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Film NOTTING HILL Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) is the world's most famous movie star. Her picture has been plastered on the cover of every magazine, and every time she makes a move, the entire world knows about it. William Thacker (Hugh Grant) owns a travel bookstore. His business is stagnant, he has the roommate from hell, and since his divorce, his love life is completely non-existent. For both, something-or someone-seems to be missing. And when Anna and William's paths unexpectedly cross in the eclectic neighborhood of Notting Hill, romance is the last thing on their minds. PolyGram Films and Working Title Films present Notting Hill, the charming romantic comedy which proves that love can spring from even the most unlikely of circumstances. Notting Hill reunites the talents of screenwriter Richard Curtis and producer Duncan Kenworthy, who previously collaborated on Four Weddings and a Funeral. Directed by Roger Michell (Persuasion) for Curtis and Kenworthy's Notting Hill Pictures, Notting Hill is executive produced by Tim Bevan, Richard Curtis and Eric Fellner, with Michael Coulter B.S.C. (Sense and Sensibility) serving as director of photography, Stuart Craig (The English Patient) as production designer, original music by Trevor Jones (The Last of the Mohicans), costumes designed by Shuna Harwood (The Land Girls) and editing by Nick Moore (The Full Monty). Filming on location in West London and at Shepperton Studios for Notting Hill began on April 17, 1998, marking the beginning of the second stage of the filmmakers' journey from script to screen. Like many good ideas, it had taken time to evolve. Screenwriter Richard Curtis says, "When I was lying sleepless at nights I would sometimes wonder what it would be like if I just turned up at my friends' house, where I used to have dinner once a week, with the most famous person at that time, be it Madonna or Princess Diana. It all sprang from there. How would my friends react? Who would try and be cool? How would you get through dinner? What would they say to you afterwards? That was the starting point, the idea of a very normal person going out with an unbelievably famous person and how that impinges on their lives." With Four Weddings and a Funeral having made cinema history, it was inevitable that Notting Hill would find itself from the outset attached by comparisons and expectations. "Notting Hill," says producer Duncan Kenworthy, "is not a sequel. Of course people will have expectations and we hope to live up to those expectations, but we are certainly not, as we go about making the film, comparing it in any way. It is another romantic comedy, bur very different from Four Weddings which was a story of big social events with none of the real life in-between. Notting Hill is the complete opposite, the day-to-day details of a love affair. What makes it unusual and special is that it is a love affair between the most famous woman in the world and just an ordinary guy." When it came to looking for a director for the project, the producers went for theatre and television director Roger Michell. "Finding someone as good as Roger," says Kenworthy, was just like finding the right actor to play each role. Roger shone out. He has an absolute nose for truthfulness." This view is echoed by executive producer Eric Fellner, who says, "Roger's principal interest is in character. When you have that truth of character combined with a script as solid as Richard's you get something very special." With Michell on board, thoughts turned to casting. "Whenever you're asked about casting your film," says Kenworthy, "there's always a fiction that whomever you cast was always your first choice, but I have to say that Julia Roberts was the one and only person we thought of for the part of Anna. I remember saying to Roger, 'Let's offer it to Julia' and Roger said, 'We'll never get her.' So when Julia's agent said it was the best romantic comedy she had ever read, I thought that was a good sign." Michell comments, "What Julia brings to the part is an unavoidable coincidence between who she is- a fantastically famous film star-and what her role is- a fantastically famous film star. However, she is still acting a part. She is not playing Julia Roberts, she's playing Anna Scott, another person entirely." 'Julia has a unique ability to come alive when the word 'action' is spoken. She has a kind of gift for life, a spontaneity and distillation of real life which suddenly, like a match striking, goes off on action which is awesome." When casting the role of William, the decision to offer it to Hugh Grant was unanimous. Kenworthy says, "Hugh is one of the only actors who can speak Richard's lines perfectly, like an expression of Richard's inner rhythms." Michell adds, "Hug does Richard better than anyone else, and Richard writes Hugh better than anyone else. I think that's a writer/actor marriage made in heaven. Hugh has brought a fantastic skill to a part which I can't imagine anyone else doing." Commenting on the casting, Fellner says, "I think Hugh is a phenomenal leading man in a film of this sort. And Julia has proven many times before that she is the queen of romantic comedy." Central to the story of Notting Hill is