Shane Meadows on being a 'mad little Stone Roses fan', Gemma Arterton on perfecting her French, and actor Michael Shannon on working with rising indie director Jeff Nichols
Shane off his head
Trash wasn't quite at the premiere of Shane Meadows's Made of Stone last Thursday. Instead, I attended a very buzzy satellite premiere of the Stone Roses doc at the Hackney Picturehouse, where the raucous atmosphere of the Victoria Warehouse in Manchester was well captured by the live feed (one of 200 such events round the country) of the red carpet and post-screening Q&A. Mick Jones of the Clash described the Stone Roses as "a generational band" and said he wished Shane Meadows had been around to have filmed the Clash. The loyal band of This is England stars – shortly to star in another instalment, set in 1990 – were out in force, including Thomas Turgoose and Andrew Shim. Shimmy recalled how Shane had played him the Stone Roses on the set of A Room for Romeo Brass. "He converted me there and then," he said. "I was only 15 or something, but Shane wouldn't stop until I was hooked. It worked and I've listened to them ever since." And then Meadows himself ("Shane Medders", as his producer Mark Herbert likes to call him) talked about having himself appear in the documentary in his familiarly self-deprecating manner: "At first, I didn't want my big fat head floating around with no hair on it. But I couldn't get rid of myself, even if I just look a right prat, staring at a chalkboard with a load of songs written on it and getting really excited. Then I realised it's a portrait of myself as a 17-year-old, really, a mad little fan." The after-party must have gone on late up there, with A Guy Called Gerald on the decks. The film's DoP, Laurie Rose, replied to one of my tweets at 2.30am. Herbert himself managed to acknowledge me at the impressive time of 5.17am. Bob on, lads.
Mrs Bovery, c'est moi
As she told me in an interview for my forthcoming Sky Arts TV show, In Conversation, Gemma Arterton is learning French to take on her second role inspired by cartoonist Posy Simmonds. Following on from Tamara Drewe, the Gravesend-born star will play Gemma Bovery in an Anglo-French adaptation of Simmonds's comic-strip novel, directed by Anne Fontaine (Coco Before Chanel) and co-starring the excellent Fabrice Luchini (In the House). Gemma plays an English woman recently moved to a Normandy village on the trail of Flaubert. There, she falls, Madame Bovary-like, for a married Parisian publisher. Luchini has described Arterton as "une bombe anatomique Anglaise" but Arterton, who stars as a vampire in Neil Jordan's Byzantium this week, tells me she's determined to surprise her French hosts. "I've been on an immersion course in Brittany," she says, and tries out a few phrases on me. Her accent is pretty good and I must say it brings out a new glint in her eyes. "It's getting there, and although I don't think I'm quite good enough yet, I'm going back for more of these intense lessons and I hope I'll soon be able to act in French," she says. "The French love it of course and go all gooey about the little English accent, but I want to get it much better. I don't want any accent at all – I don't want them to even know I'm English." So, is she going the route trodden by Kristin Scott Thomas and Charlotte Rampling? "Well, it's something that has worked for them, certainly, and I'd be very happy to be thought of as classy. But it's about having a long career, isn't it? You can never stop growing as an actress, adding more skills, so I figured this would be a great opportunity." Bon courage, ma chère.
Out of the Mud…
Their partnership is fast becoming one of the most distinctive and mutually beneficial in cinema, a potent indie combo that has seen them rise from obscurity to big-buck deals. Director Jeff Nichols and actor Michael Shannon are collaborating for the fourth time on a movie to be called Midnight Special. "We're cooking something up," admitted Shannon to me while in London last week to promote his chilling performance in The Iceman. "It's not a movie about Creedence Clearwater Revival, I can tell you that much," he jokes. "It might lean in a sort of sci-fi direction but it's a big deal because Warner Brothers have come on board with $20m for the whole thing and it'll be our first studio movie." Nichols cast Shannon – who will shortly be seen as General Zod in Warners' Man of Steel blockbuster – in his debut film as director, Shotgun Stories, and continued the relationship into cult hit Take Shelter, with Jessica Chastain. In Nichols's current indie hit, Mud, Shannon took a smaller role but did not mind ceding lead duties to a bigger star in Matthew McConaughey. "Mud is a hell of good part but I don't think it was ever really mine," said Shannon. "I'm an actor, you know, so I like to act. If someone offers me a part and I'm free and I can do it, I take it. In Shotgun Stories, we made that for no money, for the price of the film stock and some batteries, I think. I was staying at Jeff's house, in his little sister's room, and there was a life-size replica of a human colon at the bottom of my bed for some school science project she was doing. So we've come a long way."
Edinburgh's uphill task
The Edinburgh international film festival, the world's longest running, is still going. Just. The announcement of its line-up last week hardly set the film world abuzz, so soon after Cannes. Time was when you could attend Edinburgh and wander up and down the streets with Sean Penn or Tim Roth or even once, I recall fondly, the late Ray Harryhausen. This year, the best you're likely to get is a glass of iced tea with Greta Gerwig. Since the film festival moved away from the other wassails in the city to its stand-alone dates in June (this year, 19-30), it has felt in terminal decline. Artistic director Chris Fujiwara, in his second year at the helm, is bravely trying to steer the event into a hub of youthful international cinema, but I fear that is not enough in the increasingly crowded calendar of the world's film festivals. Sundance London, I should think, does Edinburgh few favours. I've been a long-time supporter of Edinburgh and I'm sure there'll be a few gems hidden in its programme, but the view from here lacks a certain lustre. At least the Michael Powell award for British films is back. It'll be nice for Paul Wright's Cannes title For Those in Peril, set on the Aberdeenshire coast, to have a home-screening of sorts, and Mister John should be something to watch, the new film from Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy, whose eerie film Helen caused a stir in 2008.