I don't recall the last time Angelina hosted a screening for a feature film so this is a big deal for her.
Some interesting side bits: The director of
The Impossible, Juan Antonio Barona, and his
screenwriter Sergio Sanchez, both of whom Angelina praised lavishly in
her remarks, are from Spain.
Salt producer Lorenzo diBonaventura, who is also in London for the filming of
Red 2, mentioned in an
interview last week that they were talking to writers for
Salt 2. In an earlier
interview with Collider he discussed trying to get another Spanish director, Miguel Angel Rivas, for one of his films, possibly an action thriller. It is tempting to try to connect the dots and see a future collaboration brewing in there somewhere.
From
Baz Bamigboye,
Daily Mail
Angelina
Jolie said she was in tears — and so was Brad Pitt — when they watched
The Impossible, a powerful new movie about the Boxing Day tsunami.
Stephen
Daldry is another gold-standard supporter of the film, based on the
real-life ordeal of a family caught up in the tragedy that tore through
the Indian Ocean eight years ago.
Ewan
McGregor and Naomi Watts play the parents of three boys, one of whom is
portrayed by Tom Holland. Holland, 16, spent a season playing the title
role in Daldry’s magnificent Billy Elliot musical at the Victoria
Palace.
Jolie and Daldry hosted screenings of
The Impossible — on Sunday and Tuesday, respectively — attracting
well-deserved attention for the film in what has become a very busy
awards season.
Famous friends: Angelina Jolie and Tom Holland, 16, star of The Impossible
Photos from Jared as marked
In Summary:
Her remarks -
“We all remember the tsunami and
we all remember watching it on TV, and it seemed so far away and so
unbelievable that this could happen and hundreds of thousands of people
lost their lives, and yet for all the stories that we read, I think for
so many people it still felt so far away.
"What the filmmakers have done, they have made [the tsunami],
through this one family’s story, personal. We feel like we are in it
and we travel through it, and it changes us. That is quite an
extraordinary thing and I think that is due to the brilliance and the
elegance of the script by Sergio Sanchez. You can see the detail and the
care that he took when you watch this, and the respect for this family
and all of the families involved. When you take a true story like this,
to handle it with such delicacy is really to be commended. It is also
masterfully directed by J.A. Bayona, and there will be many scenes where
you will be sitting here watching it thinking, 'How did they do that?
That is insane! I don’t understand.' I was asking them myself and they
said, 'Don’t you know? Aren’t you an actor?' And I said, 'It is just
beyond imagination.'
"The true testament of any film is what you walk away with,
and I think in this film you walk away with more empathy, with a greater
sense of connection to your fellow man, and you want to run home and
hug your kids, and tell the people you love that you love them. There is
no greater message and this is an extraordinary film."
Jolie called Naomi Watts’
performance “extraordinary and beautiful” and then told the film’s young
star Tom Holland — a 2012 Screen Star of Tomorrow — “I am a huge fan of
yours and I hope I get the chance one day to work alongside you. You
are just amazing.” (The lad smartly responded, “the feeling’s mutual”.)
"Evan, I have known you for years and you are one of my favorite
actors and I’ve always loved to watch you, but I watched this and I
didn’t recognize you... To say it is one of the best performances of the
year, really doesn’t give it credit, because it doesn’t feel like a
performance. It’s from such an honest place and so deeply emotional. You
rarely see this emotion from a man on screen and I called him later to
tell him how much he made me cry. I was crying, and I looked over at
Brad [Pitt] and he was crying. It’s just really, really powerful. As an
actor, I’m in awe."
Among the 30 guests -
Mike Figgis, Peter Capaldi, Noomi
Rapace,
Game Of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie
Evan McGregor, Tom Holland, screenwriter Sergio G.
Sanchez and composer Fernando Velázquez.
Guy Lodge for In Contention, Wendy Mitchell for Screen Daily, Joe Utichi for Deadline
@FilmBayona
Ayer noche Angelina Jolie se encargó de presentar personalmente en un pase especial de la película en Londres. Qué maja!
@SergioKikinan
@kristapley
From
HitFix
She praises the "extraordinary emotional depth" of McGregor's performance
Angelina Jolie and Ewan McGregor at last night's screening of "The Impossible" in London.
Credit: Jon Furniss
By Guy Lodge
Monday, Nov 19, 2012 2:56 PM
LONDON - You may remember that two years ago,
Julia Roberts attracted some attention in awards-watching circles when she held a private industry screening of "Biutiful" in aid of
Javier Bardem's
Best Actor campaign -- not because she was in any way involved or
invested, but simply because she believed the performance was worthy of
recognition, and wanted more of her colleagues to see it. We'll never
know how much of an influence Roberts' efforts had, but together with
the attached publicity, they certainly didn't hurt: Bardem came from
behind to score a nomination for a challenging, little-seen foreign
film, and in a competitive category to boot.
This trend of peers effectively campaigning for each other looks set
to continue, and we had this season's first instance of it last night at
London's Soho Hotel, where Oscar-winner
Angelina Jolie hosted an intimate reception and screening of "
The Impossible" -- chiefly to talk up the performance of her friend
Ewan McGregor. (Before you hit IMDb to jog your memory: no, they've never worked together.) I was lucky enough to be in attendance.
McGregor is being campaigned in the Best Supporting Actor category
for his performance as a distraught father seeking to reunite his family
in Juan Antonio Bayona's harrowing survival drama set around the Boxing
Day tsunami in 2004.
