canadian_turtle | Entries tagged with omg i met: actors

Last night I went to see In a Forest, Dark and Deep at the Vaudeville Theatre which stars Matthew Fox and Olivia Williams (and only them as it's a two-hander). The play centres around two siblings, Bobby and Betty, and their rather complicated relationship. It's supposed to be provocative and disturbing and while at points I did think: "They did not just go there...", let's be honest the storyline was also highly predictable and the 'shocking' twist near the end could be seen from miles away. Highlight by far to me was the dialogue given to the character of Bobby. It got a fair few laughs from the audience throughout, both when intentionally funny as well as after the more cringeworthy moments 'shocking' the audience into a sudden burst of laughter.

Unfortunately there were no jears to be seen at any point during or after the performance, I was a tad disappointed by that I have to say. However I thought Matthew was absolutely fabulous as Bobby in every other aspect (and he plays a mean air guitar!). Admittedly no matter how much I love Lost and Party of Five I did not have very high hopes for his live acting skills, but I was pleasantly surprised when proven wrong. Olivia Williams on the other hand I have to say was underwhelming. She was by no means terrible but I did not find her to have a very strong stage presence either. And her American accent was nowhere near as believable as in Dollhouse making me question for a while if I was watching the understudy instead.

The performance we went to was part of a What's On Stage outing and because of that was followed by a Q/A with Matthew, Olivia and writer/director Neil LaBute. It lasted for about half an hour and we got warned beforehand that the only questions allowed had to focus on the play and not anything else the actors have been involved in "such as TV-shows they may be known from". In other words: don't mention jears, the numbers, Dharma or randomly shout omgwtfpolarbear. For the most part of the Q/A it was Neil who was speaking though both Olivia and Matthew talked briefly about their opinion on Neil, the play and their characters as well. I recorded a few answers but I think the sound quality is fairly poor and I can't check properly right now because my headphone jack seems to be buggered (ie. when watching movies I can't hear the dialogue though the sound effects and background music sound flawless and when listening to music the sound wavers. Anyone familiar with this problem? I think it's the headphone jack but ugh I don't want to send my laptop away - who knows how long it takes to be returned?). I do have pictures, which you can find below. The programme looks fabulous and has a few fantastic photos in it so I included those as well (and completely unrelated but it mentions both Benedict Cumberbatch and David Tennant - can't escape those two!).

Afterwards some people moved towards the stage to see if they could get pictures and their programme signed (think Jeffster after the Comic Con panel) so we followed suit and I believe all tree of use managed to get our programme signed by both actors. They were both personalising which was fantastic (& Olivia said she liked my name, pronouncing it with a long z and very rolling r and Matthew had to ask me to spell it about 25 times before he got it right).

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Current Mood: lazy
Current Location: United Kingdom, London
Current Music: American Idiot OST - "Jesus of Suburbia"

I saw the second preview of Frankenstein at the National Theatre last night which had Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature and Johnny Lee Miller in the role of Victor Frankenstein. We sat in the second row from the front (towards the left which was the best spot imho as most of the stuff happened on that side) and had an absolutely brilliant view of the stage and actors. Now I won't say just yet if I hated or loved it, because that'd be spoilers (see Sandra, you can read your flist without getting spoiled!) but if you don't mind and are interested in a somewhat longish and detailed report of the show just click the cut.

( Official spoiler warning. Spoilers are within. Beware of spoilers. Etc. )

Obviously we made our way to the stage door afterwards and while waiting for Benedict we saw several people going in amongst which Alan Carr, Richard Curtis and Vinette Robinson (or Sally Sherlock as she was called as we didn't know her real name *hangs head in shame*). During the wait for Ben I managed to get signatures from Mark Gatiss and Catherine Tate again (as Season's Greetings is still running) and I got my Frankenstein programme signed by George Harris (also Kingsley Shacklebolt in Harry Potter) and Karl Johnson. Also saw Rebecca Hall come out but did not have anything for her to get signed (next time I'm bringing a notebook!). When ~~Sally Sherlock~~ Vinette came out I asked if I could have a picture with her which seemed to take her completely by surprise but she did not seem to mind, so yay that's the fifth Sherlock actor in my collection! I really regretted not having my DVD on me though as she would've been a cool addition on it as well (will not stagedoor without it again!).

Benedict came out at about 11.15 and was looking visibly tired after his performance. It was very sweet of him that he came out at all as he left his bike helmet inside and after he was done signing things disappeared through another exit so he solely came out of the stage door for the people waiting on him <3 I got my programme signed as well as my copy of Equity magazine with him on the cover and when we asked for a picture he said he'd rather not because he was tired, which was completely understandable. Highly annoying though were the people who still begged him for one as, polite as he is, he obliged to a few (though with obvious hesitation shown on his face and with each picture backing more towards the door).

