比 亞 舞 台 劇 ， 曾 於 畢 彼 特 的 《 諜 戰 》 中 飾 演 一 角 。
導 演 --- 史 提 芬 費 雅 斯
1941 年 生 於 英 國 萊 斯 特 ， 60 至 62 年 間 在 劍 橋 大 學 攻 讀 法 律 系 ， 卻 在 64 年 轉 身 投 入 劇 團 工 作 ， 66 年 加 入 影 圈 擔 任 副 導 演 ， 72 年 拍 成 首 部 長 片 《 偵 探 》 ， 接 著 在 電 視 台 工 作 13 年 ， 84 年 才 重 返 電 影 行 業 ， 85 年 的 《 歡 樂 洗 衣 店 》 令 他 在 國 際 間 成 名 ， 接 著 的 《 留 心 那 話 兒 》 更 被 譽 為 是 經 典 作 品 。 八 十 年 代 末 的 《 千 網 危 情 》 及 《 孽 戀 焚 情 》 同 樣 叫 好 叫 座 ， 在 荷 里 活 打 混 過 後 ， 近 十 年 來 ， 史 提 芬 費 雅 斯 都 專 注 英 倫 風 格 ， 拍 了 多 部 重 要 傑 作 ， 包 括 《 搶 閘 BB 》 、 《 情 迷 快 餐 車 》 、 《 失 戀 排 行 榜 》 及 《 童 年 有 忌 》 。
DIRTY PRETTY THINGS
A Film by Stephen Frears
Directed by
Stephen Frears
Written by
Steven Knight
Produced by
Tracey Seaward
Robert Jones
Executive Producers
Paul Smith
David M.Thompson
Tracey Scoffield
Allon Reich
Teresa Moneo
Julie Goldstein
Director of Photography
Chris Menges
Film Editor
Mick Audsley
Production Designer
Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski
Music by
Nathan Larson
Make-Up Designer
Jenny Shircore
Costume Designer
Odile Dicks-Mireaux
Casting Director
Leo Davis
Short Synopsis
From Stephen Frears, the Oscar-nominated director of "The Grifters," "Dangerous Liaisons" and "High Fidelity," comes a new film set in London's secret underworld, where everything is for sale. It's the story of a young man Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and young woman Senay (Audrey Tautou), who work at the same hotel-a breeding ground for illegal activity. They hardly know each other until the day he makes a shocking discovery. They can't report it to their corrupt boss. They can't go to the police. And they'll be lucky if they get out alive.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
The Story
To the outsider, London is a sightseer's theme park, a rich assembly of landmarks and historic buildings, where blue plaques chronicle the passing of time right back to the Middle Ages. But like any modern city, London is a paradox; its true-blue heritage is supported by tourist money and, in many cases, employs personnel from all four corners of the world, working within various changing shades of legality. Such people are the oil that keeps London running smoothly, and the further one delves into the city's economy, the more one finds these invisible people, the un-thanked labour we pass on the streets every day but whose stories remain unknown and untold.
Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, however, is a strange and gripping thriller that takes place on the side of London that the tourist never sees. Unusually for a mainstream drama, it unfolds through the eyes of an illegal immigrant, Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a Nigerian who balances his work as a minicab driver with a second job as a receptionist at a less than respectable hotel. Struggling to earn a living, Okwe shares a flat with a proud Turkish asylum-seeker named Senay (Audrey Tautou), who works as a maid alongside him. The delicate balance of his life is overturned, however, when he makes a shocking discovery in one of the rooms and uncovers a callous underworld that threatens to consume the person closest to him. It also reveals some surprising truths about his real identity.
The story was conceived several years ago by writer Steven Knight, one of the brains behind the hit TV quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, who took the idea to his long-standing collaborator Paul Smith at Celador Productions.
"Steve is a man of great talent and vision," says Smith, who executive produced the film, "and he has, over the years, been responsible for creating game-show formats - very successful ones - comedy scripts and situation comedies. In the mid-1990s, though, he turned his hand to writing screenplays, and he came up with what a story that was then called Hotels And Dirty Pretty Things.
Robert Jones and Jones Company came on board as producers to work with Celador and the BBC and to develop the screenplay further.
The first draft of the script was passed to Stephen Frears, who was immediately taken by the concept of the film. Having established himself in the 80s with such acclaimed and unusual London-based movies as My Beautiful Laundrette and Prick Up Your Ears, Frears seemed a natural choice for the story when the draft was polished and finalised.
"If you're after something that's fresh and original" explains Frears, "it's not surprising that you end up in the immigrant community. It is new - it wasn't there when I was a child. If you make films of Edwardian novels then you don't deal with that, but if your taste is for more modern things, that's where you'll go, because it's where the biggest changes in British society - well, London society - are happening. That's what's going on in modern British politics."
But what appealed to the filmmakers most was that the film deals with such issues in a different way. It is, after all, a thriller with a political subtext, and not the other way round. "Dirty Pretty Things is not a conventional, standard story by any means," says Smith, "and that, if anything, is its strength. It's dark, and it tells a story about a part of London we'd rather not admit exists, but in some way we all benefit from whenever we visit certain hotels and restaurants. And yet we ignore those people, because they're in the shadows. So it also has quite a message in it, about the exploitation of people who find themselves illegally in the UK and are forced, against their will in some cases, to carry out jobs they would prefer not to do. Aside from that, though, it's a story with lots of twists and turns which will have audiences on the edge of their seats."
