Henry
Cavill (“Man of Steel”) stars as Napoleon Solo opposite Armie Hammer (“The
Social Network”) as Illya Kuryakin in director Guy Ritchie’s action adventure “The
Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” a fresh take on the hugely popular 1960s television
series.
Set
against the backdrop of the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, “The
Man from U.N.C.L.E.” centers on CIA agent Solo and KGB agent Kuryakin.
Forced to put aside longstanding hostilities, the two team up on a joint
mission to stop a mysterious international criminal organization, which is bent
on destabilizing the fragile balance of power through the proliferation of
nuclear weapons and technology. The duo’s only lead is the daughter of a
vanished German scientist, who is the key to infiltrating the criminal
organization, and they must race against time to find him and prevent a
worldwide catastrophe.
“The Man
from U.N.C.L.E” also stars Alicia Vikander (“Ex Machina”) and
Elizabeth Debicki (“The Great Gatsby”), with Jared Harris (“Sherlock Holmes: a
Game of Shadows”), and Hugh Grant as Waverly.
The
screenplay was written by Guy Ritchie & Lionel Wigram, who previously
collaborated on re-imagining the classic detective Sherlock Holmes in two hit
films. The story is by Jeff Kleeman
& David Campbell Wilson and Guy Ritchie & Lionel Wigram, based on the
television series “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”
John
Davis (“Chronicle”), Steve Clark-Hall (“RocknRolla,” the “Sherlock Holmes”
films), Lionel Wigram, and Guy Ritchie produced the film, with David Dobkin
serving as executive producer.
Ritchie’s behind-the-scenes creative team included two-time Oscar-nominated
director of photography John Mathieson (“The Phantom of the Opera,” “Gladiator”),
production designer Oliver Scholl (“Jumper,” “Edge of Tomorrow”), editor James
Herbert (the “Sherlock Holmes” films, “Edge of Tomorrow”), Oscar-nominated
costume designer Joanna Johnston (“Lincoln”), and composer Daniel Pemberton
(“The Counselor”).
“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” will be shown in IMAX in select
theaters.
A Warner Bros. Pictures presentation, a
Ritchie/Wigram Production, a Davis Entertainment Production, a Guy Ritchie
Film, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros.
Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.
PRODUCTION
INFORMATION
SAVING THE WORLD NEVER GOES OUT OF STYLE
Guy
Ritchie’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” is a fast-moving, action-packed, sexy and
stylish international adventure, shot through with humor, that is as much about the rocky relationship
between two sparring superspies – Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin – as it is
about the job they have to do.
“It’s
a zone I find fascinating, the way men interact with each other,” says Ritchie,
who directed, produced, and co-wrote “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” screenplay,
based on the hit 1960s TV series
of the same name. “Even going back to
‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,’ I’m drawn to that male-to-male dynamic
as kind of a genre unto itself.”
Dynamic would be the word for it, as the first
time elite CIA operative Solo meets his formidable KGB counterpart, Kuryakin,
they are trying to kill each other. Each
has been sent to extract the same vital German asset from behind the Berlin
Wall at the height of the Cold War, and taking out the competition in the
process would just be icing on the cake.
Days
later, after being informed by their respective handlers that they will now be
working together on the case, killing each other is unfortunately – albeit
temporarily – off the table, leaving the sworn rivals to vent their national
and professional antagonism in a bare-knuckled, bust-up-the-furniture, “getting
to know you” fight designed to convey in no uncertain terms that they might be
stuck with this deal, but they don’t have to like it.
So in some respects, it’s a buddy
movie…apart from the fact that “they kick the living daylights out of each
other as soon as they meet,” says Henry Cavill, who stars as Solo, the suave
and often self-serving American agent.
Starring as Kuryakin, Armie Hammer
offers the volatile but more conventional Russian’s point of view: “Kuryakin is
the ultimate soldier, always in line and giving his best. Then he’s thrust into a position that he
hates and there’s nothing he can do about it.
This guy he’s working with, this Napoleon Solo, he’s so unorthodox. He doesn’t follow the rules. He doesn’t even seem to know there are rules.”
“What we found so irresistible,” says
Ritchie, “was taking these polar-opposite agents and forcing them together so
that they start out trying to annihilate each other and end up cooperating, but
maybe still not entirely trusting each other.
The story is largely the evolution of their collaboration. The fact that
one represents capitalist America and the other represents communist Russia,
and these two super powers have to team up to neutralize a threat with global
stakes, is a great premise that you can have a lot of fun with, and that’s
really the spine of the story.”
Producer and co-screenwriter Lionel
Wigram is reunited with Ritchie following a successful partnership on the
equally genre-blurring “Sherlock Holmes” films.
“One of the ways we put our own spin on it was by making it an origin
story about how U.N.C.L.E. was formed,” he says. “In the series, U.N.C.L.E. already
existed. So in the midst of the Cold War
you had the CIA and KGB secretly teaming for the greater good at a time when East-West
relations were at their absolute worst.
How did such an alliance come about?”
The film opens in 1963. The U.S. and the Soviet Union are locked in a
tense, high-stakes game of chicken over nuclear arms supremacy, and the wartime
research of former Nazi scientists is still at a premium on the not-so-open
market. A 12-foot concrete wall divides
post-World War II Berlin and it’s here, in its long shadows, that Solo and
Kuryakin first size each other up in a breakneck, winner-take-all street chase.
Their prize is
Gaby Teller, a whip-smart East German auto mechanic played by Alicia Vikander,
who is also the estranged daughter of Dr. Udo Teller, once Hitler’s favorite
rocket scientist. Doc Teller has lately
gone missing, launching both world powers into a race to find him before his
very specific and very dangerous knowledge is channeled into weaponry that could obliterate whole countries. And Gaby may be the only bait that can flush
him out.
Opting to retain the initial property’s Cold
War context, with all its cultural and political touchstones, Ritchie says, “It’s
a tip of the hat to the series. We
wanted to capture the essence and uniqueness of that time while making it
immediately accessible to today’s audiences, and as original, attractive and
fresh as possible.” The resulting tenor “is both period and contemporary, which feels like a
very natural process to me.”
As film fans will attest, that’s
another hallmark of the director’s work.
In much the same way the “Sherlock Holmes” films took audiences into
Victorian London without losing the edge that made them so sharp and current,
“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” distills everything that made the 1960s cool – from
its art, fashion and music, to its attitudes and perspectives – into a spot-on
but understated vibe that is both retro and undeniably 21st century.
“That’s
the Guy Ritchie magic,” Wigram remarks.
“He strikes a certain note which, somehow, makes everything feel ‘of
today.’”
“What I remember most about the series was its
tone,” Ritchie reflects. “And when the
opportunity arose for me to make the movie, that’s what inspired me. The idea of ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ just rang
a bell for me. I had an intuitive
response to it.”
In some ways, the 1960s depicted in “The Man
from U.N.C.L.E.” is a rare and enticing moment in time that only really existed
on screen.
“For us, the ‘60s were the coolest decade and
‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ was a part of that,” Wigram continues. “We were always keen on doing a spy story. We loved the early Bond movies, which really
made an imprint on our young minds, and then the Italian and French films of
the time, like ‘L’Avventura’ and ‘La Dolce Vita,’ that had a particular flavor
we found so stylish and interesting.
Whether it’s the clothes, the cars, the movies, or the design, the ‘60s
really marked the beginning of the modern age.”
It’s
their shared influences, combined with a passion for cinema and a simpatico
sense of humor, that make Ritchie and Wigram such a tight writing team. “It’s great having a producing partner who
can write, because writing is fundamental to filmmaking and the story is an
organic, living, ongoing process,” Ritchie acknowledges.
“We both love the idea of taking a
classic genre and putting a twist on it,” Wigram adds. “And Guy is constantly trying to do something
new with the action, to give audiences something they haven’t quite seen
before.”
“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” stands
entirely by itself. But for those
familiar with its genetic line, including Ritchie, Wigram, and fellow producers
John Davis and Steve Clark-Hall, there is a bonus in sharing their affection for
an archetype that enthralled mid-1960s television viewers and spy-game
aficionados on both sides of the Atlantic.
“When I was growing up, they were
the coolest guys with the coolest gadgets and weapons,” recalls Davis, raised
in the U.S. “It was a secret international force working behind the scenes to
keep the planet safe, like the United Nations of the spy world, and I loved
it.”
Typifying
the young British fan of the time, Hugh Grant, who stars as the enigmatic
Waverly, confesses, “I had a ‘Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ model car. I believe you pressed the top off and it shot
guns out of the sides. I might still
have it.”
One
reason that tales of espionage and secret agendas continue to thrill and
entertain, generation upon generation, might be the cyclic nature of history
and politics. “Without getting too
deep,” Clark-Hall suggests, “with the Snowden case and the massive amount of
recent revelations about the sort of spying that still goes on, I think it’s
something that people are intrinsically fascinated by – the nature of
relationships and the opportunity for betrayal, the complex alliances nations
find themselves in, and not being sure who to trust. In some ways today’s world is reflective of
the tensions of the ‘60s that the movie plays on.”
Additionally,
Jeff Kleeman and David Campbell Wilson, who share story credit with Ritchie and
Wigram, cite the enduring allure of “daring lone agents who take on powerful
forces and display grace under pressure. What really sets spy films apart are their
heroes, who time and again are forced to rely upon their true secret weapons:
ingenuity, resourcefulness and wit.”