Also, just to show how physical the role of the Creature actually is (or how serious Benedict takes his role - as I have obviously got no idea how Johnny will perform it): as a result of the crawling around and extreme and awkward movements that come with the performance of the character he has cuts on his feet and legs and last night alone popped two joints in his wrist and had a back spasm! Or as he summarised it "Suffering for Danny Boyle". It's very admirable that he continues to give such a physical performance regardless, but poor guy <3

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: United Kingdom, London
Current Music: American Idiot OST - "21 Guns"

I should probably start with explaining that I started watching Misfits a few weeks ago (a brilliant British show that all of you should check out btw!) and coincidentally just after I joined the main LJ-community for it I saw a post that the cast would be doing a Q/A at the Apple store in Regent Street. Sounds awesome, yes? Of course I went to check it out. And I met some lovely, lovely girls who's LJ-names I don't remember by heart at the moment other than

rabbitfacts and we happily chatted away the 3 hour wait (I didn't even get one third through my book and my initial plan was to finish it during the wait!) until the start of the Q/A. And we all scored front row seats, because we are awesome like that.

To not make this ramble too long I'll post some bullet points with some of the funny moments/comments made by the actors behind the cut. The full thing will be up on iTunes for free at some point so I'm not going through the trouble to decipher all my notes right now (I have so much to do before leaving for the Netherlands still…) for a full transcript. I've also made tons and tons of pictures from which I posted a small selection of reasonably okay ones behind the cut. They're not amazing because flash photography wasn't allowed (even though the lighting was flippin' purple!) and I uploaded them to Facebook which also resizes them, but I guess they're decent.

Oh and afterwards, while I was checking my e-mails at the Apple store, we saw a girl ran past us and in a moment of spontaneity we followed her and managed to catch the actors at a side entrance outside! It was brief and really busy but Lucy and I managed to get a pic with Iwan (sort of, I had to take it myself Ventimiglia style and I'm crap at that, but at least we're all three on it and Iwan looks adorable! ♥ Night was made, let me tell you that.

( Robert: 'When we were filming that scene on the boat I turned the other way to piss in a bottle but I mainly pissed on myself.' )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: United Kingdom, London
Current Music: Doe Maar - "Belle Helene"

When I went to the theatre yesterday Jude Law was sitting in the seat in front of me!!! Those of you on Twitter already saw me squeeing about this but I'll try to write a little more coherent about it today:

I went to the final performance of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as performed by the National Youth Music Theatre at the Village Underground. Now I couldn't stand the Johnny Depp movie and I normally don't know about amateur performances but I saw the NYMT perform a few of the songs during West End Live in June and was incredibly impressed (especially by the two leads Matt Nalton and Lizzie Wofford). I'm still not very fond of the storyline itself, but I was amazed by every single performance given during the show and couldn't believe the actors were only aged between 8 and 21 years. They were brilliant. And if I had gone earlier this week I would've probably tried to get a ticket for a second performance, they were just that good.

The show was set in the Village Underground in Shoreditch, which I hadn't been to before and looks like a space that might usually be a club? They had four rows of seats in a half circle around the stage area (which was just the floor really) and the actors used every inch of it. The barber shop was set up in the far back but the rest of the space varied in use between the judge's home, the pie shop and the general streets of London. Before the show and partly during the intermission the assemble was just wandering the "streets" looking very homeless and/or mental, which was a great way to set the mood. The show itself was just incredible. I really can not put into words how amazing it was. I was probably most impressed by Matt Nalton, who played Sweeney Todd, who looked and sounded as if he'd been performing on the West End all his life. I'm sure we'll be hearing plenty from him soon enough.

The reason Jude was there (I assume) is because he started off with the NYTM himself, many, many years ago (in fact, he's from Lewisham, were I currently live *random fact of the day*) and recently became a patron for them. Still, he currently lives in the States, there were ten performances all-together and loads of places he could've sat for each of them so the fact he was sitting in the seat in front of me during the one show I went to? Pretty damn awesome.

He was with two of his kids so I didn't bother him but that didn't stop me from glancing in his direction quite often. Partly because I had to look his way to catch what was happening on the stage in front of him, partly well, because he was looking so damn fine. He was wearing a tight grey t-shirt with very short sleeves making his upper arms look huge and his hair looked all crazy and amazing and he kept leaning on his hand giving him a dreamy look and... Okay I admit I was looking at him for pretty much 3 hours straight. I did see the whole show properly though, so it wasn't that bad. I can't help it he was sitting within my eye sight of the stage ;)

Afterwards I was a bit disappointed I didn't have any pictures (though I do not regret not bothering him, it wasn't the place for it) until I realised I already have his picture and signature from when I saw him during the the film festival in Toronto in 2006 XD

And that was my random celebrity encounter of the day story.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: United Kingdom, London