Adds Frears, "It's really about the underside of London, the rather grubby side of life, where people are forced into certain situations because of their economic circumstances. It's like a rather gothic horror story. But it's also about an African man living in London, which is quite an unusual theme."
Casting
Indeed, the nature of the script meant that Frears would be casting a London-based film with a largely non-white and non-British cast.
"For the lead, I had to cast an African," says Frears, "and I remember saying to the producers, 'Look, you can either cast an American - you can go to Denzel Washington or those other great African-American actors - or you can do it with an European-African actor.' That seemed to me to be the right way to go, which meant dealing with someone who wasn't a big Hollywood star."
Frears approached the casting of Okwe with a trepidation that surprises him now. At the time, he felt that the role was a huge task, since the character appears on the first page of the script and practically every page to the last. He had been impressed by Ejiofor in a stage production of Blue/Orange but, mistakenly believing the actor to be much younger than he really is, and hadn't been convinced that he was right for the role. So he asked him to read key scenes on videotape.
"Having read the script, and having spoken to Steven about it, I organised a private screen test, which I shot at home with some friends," says Ejiofor. "I did about three or four sequences, so he could see it and ascertain whether that was the way he wanted to go. The truth is, there's a lot that's variable about Okwe, so I was honing down something instinctual and specific."
Although Frears continued to audition other actors, there was something about Ejiofor's subtle approach that piqued Frears' curiosity.
"He's a rather impressive, dignified and thoughtful man," recalls the director, "and slowly, he rose to the top of the heap. In retrospect, I was being rather dozy in being so cautious, but the part of Okwe is a big responsibility. So I cast him, and afterwards I was thinking, 'Christ, why didn't I realise? This man is absolutely phenomenal!'"
Like Frears, Ejiofor was aware that the film would require a restrained and measured performance to sustain both the drama and the tension.
"With Okwe," says the actor, "there is so much that is internal. There is such an internal struggle all the way through the film, which can be quite complicated to play. But what makes that journey easier is the fact that the character is so stable in its structure. There are hooklines, and as long as you hold onto whatever is the nerve centre of Okwe, being silent represents its own power, because there is so much that goes on behind the eyes."
"The main themes of the film are isolation and survival instincts," he continues. "Most of the main characters are, in some ways, totally isolated. They're isolated as people, they're isolated in terms of circumstance. In Okwe's case, he's an illegal immigrant and variously ignored by the indigenous populations - apart from governmental forces, who want to arrest him. He is also isolated because he's pretending to be something he's not. He's playing a character, and that's another theme of the piece: role-playing. In certain circumstances, people will take on another persona in order to survive from moment to moment."
With his leading man in place, Frears began to assemble the supporting cast, and his thoughts turned to extending the search outside the UK. This brought him to French actress Audrey Tautou, star of the Oscar-nominated crossover hit Amelie, who plays the part of Senay.
"Minorities are beginning to appear more and more in films," says Frears, "and I was very aware that last year, actors like Benicio Del Toro, Javier Bardem and Don Cheadle were really starting to make their mark. So the idea of not using what you might call 'conventional' actors was interesting to me, and gradually the idea of casting Audrey surfaced. I think somebody might have even told me she was actually Franco-Turkish, which intrigued me, although, obviously, that turned out not to be true!"
Strangely, Frears cast her before seeing Amelie, in which she plays a quirky, lovelorn waitress.
"She was very nervous about that film and she didn't want me to see it," he explains. "It's very, very technically clever and very eccentric - but, because she would be playing a human being in this film, I suppose she didn't want me to be distracted. I thought she'd be good as it was, but then I saw the film and she was absolutely wonderful. That's when I realised, 'Oh God, this is real class!' I remember just looking in disbelief - I couldn't believe I'd got my hands on this girl! She's sensational."
But Tautou remains modest about her reasons for downplaying Amelie, despite - or rather because of - that film's warm international reception. "When we met for the first time," she says, "Stephen told me he hadn't seen Amelie. And I said to myself, 'That film is so special, and the character is so specific, if he sees it he might not be able to imagine me as Senay.' I was also worried that he might have heard too many good things about me - I was afraid his expectations would be too high."
Although they share some similarities - like Amelie, Senay is a romantic at heart and someone who prefers to blend into the background - Tautou is careful to make the distinction that her character in Dirty Pretty Things is a much tougher proposition that audiences may expect. "For example," says the actress. "Senay wants to go to New York because it's her dream, but she's prepared to do anything to get it. She wants to have a different life than the one she's got. But I don't think Senay is a survivor, in the tragic sense of the word - I don't think, 'Poor girl.' I think she is strong, because she has to be strong to leave what she leaves behind. She's not a hero, she's just a modern young woman who just wants to live her own life. Even if this movie has some romanticism, it's not false."
Unwittingly, Frears also cast against type with the part of Sneaky, which went to Spanish actor Sergi Lopez. In keeping with the film's multicultural themes, Lopez came to prominence in a series of films for French director Manuel Poirier, playing light-hearted roles that seem far removed from the amoral Sneaky. In fact, such was Lopez's standing that when Dominik Moll cast him as the villain in his Hitchcockian thriller With a Friend Like Harry, his fans were shocked.