The
key, for Ritchie, in bringing all of this energy together – apart from the
barbed banter and unshakable cool of his charismatic leads – is what he calls
“the balance of real danger, drama and action with a lightness of touch. It’s the juxtaposition of different moods
that I find most creative and stimulating,” he says, noting that he makes the
kinds of movies that would attract him as a viewer and a vital ingredient of
that is the kind of humor that tends to percolate to the surface almost
effortlessly. “Not that it should all be
funny. I’m looking for the whole gamut
of emotions. We start off writing more serious scenes, but
what often happens on the day of filming is that the scenes start not taking
themselves quite so seriously and the humor invariably finds its way in.
“We had a great cast all around, led
by Henry and Armie, and Alicia as Gaby,” he continues. “The guys have brilliant
chemistry and Alicia is truly something special. And they really had to work for it. It wasn’t a soft job, not mentally or
physically. Filming is collaboration and
I want actors to own what they say.
Granted, a director has the advantage of seeing the bigger picture and
the actors have to trust that, but I’m always interested in the best idea in
the room. As long as it doesn’t hold us
back, and it seldom does, I’m up for everyone being creative.”
“It’s a great feeling knowing that,
together, you’ve gone beyond what was originally on the page,” says Vikander.
“You get to know your character better because you’re not only thinking about
what they say, but about what they might
say.”
Cavill, for whom working with
Ritchie was the number one reason he signed onto the project, concurs. “His
movies are fantastic and his filmmaking style is unique. There’s no over-rehearsing, so you can get in
there and do it, and it feels very fresh and new when you shoot.”
“It really keeps you sharp. You have to do your homework and show up
ready for anything because things can change,” adds Hammer, who likewise jumped
at the chance to work with the acclaimed director. “I think he intentionally keeps the
atmosphere light because you get the best work when everyone is free and
everything is flowing. It’s an open,
inviting, creative space and that’s what Guy tries to cultivate on the set.”
TRY NOT TO KILL YOUR PARTNER ON THE
FIRST DAY
Though
committed to the premise and the politically charged setting of the series,
Ritchie used that merely as a jumping off point when it came to developing the
Solo and Kuryakin characters and their potential back-stories for the big
screen – from the broad strokes to the intimate details – in a way that was
previously unexplored. Since the series
picked up at an unspecified mid-point in the partnership, the filmmakers and
the actors had the freedom to imagine the process by which these two disparate
personalities reached their personal détente.
Hammer, who had never seen the show,
delved into some of the classic episodes for a point of reference, while
Cavill, who was equally unfamiliar with it, took the opposite approach. But
each sought to make these characters entirely their own.
As Cavill understands the
quintessentially smooth Solo, “He’s not career CIA; in fact, he’s kind of
anti-establishment. He acquired his
skill set dealing art and antiques on the black market after sneaking his way
into post-war European high society, and was so good that no one could catch
him for years. It’s something he took a
great deal of pride in. But eventually
he was given up by a jealous girlfriend, and the CIA, seeing the value of a man
like him, offered an ultimatum: go to jail or work for us. So he ended up becoming an agent, very
successfully but somewhat reluctantly.
It’s better than being in jail and he can still wear natty suits.”
By contrast, Kuryakin’s rise at the
KGB was the result of years of dedication, training and single-minded
effort. “He’s a classic spy,” says
Hammer of the youngest agent in the organization to have attained such elite
status. “He grew up in the system and
rose through the ranks and he’s very by-the-book. His lifelong goal was to be a KGB operative
and that’s the most important thing to him.”
It’s hard to know what irritates
Kuryakin most about the new colleague he calls The Cowboy: what he perceives as
the American’s cavalier attitude, his accidental credentials or his sense of
entitlement. “But there is definitely friction,”
Hammer confirms. “At the same time, as much as Illya looks at him as an amateur
who doesn’t know what he’s doing, this Solo guy just broke into a secure
facility with what looks like a paper clip, so that’s pretty impressive…”
For his part, Solo finds the Russian
unrefined and unpredictable, “but in some ways they’re two sides of the same
coin,” Cavill observes. “The differences
in their personalities and methods are vast, but they’re on the same
spectrum. And even though they’re in
this because Solo and Kuryakin have no choice, they are always mindful that
they have a mission and there are lives at stake, not to mention the
destruction of the world, so they have to try to make their skills work
together. It could end up that the team
is greater than the sum of its parts.”
What they are concealing from each
other is that, while their respective bosses appear to be cooperating on this one-off,
the end game for each agent takes a sharp turn.
Solo’s directive is to deliver Teller and/or his research to CIA
headquarters in Langley, while Kuryakin’s orders lead similarly to Moscow, and
neither can let anything – including their partnership – get in his way.
First, however, there are more
immediate concerns. Their working
relationship requires a cover, and that’s where newly sprung East Berliner Gaby
Teller becomes a more hands-on participant.
In order to locate her father, presumably held captive in Rome by a
criminal cabal, including Gaby’s odious Uncle Rudi, she is pressed into a ruse
in which Kuryakin will pose as a Russian architect and she as his loving
fiancée. In Rome on holiday while her
faux husband-to-be studies structural design, Gaby will reach out to Rudi for
her father’s whereabouts, in view of her upcoming nuptials. Solo, meanwhile, will work a parallel angle,
pretending not to know the happy couple while remaining close.
“We were fans of Alicia’s from ‘A
Royal Affair,’” says Wigram, “and of course she’s gone on to so many other
successes since then. “We wanted a
European actress for the role, someone who could play German and had that
fantastic mixture of youth and naiveté with real intelligence and
strength.”
Making
the transition from unpretentious garage mechanic to couture-draped arm candy
isn’t easy for the straight-talking, down-to-earth young woman. “But if it will keep her this side of the
Berlin Wall for the rest of her life, Gaby is game for just about anything,”
says Vikander.
“I loved the fact that they made her
a cool, tomboyish girl with a lot of character,” she continues. “Gaby was brought up in a man’s world and so
she’s quite feisty and she knows how to stand her ground. If anything, she has a tough time relaxing
and pretending she wants to be just a pretty housewife, and I think it’s partly
her desire to assert her independence that causes sparks to fly between her and
Illya.”
Gaby creates sparks between Kuryakin
and Solo, too, but only insofar as it gives them more to clash over, starting
with a comical scene in which they try to one-up each other with their designer
savvy while helping Gaby select her mod wardrobe…perhaps causing her to wonder
if navigating Armageddon might be the easiest part of this mission.
But there is serious work ahead, as the
trio quickly adopt their undercover personas and prepare to take on their
dangerous adversaries. Uncle Rudi, a
diehard Nazi, is in league with the über-wealthy but morally bankrupt power couple
Alexander and Victoria Vinciguerra.
Together, they are attempting to coerce his brother-in-law, Udo Teller,
into revealing his revolutionary method of uranium enrichment. It’s a process that will make atomic bombs far
quicker and easier to assemble, and sell to the highest bidder.
Elizabeth Debicki plays Victoria, an
ambitious, stunning, ice blonde from hardscrabble beginnings who married a
wealthy Italian playboy long on looks but little else. “He isn’t exactly the brains of the operation,”
Debicki admits. “He likes fast cars and
women, and that’s fine with Victoria because she can sit behind the desk and
run the show, which is what she’s always wanted. She’s a self-created, enterprising woman and
quite a social climber.”
Says
Wigram, “Elizabeth was phenomenal in ‘The Great Gatsby’; she really stood out
in a fantastic cast and so when her name came up, Guy and I felt it was an
inspired and obvious choice. She did a
reading that was sensational, plus, her look reminded us of a young Catherine
Deneuve, which was perfect for that period.”
Debicki,
an Australian portraying a woman from Liverpool but with a deliberate clipped
RP [Standard English] accent, notes, “So few of us are playing our
nationalities.” Indeed, Cavill, a Brit,
plays American; Hammer, an American, plays Russian; and Vikander, a Swede,
plays German, all of which just added to the international air of the
production, in concert with the various locations in England and Italy where
they filmed.
One exception
was the actor cast as Victoria’s husband, Alexander. Making his starring English-language feature
debut as the handsome race car driver is Italian Luca Calvani. Calling him “a new discovery for worldwide
audiences, Wigram comments, “Luca is the epitome of what we had in mind. He gives Alexander just the right air of
sinister glamour that makes him credible and, at the same time, so much
fun.”
“Alexander believes he’s found the
perfect trophy wife, which is funny because he ends up being the trophy husband
in a way, as the financier of Victoria’s evil schemes,” says Calvani. “But his ego is such that he thinks he is
somewhat still in charge.”
“They’re
both fantastic roles,” says Debicki.
“The Vinciguerras are fabulously dressed, fabulously evil people, and
they have a very open marriage. Very
sixties.”
Meanwhile,
as all this intrigue unfolds, higher-ups are keeping watch from their respective
vantage points. One is Napoleon Solo’s
CIA boss, Sanders, played by Jared Harris, happily reuniting with Ritchie and
Wigram following his turn as the legendary villain Moriarty in “Sherlock
Holmes: A Game of Shadows.”
In a
nod to cinephiles everywhere, the character is named after classic star George
Sanders, who portrayed “The Saint” and was a spy in many other movies.
Says
Harris, “Sanders is having a bit of a hard time with this independent, somewhat
insolent agent who is also, of course, tremendously talented. Perhaps consequently, he’s sort of
bad-tempered and grumpy. He lives in a
gray world but deals in absolutes and he sees things in terms of ‘It’s the
United States, first and foremost.’”