Naomi Watts is firmly in the hunt for a Best Actress nomination, while 16 year-old newcomer
Tom Holland
-- who is being campaigned, with unusual and commendable integrity, in
the lead race -- will surely receive his share of breakthrough and young
actor citations. But McGregor's work has, thus far, prompted less
awards talk for a turn that's no less impressive than that of Watts --
though his character comes into focus later in the action.
Still, it's a performance that will find many admirers among those
who stick through Bayona's viscerally moving, technically astonishing
film -- in particular, one scene in which an emotionally threadbare
McGregor barely holds up one half of a phone conversation is Oscar
clip-ready, and I mean that in the least cynical way. Yesterday, Jolie
offered this tribute to the actor:
"I have known you for years and you are one of my favorite
actors and I’ve always loved to watch you, but I watched this and I
didn’t recognize you... To say it is one of the best performances of the
year, really doesn’t give it credit, because it doesn’t feel like a
performance. It’s from such an honest place and so deeply emotional. You
rarely see this emotion from a man on screen and I called him later to
tell him how much he made me cry. I was crying, and I looked over at
Brad [Pitt] and he was crying. It’s just really, really powerful. As an
actor, I’m in awe."
Of course, Jolie didn't limit her praise to McGregor while
introducing "The Impossible," a film she quipped "I wish I had something
to do with." She also offered warm words of admiration for Holland, who
was also in attendance, together with the film's writer and composer.
(Bayona and Watts couldn't make it, but will be in London for tonight's
UK premiere.) Jolie continued:
"What the filmmakers have done, they have made [the tsunami],
through this one family’s story, personal. We feel like we are in it
and we travel through it, and it changes us. That is quite an
extraordinary thing and I think that is due to the brilliance and the
elegance of the script by Sergio Sanchez. You can see the detail and the
care that he took when you watch this, and the respect for this family
and all of the families involved. When you take a true story like this,
to handle it with such delicacy is really to be commended. It is also
masterfully directed by J.A. Bayona, and there will be many scenes where
you will be sitting here watching it thinking, 'How did they do that?
That is insane! I don’t understand.' I was asking them myself and they
said, 'Don’t you know? Aren’t you an actor?' And I said, 'It is just
beyond imagination.'
"The true testament of any film is what you walk away with,
and I think in this film you walk away with more empathy, with a greater
sense of connection to your fellow man, and you want to run home and
hug your kids, and tell the people you love that you love them. There is
no greater message and this is an extraordinary film."
"Beyond imagination" is apt choice of words: it's the film's skill in
realizing an experience effectively unimaginable to anyone but its
survivors that distinguish it from the rest of the prestige pack this
season -- as physical, sensation-based filmmaking, it bears comparison
with the work of Spielberg and Cameron. Summit has posed themselves a
challenge by releasing "The Impossible" in the thick of December, but if
enough Academy members make time to watch it, many of them will find
themselves as profoundly affected as Jolie.
I had a brief chat with McGregor, and seeing him in typically genial,
relaxed mode only highlighted how contrastingly frayed and beaten he is
in the film; he described it as the most challenging work of his
career. McGregor has, of course, never been recognized by the Academy --
partly, I suspect, because he excels at playing everymen. As a natural
movie star, his best performances tend to look easier than they are: he
was as worthy as his Oscar-winning co-star Christopher Plummer in
"Beginners," for example, but it was an evocation of anguish too subtle
-- too casual, even -- to register with voters. In "The Impossible,"
he's crying out louder -- let's see if they hear him this year.
From
Screen Daily
19 November, 2012 | By Wendy Mitchell
Angelina Jolie came out in strong support of
her old pal Ewan McGregor by hosting a London screening Sunday night of
JA Bayona’s tsunami drama The Impossible.
The film, which premiered in Toronto, is already a
record-setting box office hit in Spain and gets its UK premiere this
week via eOne.
At an intimate Soho Hotel screening attended by the
likes of Mike Figgis and Peter Capaldi, Jolie welcomed guests and
gushed with praise for the film.
“We all remember the tsunami and
we all remember watching it on TV, and it seemed so far away and so
unbelievable that this could happen and hundreds of thousands of people
lost their lives, and yet for all the stories that we read, I think for
so many people it still felt so far away.
“What the filmmakers
have done is they have made it – through this one family’s story –
personal. And we feel like we are in it and we travel through it, and it
changes us. That is quite an extraordinary thing,” she said.
She
praised Sergio Sanchez’s script for its “brilliance and elegance” and
added “it is also masterfully directed by JA Bayona, there will be many
scenes when you’re watching that you’ll be thinking, how did they do
that!?…it’s beyond comprehension.”
Jolie called Naomi Watts’
performance “extraordinary and beautiful” and then told the film’s young
star Tom Holland — a 2012 Screen Star of Tomorrow — “I am a huge fan of
yours and I hope I get the chance one day to work alongside you. You
are just amazing.” (The lad smartly responded, “the feeling’s mutual”.)
But she saved her strongest praise for McGregor.
“Ewan
I’ve known you for years, you’re one of my favourite actors and I’ve
always loved watching you. But I watched this and I didn’t recognise
you.
“It’s strange to say it’s one of the best performances of
the year - it really doesn’t give it credit, because it doesn’t feel
like a performance. It comes from such an honest place, it was so deeply
emotional, you rarely see this kind of emotion from a man on screen…As
an actor I’m in awe.”
Jolie closed her remarks by saying: “The
true testament of any film is what you walk away with, and with this
film you walk away with more empathy, with a greater sense of connection
to your fellow man, and you want to run home and hug your kids and tell
them you love them. There is no greater message.”
From JoliePittStop