"The majority of my characters have been good guys," says Lopez, "and Harry… was the first time they asked me to play someone who wasn't very nice. And suddenly, people began to think that I played only bad guys. But I don't really feel there's much of a difference. It's very difficult to say that one person's good and another's bad. So I was very happy to be offered the role in Harry…, because that opened up more possibilities for me."
As he rehearsed for the part, Lopez says he found himself more and more taken with Sneaky's foibles, however terrible. "He is a very, very funny character," he grins. "In every way. He's a very happy person, and a very charming person, but he doesn't have a lot of scruples. He has no friends, nobody. He just loves money - and, of course, himself."
These three characters form the central triangle in the ensuing thriller, with a poignant love affair blossoming between Okwe and Senay. "On various levels, Okwe is totally blown away by Senay," says Ejiofor. "There's a possibility that he really didn't think people could be like her, and he's so charmed by her that it renders him defenceless against her. I don't think he has a choice in the matter - he will always protect and defend her, just because he finds her so incredibly special. He admires her strength of purpose and her charm, and he recognises that she's as vulnerable as he is."
This is no ordinary love story, however, and much like the characters themselves, the sexual tension is always somewhere below the surface. "Audrey and I looked at our scenes together, initially, as sort of a play fight," says Ejiofor, "a play fight that grows into something more tenable and fortified over time. I think that's the nature of their relationship: they oppose each and find they have nothing but affection for each other."
Adds Tautou, "My favourite scene is the one where Okwe and my character have our first lunch together. I liked this scene from the moment I read the script, and I liked it because Senay doesn't show her feelings. In some way she is very naive, but in other ways she is proud and strong. For me, it was really a pleasure."
Under threat from the immigration office, who would like to deport them, and also Sneaky, who uses their illegal status against them, Okwe and Senay find support from some unexpected quarters. First is prostitute Juliette (Sophie Okonedo), an outwardly tough hooker with a surprisingly gentle nature. "She's quite scary and loud - she takes the piss out of everyone, basically," says Okonedo. "Everything's got to be fun, which is how she gets through this crappy job that she does, by finding humour in the darkest situations. At first she comes and goes, but towards the end she becomes much more involved.
"Juliette's been through the mill," she adds. "She's been battered by life and she doesn't want to see Senay get spoilt the same way, so she feels for her. I mean, there's definitely a softer side to Juliette. There always is to people who are loud and brash and scary. It's just a front, to get through the day. And as for Okwe, Juliette just thinks he's really different. She really likes him, because he's not like all the other men she knows. He seems so centred and true, which is not what she's used to. He doesn't want anything from her, whereas most of the men she comes across do. He'd be the ideal boyfriend - if she had one!"
Finally there's Ivan the doorman (Zlatko Buric), a man of few words who guards the entrance with an almost mystical authority. "Ivan is a doorman at the hotel but he's also the doorman to another world," says Buric. "It's as though he's taking people's souls from one world to the other. And getting money for it. He has this view that money is all that matters. So he's a very realistic person. Ivan and Okwe stand on two different levels. Okwe is an exception in this world, a man who sees through money, but Ivan is absolutely different. I know he's bad, but I've started to like him. Maybe sometimes he abuses Okwe's trust, but I think he has a lot of affection for Okwe. Although he thinks Okwe is very naive and has no chance of surviving in this world." He laughs. "No chance.
Going Global
Unlike many of his peers, Stephen Frears still has a lot of respect for the written word. "I like language in films," he explains. "I like the kind of movies that have a lot of talk in them - smart talk, clever talk - so I can always instinctively hear someone being rather dazzling." But having assembled such a fine international cast, this posed some problems. His leading man was British-born, but playing a Nigerian, while his leading lady was French playing Turkish but speaking English. Frustratingly, Tautou spoke little English, and neither did Lopez, who hails from the Catalan area of Spain, between Barcelona and Tarregona. So to help them prepare, Frears enlisted the services of dialect coach Penny Dyer, who found she was in for more work than usual. "On most movies, the dialect coach is involved in helping with the accents," she says, "but I have to admit, in this film I've been involved in teaching English as a foreign language! So I guess I took a challenge here."
Frears admits that he was expecting a lot from his actors. "We're asking people to act from a script that's not in their first language, which is a terrible impertinence," he says. "I don't know how they do it."
With little time to prepare, Dyer took each actor by turn. Ejiofor's parents are Nigerian, so he was able to workshop his accent by himself, coming to Dyer for the occasional "tweak", as she puts it. "As for Sergi," she says, "he has the advantage of being Catalan as opposed to being true Spanish, so he doesn't have to make a lot of linguistic changes between Spanish and English. He was very clear to begin with, and he has this fantastic energy, focus and determination, so he's done brilliantly well at taking the English on board. I'd say he's a natural at languages."
Frears was suitably impressed with the results. "Sergi is magnificent," he beams. "So powerful. He's done some scenes in English on a level that I couldn't have expected. The language is so subtle. It hadn't occurred to me he could be that good. It hadn't crossed my mind." Lopez, however, is keen to credit Dyer's input into his performance. "She knows my accent better than me," he quips.
Tautou, however, faced a more challenging task. "It's hard to speak English in the first place," says the actress, "but it's harder to speak English with a Turkish accent, and for my first film in English I hope I can do the movie justice. Everyone has been very patient with me. One day I needed 19 takes for the scene, so I would like to thank Chiwe for his generosity and his patience. It's really different to my previous work in French because I don't always know if I'm doing it right or wrong. I just have to trust Stephen, but he's been very encouraging. Without Penny I wouldn't be able to do anything. She is very, very attentive."
