Interview: Agyness Deyn on Her Breakthrough in 'Sunset Song', and How Modeling Prepared Her for Film

Jose here. Agyness Deyn doesn’t have a very long list of screen credits, she played Aphrodite in Clash of the Titans, narrated a Rihanna video, and appeared in Pusher. That will undoubtedly change once directors see her gorgeous work in Terence Davies’ Sunset Song where she plays Chris Guthrie, a Scottish farm girl trying to fend for herself in the years before WWI. It’s a performance made of composed emotion, endless inner strength, and an otherworldly quality that makes one think of great work by Olivia de Havilland and Ingrid Bergman.

Many people will know Ms. Deyn from her work as a model, back in the mid-aughts there wasn’t an issue of Vogue where she didn’t appear. With her pixie cut, effortless chic and strong personality she brought a “punk/rock” edge to modeling. Since 2012, she’s been focusing her attention on film and Sunset Song is her first leading role.

I sat down to speak to Ms. Deyn about working with Terence Davies, her favorite actresses and how her life in the runway prepared her for her work on film.  Read the conversation after the jump...

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Posterized: Jack O'Connell

In a curveball for "Posterized" which usually looks at major movie stars, let's talk about the 25 year old rising star, Jack O'Connell whose fame is entirely dwarfed by his co-stars (Julia Roberts & George Clooney) and his director (Jodie Foster) in this weekend's big release, Money Monster.

Though he's recently headlined a $100 million hit (Angelina Jolie's Unbroken), and two critically lauded indies (prison drama Starred Up & the wrenching nail-biter '71) he isn't exactly a household name. (I met him once at a party for Unbroken and while Angelina Jolie and some of his co-stars were holding court with well wishers he was keeping a low everyman profile near the bar -- you definitely wouldn't have recognized that he was the star of the picture -- but was friendly and humble about that big opportunity and showcase when approached.)

Cut to May 2016. With his new film opening, will people even know he's "that guy from Unbroken" when they catch him as the desperate threat crashing Clooney's finance show in the new thriller (see the trailer)? (Given how long O'Connell has been working overseas, breaking through as so many young Brits have on the television show Skins, perhaps it's a whole different fame ball game in the UK? UK readers will have to tell us.)

But in the meantime, tell us: how many of his pictures have you seen? All the posters are after the jump...

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Review: Love & Friendship

Anyone who’s seen a film by Whit Stillman knows him to be an accomplished social satirist, continuing the legacy of authors like Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, and of course Jane Austen. In fact, the English writer is at the center of one the most sardonic exchanges in all of his films, when one of the characters expresses “I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism” when asked if he has read any of Austen’s works. Like the Romantic author, Stillman captures the wants, desires and fears of the haves as they desperately try to grab onto a world the have-nots are trying to infiltrate. In films like Metropolitan, Stillman wonders if the upper classes only let someone from a lower class to share their space as means of experimenting, or amusing them in their endless ennui. In Damsels in Distress he explores the notion of people constructing strict societal divisions in all aspects of their lives, such as in college. More...

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Thank Link It's Friday

Vanity Fair meet Millicent Simmonds, a young deaf actress starring in Todd Haynes next film Wonderstruck
Film Independent if you are very rich and can afford $150+ to see a live screenplay reading, Hannah and Her Sisters is being performed tonight in Manhattan. Olivia Wilde directs an all star cast including: Bobby Cannavale, Rose Byrne, Uma Thurman, Michael Sheen, Maya Rudolph, and Salman Rushdie. (Love all those ladies but I'll save my pennies to see two fully staged Broadway shows on discount for that price. Jesus)
Oscars YouTube has released a bunch of conversational videos with the team behind Beauty & The Beast for its 25th Anniversary
Decider Joe Reid remembers gay romcom The Broken Hearts Club (2000)
The Film Stage interview with Terence Davies about Sunset Song (2016) now playing
Vulture why X-Men Apocalypse has so little buzz

 

Stage Buddy Nico Tortorella, of Younger fame, tests his comic chops out on stage in "Crude"
Nick's Flick Picks is revisiting the 1996 Cannes Festival, day by screening day. First up was Oscar nominees Ridicule (1996)
Film Forum (NYC) is screening several films based on the work of Noél Coward starting today including Design for Living, Bunny Lake is Missing, and Brief Encounter
Rolling Stone on a newly restored X rated Japanese anime from the 70s, Belladonna of Sadness
Talk House a comic strip review of a comic book movie (Civil War) - this is really fun
THR George Miller talks about his past Cannes jury stints (this next week he's leading the jury) and Oscar night for Mad Max Fury Road 
Interview Magazine unearths a Laura Dern interview from 1990. Great photos. 

Off Cinema
Monkey See lovely piece on reading to your children and the power of spoilers with a Star Wars slant
Madonnarama Madonna will be honoring the late Prince with a performance at the Billboard music awards on May 22nd
Vox on progressive US's citizens frequent threat to move to Canada -- hard to do!
Mic LGBT magazines have an unfortunate habit of lily white male covers, straight and gay. Here are 100 suggestions for LGBT people of color who'd look great on magazine covers. 

Body Positivity
This topic seems to be in the air right now -- and god knows who couldn't use it? -- so here are two good links on insecurities and self-discoveries  
Buzzfeed "Wrestling taught me how (not) to be a man"  
Towleroad "I am a Man..." is there strength in revealing our insecurities? Or just camarederie? 

This is Funny
I don't know who did it though I'd love to give credit -- maybe it's from here? -- but I LOL'ed 

More Captain America Funny: In related unexpectedly amusing news, the US Army confirms that it would indeed owe Steve Rogers 66 years of back pay after he was thawed out in Captain America: The First Avengers; Pajiba reveals a list of every "Chris" that is not part of the Marvel-verse; Over at Funny or Die, thanks to Tony Hale, Civil War Reenactments now mean a completely different thing...It's not a hobby it's a lifestyle!

Random News To Go
• Godzilla 2 has been pushed back to 2019. Way to strike while the iron is hot, Warner Bros. Five years between movies? Strange.
• It's not official official yet but Lupita Nyong'o is reportedly in talks for Marvel's Black Panther, assumed to be the superhero's love interest
• We dreaded it and it's now official: Agent Carter, Marvel's most joyful current property (and they have so many now on TV and film) has been cancelled. In much happier news, The Real O'Neals (absolutely adorable and super funny - please tell me you're watching) has been renewed. Here's a bunch of other new cancellations and renewals.

Misty Copeland Gets the Biopic Treatment

Kieran, here. It was announced today that a biopic of ballerina Misty Copeland is currently in the works at New Line Cinema. Based on Copeland's own memoir "Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina," the film will chart Copeland's rise to fame as the first black principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, despite a delayed beginning--she didn't start taking ballet until age 13, which is extremely late compared to other dancers. The project will be penned by Gregory Allen Howard, who scripted Remember the Titans and the upcoming theatrical Harriet Tubman biopic (not the Viola Davis project, though Nathaniel was correct in wishing that those projects would merge). No director is attached to the project as of yet.

News of this project means an opportunity for a black actress to take center stage (no pun intended) in a major motion picture, which shouldn't be a rare occasion but feels like it in the current cinematic landscape. [More...]

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