Fresh
off four seasons of the AMC period drama “Mad Men,” Harris was already steeped
in all things ‘60s. Welcoming the chance
to revisit another facet of the era, he says, “It was a good script, tight, and
with a sense of humor.”
Hugh
Grant, cast as the debonair and unflappable Waverly, the only other familiar
character from the series apart from Solo and Kuryakin, also warmed to the
script. With characteristic humor, he says, “I’ve always liked Guy’s films and
thought they were quite hip, and I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything even
remotely hip, so that was part of the appeal. Plus, I have an uncle who was a spy and I’ve
always been fascinated by that world, so I thought there might be a little fun
to be had. We were never allowed to
mention the fact that he was a spy – he was just officially in the Navy – but
we all knew.”
Waverly
displays the most unassuming attitude and introduces himself with a handshake
and a single name, despite the fact that he turns out to be a significant power
broker – the breadth of which isn’t fully realized until much later.
“I
imagine he’s a rather smooth but probably quite scary top British spy,” the
actor speculates. “Like a lot of them, he likely comes from a naval background. I believe he’s done his share of fighting and
quite enjoyed it, but now he’s a man in very nice suits outsmarting the people
behind the Iron Curtain and perhaps outsmarting the American CIA as well,
because there was always that rivalry and there’s a touch of that, too, in the
film.”
Rounding
out the main cast, Siberian-born Misha Kuznetsov is Sanders’ cagey KGB
counterpart, Oleg; German actor Christian Berkel is Udo Teller, a brilliant
mind caught in a situation from which even he cannot calculate an escape; and
Sylvester Groth is Rudi, an inveterate Nazi as devoted to his cause as he is to
his twisted hobbies. In an interesting link
to the film, Groth was born in East Germany and ultimately defected to the
West.
MAKING THE SCENE
Locations
play a significant role in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” helping set the tone and
authenticity. “We were pleased on
‘Sherlock Holmes’ that our recreation of 19th Century London
transported audiences, and we’ve tried to do the same here with our depictions
of Berlin and Rome, which were inspired by so many films of the time,” Wigram
explains. “Rome typifies the style of
the ‘60s and Berlin is, of course, the focal point of all those Cold War
movies.”
Additionally, says Ritchie, “Certain iconic images
like the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie are essential components for a
story like this to be true to its genre and its time.”
The
Berlin sets exude a cool, stark palette overall, in comparison to the more
lush, bright and sensuous colors and textures of the film’s Italian locales.
Overall,
“Guy wanted the look and feel of the ‘60s to be present, but not obvious or
clichéd, with hints of the Cold War. Getting
that balance was key,” says production designer Oliver Scholl. That sense guided not only his choices but
those of the entire creative team.
Supervising
location manager Sue Quinn scoured the length and breadth of Europe for sites
that met Ritchie’s vision of “a glamorous look and a ‘60s feel but with an
edge,” she relates. “We started in Rome,
with all its fantastic 1930s architecture from the Mussolini era, which looks
so great on film. But Rome is bursting
with tourists and a logistical challenge, so we went to Naples and the
surrounding area to expand our palette.”
The
Rome locations included the famed Spanish Steps, Teatro Marcello, Piazza Venezia
and the Grand Plaza Hotel, where Solo, Kuryakin and Gaby stay while cozying up
to the Vinciguerras. In Naples, the team
used the underground tunnels at the Fonderia Iron Works for the dungeons of the
Vinciguerra island compound, which could be the ideal spot to hide a nuclear
physicist with his own underground lab, while the Castle Baja in the Bay of
Naples, believed to have been built for the Emperor Nero, provided its
impressive exteriors.
“Architecture
is not as fast to react to trends as are clothes or products, so the
architectural spectrum of our sets is much bigger,” states Scholl, who used a
range of structures that would have existed at the time. “The period is invoked in such myriad details
as storefronts, graphics, awnings, posters, window displays, doors, furnishings
and hardware.”
The
UK stood in for East Germany, offering both practical locations and sets built
at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, including the infamous Checkpoint Charlie,
recreated on the studio back lot. Portions of Greenwich Naval College in
Southeast London and the Chatham Docks in Kent, heavily augmented with CG, figured
in the opening chase alongside the Berlin Wall, allowing the design team to
secure the look they were seeking along with the flexibility and convenience of
shooting in a controlled environment.
The historic Goodwood Circuit racetrack in West Sussex was also repurposed
into an Italian venue where Alexander Vinciguerra can show off his fleet.
Studio
soundstages housed a range of sets, including the interiors of the Rome hotel,
Victoria’s sleek, angular, Italian neo-fascist-styled company headquarters, and
the underground laboratory where a captive Udo Teller is pressed into service.
The
single most complex setting from a design standpoint, as well as stunts and
effects, was the climactic chase off Vinciguerra island, which was collaged
from several individual locations: Hankley Common, a rural area in Surrey; the
Miseno tunnels and Baia Castle in Naples; roads outside of Rome; and Aberystwyth,
on the west coast of Wales.
Renowned
cinematographer John Mathieson worked closely with Ritchie throughout, creating
a lighting scheme Wigram calls “both reminiscent of the time and having a modern
energy. The way he lined up his shots,
the atmosphere he created…he’s done an absolutely brilliant job.”
THINGS COULD GET A LITTLE MESSY
Action is an integral part of the
“U.N.C.L.E.” storyline and it’s something on which Ritchie does not
compromise. “The actors have worked
exceptionally hard,” he states. “They’ve all been very involved,
physically. It’s often a volatile arena:
you’re shooting guns, you’re flying all around the place. You have to be an athlete because, on a tough
day, you are cracking on for eight hours.”
The action sequences in “The Man
from U.N.C.L.E.” required the collaboration of stunt coordinator Paul Jennings
and special effects supervisor Dominic Tuohy, following the director’s brief to
bring something new to the screen.
“We also wanted to make the action scenes
reveal more about the characters,” says Jennings, who was in charge of training
the cast for an onslaught of fist fights, gun battles, motorcycle chases, car
chases and explosions, among a long list of stunts. “Guy likes visceral filmmaking. He thinks outside the box and gives you the
freedom to do the same. You have to be
daring and go with your gut on a Guy Ritchie film. Even if things don’t quite work the first
time, he doesn’t mind; he’s pleased you gave it a go.”
In this case, both Henry Cavill and
Armie Hammer were more than willing to give it a go, plunging in with total
commitment and eager to do as many of their own stunts as possible.
“Not
to take anything away from our excellent stunt crew, who took some nasty
tumbles and accomplished some incredible things,” Cavill is quick to add. “But Armie and I are both very physical actors
and love to get involved. There are some
major action sequences that, when I first heard about them, I assumed would be
CG, which we ended up doing largely in camera.”
Shootout
in Berlin
The story starts off with a bang –
accompanied by breaking glass and burning rubber – as the newly acquainted Gaby
and Solo, in a vintage Wartburg sedan, try to elude Kuryakin’s Trabant through
the dark streets of East Berlin to meet Solo’s contact on the other side.
“Guy envisioned it as a ballet,”
says Tuohy. “We modified both vehicles
for a blind driver, meaning the Wartburg had a driving position mounted on the
roof and the Trabant had one low down in front, which enabled stunt drivers to
maneuver them at full speed with the actors inside, keeping them fully
involved. And we had a tracking vehicle
traveling with them.
“We wanted to keep the two cars
close while making tight turns around corners,” he continues, “so we adapted
one of them to be extremely light and made a rig that attached them to each
other. Then, in a green screen environment,
we built a hydraulic turntable so we could put the two cars together and move
them backwards and forwards, as if they were gaining on one another, and also
let them move independently or rotate them on a 360-degree spin.”
The production employed practical
effects as much as possible. Offering
one example, Tuohy says, “The stunt driving positions we built onto the
vehicles were framed out, as they would have done pre-CG, so the camera captures
what the audience will see in frame, rather than filming the whole rig and
having CG paint it out later.”
At
the same time, visual effects, supervised by Richard Bain, proved invaluable in
other applications, such as helping transform the streets of the Greenwich
Royal Naval Academy and the Chatham Docks, where the chase was filmed, into
East Berlin.
“Greenwich
is one of our most valued archives, and to stage a chase there is special onto
itself,” Tuohy adds. “Its streets are
unique and irreplaceable and that created a challenge in protecting that
environment. Where you see sections of
pavement, it’s not real. We put down areas
of flooring so that, if we drove over it, it wouldn’t damage what was
underneath.”
The
Harbor Cruise
“One of the things Guy wanted to do
was land a truck on top of a boat, and play the comedic beats of the truck
sinking the boat with Solo sitting in the cab,” says Tuohy.
This
was part of a larger scene in which the two agents have to evade a boatload of
assassins following a nighttime prowl in the Vinciguerra factory. Stunt coordinator Jennings says, “In the
harbor chase, Armie had to do a lot of piloting. We took him out in the boat for a test and he
was a natural, which gave us the freedom to film him steering the boat. It’s great when you can slot an actor into a
situation like that and know they can deal with it.”
For Tuohy’s team, the logistics
proved more complex. “When you drive
something off a height to land on a boat, it wants to push the boat away,” he
explains. So, a lightweight truck was
designed to engage with a rig that would land it on the exact spot.