Explains Dyer, "The Turkish accent is a cross between Russian, on one side, and something like Italian on the other side. It's got a lot of air going through it…" - she speaks the sentence with slight, breathy pauses to illustrate her point - "…but at the same time there are a lot of the sounds that belong to the east. One thing that is so nice about the Turkish people is this feeling that when they are talking it's almost like they're belly dancing. There's this feeling of it being quite sensuous, and I've tried to explore that with her as much as possible, without it becoming just that one sound, simply to get away from the syllabic rhythm of the French. So I've done a lot of physical work with her, where I've helped her to learn how to relax her face and get away from the French muscular memory patterns that are locked in the mouth and the tongue and in the lack of jaw movement. And we explored a lot of ways of using the breath, because of course the French don't - they tend to hold their breath when they speak on a lot of sounds like Ps and Ts and K and Hs. She's worked a lot at getting the breath to come through those sounds so she can express herself."
To get some idea of Senay's real-life counterparts, Dyer took Tautou to Stoke Newington, where, she says, "we got to know a really good bevy of Turkish girls. We practised belly dancing, ate lots of Turkish food, and I was recording them all the time. The best thing, really, for Audrey was for her to have as much on tape as possible, so that she could really get into speaking English in large amounts. Because she couldn't just come out with it and improvise, she had to have stuff that could be written down."
Tautou also used the time to get valuable insights into her character's life and motivation. "I asked them how they felt when they first arrived in England," she says, "and then how it was after six months. Even though Senay is a fictional character, I think everybody who arrives in a foreign country is scared. Even if we are strong and know exactly what we want, we have a kind of fear. And that's an important feeling to convey through Senay."
Adds Dyer, "These Turkish girls arrive in England not knowing what they're going to do, and a lot of the time they're not even supposed to be here, but they have the balls to go out and take a job. We had to try to find that quality in Audrey."
Unexpectedly, Frears saw that very quality emerging as rehearsals progressed, and Steven Knight was on hand to capture it. "I'm the only director in the world who actually likes having the writer on the set," says Frears. "It means you can actually work with the text, for which I have enormous respect. If you want to change certain things, he can defend his corner and the conversation includes him. So it always seems to me to be rather more sensible to do it in his presence rather than his absence."
Ejiofor confirms that Knight's presence has been a rewarding experience. "One of the great advantages of having Steve around all the time," he says, "is that whenever you're not sure of something, if you don't quite believe it as the character, he's on hand, especially in terms of the different nationalities. He's been thoroughly amenable to people coming up and saying, 'From my experience, I don't know if this would be the situation…' Or in terms of dialogue, 'Maybe that's not quite the right greeting.' So you could go through it together. And after knowing him for a while you understand how attentively he listens and how attuned his writing is to that."
In Audrey's case, this gave the script some new, subtle nuances. Says Frears, "When Audrey started, she was rather nervous, but then she became more and more confident with the language of the film. And as she got more confident, she started to express more and more of herself, so we were able to take advantage of that and put it into the film."
Tautou, however, suggests that this was inevitable, given the circumstances of the shoot. "One thing that certainly helped," she says, "is that I've never worked with a foreign crew before. So I'm in a situation where everyone is totally foreign, which is very similar to that of my character. I could really relate to her."
Reinventing London
Although he has carved out an enviable career in Hollywood with such films as The Grifters and High Fidelity, Stephen Frears often returns to his homeland where, in films like Sammy And Rosie Get Laid, he explores those aspects of the culture that fascinate him. "When I go to America to make films," he says, "I'm offered all these possibilities, and by their very nature they're all new to me. But when someone says, 'What do you find interesting enough in Britain to make a film about?' - the answer usually turns out to involve some sort of struggle with race and class and sex. If someone sent me an EM Forster novel, it wouldn't interest me. It wouldn't grab me. It turns out that these issues are what interest me. I never think consciously think about it, but I can see from the body of work I've done that that's the conclusion. I mean, I can see that it's coherent, but I've never consciously articulated it. The work articulates it for you."
Returning to London, however, presented a problem in itself. "It's hard to find a new world in your own country," he says. "The most difficult thing is finding something English that is new to me and doesn't involve the usual things that English films are full of. Although, having said that, I think Dirty Pretty Things is a pretty universal story, and the problems that it's dealing with are common to every country."
To help establish a visual rethink of London, Frears turned to production designer Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski, who has worked with him regularly since My Beautiful Laundrette in 1985. "It's very, very difficult," says Luczyc-Wyhowski. "What do you do? We've all seen London and we don't want to make another film where the characters drive past Trafalgar Square and the camera pans up Nelson's Column. So what do you present?"
This was something even the cast found themselves wondering. "You have to look at London slightly differently," says Ejiofor. "You have to search out what is just underneath the surface. It's a film about that underbelly, and to discover that is exciting, but it throws up problems - by necessity, it's underground. But it has been possible to speak to people, with varying legal status, and find out more about that side of London. A slightly less obvious side."
So how does one achieve that visually? "You start," says Frears, "by leaving out the obvious things that London has to offer: the pretty views, Buckingham Palace or whatever it is. You have to be more imaginative and find an alternative world, because it's a parallel world that this is a film about. People without money, without passports, without identities… God knows how they live."
