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Post by DizzyMissLizzie on Oct 22, 2011 17:11:09 GMT -5
what a charming man that Mr Friend is  |
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Post by kcknight on Jan 28, 2012 12:22:16 GMT -5
Rupert Friend stars in Potter's Brimstone at Arcola, 4 MayDate: 27 January 2012 Rupert Friend will star in the first major London revival of Dennis Potter’s controversial play Brimstone and Treacle, which opens at the Arcola Theatre on 4 May 2012 (previews from 2 May). Renowned for being banned by the BBC in 1976, Brimstone and Treacle's examination of middle-class suburban paranoia, xenophobia and insularity is, according to press material, “as revealing and relevant today as it was then”. It was written for television by Potter as part of the Play for Today strand. However, it was withdrawn before transmission, and not broadcast until 1987. In 1977 Potter adapted it for the stage and it premiered at Sheffield Crucible. The play centres on Mr and Mrs Bates, a middle-aged, middle-class, North London suburban couple are struggling to care for their only daughter, Pattie, left severely disabled following a hit-and-run car accident. Out of nowhere, an apparently respectable young man arrives on their doorstep to change their lives forever... Rupert Friend returns to the stage following his 2010 West End debut in The Little Dog Laughed to play Martin Taylor. His film work includes Five Days of War, Lullaby for Pi, The Kid, Chéri, The Young Victoria, The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, Pride and Prejudice and The Libertine. Amelia Sears directs. Her credits include The Last Five Years (Duchess Theatre) and Pedestrian (Bristol Old Vic, Underbelly and national tour). She was resident staff director at the National Theatre in 2007/2008, has worked extensively alongside Katie Mitchell internationally, and as associate director to Michael Grandage on Twelfth Night (Donmar West End), Iain Glen on Ghosts (Duchess Theatre), and at the Royal Court. Brimstone and Treacle is being produced by SEArED, the company created by London-based actor Alex Waldmann, who has appeared in productions at the RSC, National and Donmar, among others. Recent projects include co-producing the world premiere of Rose by Hywel John starring Art Malik and his daughter Keira at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Tom Wainwright's Pedestrian, a co-production with Bristol Old Vic. Brimstone and Treacle runs in Arcola Studio 2 until 2 June. Further casting is still to be announced. www.whatsonstage.com/news/theatre/london/E8831327680970/Rupert+Friend+stars+in+Potter%27s+Brimstone+at+Arcola,+4+May.html
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Post by kcknight on Mar 6, 2012 18:23:22 GMT -5
 RUPERT FRIEND: AVOID THE LIMELIGHT RUPERT FRIEND was never the cheeriest sort when photographed with ex-girlfriend Keira Knightley. So when asked at the First Light Film Awards to advise youngsters starting out, the 30-year-old, who dated Keira for five years, came clean about his image. “I don’t know anything about coping in the spotlight. I cope badly, that’s why I never go in it,” he told Day & Night. “But I wouldn’t advise people to stay away. Some love it – you have to find what you love.” Unusually smiley Rupert, who presented an award at the bash at the British Film Institute on London’s South Bank, added that he would have loved to have made a film at the age of nine like one of the winners. “Think where I’d be by now if I’d done that!” We can’t quite picture you as the British Macaulay Culkin though, Rupert... www.express.co.uk/features/view/306503/Rupert-Friend-Avoid-the-limelight |
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Post by kcknight on Apr 30, 2012 19:26:37 GMT -5
New interview: www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/rupert-friend-there-is-no-other-way-of-acting-than-to-become-the-person-7697694.htmlRupert Friend: 'There is no other way of acting than to become the person'01 May 2012 Several films and a high-profile romance shot Rupert Friend into the spotlight. These days, back on the London stage, he prefers a quieter life Rupert Friend asks to meet me at a farm café in Dalston, east London, near to where he lives. There are chickens on the roof laying eggs, which are used in the sandwiches. We sit in a greenhouse, surrounded by wild flowers, while it pours with torrential rain. There are thunder claps and lightning strikes. "It's so peaceful," says Friend, 30, wearing a Beanie hat. "I grew up in the Oxfordshire countryside so this café is as close as it gets." Friend, who, much