The
next problem was that the boat, large and made of fiberglass, required a
displacement of about 30 tons to sink it – which they didn’t have. They also didn’t have the time to wait for it
to sink. Instead, they used pyrotechnic
charges to break the seals holding the boat together, allowing water to rush in. Meanwhile a hydraulic ram beneath it pulled
the whole thing under in about 10 seconds, allowing Cavill to land both the
heroics and the humor of the scene in one take.
Off-Roading at the
Vinciguerra Estate
The climactic pursuit takes place on
the Vinciguerras’ island, where everything that matters is suddenly and
dynamically in play, where people seize whatever method of transport is handy,
and where every fresh twist alters the balance of power.
The
hero vehicles include a 1960s motorcycle, a modified Land Rover that takes a
swim, and a growling, custom-built four-wheel drive ATV that Ritchie aptly
calls “a beast.”
“Of course a Rock Crawler wasn’t quite period
correct, but I wasn’t going to let that stand in the way, so we built our own,”
he says. The vehicle does precisely what its name
suggests, powering up nearly 90-degree hills before aquaplaning more than 300
feet across a lake. “I’m not quite sure
what to do with it now. It’s seven feet
wide.”
The director was looking for unique and
punishing terrain, which resulted in a sequence seamlessly fused from multiple
locations. Jennings recounts, “We start
in Italy, go through a tunnel and up a mountainside, still in Italy, and then
cut to a shot in Wales, then to Hankley Commons, and mix in some of
Northshire. We were all over the place,
but, in the end, I think we achieved something really different.”
At the controls of the Rock Crawler,
Solo displays his quick thinking as the action unfolds. Knowing Alexander Vinciguerra’s Land Rover can
easily outpace him on the road, he forges his own path through scrub, hills,
forest, mud and grit to cut him off.
Kuryakin,
meanwhile, takes a different road in the concurrently running action sequences,
astride a 1960s motorcycle that he rides until it becomes un-rideable. That’s when the resourceful agent has to find
another use for it.
Preparing for the scene, Hammer was
not overly concerned. An avid rider
since getting his first dirt bike as a child, he considered himself competent
enough. But assistant stunt coordinator
Lee Morrison didn’t initially see it the same way. Hammer recalls, “We showed up at a big grass
field and Lee said, ‘Okay, I’m going to do a little assessment to see how you
ride. Go up there, do a turn, come back,
do a figure-eight and then go through those cones and stop.’ I figured, ‘No problem, this is going to be
easy.’ So I ran through it all and came
back, and he said, ‘What the hell was that?
Is that how you sit? Is that how
you hold your elbows?’ So he taught me
the proper form and honestly elevated my motorcycle riding, which was great for
me – especially on that vintage bike, that didn’t have 50 years of advancements
so it was heavy and cumbersome.”
Heavy and cumbersome, granted, but
it bears the weight of Hollywood history.
The motorcycle rode by Hammer was a limited edition Métisse Desert Racer
built by the renowned Métisse workshop in Oxfordshire to be an exact replica of
the Mark III model designed by actor Steve McQueen and Bud Ekins in the
1960s.
“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” also counts
among its vintage vehicles a 1960 Hiller UH12E4 helicopter that previously had
a starring role in another spy movie – a fact that can momentarily revert even
veteran filmmakers into James Bond fanboys, as Wigram delightedly proclaims,
“We have Pussy Galore’s helicopter from ‘Goldfinger’ in our film. I can’t tell you how exciting that is!” It also harks back to the series in that Bond
creator Ian Fleming is known to have contributed some thoughts to the
television project in its early conceptual stages.
Clothes Make the Man… and Woman
The
work of award-winning costume designer Joanna Johnston harmonized with the
tones selected by production designer Scholl and his sets. “In Berlin, the overriding visual was
concrete. Everything was cold, hard, and quite dismal,” she says. “We have a bit of freshness coming through
with the introduction of prints and patterns when the story crosses over to
West Berlin but the palette is still cold. Then, in Italy, the colors are warm
and it’s all very sophisticated.”
How
the era broke culturally from the immediate post-war drabness of the 1950s was
what inspired Johnston, who researched the period via fashion magazines of the
time. “It was all about color,” she expands.
“It was a very radical and adventurous time across all disciplines, from art to
fashion and music. What really struck me
was the freedom of design of the time; it shines through the photography, the
models, the styling, everything.”
In
sync with Ritchie, the designer strove to avoid the kind of cliché extremes
that can mar a period piece, opting for something “more subtle and original, but
still glossy and slick, like those films you remember where everyone looked
good no matter what they were doing.”
Hammer
credits his wardrobe for helping him establish Kuryakin’s persona. “It didn’t feel like costuming,” he
affirms. “It felt just like clothes
because it was never over the top.”
Indeed, Kuryakin was the more understated of the two agents, partly,
Hammer jokes, because, “he was on a Soviet budget.”
Johnston
kept the Russian agent’s wardrobe low-key and casual-sexy overall, saying, “His
look was comprised of separates, suede and corduroy jackets, slacks and, of
course, the turtleneck sweaters, which was the only element I had to keep from
the TV show because it’s the first thing everyone I talked to mentioned.”
Solo was another matter
entirely. “Solo has reinvented himself,
in a way, so I thought a more considered approach would be appropriate,” she
says. “He has fine tailoring from
Saville Row and handmade shoes, and looks like the proper gentleman. I used Timothy Everest, a well known British
tailor, to make all of Henry’s suits. He’s
all about the vanity and projection of his appearance – so expensive, good-looking
and chic.”
Cavill couldn’t agree more. “They were made of the most wonderful fabric
and as soon as I put them on, I felt like Napoleon Solo,” he says.
Designing for the lead actresses
added yet another dimension to the palette.
Alicia Vikander’s character, Gaby, though introduced as a tomboy in
functional overalls, quickly shifts into couture with ease. Her breezy style Johnston describes as “fresh,
young, simple and clean, but with the feeling that she could do anything at any
time.”
“I came in for a few fittings, which
is a great way to get into character, and Joanna let me be a part of the
process,” Vikander recalls. “She brought
in mood boards with pictures and ideas, and it’s easy to let your imagination
and fantasies take over. I saw one
amazing dress with an open back that I liked and, the next time I came in,
there it was.”
In Elizabeth Debicki’s chilling
Victoria, Johnston saw a trace of Solo.
“In her individual way, Victoria is sort of a match for him with the
consideration and application, her projection of image. She likes a lot of
drama in her look. She’s a snake, and
she wants to snare people into her lair.”
Debicki happily collaborated with
the designer on Victoria’s striking black-and-white signature look, highly
polished and graphic. “Victoria’s
clothes represent the best of ‘60s fashion.
She’s quite a fan of bling and belts and, because she’s so wealthy, we
felt there needn’t be any limit. Plus,
being the villain means you can do whatever you please,” she says.
LEADING THE CHARGE
“The score was a very important,
fundamental part of the film,” says Ritchie.
“I think sometimes, in certain scenes, the music should lead the charge
and the action is subservient to that.
We worked for the first time with a talented young composer, Daniel
Pemberton, and I’m quite happy with the way it turned out.”
For Pemberton, it was an experience
unlike any other. “Guy’s main thing was that he wanted everything to be simple
and memorable,” he relates. “He wanted
every single piece of music to be unique and feel like a strong stand-alone
track, while still accomplishing the things a movie score needs to do in terms
of highlighting and enhancing the action.
So it was incredibly challenging, but also fantastic and very exciting
for me because I got to really, really push it and be incredibly bold in a way
that, as a composer, you don’t normally have the opportunity to do.”
This
is perhaps best illustrated in the climactic raid on the Vinciguerra compound,
an extended, action-fueled sequence where so much is happening simultaneously
that Ritchie offers some of it in a kaleidoscopic split-screen, propelled
throughout by the score. Says Pemberton,
“There is often no dialogue, or very minimal dialogue. I remember, at the time, it was me, Guy and
his editor, James Herbert, trying to work out how to make it different from
what audiences will have heard before, and we got the idea of trying this
anarchic, almost poly-rhythmic percussion piece that echoes the intensity of
the attack. It descends into chaos, out
of control, but somehow pulls itself together, rising and falling with the
action. It’s one of the passages I’m
most proud of.”
In keeping with the film’s tonal
integrity, Pemberton sought to capture a sound that combined the crispness and
sophistication of today with a distinctly ‘60s flavor. The first step was the venue: “The Man from
U.N.C.L.E.” score was recorded in Studio 2 at Abbey Road, where even the most
casual music fan likely knows, the Beatles recorded their albums.
Thematically, he says, “we went for
a different, minimal approach that meant musically using less but writing and
producing in a way that still has the impact of a big orchestral score.”
Technically, the Abbey Road facility
proved a treasure trove of the kinds of period equipment needed to achieve the
specific sound he was after. “We used
every single bit of kit that has been kicking around there since the ‘60s that
we could get our hands on,” he says, with all the enthusiasm of an archeologist
on a successful dig. “We used tape
machines, old desks, even the building’s echo chamber, which is how they
created echoes before digital or even analog equipment. You’d send a microphone into a tiled room and
there’d be a loudspeaker in there, and you would play the sound and record the
echo in the room. We sourced some great
period instruments, from vintage harpsichords to old basses and guitars, and worked
with Sam Okell, their in-house 1960s genius who knows every bit of that gear
from years of mixing and engineering Beatles re-masters.
“It
was all part of the process of creating a distinctive sound,” he concludes. “Maybe the best way of describing it is, to
sound new, we had to travel through time.”