William's group of supportive friends. These roles went to Hugh Bonneville, Tim McInnerny and Gina McKee, with Emma Chambers as Honey, William's sister, and Welsh actor Rhys Ifans cast as Spike, William's lodger from hell. "It's rather like assembling a family," Michell explains. "When you are casting a cabal of friends, you have to cast a balance of qualities, of types and of sensibilities. They were the jigsaw that had to be put together all in one go, and I think we've got a very good variety of people who can realistically still live in the same world." "One of the great things about casting this sort of film in the U.K.," says Kenworthy, "is that we have a wealth of brilliant actors to draw on. In Notting Hill, we looked for people who would be absolutely the best actors to play these roles as realistically as possible-and let the comedy grow naturally out of the character, rather than the other way around." Summing up the overall appeal of Notting Hill, Kenworthy remarks, "I think one of the great things about Richard's writing is that it is drawn from a positive view of life. This is a very difficult way to write comedy, which is most often a sort of ripping-apart of human pretensions. But Richard doesn't do that. His writing always seems to remind you that people are genuine, vulnerable, special-funny because of how lovable they are, not simply how stupidly they behave." A Romantic Comedy Dream Team She is the star of the nineties. An incandescent screen presence that has captivated movie screen audiences worldwide. The smile is dazzling, the star is Julia Roberts. She is one of a handful of screen actors who has found fame in the nineties by the sheer force of talent and screen charisma; a potent mix that has given them popularity, celebrity and fame. Since she first lit up the screen in the early nineties in the smash hit comedy Pretty Woman, Roberts has had fame. A perceived state of being that is often exaggerated, exploited and misunderstood. Roberts is emphatic about her take on fame. "It's a myth," she declares. "I have often said that people's perception of my life or an actor's life is a lot more hectic and outrageous and pressure-filled and glamorous than I have ever known my life to be, or the life of any of my actor friends." Roberts continues, "I don't think fame changes people. People change as they gather more experiences and information about life. I think perhaps being famous makes one more aware of things from a different vantage point, but I don't think you just sort of become famous and become a different person." Touching on the pressures of fame, Roberts is equally adamant in her stance: "Pressure is something that you choose to embrace in your life or not. Pressure is drama and doesn't really interest me in my everyday life." Roberts, movie star, playing a movie star, begs the inevitable question, one which Roberts is happy to address. "People," she points out, "will just assume that because I am playing an actor in this movie that she is me, or that I understand everything about her life - I don't. Every actor's experience is different. We all have different personalities; we are not an assembly-line breed." In Notting Hill, Roberts plays Anna Scott, "the world's most famous movie star," who meets and falls in love with William, "an ordinary guy." The pursuit of their love affair highlights not only the differences of their respective lifestyles, but the perception of fame by the famous and the non-famous. A perception summed up by Roberts' character, Anna: "The fame thing isn't real, you know. Don't forgetI'm also just a girl. Standing in front of a boy. Asking him to love her." As an admirer of Four Weddings and a Funeral and someone whose favorite genre is romantic comedy, the role of Anna Scott is one Roberts embraced from the onset. "Richard Curtis is a brilliant writer," she says. "It was one of those scripts that I read and thought, I am going to have to do this-it's really clever." The film gave Roberts the opportunity of working with a wealth of British actors. "Everybody on the movie was tremendous," she enthuses. "The great thing about a really good script and really clever director is that you find yourself in a situation where even the tiniest part has been cast so precisely with such a talented person, that even the littlest moment in the movie becomes an interesting moment that you'll remember." Speaking of the role of Anna and her romance with William, Roberts says, "I think the relationship itself, the attraction between them, is very complex. There are different things about Anna and William that complement their personalities well. They both share the same sense of fun and have a simple view of life. Ultimately that is what Anna is looking for." Of working with her co-star, Roberts says, "Hugh's great. This is sort of classic Hugh Grant material and what he does so well. It's been really fun to watch him be this clever, fumbling, sweet guy that he plays in this movie." As to her English director, Roberts is equally enthusiastic. "Roger is so fantastic. He has a great sense of confidence and calm that he shares with everybody on the movie. The way he views things I find very interesting and the way he expresses his ideas to me is very succinct and very clear. More than