to his annoyance, was best known as Keira Knightley's boyfriend for five years, until they split up in 2010, is starring in the London revival of Dennis Potter's controversial play Brimstone and Treacle, at the Arcola Theatre. The foreboding weather is a fitting backdrop to our discussion of his latest dark character, Martin Taylor, who wheedles his way into the suburban household of Mr and Mrs Bates. They are caring for their severely disabled daughter, who in one scene, he shockingly rapes. "The description that Potter gives is somebody who is or imagines himself to be a demon," says Friend – who seems far more of a nature boy than the Devil in real life. This is the actor's first stage outing since his well-received West End debut at the Garrick Theatre in 2010, playing a closeted film star in Douglas Carter Beane's comedy The Little Dog Laughed. Despite a string of films in which he has starred with Johnny Depp (The Libertine, 2004) Michelle Pfeiffer (Chéri, 2009), Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria, 2009), Friend craves quiet, nature and DIY. He is particularly excited about building his own house in east London at the moment. "I started out training with the builder as a labourer two years ago and now I'm doing it all myself," he says. "It's like glorified DIY – I'm renovating it all myself." He feels at home rehearsing the Potter play in the tiny Arcola Theatre. The dilapidated warehouse with peeling walls and open pipe work is, he says, "completely my taste". "It's not like you are going to be in a plush seat with an ice cream", he adds. As often as he can, he goes to the Highlands to stay with a friend who "built his house". "At Christmas his tin roof flew off so I went up there to help him put it back on in a blizzard," says Friend. "I've never thought it was a good idea to act back-to-back. If you are going to have any chance of replicating life, you need to live it. I also never forgot something Johnny Depp said to me, which Marlon Brando said to him, 'You only have so many faces in your pocket.' I really admire artists who take the time to recharge their batteries and not continually call on it. I think you can spot tired and jaded artists quite quickly." Brimstone and Treacle was written for television and banned by the BBC in 1976 for its provocative content, before Potter adapted it for the stage. Friend had to come up with an extreme past for his life story, which he wrote in the first person and read to the rest of cast, as suggested by director Amelia Sears. "It entails physical and sexual abuse, neglect and a certain amount of religious indoctrination." He is also a con man so Friend has been watching films about con men – Six Degrees of Separation, The Talented Mr Ripley and House of Games. "Is it method acting? It's about imagining you are somebody else," says Friend. "That is as far as I can get in terms of a mission statement." Performing the play in an intimate theatre space such as the Arcola, which is the size of a front room, "is about implicating and involving the audience in a horrific set of circumstances", says the actor. "The other actress who isn't in the rape scene walked out today. She didn't want to be there." Although this doesn't bode well for audience members, he says that the play is as relevant today as it ever was. "My character also encourages the dad to admit to his incredible racism, bigotry, Right-wing leanings and pushes him into a place where hatred is celebrated." Friend, a relative new comer to the theatre, has done far more films. He was plucked from London's Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts in 2004, to make his big-screen debut in a supporting role as Depp's lover in The Libertine. "I'd never seen a film camera before. So it was a huge learning curve in front of one of the greatest screen actors ever. I had the greatest teacher ever – even if he didn't know that." He met Knightley on the set of Pride and Prejudice a year later when he was playing Mr Wickham and was suddenly thrust into the paparazzi spotlight as the pair started dating. He still insists on skipping over any questions about Knightley; the two made a pact never to mention each other in interviews even when they were together. He went on to play Lieutenant Kurt Kotler in the 2008 film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Prince Albert in the 2009 film The Young Victoria with Emily Blunt. Later in the same year he played Pfeiffer's lover in Stephen Frears' film, Chéri. "I only met her the day before we started filming. Again, it was equally daunting because the next day we