Echoing
the composer’s sentiments, Wigram says, “It’s nice to be able to recreate that
time using today’s technology – the best of both worlds, essentially. Guy and I love period movies because we feel
it allows us to create an experience where you can have a heightened
sensibility and still suspend the audiences’ disbelief. You can go a bit larger than life because
there’s always a sense of reality attached.”
“As a director, you face a number of creative
considerations when you approach a project,” says Ritchie, harking back to the
moment when the ideas for a big-scale “U.N.C.L.E” feature first came together
for him. “The relationships, the
dynamic, the narrative – they’re all exciting questions. With this, there was the added challenge of
bringing a classic concept and period to life in a contemporary and
entertaining way, and we all had a lot of fun seeing what we could do with it.”
ABOUT
THE CAST
HENRY
CAVILL (Napoleon Solo) is best known for his role as Superman
in the 2013 international blockbuster “Man of Steel,” directed by Zack
Snyder. Cavill will reunite with Snyder
to reprise his Superman role in the much-anticipated “Batman v Superman: Dawn
of Justice,” scheduled for release in March 2016.
Cavill was born in the
Channel Islands. He made his feature
film debut in Kevin Reynolds’ “The Count of Monte Cristo.” He went on to star in Reynolds’ romance
“Tristan + Isolde,” with James Franco and Sophia Myles, and in Matthew Vaughn’s
fantasy adventure “Stardust,” alongside Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer and
Robert De Niro.
Cavill then starred in
director Woody Allen’s comedy “Whatever Works,” and later in the mythological
action film “Immortals,” directed by Tarsem Singh, which earned over $220
million worldwide.
On television, Cavill
starred in the Emmy Award-winning Showtime series “The Tudors” for four
seasons.
ARMIE HAMMER
(Illya Kuryakin) earned a 2012 SAG Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor
for his portrayal of Clyde Tolson in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar Hoover biopic “J. Edgar,” with a script by Dustin
Lance Black. Hammer starred opposite
Leonardo DiCaprio. “J. Edgar” was also honored at the 2011 AFI Awards for Film
of the Year.
His
performance as the Winklevoss twins in the award-winning film “The Social
Network” garnered him critical praise and positioned him as one of Hollywood’s
breakouts of 2010. Hammer was nominated Most Promising Performer by the Chicago
Film Critics Association, and awarded Best Supporting Actor by the Toronto Film
Critics Association. The film received a SAG nomination for Best Ensemble, as
well as a Best Picture Golden Globe. It
was also recognized by both Los Angeles and New York Film Critics, the
Broadcast Film Critics Association, National Board of Review and named one of
the AFI’s Top 10 Films of the Year.
Hammer
was last seen starring as the title character in “The Lone Ranger,”
alongside Johnny Depp, directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry
Bruckheimer. In “Mirror, Mirror,” a film
by Tarsem Singh, he starred as Prince Alcott, opposite Julia Roberts and Lily
Collins.
Hammer
recently wrapped production on “Mine,” produced by The Safran Company. He
is currently filming “The Birth of a Nation,” about former slave Nat Turner, who leads a liberation movement in 1831
to free African-Americans in Virginia. He will then switch centuries to co-star alongside Luke
Evans, Brie Larson and Cillian Murphy in “Free Fire,” set in 1978 Boston, where
a meeting between two gangs turns into a shootout and a game of survival.
ALICIA VIKANDER (Gaby) has garnered
international recognition since bursting onto the scene in her film debut,
“Pure.” Vikander won Sweden’s
prestigious Guldbagge Award for Best Actress in 2011 for her performance as
Katarina in the 2010 Swedish drama.
2015
will see her in no less than eight films, and her upcoming projects include a
starring role in the next installment of the “Bourne” action franchise,
opposite Matt Damon. She has also just been announced as an ambassador for the
French fashion house Louis Vuitton.
She
was most recently seen in “Testament of Youth,” the adaptation of Vera
Brittain’s memoirs, opposite Kit Harrington and directed by James Kent; Julius Avery’s “Son of a Gun”; and “Seventh Son,”
alongside Jeff Bridges
and Julianne Moore. Vikander also starred in the lead female role opposite Oscar
Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson in Alex Garland’s directorial debut, “Ex Machina,”
released in the UK in January in the US in April. It has been storming the U.S.
box office and enjoying critical acclaim across the board.
Vikander recently wrapped “The
Danish Girl,” starring opposite Eddie Redmayne, inspired by the true story of Danish
artists Einar Wegener and his wife, Gerda.
The film is set for release in the U.S. in November and in the UK in
January 2016. She will also
be seen starring in Derek Cianfrance’s “The Light Between Oceans,” based on the
M.L Stedman novel, opposite Michael Fassbender; and the 17th Century romance “Tulip Fever,” alongside Jack O’Connell,
Dane DeHaan and Christoph Waltz, directed by Justin Chadwick.
In
2013, Vikander appeared as Anke, alongside Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel
Brühl, in director Bill Condon’s “The Fifth Estate,” about the formation of
Wikileaks. In October that
year, she starred in the Swedish film “Hotell,” reuniting with director Lisa
Langseth. Her other film credits include
Joe Wright’s “Anna Karenina,” alongside Keira Knightley and Jude Law; Ella Lemhagen’s “The Crown
Jewels,” which appeared in side competition at the Berlin Film Festival; and “A
Royal Affair,” nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
In
2012, she was highlighted
by the European Film Awards as one of their Shooting Stars and, in 2013, was nominated
for a BAFTA Award in the Rising Star category.
ELIZABETH DEBICKI (Victoria) made
her international film debut in 2013, starring as Jordan Baker in Baz
Luhrmann’s hit romantic drama “The Great Gatsby,” based on F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s novel, alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan
and Joel Edgerton. Debicki’s performance earned a Best Supporting Actress
Award from the Australian Film Institute, as well as nominations from The
Australian Film Critics Association, Film Critics Circle of Australia and the
UK’s Empire Awards.
Debicki’s other
recent credits include a starring role in Justin Kurzel’s independent feature
“Macbeth,” with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. Upcoming, she
will star in the Australian drama series “The Kettering Incident,” the AMC / BBC action series
“The Night Manager,” directed by Susanne Bier, and director Baltasar Kormákur’s thriller “Everest,” with
Jake Gyllenhaal, Keira Knightley, Robin Wright, Josh Brolin and Sam
Worthington, set for a September 2105 release.
A 2010 graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts at the
University of Melbourne, Debicki made her professional stage debut
in 2011, starring in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of “The
Gift.” in June 2013, she starred
alongside Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert in The Sydney
Theatre Company’s production of “The Maids,” which received wide critical
praise and went on to premiere in the U.S. at The Lincoln Centre Festival in
New York City.
JARED HARRIS
(Sanders) is a classically trained stage actor and former member of London’s
famed Royal Shakespeare Company. Harris’
extensive film career includes Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award-nominated
biopic “Lincoln,” in which
he played iconic Civil War hero General Grant opposite Daniel Day Lewis; his
portrayal of the villain Moriarty in “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” opposite Robert Downey
Jr., Jude Law, and Noomi Rapace; his appearance alongside Brad Pitt and Cate
Blanchett in David Fincher’s Academy Award-nominated “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”; and a riveting portrayal
of Andy Warhol in the acclaimed indie “I
Shot Andy Warhol.”
In
2015, Harris completed principal photography on two independent films: director
Sean Penn’s “The Last Face,”
with Charlize Theron, Jean Reno and Javier Bardem, and an untitled film by
acclaimed filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, with Michelle Williams and Kristen
Stewart.
He
was most recently seen in Gil Kenan’s contemporized “Poltergeist” remake.
In
2014, marking his foray into children’s cinema, Harris’ voice was heard as Lord
Portley-Rind in the Academy Award-nominated “The Boxtrolls,” a 3D stop-motion and CG hybrid animated
feature. Prior to this, he starred in
John Pogue’s horror film “The Quiet
Ones,” Paul W.S. Anderson’s action drama “Pompeii,” and the young adult fantasy adaptation “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.”
Harris
has been equally busy this past year both behind and in front of the television
camera. He stepped behind the camera for
the first time to direct the eleventh episode, “Time and Life,” of the final
season of AMC’s award-winning hit drama “Mad Men.” Harris had
previously starred in the show for two seasons as a 1960’s ad executive, Lane
Pryce, earning his first Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a
Drama Series. Harris will next appear in
“The Expanse,” a limited series for Syfy.
This
fall, Harris will portray King George in the Netflix series “The Crown,” from Peter Morgan and Stephen Daldry and inspired by the play “The Audience,” which centers
on the weekly audiences given by Queen Elizabeth II, to prime ministers
from 1952 to the present day.
Harris
made his film debut in 1989's “The
Rachel Papers,” which was also the directorial debut of his brother,
Damian. He has since gone on to appear
in over fifty films in a wide array of roles, including the sleazy Russian cab
driver Vladimir, in Todd Solondz's “Happiness,”
for which the cast received the 1999 National Board of Review Acting Ensemble
Award. His additional credits include
Michael Mann’s “The Last of the
Mohicans”; “Sylvia”; Jim
Jarmusch’s “Dead Man”; Jonathan
Nossiter’s “Sunday,” which won
the Grand Jury Prize at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival; “Igby Goes Down”; “Mr.
Deeds”; Michael Radford’s “B. Monkey”; Wayne Wang’s “Smoke”; and
John Carpenter’s “The Ward,”
among others.