Luczyc-Wyhowski stresses, however, that such fineries were not a major part of the process. "Ultimately," he says, "it isn't really important that it's London, because it's not a portrait of London. Yes, it's a British film, and it is a British problem, but I think it could happen in any city. I rather like the way the actual city will become quite anonymous in the film, in the same way that the characters are relatively anonymous. It could be anyone working in the hotel, driving the minicab."
Adds Frears, "It's a film about Britain becoming multicultural. America has sort of done it already. You go to New York and it's full of Koreans and Puerto Ricans or whatever. And, really what's happening in Britain is that it's becoming a multicultural society - with a certain amount of kicking and screaming - and some people are struggling. So, yes, it's full of multiple identities and multiple cultures."
This was not lost on Lopez. "It's my first time in London and I didn't know anything about it," he says. "In fact it's my first time in the UK. But I was impressed. I know Paris very well and there you can see black people, Chinese people, Spanish people, and South American people on the street. But here, the contrast is more pronounced. You can see a typical Brit with a bowler hat and an umbrella, and standing next to him is a woman in a burkha. It's more evident that this is a society where all kinds of people live together."
In a certain way, this is reflected in the hotel itself, the film's chief location. As a microcosm of society, it represents the way in which people from all walks of life can co-exist and yet not know the first thing about their neighbour. As Lopez says, "A hotel is just a series of rooms. You pay your money and take a room. But no one will ever know what you're up to. You can kill someone! It's a really exciting space for a film, because everything is possible."
To get a feel for the set design, Luczyc-Wyhowski toured the less glamorous hotel districts of Paddington and Russell Square, where business is discreet to the point of anonymity. "Having met quite a few people who worked in hotels," he says, "I realise there's a lot of weird stuff going on. They find all sorts of strange things: bullets, knives… If you imagine a hotel in a literal sense, it's just a lot of boxes with all these different people living out all their different dramas - and they're all connected together. If you go round the backs of those places, they're insane. Bits of table, piles of broken chairs, staff standing outside, smoking, and stuff being delivered. It's very interesting, visually. It is another world, the minute you walk through the staff door. People don't realize. And it's quite tacky really."
Indeed, many hotels were wary of opening their doors to the production because of the title. As a result, he says, "we posed ourselves a further problem within the film, which was how to create a hotel without being able to take over a hotel. So what we've had to do is create a hotel out of seven different elements. There was an exterior location, a location for the lobby, two locations for the downstairs rooms. The security room was a set, as were the corridors and the room where most of the action takes place. So it's a very complex mix of elements that will hopefully flow together seamlessly."
The hotel, suggests Luczyc-Wyhowski, takes us right to the heart of this strange, little-seen world. "We're trying to create a subterranean London, the places and people you don't see. Behind the scenes, as it were, but believable. It's a metaphor for their circumstance, in a way. So to balance that out, there are weird extremes." By this, Luczyc-Wyhowski is referring to his use of high-rise locations, such as Senay's flat, and the weird, almost sci-fi, glass office space that was designed especially for the mortuary.
There's also the tiny Soho cab office, which was shot on location. "I wanted that to be a very strange shape," he says. "We found this space that was really, really small, and one of the ideas of the film, to give it a certain feel, is to juxtapose the size of the hotel with other, much smaller spaces. And filming on location gives the film a different look to the kind you would get if you built a set. I've no idea why, it just does."
Crossing Boundaries
Ultimately, everyone involved sees this as project as a rarity, a story that's as provocative as it is entertaining, but without overstating its point. Dirty Pretty Things is a film about the people who clean up after us," says Buric, simply, and Okonedo was similarly impressed by this depiction of a largely silent minority. "It touches on a world that I don't feel has been explored in films before," she says. "It's an incredibly British film, but there are hardly any British people in it - in fact, I think Juliette is the only British character. It's about the invisible people in London, who don't often have a voice."
Frears himself sees this as perhaps the film's most pertinent aspect. Rather than presenting it as a political tract, given the current climate of prejudice and fear surrounding asylum-seekers, the director would prefer the film to be seen as a more empathetic and humanistic view of a way of life that is led by many thousands of people.
"I think it's about people who live lives of such desperation," he says. "As well as the wealthy society we live in, there are also people who live their lives in despair. And I don't think that's right. Well, I don't think anybody would support that, but that's the way the world is, and it seems to me that it's not good for the world. And it seems to me that that's why people fly planes into buildings. We need to correct that despair. It's as though nature is slightly out of balance. And if you create a society with this level of imbalance, this is what happens. It doesn't bear thinking about."
Ejiofor is similarly confident that the film offers more than just a new take on a topical subject. "Even though the film has such a multicultural backdrop to it," he says, "it doesn't labour that point. It's just a look at a certain side of London. Having an illegal immigrant from Nigeria as the lead simply enhances the drama. He's already at a disadvantage when he's trying to find out what's been going on at the hotel, which increases the pressure It's fascinating in its originality, which makes the project that bit more special."
Or as Lopez puts it, the film has ramifications for everyone. "When I'm France, and when I'm here in London, I'm always a stranger," says the Spaniard. "Everybody's a stranger when they're not at home."