were pretty much naked and in bed together. I mean Cat Woman for God's sake! She can still do that thing with her tongue by the way." Since then he has The Kid and Lullaby for Pi – as well as 5 Days of War last year. Recently Friend actually lived on a film set in an apartment in Berlin while making the upcoming feature Meet Me in Montenegro due to a tight budget. "I'm playing the comedy role of the best mate of a guy who goes on a crazy adventure to Montenegro. It's like a less funny version of Rhys Ifans in Notting Hill, and not Welsh," says Friend. "The entire crew was six, less than this play. They couldn't afford a set nor somewhere for me to live. I'd come out of the shower in my towel, and there would be the cameraman in my kitchen, making coffee. Then we would put me back into bed, turn the camera on and start." In another upcoming film, Renee, Friend plays a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, David McKenna, who takes in a self-harmer and addict (Kat Dennings) to get her clean. "The real McKenna produced the film so I had access all areas to the guy I'm playing. I lived in his pocket and then turned him into an English version. From his true story a real-life charity was formed called To Write Love on Her Arms, which has a big following of depressed American teenagers," says Friend. In order to research the role Friend got himself locked up in solitary confinement in a prison in Florida and attended NA and AA recovery meetings all over London. "I went to recovery meeting rooms in venues like church halls – I found the honesty very inspiring," he says. "I phoned people in recovery who I knew before deciding to do this. I said, 'Look, do you think this is an abuse of trust?' And they said, 'To be honest with you, most addicts would be grateful if you were able to represent a meeting honestly because every time they do it in films it's crap.' I said, 'Yes, but I don't want to say I have a drug problem when I don't.' They said, 'Well don't speak. You don't ever have to say anything. You don't even have to say your name.' So I went in character and didn't speak. My first impressions were that one guy was going to knife me but he came up to me and hugged me." Lunch break is over and Friend gets up to return to rehearsals at the Arcola. "There is no other way of doing it than to become the person," he says. "I don't know how else you would do it." 'Brimstone and Treacle', Arcola Theatre, London E8 (arcolatheatre.com) 2 May to 2 June |
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Post by DizzyMissLizzie on Nov 13, 2012 17:49:56 GMT -5
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Post by DizzyMissLizzie on Dec 18, 2012 3:51:26 GMT -5
Join Homeland star Rupert Friend in voting for Dr Mick Homeland star Rupert Friend is calling for more people to join him in voting for SpecialEffect Director Dr Mick Donegan to lift the regional TalkTalk Digital Heroes Award for 2012. The actor, whose credits include Pride & Prejudice and The Young Victoria, is urging people to make a simple online vote for Dr Mick, who’s pledged that if he wins the award of £5,000 it will be used in its entirety to help improve the quality of life for disabled people. "Dr Mick is one of the most selfless people I have ever met," said Rupert, who's a Vice-President of the charity. "He makes people's lives better. He has my vote - please give him yours.” Dr Donegan’s Oxfordshire-based charity use computer technologies like eye-control and brain control to help everyone from wounded servicemen to children with life-limiting conditions to enjoy a better quality of life. The TalkTalk Digital Heroes Awards, in conjunction with Citizens Online, is the only awards of its kind to celebrate outstanding people who are using digital technology to benefit their communities. TalkTalk has shortlisted the three most deserving candidates from each of the UK’s twelve main regions and are opening up the final vote online to the public. The individuals with the most votes from each of the twelve regions will be honoured at a ceremony at the House of Commons judged by a panel that includes UK Digital Champion and dotcom entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox. It only takes a few seconds to vote for Dr Mick at www.talktalk.co.uk/digitalheroes/region.php?region=south_east------- www.specialeffect.org.uk/pages/news142.htm
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Post by kcknight on Jul 18, 2013 19:49:36 GMT -5
Congratulations to Rupert on his Emmy nomination! Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series for Homeland. Best of luck, Rup.