Harris
has accumulated an impressive list of television credits in both England and
the U.S., including highly acclaimed performances as Henry VIII for the BBC
production of “The Other Boleyn Girl,”
John Lennon in the 2000 television drama and original VH1 film “Two of Us,” and the starring role in
BBC’s dramatization of Simon Mann’s failed attempt to overthrow the oil rich
African nation Equatorial Guinea in “Coup!” His additional BBC
credits include the miniseries “To the
Ends of the Earth” and “The
Shadow in the North.” Stateside,
Harris has been seen in recurring roles in both “The Riches” and the cult hit “Fringe,” and has guest-starred on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”
and “Without a Trace.”
Harris
has appeared with some of the most renowned theater companies in both London
and New York. His first job at the Royal
Shakespeare Company was in Mark Rylance’s “Hamlet,” considered to be the defining interpretation of his
generation. He made his American stage
debut as Hotspur in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s “Henry IV,” Parts 1 & 2, and went
on to perform with the company in “‘Tis
Pity She's a Whore” and “King Lear.” His stage
credits also include the New Group's Obie Award-winning production of Mike
Leigh’s “Ecstasy”; the New
Jersey Shakespeare Company's experimental production of “Hamlet,” in the title role; the
Almeida Theatre’s production of Tennessee Williams’ bittersweet comedy “A Period of Adjustment”; and the
Vineyard Theater’s production of “More
Lies About Jerzy.”
Harris
was born in London, and is the son of Irish actor Richard Harris. He attended
North Carolina’s Duke University, where he majored in drama and literature and,
after graduation, studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
HUGH
GRANT (Waverly) is
an award-winning actor who has received acclaim for his work in a wide range of
films, which have grossed more
than $2.5 billion combined, worldwide.
Most
recently, Grant starred in Marc Lawrence’s romantic comedy “The Rewrite,” and
had multiple roles in the ambitious drama “Cloud Atlas,” from directors Tom
Tykwer and the Wachowskis. He
also lent his voice to the lead role of The Pirate Captain in
the animated film “The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” and starred in “Did You
Hear about the Morgans?”
Grant is currently in production on director
Stephen Frears’ comedy drama “Florence Foster Jenkins,” in which he stars
opposite Meryl Streep.
His other credits include “Music and
Lyrics”; “American Dreamz”; “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and its
sequel, “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason”; the ensemble comedy hit “Love
Actually”; and “Two Weeks’ Notice.” He won a Golden Globe Award and a
BAFTA for his performance in “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” and was nominated
for Golden Globes for his performances in “Notting
Hill” and “About a Boy.”
Among his many other feature film credits are
“An Awfully Big Adventure,” “The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came Down a
Mountain,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Mickey Blue Eyes,” “Small Time Crooks,”
and “Extreme Measures,” which he also produced.
In
addition to his Golden Globe and BAFTA honors, Grant has been awarded The Peter
Sellers Award for Comedy, Best Actor at The Venice international Film Festival
and an Honorary César Award.
Grant
is on the board of the Hacked Off campaign.
LUCA
CALVANI (Alexander),
perhaps best known to American audiences for his series regular roles in the
long-running daytime dramas “The Bold and the Beautiful” and “As the World
Turns,” is breaking into the English-language film world in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”
Calvani
has an extensive list of credits in his native Italy, including the film “Men
vs. Women (Maschi contro femmine)” and the miniseries “Una buona
stagione.” His television credits
include “Sposami,” “Don Matteo,” “Il commissario Manara” and “Tutti pazzi per
amore.”
His
American debut was the hit HBO series “Sex and the City,” and he has also
appeared in films such as the Tom Tykwer thriller “The International,” with
Clive Owen and Naomi Watts; Woody Allen’s comedy “To Rome with Love”; the
romantic comedy “When in Rome,” with Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel; and “The
Good Guy,” alongside Alexis Bledel. Up
next, Calvani is set to star in Piotr Smigasiewicz’s independent crime
thriller, “Framed.”
Calvani
was born in Tuscany, Italy. He studied
textile engineering in Milan and New York.
While in school, he started modeling for some of the top brands,
including Giorgio Armani. Calvani is
trilingual – speaking both French and English in addition to Italian. He
currently lives in Tuscany.
ABOUT
THE FILMMAKERS
GUY RITCHIE
(Director/Producer/Screenplay/Story) most recently directed the acclaimed
blockbusters “Sherlock Holmes” and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,”
starring Robert Downey Jr. as the famed detective and Jude Law as his trusted
colleague. Ritchie brought a fresh
perspective to the legendary detective, based on an original story/comic book
by Lionel Wigram, inspired by the classic tales of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The films were produced by Joel Silver,
Wigram, Susan Downey and Dan Lin.
Ritchie
and Wigram solidified their partnership with the launch of the production
company Ritchie/Wigram, in 2011. The
company’s first feature is “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”
Ritchie
is currently directing an original King Arthur epic, a sweeping fantasy action
adventure starring Charlie Hunnam, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Aidan
Gillen, Jude Law and Eric Bana, from a screenplay by Joby Harold, Ritchie and
Lionel Wigram. Ritchie is also producing
the film, alongside “Sherlock Holmes” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” producers
Wigram and Steve Clark-Hall, Akiva Goldsman, Joby Harold, and Tory
Tunnell. The film is slated for release
on July 22, 2016.
Ritchie
began his career in Britain’s film industry in 1993 as a runner on Wardour
Street, working his way up to a director of music videos and commercials. In 1995, he wrote and directed his first
short film, “The Hard Case,” about four cockney guys raising money to enter a
card game, which formed the basis for his first feature film.
Ritchie
made his writing and directing feature film debut with “Lock, Stock & Two
Smoking Barrels.” Made on a modest
budget of $1 million and breathing new life into its genre, the film premiered
at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, became one of the UK’s biggest hits and
remains a favorite. Spotlighting
Ritchie’s knack for casting and discovering talent, the film launched the
careers of several actors, including Jason Statham. The London Film Critics Circle named Ritchie
the British Screenwriter of the Year for the film, which also received a BAFTA
Award nomination for Best British Film.
This
was followed by the 2000 hit “Snatch,” written and directed by Ritchie, and
winning the Empire Award for Best British Director. Set in the London criminal underworld, it
featured the ensemble cast of Jason Statham, Dennis Farina, Vinnie Jones,
Benicio del Toro and Brad Pitt.
In addition to his feature work, Ritchie’s diverse directing credits
include the short film starring David Beckham, for his H&M line; the short
film “Star,” featured in Series 1 of the popular BMW series “The Hire”;
and the short film for Nike, “Take It to the Next Level,” which follows the
rise and fame of an up-and-coming Dutch footballer. Featuring the industry’s best players, the
promo was an ambitious undertaking for Ritchie going on to win a Gold Lion at
the 2008 Cannes International Advertising Festival.
JOHN
DAVIS (Producer), Chairman of Los Angeles-based Davis
Entertainment, is one of Hollywood’s most prolific producers, having been a
producer on more than 95 feature films and movies for television that have
earned more than $4.8 billion worldwide. Davis Entertainment, established in
1986, has enjoyed a long-standing first-look production deal at 20th
Century Fox, but produces projects for all studios and mini-majors.
Some
of the company’s action-adventure-thrillers include the acclaimed hit
“Chronicle”; the sci-fi hit “I, Robot,” starring Will Smith; the blockbuster
“The Firm,” starring Tom Cruise; “Courage Under Fire,” starring Denzel
Washington; “Waterworld,” starring Kevin Costner; “Predator,” starring Arnold
Schwarzenegger; “Behind Enemy Lines,” starring Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman;
“Predator 2; Flight of the Phoenix,” starring Dennis Quaid; the John Woo action
film “Paycheck,” starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman; and “Alien vs.
Predator,” combining the two classic creatures; among many others.
Davis’
family films include the Jim Carrey starrer “Mr. Popper’s Penguins”; “Norbit,”
starring Eddie Murphy and marking their fourth film together; “Garfield” and
“Garfield 2”; the $100 million-plus hit Eddie Murphy comedy “Daddy Day Care”;
the two hugely successful “Dr. Dolittle” films, starring Murphy; the Jack
Lemmon and Walter Matthau trilogy “Out to Sea,” “Grumpy Old Men” and “Grumpier
Old Men”; “Fat Albert,” written by Bill Cosby; “Marmaduke,” based on the comic
strip of the same name; and the Jack Black adventure comedy “Gulliver’s
Travels,” which earned $200 million worldwide.
Among his numerous upcoming feature projects
are “Victor Frankenstein,” starring James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe; the
animated feature “Ferdinand the Bull,” with Carlos Saldanha directing; the
actioner “Protection”; Shane Black’s “Predator”; and David O. Russell’s “Joy,”
starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro.
Other
Davis productions include “When a Stranger Calls,” a remake of the 1979 horror
classic which took the top spot its opening week; and “Heartbreakers,” starring
Sigourney Weaver, Gene Hackman and Jennifer Love Hewitt, which also opened as
the country’s #1 film.
A
hallmark of Davis’ success is his ability to attract the industry’s most
successful actors, directors, writers and other creative talent. He has
produced a number of successful, multi-title franchises, including the
“Predator,” “Grumpy Old Men,” “Dr. Dolittle” and “Garfield” films, making him
well-known for his ability to brand entertainment, extending his titles beyond
the theatrical applications. Davis’
career is further distinguished as his films are routinely produced for
responsible budgets and thus earn domestic and international box office
success, such as “Garfield,” which was produced modestly and earned nearly $200
million worldwide.