anything he is a lovely guy to have around every day." In 1993, Hugh Grant was perceived as a promising British leading actor. The following year saw him hailed as a major international star. His breakthrough became cinema history when he gave a beguiling comedic performance in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Grant was clearly delighted to be reunited with producer Duncan Kenworthy and writer Richard Curtis for their follow-up to Four Weddings and a Funeral - a new romantic comedy with Grant cast as William Thacker, the owner of a travel bookshop in London's Notting Hill, starring alongside Julia Roberts, as in all the best romantic comedies, the object of his desire. Grant says, "Richard Curtis is the king of this kind of romantic comedy. It's just so beautifully written, and of course a great part for me." The film centers on William romancing the famous Anna and gives both Grant and Roberts the opportunity for some high comedic moments as the courtship develops. It also addresses the problems that befall a couple when one is "an ordinary guy" and the other "a famous face." Describing their romance, Hugh Grant says, "William, I think, is quintessentially English in his reaction to Anna's fame. Although he is impressed by it and definitely overawed, he is capable of still being himself in the presence of it all, and that's possibly what attracts her to him." Of his real-life co-star, Grant comments, "Julia is a real laugh. A bit scary, of course, being such a big star and such a good actor, but deep down, very silly and teasable. I couldn't have liked her more." The screen pairing of Grant and Roberts is one that sparks off a series of hilarious incidents and romantic moments that signal true screen chemistry. Notting Hill: The Place, The Movie Location When choosing the setting for this new romantic comedy, writer Richard Curtis looked no further than his own doorstep. As a resident of Notting Hill, he thought this vibrant West London suburb an ideal backdrop to his story set against London of the nineties. "Notting Hill," Curtis says, "is an extraordinary mixture of cultures. It is rich and poor and Portuguese and Jamaican and English, and it seemed like a proper and realistic place where two people from different worlds could actually meet and co-exist. That Anna would be shopping there, that William would live there and that Spike might think it was a groovy place to dwell. Notting Hill is a melting pot and the perfect place to set a film." Dominating Notting Hill is Portobello Road, one of London's most famous streets and a unique tourist attraction. Essentially a Victorian Street, Portobello Road is shown on a map of 1841 as Porto Bello Lane. The road grew piecemeal between the big estates of Notting Hill and Paddington in London's great period of residential expansion in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its shops and markets served the large houses on the estates providing goods and services for the working people who lived in the surrounding terraces. Like Portobello Road, Notting Hill has a past as fascinating as its present. A growing immigrant population, the race riots of the 1950s, the early market traders, the antique and flea markets, and most of all the annual Notting Hill Carnival which began in 1965 as a street party with a small procession through the streets of Notting Hill and has now grown into an international event with over two million people attending the three-day celebration, give Notting Hill a unique profile. Although excited by the locale of the film, the producers were presented with the challenge of filming in such a heavily populated area. "Early on," recalls Kenworthy, "we toyed with the idea of building a huge exterior set. That way we would have more control, because we were worried about having Julia and Hugh on public streets where we could get thousands of onlookers-and obviously the police would have had something to say about that. But in the end we decided to take the risk and go for the real thing. You can't create that sort of reality on a studio back lot. To film in the real streets gives a fantastic tone to the film." Heading the creative design team with a brief to exaggerate the contrasts of Notting Hill was three-time Academy AwardTM-winning production designer Stuart Craig. Says Craig, "I've spent most of my film career in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so to do a contemporary film was very appealing. I have always made it a rule to choose not the design challenge but the quality of the script. This was a particularly good script and a very attractive proposition. I think you are presented with more problems working on this kind of location. So many films I have done take place at stately homes where we deal with one person or one management and it's comparatively straightforward. In this case we're dealing with streets with thousands of people, market traders, shop owners and residents, which makes it really complex." The challenge of filming on the streets of Notting Hill was echoed by Michell: "My big anxiety was that Hugh and Julia were going to turn up on the first day of shooting on Portobello Road, and there would be gridlock and we would be surrounded by thousands of people and paparazzi photographers