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Post by DizzyMissLizzie on Jul 18, 2013 22:33:39 GMT -5
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Post by DizzyMissLizzie on Aug 18, 2013 15:10:13 GMT -5
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Post by kcknight on Sept 24, 2013 10:04:20 GMT -5
New interview If there were industry awards for inscrutability, then Rupert Friend, with his tight lips and gently teasing, taunting right eyebrow, would undoubtedly sweep the board. The 31-year-old British actor, who was nominated for an Emmy at Sunday night’s ceremony in Los Angeles, may have missed out on a gong this time (to Dan Bucatinsky for his role as the journalist James Novak in Scandal) but he is perfectly cast as the enigmatic “black ops” assassin Peter Quinn in Homeland. Indeed, such is the secrecy surrounding the show’s storylines, and so firmly is Friend following the diktat not to reveal any details of what fans can expect from season three, the CIA would be proud. “In season two he was a gun for hire — literally — and in season three he is working more full-time for the CIA but still in a very underworld capacity,” he eventually hints, mainly just to quell my wheedling, I imagine. “His allegiances have potentially been redistributed to a sense of what is right, rather than just blindly following an order,” he continues. “He commits a mistake, which he has to then live with, certainly for the rest of the season, likely for the rest of his life. That’s a key moment, the difference between ‘I was just following orders’ — a Nuremberg-style defence — and him having a moral conscience.” With deflections this deft and foggy, he may want to consider running for political office in the future. For anyone who has been residing under a rock for the past couple of years, Friend joined Homeland for its second season, alongside fellow Brit Damian Lewis as the former marine-turned-Congressman-turned-suspected terrorist Nicholas Brody, Claire Danes as the talented but troubled bipolar CIA agent Carrie Mathison (who is also Brody’s lover), and Mandy Patinkin as her mentor, Saul Berenson. As audiences eventually discovered, Friend’s character, Quinn, while masquerading as an analyst, had actually been hired by the CIA’s director, David Estes (David Harewood) to kill off Brody — an order he never carried out. The season ended with an even bigger bang, though, as a car bomb decimated the CIA headquarters, killing more than 200, including Estes. While the show, a post-9/11 tale of paranoia and suspicion, garners accolades and awards, its second season was criticised by some for losing its way, and accused of having “credibility issues”. The writers have promised that the third season will be something of a “re-set”. “I think what they have gone back to is a more claustrophobic, psychological, spy-thriller feeling, more an exploration of the psyche,” says Friend. A few further facts have slipped out under the firewall too: Brody is on the run — unseen on screen for the first two episodes — Carrie is off her meds (again), and Saul is now the acting director of the CIA. In the grey-panelled, temporary CIA HQ — in reality, a studio set in a bunker-like building in Charlotte, North Carolina — I meet Friend, who is on a break from filming, six episodes into the 12-part season. He is casually dressed in jeans, a grey shirt and a zip-up hoodie, with a light smattering of stubble, and blood on his left hand. “Not mine,” is all he will say about that, damn him. Before joining Homeland — which has earned a devoted following, from the US and Europe to India, Israel and even Iraq —Friend was best-known for British roles, notably as Mr Wickham in Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice (opposite Keira Knightley, whom he dated for five years until they split in early 2005), and Prince Albert in The Young Victoria. Rupert Friend ‘I think they [the writers of Homeland] have gone back to a more psychological, spy thriller feeling, more an exploration of the psyche’ Playing Peter Quinn is not only a dive into American waters but also his first television role. “I hadn’t been excited by the cinema for a long time — going to it, or reading scripts,” he confesses. “It started to become apparent to me, a couple of years ago, that television in America was beginning to enter what I thought was the most exciting stage in its progression. It was reminding me what independent film was like here in the Seventies.” Not that he owns a television set himself. “I was a huge fan of Homeland’s first season, completely addicted, but I watched it all on 4oD,” he admits. Friend is, of course, the latest in a long line of British actors to head over the pond for television, rather than film roles. Aside from Lewis and former co-star Harewood (“His last day on set was really emotional … then we got absolutely shitfaced on whisky,” Friend recalls fondly), Andrew Lincoln is a