THE CAST
Audrey Tautou (Senay)
Audrey Tautou charmed French audiences with her captivating performance in the title role of the Academy Award nominated film Amélie. She exploded on the scene in 1999 as a young beautician in Tonie Marshall's critically acclaimed film, "Vénus Beauté (Institut)", for which she won a César (the French equivalent to an Oscar) for Most Promising Young Actress.
In the few short years since, Tautou has appeared in Laurent Firode's "Le Battement d'Aile du Papillon" (The Beating of the Butterfly's Wings), Pascale Bailly's "Dieu Est Grand, Je suis Toute Petite", Harriet Marin's "Éspouse-moi", Gabriel Aghion's "Le Lebertin" and Serge Meynard's "Voyous Voyelles". In addition to the big screen, Tautou has pursued the small screen with roles in, "Cordier- Le Crime D'à Coté," "Bébés Boum," "Chaos Technique," and "Baby Blues."
Tautou will finish out the year with performances in Cedric Klapsich's "L'Aruberge Espagnole" and Claire Devers'"Les Marins Perdus."
Chiwetel Ejiofor (Okwe )
Chiwetel Ejiofor is a graduate of London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He is an accomplished stage and film actor, having won the Outstanding Newcomer award in the London Evening Standard Awards 2000 and a nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the Olivier Awards 2001. He recently completed a sell-out run at London's National Theatre as Christopher in Blue/Orange and undertook the role of Romeo in the National Theatre's first ever production of Romeo and Juliet to much critical acclaim. Plucked from drama school at the age of 19 to appear in Steven Spielberg's movie Amistad, his film work includes It Was An Accident, in which he starred as luckless ex-con Nicky, and Greenwich Mean Time, where he played Rix, a graduate trying to make it in the music business. Chiwetel has recently completed filming Three Blind Mice and is currently playing the role of Orsinio in Tim Supple's film adaptation of Twelfth Night.
Sergi Lopez (Sneaky)
Spanish actor Sergi Lopez, who works extensively in Spain and France, has won much critical acclaim and numerous best acting awards around the world for the role of Harry in Harry, He's Here to Help and for the role of Him, in Une Liason Pornograhique (An Affair of Love). His most recent films have been: Reines d'un jour, Decalage Horaire and Dragon Rouge.
Sophie Okonedo (Juliette)
Sophie is quickly becoming one of Britain's leading dramatic actresses. A graduate of RADA, she made her television mark as Jo in the hard-hitting drama Never Never and as Ellen Lewis in Revenge and Jenny in Clocking Off, both for BBC Television. Sophie has also numerous film credits including This Year's Love and Mad Cows.
Benedict Wong (Guo Yi)
Benedict Wong has enjoyed a varied career in television, film, radio and theatre, undertaking Shakespearean roles in productions of Julius Caesar, Anthony And Cleopatra and The Merchant Of Venice at London's Globe Theatre. His many TV roles take in The Bill and Arabian Nights, while recent film credits include Spy Game.
Zlatko Buric (Ivan)
Croatian born and living in Denmark, Zlatko Buric is a notable film and television actor. His most recent film role is Danish film Woyzeck's Last Symphony, in which he plays the lead role of Woyzeck Lotzki. Other credits include Help, I'm A Fish and Bleeder.
THE FILMMAKERS
Stephen Frears
Director
Born in Leicester, England in 1941, after gaining a Cambridge Law degree, Stephen Frears started working in the theatre. Whilst working with Karel Reisz at the Royal Court, Reisz offered Frears the chance to work as an Assistant Director on his film Morgan. This led to his meeting Lindsay Anderson and Albert Finney: Anderson then took Frears on as Assistant Director on If and Albert Finney went on to star in Frears' solo directorial debut Gumshoe (1972).
Following Gumshoe, Frears found a home in television, working continuously directing plays by British greats such as Alan Bennett, Tom Stoppard and Peter Prince. In 1985, he was back on the movie scene with The Hit starring John Hurt and Terence Stamp. It was in 1985 that Frears won international recognition and acclaim for his highly original, My Beautiful Laundrette which propelled him and a then unknown actor called Daniel Day-Lewis into the limelight; in 1987 Frears directed a scathing satire on British society, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and Prick Up Your Ears, based on author Joe Orton's memoirs.
Frears' next feature films came from the United States - Dangerous Liaisons (1988), starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich, for which he won a Cesar for Best Foreign Film, The Grifters (1990), which received an Academy Award nomination for a Best Director, followed by the comedy drama Accidental Hero (1992), starring Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia.
In 1993 Frears achieved another critical success, directing the adaptation of Roddy Doyle's modest story The Snapper, a BBC television production which soon transferred to the cinema screen.
Never one to steer away from a challenge, Frears teamed up with John Malkovich once more, directing him and co-star Julia Roberts in Mary Reilly (1996) and taking the helm on another Roddy Doyle favourite The Van (1996). Hi Lo Country (1998) saw Frears move into Westerns. An endearing tale of two men set against sweeping prairie backdrops starring Woody Harrelson and Patricia Arquette.
Next came the box office success Hi Fidelity (2000), based on Nick Hornby's best-selling novel, starring John Cusack as the uptight, luckless owner of a record shop recounting his top five break-ups, followed by Jimmy McGovern's moving drama Liam, about a family during the Depression.
Steven Knight
Writer
Dirty Pretty Things, is Steven Knight's first screenplay. It was the only screenplay chosen unanimously by the judge's panel of The Script Factory.