Davis has a canny knack for securing rights to projects long but unsuccessfully
sought after by others, including the “Garfield” films, “Fat Albert,” “The
Sims,” “Marmaduke,” the rights to the Ringling Bros. circus story, “Dr.
Dolittle,” “Flight of the Phoenix,” and the two Grisham novels, The Firm and The Chamber. Davis also continues to produce DVD premiere titles
born out of his successful “Garfield” and “Dr. Dolittle” franchises as well as
numerous other titles.
Davis Entertainment
Television has produced 20 telefilms, including the NBC movies “The Jesse
Ventura Story” and “Little Richard,” and the ABC movie “Miracle at Midnight,”
starring Sam Waterston. His television department has series and
made-for-television movies set up with all of the major television networks and
cable broadcasters. Davis also produced
the hit NBC mini-series “Asteroid”; “Volcano: Fire on the Mountain,” for ABC;
NBC’s highly rated movie of Truman Capote’s short story “One Christmas,”
starring Katharine Hepburn; and the popular CBS movie “This Can’t Be Love,”
starring Hepburn and Anthony Quinn. He is an executive producer on the
acclaimed NBC crime series “The Blacklist,” starring James Spader, now in its
third season. He will also serve as an executive producer on the new NBC drama
series “The Player,” and the new comedy series for ABC, “Dr. Ken,” starring Ken
Jeong.
Davis was born and raised near Denver, Colorado. His obsession with film began
as a youth when his father purchased the neighborhood movie theater, where he
sold popcorn and subsequently viewed up to 300 films a year. Davis graduated
from Bowdoin College, attended Amherst College and received an M.B.A. from the
Harvard Business School. His successful business ventures include setting
up and running TV Stations and Wetzel’s Pretzels, which Davis was instrumental
in expanding and sold in 2007, and his new pizza company, Blaze.
STEVE CLARK-HALL
(Producer) previously served as a co-producer on Guy Ritchie’s worldwide hit
“Sherlock Holmes,” and executive producer on its sequel, “Sherlock Holmes: A
Game of Shadows.” He first collaborated
with Ritchie as a producer on “Revolver,” and later produced the director’s
acclaimed action comedy “RocknRolla.”
Clark-Hall
began his career at the BBC, leaving in 1972 to set up his own production
company, Skyline Films. One of the early
suppliers of programming to Britain’s Channel Four, Skyline produced over 300
hours of television programs before moving into feature film production in the
early 1990s.
Among his most recent projects,
Clark-Hall executive produced director Ravi Kumar’s historical drama “Bhopal: A
Prayer for Rain” and director Andy Goddard’s biographical drama “Set Fire to
the Stars,” about Dylan Thomas. He also
served as a producer on the 2013 NBC horror series “Dracula.”
Clark-Hall’s
credits include the films “Separate Lies,” directed by Julian Fellowes and
starring Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Rupert Everett; Kenneth Branagh’s “The
Magic Flute”; “Love and Other Disasters,” starring Orlando Bloom, Gwyneth
Paltrow and Brittany Murphy; and “Body Armour,” starring Chazz Palminteri. In addition, he produced the Channel Four
telefilm “Britz,” directed by Peter Kosminsky, which won the BAFTA TV Award for
Best Drama.
Clark-Hall
also co-produced “Man to Man,” starring Joseph Fiennes and Kristin Scott
Thomas; and the true story “Calendar Girls,” starring Helen Mirren and Julie
Walters. His additional film producing
credits include “Saving Grace,” starring Brenda Blethyn; William Boyd’s “The
Trench,” starring Daniel Craig; “Still Crazy,” starring Stephen Rea and Bill
Nighy, which earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture – Comedy or
Musical; Alan Rickman’s “The Winter Guest,” starring Emma Thompson; “Love and
Death on Long Island,” starring John Hurt; Gillies Mackinnon’s “Small Faces”;
and Derek Jarman’s “Edward II.”
LIONEL
WIGRAM (Producer/Screenplay/Story) marks his third
collaboration with director Guy Ritchie, and the first venture of their joint
production company Ritchie/Wigram Films, with “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” They are currently working on their fourth
film together, an original King Arthur epic on which Wigram serves as a
producer and writer, scheduled for release in July 2016.
Wigram is also a producer on “Fantastic Beasts and Where
to Find Them,” based on the book by J.K. Rowling, to be released in November
2016. Wigram was instrumental in
realizing the creative possibility of adapting the book as a film.
Previously, Wigram was a producer and co-wrote the story
for Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes,” conceiving the world's greatest detective for
today's audience. He was also a producer on the sequel, “Sherlock Holmes: Game
of Shadows.”
During his tenure at Warner Bros. Pictures, Wigram was
responsible for acquiring J.K. Rowling’s Harry
Potter books for the Studio and was involved with the blockbuster franchise
from the very beginning, overseeing all eight films in the series – first as a
production executive and then as an independent producer.
Wigram also served as executive producer of “August Rush”
and “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole.”
As a studio executive, Wigram also championed such films
as “Three Kings,” “Charlotte Gray” and “The Big Tease.”
Prior to joining Warner Bros, Wigram spent ten years
working in the independent world, both as an executive and as a producer. He ran Renny Harlin's Company and worked for
Shep Gordon and Carolyn Pfeiffer at Alive Films. Wigram's first job in Hollywood was as a
runner for producer Elliott Kastner. He
worked his way up, eventually producing several low-budget films for Kastner in
partnership with Cassian Elwes.
Wigram grew up in England. He was educated at Eton
College and Oxford University where he was a co-founder of the Oxford Film
Foundation.
JEFF
KLEEMAN (Story) graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in
English. He curated exhibits at the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and ran a story department at
Carolco. In 1987, Kleeman joined
Paramount Pictures and was a development and production executive on “Internal
Affairs,” “The Hunt for Red October,” “Shirley Valentine” and “Star Trek VI:
The Undiscovered Country.” He was also
responsible for the development of “Deep Cover.”
In 1991, Kleeman became Vice
President of Production for Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope, where he
worked on “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” initiated Tim Burton’s “Sleepy Hollow,” was
associate producer on “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” co-producer on
“Kidnapped,” and executive producer on “Haunted” and “The Titanic.”
Kleeman joined MGM/UA in
1993, where he was Executive Vice President of Production. He was responsible for overseeing the
revitalization of the James Bond franchise, beginning with “GoldenEye,” then
“Tomorrow Never Dies” and “The World Is Not Enough.” He oversaw the development and production of
“Rob Roy,” “Hackers” and “The Thomas Crown Affair,” and was responsible for the
acquisition of “Leaving Las Vegas.”
While at MGM/UA, Kleeman also developed “Cold Mountain,” “Heartbreakers”
and “The Pink Panther.”
In 1999, Kleeman left MGM/UA
to work with Robert Redford, developing strategies for Redford’s future
Sundance Entertainment Ventures. He also
served on the Board of Directors of The Sundance Channel.
In 2005, Kleeman co-created
and was show-runner for “Misconceptions,” a multi-camera sitcom for The
WB. In 2006, he wrote a single-camera
comedy, “Roll with It,” for Fox Television and, in 2007, wrote a one-hour drama
pilot, “Sleeping Beauty,” for ABC, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick. He also returned to MGM/UA as Executive Vice
President of Motion Picture Production.
In September 2008, Kleeman
joined David Dobkin as President of Big Kid Pictures. In 2010, he wrote a one-hour pilot for Warner
Bros. Television, based on the film “Time After Time.” He also executive produced “The
Change-Up.” Kleeman was executive
producer on the single-camera half-hour series “Friends with Benefits,” which
aired on NBC in 2011.
Kleeman also served as an
executive producer on the acclaimed feature drama “The Judge,” which Dobkin
directed, and, most recently, the reboot of the classic comedy “Vacation,”
starring Ed Helms.
In August 2012, Kleeman
became President of Ellen Degeneres’s company, A Very Good Production. Their current roster includes the series
“Green Eggs and Ham” on Netflix; “Ellen’s Design Challenge,” on HGTV; “One Big Happy,”
“First Dates” and “Little Big Shots” on NBC; “Repeat After Me” on ABC; and
“Hello/Goodbye” on Travel Channel.
His upcoming projects
include producing, with Degeneres, the feature film adaptation of Hugo
Award-winning author Naomi Novik’s latest novel, the fantasy Uprooted.
Kleeman is a member of the
USC Cinema School faculty, where he teaches graduate courses on film
development, production and the studio system.
He has lectured at Yale, UCLA and Northwestern, and at several film conferences,
as well as taught Film Independent’s Screenwriter’s Lab. Kleeman has chaired Film Independent’s Spirit
Awards Nominating Committee. He has
served on the board of directors of The Sundance Channel, IFP West and The Los
Angeles Film Festival Advisory Committee, and served as a judge for the
International Thriller Writers Best Screenplay Award. Kleeman currently chairs the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Screening Committee. He is a member of The Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences, The Writers Guild of America, The Producers Guild of
America, The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and The British Academy
of Film & Television.
DAVID CAMPBELL WILSON
(Story) is the writer of “Supernova” and “The Perfect Weapon.” Wilson has worked on films with directors
such as Francis Ford Coppola, John McTiernan, and Walter Hill.