couple of states further south, filming The Walking Dead in Georgia; Lennie James and Mark Strong are in Detroit making Low Winter Sun; Matthew Rhys is about to begin filming season two of The Americans in Brooklyn, and Michael Sheen will hit television screens next month as Dr William Masters in the racy new series Masters of Sex, set in Fifties Missouri. And though Friend still has those cheekbones you could grate cheese off, he looks healthier and less frighteningly thin than he has done at points in the past; the Southern lifestyle in sleepy North Carolina would appear to suit him. “It’s a really boring thing to say but I love being hot all the time. I really do love it,” he enthuses. ‘And I’ve discovered barbecue — they do a lot of pork products here, the pig is very popular. “And they have loads of different beers. They have this thing called microbrew. I don’t really know what that is but it means lots of different flavours, as far as I can tell,” he grins. “And they all drink Newcastle Brown. Do you think they know it’s a north-eastern working man’s proper drink?” he shrugs in wonder. Friend himself is firmly middle-class; he grew up in Stonesfield, a village in Oxfordshire, his father was a fine arts historian and his mother a solicitor. He was plucked from drama school to make his debut in The Libertine as Billy Downs, a young friend and lover of Johnny Depp’s Earl of Rochester, before landing the role of the dastardly Wickham in Joe Wright’s 2005 film adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic. His resulting relationship with Knightley made him prime paparazzi fodder, though the pair remained tight-lipped for five years about their relationship. It is not hard to imagine that there might be some relief in spending the eight months of the year which Homeland films for in the faraway, provincial US. But while he may not be harassed by paps in Charlotte, do his friends back home not pester him to let slip the plot of the show? “They are more interested in what the Bayou is all about,” he says. “They want to know about The South.” He has certainly done some research, and explains how Southern gentility is apparently a hangover from Sir Walter Raleigh. “Oh, and they all ask: ‘What are grits? And what are biscuits?’ Biscuits are scones,” he informs me, wisely. And in a show in which the element of surprise is paramount, does he not fear being bumped off and sent packing back to Britain, with its bad weather and inferior pork-based barbecue? “I genuinely love that the writers do what’s best for the story, and if something is becoming tired or predicable, they get rid of it,” he insists. “No one wants to be flogging some dead horse, so I trust them to blow me up when the time is right.” www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/homeland-is-back-with-a-bang--but-rupert-friend-is-giving-nothing-away-8836114.html |
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Post by kcknight on Sept 27, 2013 16:02:09 GMT -5
Early on in the third season of “Homeland” — which begins on Showtime on Sunday — the actor Rupert Friend, as the enigmatic black-ops agent Peter Quinn, hunches, shirtless, over a homemade explosive device. There is a stillness to Mr. Friend’s performance, a noiseless stoicism that only amplifies his character’s inscrutability: whatever Quinn is up to with that bomb (and in that moment, it’s fruitless to even guess), it seems extraordinarily unlikely that he’ll miss his target. Off-screen, Mr. Friend, 31, is relaxed and puckish. At breakfast on the Lower East Side, he eschewed a menu to order extemporaneously, chatted with the waitress in her native Italian, and gallantly selected an entree for his dining companion. (“She’ll have the frittata,” he announced, grinning.) Unlike Quinn, Mr. Friend is interested in cultural ephemera, especially books — he had recently finished John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” and was ferrying Christopher Hitchens’s “God Is Not Great” in his tote bag — but the two share a penchant for discretion and humility. “I am quite British about all that,” Mr. Friend admitted. “When you’re pleased with what you’ve just done, that’s when it’s unbearable.” In the previous seasons, viewers have witnessed Quinn in situations that might cripple ordinary civilians (if not physically, then emotionally). “Eating cold tuna fish out of a tin on a porch while two people are in love across a lake — I think that’s desperately lonely,” Mr. Friend said of one pivotal scene. But at the start of the third season, Quinn is beginning to deal with the psychological ramifications of his job: the tension between his training and his empathy, his patriotism and his self-preservation. The first two episodes have Quinn scrambling to reclaim his humanity before it’s lost. Alex Gansa, a creator and an executive producer of “Homeland,” suggested in a phone interview that one of the primary themes of the new season