Steven has written extensively for television, his most recent series being All About Me, a sitcom produced by Celador Productions, for BBC ONE starring Jasper Carrott and Meera Syal. He has also written three novels the first of which "The Movie House", won the WH Smith Fresh Talent Award for 1993. His second, "Alphabet City", has been optioned by Hollywood producer Steve Golan (Being John Malkovich). His third, "Out of the Blue" was published in hardback in February 1997 and in paperback in spring 1998.
With his writing partner Mike Whitehill, Steve's writing credits include Canned Carrott, Carrott's Commercial Breakdown and The Detectives all produced by Celador for BBC1. Steven and Mike devised the format for the popular ITV gameshow Talking Telephone Numbers and also wrote Rory McGrath's Commercial Breakdown for BBC1, the first of two Auntie's Bloomers specials with Terry Wogan also for BBC1 and The BAFTA production Awards 1994 hosted by Kenneth Branagh and Amanda Donohue for BBC2.
Steven Knight was one of the creators of international television hit Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Which has been honoured around the globe including a BAFTA, two Emmys, The Silver Rose of Montreux and the Queen's Award for Enterprise.
Paul Smith
Executive Producer
Paul Smith is Managing Director of Celador Films and chairman of its parent company Complete Communications Corporation Limited.
Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1947, Smith began his career at the BBC as a trainee projectionist. Over the following seven years he progressed to the position of director, working on children's and light entertainment. In 1973 he turned freelance, working for many network and regional ITV companies. Paul brought the talent of Jasper Carrott to the television screens of the UK and created It'll Be Alright On The Night - ITV's longest running entertainment programme. Between 1975 and 1980 he produced and directed numerous primetime light entertainment and comedy programmes.
In 1980, It'll Be Alright On The Night 2 earned Paul a British Academy Award nomination and the coveted Silver Rose of Montreux while Peter Cook and Company received a Gold medal at the New York Television Festival.
Paul was one of the creators of international television hit Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Which has been honoured around the globe including a BAFTA, two Emmys, The Silver Rose of Montreux and the Queen's Award for Enterprise.
Tracey Seaward
Producer
Starting her career as an actor's agent, Tracey moved over to the position or researcher/production manager on a number of documentaries. Seaward worked as associate producer on television projects including London Funnies for ShowTime, and Separation, a co-production for the BBC and American Playhouse, starring David Suchet and Rosanna Arquette. Co-producing Widow's Peak starring Mia Farrow, she moved on to produce Thadeus O'Sullivan's Nothing Personal (Venice official selection)
In 1995 she teamed up with Robert Jones as co-producer on The Serpent's Kiss, which was selected for official competition Cannes 1996. Seaward joined Natural Nylon Entertainment and produced their first feature Nora with Ewan McGregor. She has just completed Neil Jordan's The Good Thief as co-producer for Stephen Woolley/Alliance Atlantis.
Robert Jones
Producer
Robert Jones is currently the Head of the Film Council's Premiere Fund. The fund has a budget of £30 million of Lottery money over three years (£10 million a year) and invests in popular films that offer quality and entertainment to the widest possible audiences both in the UK and worldwide. Since it was set up the fund has invested in Robert Altman's Oscar winning Gosford Park, Steve Barron's Mike Bassett: England Manager, David Mackenzie's Young Adam, Oliver Parker's The Importance Of Being Earnest, Patrice Leconte's L'Homme du Train, John Stevenson's Five Children and It, Mike Leigh's Untitled 03, Riverchild Films' Braids, Twists and Tales, Marc Munden's Miranda, Silver Fox Films' Water Warriors, a computer-generated animated feature.
With 19 years experience in film, video and television, Robert Jones has a proven track record working with established talent and identifying and developing new talent. His first production credits were the commercial successes Sirens and The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain.
In 1993 he met Brian Singer (X-Men) and Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) at the Sundance Film Festival. The association with Singer resulted in the box office hit and double OscarR and BAFTA award winning film The Usual Suspects. He went on to produce Anderson's first picture Hard Eight with Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson (1996 Sundance Film Festival and Un Certain Regard at Cannes) and The Serpant's Kiss starring Ewan McGregor and Greta Scacchi (which premiered in Official Competition at the 50th Cannes Film Festival). In 1996 he formed Jones Company Productions and signed a development deal with PolyGram Film Entertainment producing Dad Savage starring Patrick Stewart and Ben Hopkins' magical fairytale Simon Magus starring Noah Taylor (selected for Official Selection at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival). Other projects developed at Jones Company include Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, Ejitan Arrusi's High Times and Ben Hopkins'Calf.
Earlier in his career, Jones gained experience in acquisition, distribution and marketing working with Palace, the UK's leading independent distributor/ producer throughout the 80's. He established and developed the highly regarded Palace-Classics label building a catalogue of more than 150 titles and paving the way for the now flourishing market for foreign language and arthouse films on video. As Director of Acquisitions for Palace Pictures and video, he was responsible for identifying, negotiating and closing deals for successful theatrical releases including When Harry Met Sally, Prince Sign O'The Times, My Left Foot, Nikita, Cinema Paradiso, Wild At Heart and The Player. He also identified and acquired films such as Reservoir Dogs and Shallow Grave for PolyGram to distribute in Europe and North America as well as acquiring titles for German distributor NEF2.