who would prevent us from shooting. Fortunately that didn't happen. It was very well planned by our location team and our security and our presence on the street was as userfriendly as possible for the people who live and work there. I think they were genuinely excited about having us filming in their neighborhood, so they were terrific in their response." Key to the location shoot was Sue Quinn, the location manager, who with her team worked alongside the producers, the director and production designer in finding suitable locations and getting the necessary permissions to film there and generally making it all happen on the day. "It was a mammoth task," Quinn admits. "It is unbelievable how many people live in the Notting Hill area, how diverse and different they are and how many different sections of the community you have to contact. The major problem we encountered was the size of our film unit. We couldn't just go in and shoot and come out. We were everywhere. Filming on the London streets has to be done in such a way that it comes up to health and safety standards. There is no such thing as a road closure. We were very lucky in the fact that we had 100% co-operation from the police and the Council. They looked favorably on what we were trying to do and how it would promote the area." In order to secure maximum cooperation from local residents and business people in the area, Quinn and her team wrote thousands of letters pledging goodwill payments to favorite charities. This resulted in over 200 different charities receiving donations. Receiving such full co-operation provided Quinn with the go-ahead to secure permission to film in a diverse number of locations in and around Notting Hill. "We wanted to capture the real flavor of Notting Hill, which meant filming in the most densely populated areas, the main area being Portobello Road where William's bookshop was situated," she says. In addition to Portobello Road, other Netting Hill locations included Westbourne Park Road, Golborne Road, Landsdowne Road and the Coronet Cinema. With the sixweek shoot in Notting Hill completed, the unit moved on to other major locations. These included the Ritz Hotel where filming in public areas had to take place at night; the Savoy Hotel, the backdrop to Anna Scott's press conference; the Nobu Restaurant in the Metropolitan Hotel; and the Zen Garden of London's fashionable Hempel Hotel, where scenes for the wedding reception were filmed. Another major location was Kenwood House in North London for the film-within-the-film sequence where William visits Anna on a film location. The most spectacular movie-movie sequence in Notting Hill was the creation of a West End film premiere. This location presented the production with their biggest headache. The place to hold a premiere in London is Leicester Square, the heart of the West End. This was where Michell really wanted to film, to capture the spirit of the real thing. Unfortunately when the producers applied for the essential permissions, they were declined. It seems that the previous month there had been a huge premiere attended by Leonardo DiCaprio where thousands of fans had caused enormous problems for the police. So they were not willing to take actual responsibility for staging a "fake" premiere. However, it was eventually accomplished through a health and safety act. The production finally got the green light with twentyfour hours' notice to create a stunning spectacle of excited crowds and hordes of photographers and television crews to capture the arrival of Roberts and Grant's characters attending a glittering premiere at the Empire Leicester Square. On completion of the exterior locations, the crew moved on to Shepperton Studios where they filmed interior scenes for William's house, the travel bookshop and Tony's Restaurant. Principal photography was completed on July 1st, 1998 Running Time: 2 hrs. 04 min Film: Star Wars:EpisodeI The Phantom Menace Synopsis In Star Wars: Episode I, Darth Vader is a hopeful nine-year-old boy named Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi is a brash young Jedi Knight. The first chapter of the Star Wars saga follows Anakin's journey as he pursues his dreams and confronts his deepest fears in the midst of a galaxy in turmoil. Run Time: 2 hours 13 mins Film: Instinct Within the brilliant mind of primatologist Ethan Powell lies an ominous secret -- a deep-seated mystery unsolved by his estranged family and the law enforcement officials who have jailed him for murders that occurred in the jungles of Rwanda. Highly educated and sophisticated, Powell was affected by years of studying mountain gorillas to the point where he was living among them in the wild, as one of their own. Now, held captive in a brutal prison for the criminally insane, Powell, who has not spoken in years, is remanded to psychiatrist Theo Caulder, who must try to unlock the dark mystery in the mind of what appears to be a madman. He encounters a series of perplexing mysteries, questions with chilling answers, and shocking psychological truths. Eventually both men are led on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery. Running Time: 2 hrs. 06 min. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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