was “the cost of being an intelligence officer.” He believes there’s an addictive quality to the work. “The adrenaline, the quarry, the chase — it’s powerful stuff,” he said. He also acknowledged that Quinn was due for some kind of reckoning: “When is he going to realize what the lifestyle has cost him, in terms of his own family and his relationships to other human beings?” Mr. Gansa asked. Mr. Friend acknowledged the shift in his character and what was at stake. “I think that Quinn is potentially recognizing that as a very real possibility, and trying to head it off, trying to save himself from that fate,” he said. “He doesn’t want to end up a servant of the machine, some kind of automaton who, you know, pulls the trigger until the trigger’s pulled on him.” In Mr. Friend’s view, his character “is meticulously trained and doesn’t need anything but the essentials.” The actor would later send an e-mail to this reporter with a Frank Lloyd Wright quote he deemed germane to Quinn’s abstemious ethos: “The elimination of the insignificant.” Beyond “Homeland,” he is still best known for his roles in the historical dramas “Pride and Prejudice” (starring Keira Knightley, whom he dated from 2005 to 2010) and “The Young Victoria.” A native of Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, who trained in London, he made his film debut in 2005 in “The Libertine,” playing a friend and lover to Johnny Depp’s John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester. In his latest feature, “Starred Up,” which played at the Toronto International Film Festival, Mr. Friend portrays a soft-spoken prison therapist. In an e-mail interview, the film’s director, David Mackenzie, echoed critics when he called the performance “brave, edgy and sometimes very vulnerable.” He said he cast Mr. Friend in part because of his work on “Homeland.” Mr. Gansa said Mr. Friend brought “a very specific, laconic intensity to the role.” He added: “A lot is said with quiet. That’s a gift. It’s hard to find.” His “Homeland” co-star Claire Danes, in an e-mail from Charlotte, N.C., where the show is filmed, wrote that “Rupert is playful and boyish on set, but incredibly focused, present and generous when we get into a scene,” adding: “He’s a bit of a nonconformist — he will ride his motorcycle to work in the pouring rain — but it’s never for show. He’s got a truly creative, curious, adventurous spirit.” Forking a plate of scrambled eggs and salad, Mr. Friend admitted to a bold streak, to favoring experience over observation. “It’s funny, because the tourist glimpse — the voyeur, the outsider thing — has always frustrated me,” Mr. Friend said. He spoke of the British tradition of a gap year: a meandering sabbatical between high school and college in which grand experiences are logged and self-actualization is achieved — at least theoretically. For Mr. Friend, the experience demanded total immersion, the kind of participatory exploration heralded by the journalist George Plimpton, whose exploits included getting his nose pulped by the boxer Archie Moore. The real stories, Mr. Friend saw, were lived, not imagined; a little discomfort could yield tremendous rewards. “I knew I didn’t just want to go and point and stare at the Taj Mahal,” he said. Instead, he chose to try a series of odd jobs on the Cook Islands, near New Zealand, because they were “the diametrically opposed point from the U.K.: I needed to get as far away as I could.” Like many young men, his journey of understanding was momentarily waylaid by a girl — a Californian, whom he pursued on a brief stopover in Los Angeles. “This makes me sound like such a playboy, but I had been a waiter in England, and she left her number on a napkin,” he said. “I’d never had something quite so romantic happen to me.” Arriving in Los Angeles, he walked to her house. “I turned up all sweaty and dusty and she nearly dropped dead,” he recalled. “Obviously, in L.A. no one walks around with a big backpack, apart from bums. Which she probably thought I was.” It didn’t work out with that particular girl, but now Mr. Friend applies the same kind of pluck to his work: why write lovelorn letters when you can materialize, damp and earnest, on a doorstep? “That idea, it’s carried over into acting in a way,” he said. “The more I’m committed to finding a way to genuinely be immersed in someone else’s life, the more enjoyment there is in it. I’ve never been interested in smoke and mirrors and cutting corners. I’d rather just do it for real.” www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/arts/television/rupert-friend-of-homeland-on-the-value-of-experience.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 |
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Post by kcknight on Nov 20, 2013 21:41:16 GMT -5
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Post by DizzyMissLizzie on Nov 9, 2014 16:10:48 GMT -5
INTERNATIONAL INTERVIEWS (TV), THE SUNDAY GUARDIAN, TV (INTERNATIONAL) ALL