Robert acts as an instructor for the ACE programme and the Media Business School and has taught production students at EICTV in Cuba and EMAM in Rome. A former professional musician he has written, produced, and performed for film soundtracks and documentaries.
Chris Menges
Cinematographer
Academy Award and BAFTA winning Chris Menges was born in Herefordshire, England in 1940. After working as apprentice to American filmmaker Alan Forbes, Menges began his first job as a camera assistant in 1959 for the short film No Place to Hide. In the early 1960's he joined Derek Knight and Partners as trainee assistant editor. From this he moved onto Granada Television's World of Action as camera operator.
During the 1960's and 1970's Menges filmed countless documentaries all over the world, including the Opium series in Burma and the multi-award winning documentary The Tribe That Hides from Man. Shortly after, Menges began working with Ken Loach on both documentary and drama productions including the highly acclaimed Kes (1969).
Concentrating on television drama and documentaries during the mid 1970's. Chris returned to feature films as Director of Photography in 1983 when he photographed Local Hero for Bill Forsythe and Neil Jordan's Angel. In 1985 and 1987 Menges collected Academy Awards for Best Cinematographer for The Killing Fields and The Mission. He also received BAFTA awards for his photography on The Last Summer (TV) and The Killing Fields.
Menges directed his first feature film A World Apart (1988) and was awarded the Cannes Festival Grand Jury Prize and The New York Critics Award for Best Director. In 1993 he directed Second Best starring William Hurt for Regency Films.
In 1995, Menges returned behind the camera as Director of Photography, teaming up with Neil Jordan once again to film Michael Collins and in 1997 shot The Boxer starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Emily Watson for Jim Sheridan.
Menges latest successes are as Director of Photography on Sean Penn's The Pledge (2000) starring Jack Nicholson and Neil Jordan's The Good Thief.
Mick Audsley
Film Editor
Audsley has worked closely with Frears on the majority of his films, including My Beautiful Laundrette, The Snapper (1994), for which he won a BAFTA TV award, Prick Up Your Ears and Accidental Hero. His work on Dangerous Liaisons earned him a Best Editor BAFTA nomination, and he recently re-teamed with Frears' on High Fidelity, starring John Cusack. Audsley's other film credits include Interview With The Vampire, Twelve Monkeys, and Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski
Production Designer
Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski began his career as Production Designer on My Beautiful Laundrette, and his work with Frears continued on Prick Up Your Ears and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. He also worked in television, on the likes of No Man's Land and An Evil Streak while continuing a successful career in such films as Nil By Mouth (1998), Madeline (1998), Cousin Bette (1998) and Guy Ritchie's box-office hit Snatch (2000), starring Brad Pitt.
Peter Lindsay
Sound
Working as sound mixer, Peter Lindsay's first feature was December Bride (1990). Since then he has worked on many films including Hear My Song, Brassed Off, Little Voice (for which he was nominated for a BAFTA film award), The Beach and Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
Jenny Shircore
Make-Up Designer
Jenny Shircore is one of the industries leading Make-Up and Hair designers, winning both an Oscar and a BAFTA award in 1999 for her work on Elizabeth starring Cate Blanchett and Joseph Fiennes.
Shircore's past credits include Four Feathers, Blow Dry, Neil Jordan's new film The Good Thief, Enigma, Notting Hill, and Cousin Bette. Shircore has also worked for the BBC on numerous drama series, plays, operas and films including Roland Joffe's Tis a Pity She's a Whore and Pennies from Heaven starring Bob Hoskins and Gemma Craven.
Odile Dicks-Mireaux
Costume Designer
Odile Dicks-Mireaux has worked as costume designer on many films, commercials and television dramas, including the BBC's Great Expectations (1999), for which she won a BAFTA award for Best Costume Design, and Gormenghast (2000), which earned her BAFTA and RTS nominations for Best Costume Design. Upcoming work includes the film Buffalo Soldiers, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Ed Harris.
Nathan Larson
Composer
As a former member of the influential Sony recording act Shudder To Think, Nathan Larson is at the centre of the contemporary music scene. Shudder To Think's scores for "High Art" (BMG) and "First Love, Last Rites" (Epic) earned rave reviews, and Nathan's score for Boy's Don't Cry (Kotch) established him as a film scoring force in his own right. He has just completed his first solo album for Danny Goldberg's Artemis Records.
On "First Love, First Rites" Nathan wrote and/ or produced tracks featuring Billy Corgan, Jeff Buckley, Liz Phair, John Doe, and many others.
Nathan's other projects include soundtracks and contributions to Prozac Nation, Phone Booth, Storytelling, The Velvet Goldmine, Desert Blue, Tigerland and most recently Lilya 4 Ever and It's All About Love.
Leo Davis
Casting
Leo Davis is one of film's leading and most interesting casting directors. Her work can clearly be seen in such films as: The Snapper; The Van; Sunshine; Smilla's Sense of Snow; When Brendan Met Trudy; Felicia's Journey; Croupier; Liam and following Dirty Pretty Things, Skagerrak. She had co-casting credit on Braveheart; Dracula, Lolita and Dangerous Liaisons and assistant casting credit on a great number of films including: Gandhi, The Mission, Local Hero, Yentl.
For television, Leo has cast, amongst others, the Mike Nichols production Wit; Roddy Doyle's Family; David Hayman's A Woman's Guide to Adultery.
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