London Critics’ Circle Film Awards Noms: Q&A With Jeremy Irvine & Phoebe Fox.

17th December 2014

By Daryl Bär.

Some interesting nominations in there. Jeremy you’ve been to our awards, you know how it all works. What did you think of that collection there?

JI: I always think with the Critics’ Circle you get a kind of selection you don’t see in the other awards ceremonies. It feels much less political in a lot of ways you get a very real critics choice (aptly named). So yeah, a lot more of the kind of indie movies that aren’t maybe as mainstream as you see in a lot of the other awards ceremonies.

How about you Phoebe? Anything stand out for you that you’ve seen?

PF: I really liked Mr. Turner. I mean, it’s sort of coming up in everything so it’s kind of a more obvious choice. (Also) I love Julianne Moore. I think she’s brilliant and sometimes a little underrated so it’s nice to see her nominated for two things.

Jeremy were there any names that stood out for you on the list of nominations?

JI: Yeah, I think I’m fully on the Eddie Redmayne bandwagon. I think both him and Benedict Cumberbatch are two of the nicest men working in Hollywood especially from the British side of things. They are wonderful ambassadors for us British actors working in Hollywood.

There’s some very brave acting going on, I think that’s what impressed me most when I saw The Theory of Everything. When you take on a role like that there’s a good chance that, “what if it’s done in bad taste”? As the actor you don’t have all that much control over that, you’ve only got your job to watch out for. It’s a very risky choice for an actor, which I think is what’s very admirable about what Eddie did.

Tell us what we can expect from The Woman in Black: Angel of Death.

PF: I think it’s quite a different beast. It feels less of a chamber piece. It’s 40 years later and we’re now in the Second World War which is great because the Second World War is scary enough and you get these two teachers, myself and Helen McCrory who are evacuating children out of London for their own safety but they end up in probably the most unsafe place they could possibly go to which is Eel Marsh House and it all goes wrong from there.

JI: It’s funny, each of these characters has their own ghosts and their own thing haunting them and that’s what I loved about the script when I first read it I phoned my agent and said this movie could stand up as a drama if you took the horror element out of it. I think that’s what makes this such a classy British piece of film making. It’s very different from the way that maybe the US does horror movies. Whereas with this, Susan Hill who has written the story for this one as well has written a wonderful drama with really in depth characters and then added this horror element into it.

How do you both feel about British drama? Are you both happy and positive about the future?

JI: Yeah, I feel like you’ve only got to look at every year at the awards season there’s another wonderful British movie there. I think we bring this wonderful subtlety to movie making which maybe is a bit of a rarity with some American filmmakers. So yeah, I think we’re in good stead.

PF: I completely agree. I think you just have to see how many American actors want to work over here. Yeah, I think subtle is a good word. I think also there’s less emphasis on “stars” which is nice. It’s great for people just starting out. You feel maybe you have a crack at working on a film even though you’re not a movie star. I think British filmmaking is getting to a really positive place. Not that it wasn’t before, but it’s got a sort of worldwide respect now.

Are you feeling it’s easier now that it used to be to get auditions in America?

PF: Very much for English men I think there’s a draw now. You have people who have broken the mold. People like Benedict and Tom Hiddleston have very much paved the way for a lot of young British actors. I think Americans are quite into Brit men so I think it is easier now.

JI: I think we’re very much in fashion, especially with some of these teen franchise movies. It’s seems like you have to have a British guy there somewhere, which I’m not complaining about and can go on for much longer as far as I’m concerned. It’s nice but on a serious note I think with our training, you start of learning Shakespeare and then they figure once you’ve got that you can do modern theatre. Once you’ve conquered modern theatre then you can do TV and film. Whereas a lot of the acting schools I’ve been to in L.A. to visit just study for film and I think that gives us a real grounded quality.

You just mentioned teen franchises. I think fans will be excited to see you in Fallen. How are things going on that?

JI: Good. I think the movie’s going to be finished in February; I saw it the other day. I’ve always been a bit of a skeptic with teen franchises but actually Scott Hicks isn’t like any other director that has taken on one of these movies before. It’s incredibly stylized. We used super high slow motion cameras for any of the bits that involve angels and nothing is “on the nose”, it’s all very subtle. Like The Woman in Black, there’s something quite classy about it.

Obviously The Woman in Black: Angel of Death is a Hammer production. Where you excited to be doing something for Hammer Studios?

JI: Yeah! I remember Helen McCrory saying, “I’m so excited just to be able to do a Hammer scream”.

PF: It’s an iconic British film brand. It’s exciting to become part of that history and to be a Hammer heroine is pretty cool. I might actually write that on my C.V.

This new film has a female lead and it does seem as if it’s about time this genre had a female presence. Do you feel the same way?

PF: I loved The Babadook. I think what a woman can bring to something is maybe that women are quite emotional actually and it’s a nice element to a horror film that it’s not just a woman running around screaming, but it’s a woman with a past and an emotional past that she’s driven by. Then at the same time I like the fact that I got to do a lot of running. In my mind I felt like I did a lot more action than is actually in there. It felt very active at the time. I think, hopefully when you start to get more women in horror leads the rest of the industry will follow the same lead.

JI: If you look at the teen franchises now you’ve got The Hunger Games, Divergent, all of them have these strong female leads which I think is something that is really emerging and I think between Phoebe and Helen, they are two of the strongest actors that I’ve been privileged to work with. They have this incredible strength that I think that if a male actor were to do that it would come off as disingenuous.

Is there anything else you guys are working on you wanted to tell us about?

PF: I’m doing a play. I did a version of A View From The Bridge that was on at the Young Vic earlier this year and it’s transferring to the West End, so I’m doing that in January.

JI: I’ve just finished Roland Emmerich’s latest movie about the Stonewall riots, a big gay rights movie set in 1969 New York, so I think that’s the one I’m probably most excited to see next year.

The Woman in Black: Angel of Death released 1st January.

The London Critics’ Circle Film Awards takes place 18th January.

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