THE RUPERT FRIEND UNEDITED INTERVIEW #TV #HOMELAND #PETERQUINN  “You don’t have to be a prick to be a good actor” Note: This interview was taken by Nikhil Taneja (@tanejamainhoon) for The Sunday Guardian. An edited version of the interview can be found here: goo.gl/3W1FnJ. Read my interview with Joshua Malina of Scandal/West Wing here: goo.gl/0FrRV8My interview with Anatol Yusef of Boardwalk Empire is here: goo.gl/drIeeF. Coming up next: My interview with FRIENDS creators David Crane & Marta Kauffman. INTRODUCTION Homeland is one of the most addictive shows on television and even with its ups and downs, it never fails to make for a compelling watch. While I’ve always been a fan of the fantastic work that Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin do, my biggest reason to watch the show over the last season has been Rupert Friend, who plays Peter Quinn in such a raw, gritty, unflinching yet impossibly humane manner that when Homeland sometimes gets campy, it gives the show a very solid grounding in reality. I’ve also seen Rupert Friend in a bunch of movies over the years, and he’s pretty much been the very best thing about them. From The Young Victoria to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas to the recent Starred Up, Rupert’s played all sorts of roles from tragic to terrible to tender, and he’s really kicked ass in all of them. I’ve also seen his brilliant short film, Steve, which stars Colin Firth, Keira Knightley and Tom Mison, and it just speaks volumes about how he thinks and what sort of a fascinating mind he has. (Watch Steve here: itunes.apple.com/us/movie/steve/id494748556)So I was quite excited about getting to speak with him. Also, given that he’s going to star in Agent 47 next, and is perhaps one of the most talked about young actors in Hollywood, I was really looking forward to the interview… until I began my research by reading up on his old interviews. And then I got pretty intimidated. Because Rupert’s earlier interviews portray him to be an actor who’s not at all fond of interviews, is distinctly uncomfortable and agitated at questions he doesn’t like, and may even pull up the journalist if they don’t have a background on him. Luckily, I had already seen some of his stuff, and I’m pretty diligent when it comes to research… but I became even more cautious before the interview, and to be honest, just a wee bit nervous. But my anxiety was unfounded because when I spoke to him, the very first thing Rupert asked was if my mother was alright now. (There was a slight confusion in the interview timing earlier – I had been at the hospital with my mother when I got the call for the interview and I had to request for it to be done earlier. P.S. My mother’s better now, thanks J) But that put me at ease instantly, because hey, if Rupert’s *that* compassionate and actually cares about checking up on your mother, then you’re going to do just fine. And the interview wasn’t just fine, it was quite excellent. Rupert made for a fantastic interviewee; he was informal, fun, self-deprecating every now and then, very interested in answering the questions in as much precise detail as he could, and more importantly, as you would realise from the answers, seemed to have a good heart to him, which is always such a great thing, interview or no interview. He even said during the interview that he may have “mellowed down” a bit, with a bit of a laugh. So I had a pretty great time speaking to him, even though I kept calling him Peter on every second question (it’s a testament to his acting that I believe it’s Peter and not Rupert!) tanejamainhoon.com/2014/10/28/rupertfriendinterview/
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Post by summer on Dec 2, 2014 0:50:39 GMT -5
It's sad that there's barely any news about Rupert. He barely does press too. Sigh.
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Post by DizzyMissLizzie on Dec 4, 2014 16:23:16 GMT -5
Congrats! Homeland actor Rupert Friend is engaged to his girlfriend Aimee Mullins, multiple sources confirm to Us Weekly.  Mullins, a double-amputee who competed as a collegiate and Paralympic sprinter before becoming a model, let the news slip of their engagement on Tuesday, Dec. 2, at the L'Oréal Paris Women of Worth awards. PHOTOS: Best engagement rings The L'Oreal spokeswoman was presenting an honoree when she was given a congratulatory shout-out on the engagement, a source tells Us, adding that the blonde was also calling Friend, who portrays Peter Quinn on the hit Showtime series, her "fiancé" on the red carpet. PHOTOS: Celebs who said "I do" this year Before splitting in 2011, Friend was previously linked to his Pride & Prejudice costar Keira Knightley for five years. Read more: www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/rupert-friend-and-aimee-mullins-are-engaged-2014312#ixzz3Kxz5BZgU |
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