DAVID DOBKIN
(Executive Producer) revived
the hard-R-rated comedy genre when he directed the 2005 summer blockbuster
“Wedding Crashers,” starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. The romantic comedy about two buddies who sneak into weddings to pick up
women grossed more than $285 million worldwide at the box
office. Last year, Dobkin directed and
produced the drama “The Judge,” starring Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall and
Billy Bob Thornton. Duvall received both
Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
Dobkin made his
feature directing debut with the 1998 dark comedy “Clay Pigeons,” which marked his first
collaboration with Vaughn. The film also
starred Joaquin Phoenix and Janeane Garofalo.
Dobkin then proved his ability to combine action and comedy in the hit
film “Shanghai Knights,” with Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan.
Most
recently, Dobkin
produced the new comedy “Vacation,” with Ed Helms, Chris Hemsworth and Leslie
Mann, under his Big Kid Pictures banner.
In addition to his
feature film success, Dobkin is an award-winning commercial and music video
director. He was awarded a Bronze Lion
at the Cannes
Film Festival for his Sony
PlayStation spot, “Bell.” Dobkin has
directed music videos for such artists as Tupac Shakur, Elton John, John Lee
Hooker, Sonic Youth, and Blues Traveler, to name only a few. He won an MTV Video Music Award for Best
Dance Video for Coolio’s “1, 2, 3, 4.”
He also directed the smash hit music video for Maroon 5’s “Sugar,” which
went viral and as of now, has over 375 million views.
A native of Washington, D.C.,
Dobkin graduated with honors from New York University’s (NYU) Tisch School of
the Arts in 1991, with a BFA in film and television. He began his career six years earlier as an
assistant to the production manager on John Schlesinger’s “The Believers.” While pursuing his
film studies at NYU, he worked in development for Warner Bros. His NYU thesis film, “52nd St.
Serenade,” won several national and
international awards, including a 1992 CINE Golden Eagle Award and a Gold Award
at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
JOHN MATHIESON (Director
of Photography) is one of a group of filmmakers who emerged out of the
music video industry of the late ‘80s and ‘90s. He came up through the
traditional camera ranks and worked as a camera assistant to Gabriel Beristáin
for several years. Mathieson was first
recognized in 1998 for his work on the music video “Peek-A-Boo,” by Siouxsie and
the Banshees. Mathieson honed his craft
through the 1990s shooting numerous television commercials and music videos for
artists including Madonna, Prince and Massive Attack. He collaborated with John Maybury, director
of Sinead O’Connor’s music video “Nothing Compares 2 U,” going on to photograph
Maybury’s award-winning film “Love Is
the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon,” in 1998.
In the mid ‘90s, Mathieson
photographed two feature films for director Karim Dridi, for which he later
received the Legion of Honor’s Chevalier by the French government. He came to the attention of Tony Scott while
shooting television commercials for the London-based company RSA Films. After working as visual effects
cinematographer on “Enemy of the
State” for Tony Scott in 1998, Mathieson photographed the film “Plunkett & Macleane” in 1999 for
Jake Scott. Having seen Mathieson’s work
on “Plunkett,” Ridley Scott
invited him to work on his next project, beginning a regular collaboration
between the two. Mathieson has
photographed four films for Ridley Scott: “Gladiator,” “Hannibal,”
“Kingdom of Heaven” and “Robin Hood.”
In 2001, he was nominated
for an Academy Award for his work on “Gladiator”
and won the BAFTA Award for Best Cinematography in the same year. His second Oscar nomination came in 2004 for
“The Phantom of the Opera,” directed by Joel Schumacher. Mathieson’s other feature film credits
include Marc Evans’ “Trauma,”
Stephen Woolley’s “Stoned,” “K-Pax,” “Brighton Rock,” “Burke
and Hare,” “X-Men: First
Class,” Mike Newell’s “Great
Expectations” and “47 Ronin.”
Mathieson most recently
wrapped work on director Joe Wright’s action adventure “Pan,” set to open on
July 24, 2015. He is currently
re-teaming with Guy Ritchie on the director’s next feature project, an original
King Arthur epic, currently in production toward a July 2016 release.
Mathieson is a member of the
British Society of Cinematographers.
OLIVER SCHOLL
(Production Designer) is a film production designer most noted for
“Independence Day,” “Godzilla” and “The Time Machine.” His production design for Doug Liman’s
“Jumper” led to Scholl designing the director’s most recent feature project,
the 2014 action thriller “Edge of Tomorrow.”
Scholl
is currently at work on director David Ayers’ action adventure “Suicide Squad,”
set for an August 2016 release.
Scholl
was born in Germany and studied industrial design at Pforzheim University. An avid reader of science fiction novels and
aerospace books, his interest in the intersection of art and technology began
in his teens and continues to inform his work today. At the age of 15, Scholl’s first of many
illustrations was published in the German science fiction series Perry Rhodan.
Conceptual
design work for filmmaker Roland Emmerich led to Scholl’s transition into the
motion picture industry and his relocation to Los Angeles in 1991. He began working as a conceptual designer or
illustrator on such feature films as “Stargate,” “Batman Forever,” “Mission to
Mars” and “A.I. Artificial Intelligence.”
In
addition to development work on films, TV series, theme parks, video games,
music videos and commercials, Scholl continues to create artwork for science
fiction publications. His favorite
aspect of production design is exploring the visual opportunities environments
can offer to make a story come alive.
JAMES
HERBERT (Editor) has worked with director Guy Ritchie on a variety of
projects, most recently including the global blockbusters “Sherlock Holmes” and
“Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.”
Their previous collaborations include the features “RocknRolla” and
“Revolver,” the documentary “The Ego Has Landed,” and the ABC television pilot
“Suspects.”
Herbert most recently served as
editor on director Doug Liman’s action thriller “Edge of Tomorrow.” His additional film credits include “Gangster
Squad”; the independent features “The Sweeney,” for director Nick Love;
“Echelon Conspiracy”; “Lesbian Vampire
Killers”; the remake of the 1974 cult classic horror film “It’s Alive”; the
thriller “Devil’s Harvest”; the comedy “Dirty Sanchez: The Movie”; and Paul
Verhoeven’s internationally acclaimed World War II drama “Black Book.”
As an assistant editor, Herbert’s
credits include “Sahara,” starring Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz;
Wolfgang Petersen’s “Troy,” starring Brad Pitt; “Peter Pan,” directed by P.J.
Hogan; Jan de Bont’s “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life,” starring
Angelina Jolie; the James Bond film “Die Another Day”; and Tony Scott’s “Spy
Game,” starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.
DANIEL PEMBERTON (Composer) is an Ivor Novello-winning and multi BAFTA Award-nominated
composer. Previously best known for his highly acclaimed work in
British television, Pemberton has scored countless Emmy and BAFTA Award-winning
dramas and documentaries, such as “Complicit,” “Peep Show,” “The Game,”
“Upstairs Downstairs,” “Dirk Gently,” “Prey,” “Space Dive,” “Occupation,”
“Desperate Romantics” and “Hiroshima.” His debut
feature film score was for the period supernatural thriller “The Awakening,” in 2011, which
caught the ear of Ridley Scott. Scott,
heavily impressed by the standout work and what he called the composer's 10,000
hours in the garage, hired him to score his 2013 feature, “The Counselor.”
Pemberton collaborated again with Scott on the director’s first
foray into television, “The Vatican,”
in 2014. This work, alongside his
scores to other features such as “Blood,”
in 2012, “In Fear,” 2013, and “Cuban Fury,” 2014, led Pemberton to be named Discovery of The
Year at the prestigious World Soundtrack Awards in 2014.
Working across a wide range of musical mediums, Pemberton has
embraced everything from large scale orchestral and choral works to innovative
electronic sound design, live salsa bands to post-rock guitar line-ups. His
eclectic versatility, as well as a desire to create unique and iconic scores
for every project, resulted in the composer being chosen by Guy Ritchie to take
on the music for “The Man from
U.N.C.L.E.”
Pemberton is currently working with Academy Award-winning director
Danny Boyle on the eagerly awaited biopic “Steve Jobs,” starring Michael
Fassbender and Kate Winslet.
JOANNA JOHNSTON (Costume
Designer) earned Academy Award and BAFTA Award nominations for her work on
Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed biographical drama “Lincoln.” Her work on
that film also earned her nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics
Association and the Costume Designers Guild. As a costume designer, Johnston
has enjoyed a long association with Spielberg, on such films as “Saving Private
Ryan,” “Munich,” “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “War of the Worlds” and
“War Horse.” She first worked with him while assisting Academy
Award-winning costume designer Anthony Powell on “Indiana Jones and the Temple
of Doom.”
Earlier in her career, Johnston also assisted Powell on such films
as “Evil under the Sun” and Roman Polanski’s “Tess.” Her assistant
designer credits include working with Milena Canonero on “Out of Africa,” for
which Canonero was nominated for an Oscar. She also assisted Tom Rand on his
Oscar-nominated work on “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” and on “The Shooting
Party.”
Johnston has also collaborated frequently with filmmaker Robert
Zemeckis on features including “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,” “Back to the Future
Part 2,” “Back to the Future Part 3,” “Death Becomes Her,” “Contact,”
“Castaway,” “The Polar Express” and the Academy Award-winning “Forrest
Gump.” She worked with director Bryan Singer on the action adventure
“Jack the Giant Slayer” and the historic thriller “Valkyrie.” Her other
feature credits include M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense” and
“Unbreakable”; Paul and Chris Weitz’s “About a Boy,” for which she earned
a Costume Designers Award nomination; and Richard Curtis’ “Love
Actually.”
