Where Are They Now? Mark Strong

As the new Emma is being filmed, we recall Mark Strong, Emma 1996's dark and forceful Mr. Knightley. Mark has since made a career as a 'bad' man. His latest project is as the villainous Lord Blackwood in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. He also did a memorable turn as Archie in Rock n Rolla and as Prince Septimus in 2007's Stardust.

In Mark Strong Reveals Sherlock Holmes Secrets, Mark discussed not only his naughty, naughty character but also how the film will climax. Strong’s villainous role is as Lord Blackwood, a Satanist who uses fear to manipulate and grasp power. Strong says of the scowly bad boy, "There’s a touch of Dracula about him. He needed to have an element of showmanship about him by virtue of the fact that he’s trying to persuade everyone around him that he’s so in league with the Devil that he’s able to conquer death. I just wanted to make him an equal adversary of Sherlock Holmes."

We learn in My Secret Life: Mark Strong that Mark was born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia in Islington, north London, in 1963, to an Italian father and Austrian mother. He first came to prominence in the acclaimed Nineties BBC serial Our Friends in the North.

Sherlock Holmes will be released on Christmas Day in the States, and (perhaps) on Boxing Day in the UK. Read about Mark as Archie in Guy Ritchie's Rock n Rolla in this link. He also played Sir John Conroy in Young Victoria (2009) (with Amanda Richardson at right.) See his 40 sec. YouTube interview below.



See this YouTube Video of Mark as the evil Prince Septimus (To David Usher's Black, Black Heart.)



Read more about Mark in this post: Mark Strong: A Darkly Handsome Mr. Knightley

Where Are They Now? Carey Mulligan

We've seen her play Kitty in 2005's Pride and Prejudice (at right in photo on left), Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey, Ada Clare in Bleak House, and Rudyard Kipling's daughter in last year's PBS special, My Boy Jack. Carey Mulligan's star is on the rise. Praised for her performance as a 16-year-old in An Education, she is receiving accolades at the Sundance Film Festival this year. Currently touted as the next big thing, she promises she won't let the publicity go to her head.
Carey Reveals Herself to be the Next Winona or Maybe Audrey

Sundance "It" girl, Carey Mulligan.

Carey Mulligan Fan Site

Where are They Now? Matthew MacFadyen

Jane Austen fans know him best as Mr. Darcy, but Matthew Macfadyen has been busy lately. His turn as the rather lumpish plain-looking John Birt in Frost/Nixon (right) was well done, and American audiences will see him this spring as Arthur Clennam in Little Dorrit on PBS (below).
The Haagen Danz commercial featured in this YouTube video is not recent. But for those of you who wonder about Matthew's appeal to the ladies, just LISTEN to his lovely voice. Drool. I don't care if it is 20 degrees farenheit outside, cool me down with an ice cream, quick.

Where Are They Now? Sally Hawkins

The last time we saw Sally Hawkins she was tearing down Bath's Royal Crescent as Anne Elliot to claim Captain Wentworth (Rupert Penry Jones) as her man. Although we didn't like the ending, we generally liked this ITV JA adaptation. So, what has Sally been up to these days? As you can see from this trailer of Happy Go Lucky, she's quite adorable in this quirky comedy about a teacher named Poppy, for which she won the Silver Bear award for Best Actress in the Berlin Film Festival this year.



Can you spot another Jane Austen adaptation alumni in this trailer? Yes, it's Sylvestra Le Touzel, Fanny Price in 1986's Mansfield Park and Mrs. Allen in ITV's 2007 adaptation of Northanger Abbey.

Here's Sally in a July interview, speaking about the film, and looking fabulous in her loose, modern hairdo (in contrast to her bad hair days in Persuasion):

Posted by Vic, Jane Austen's World

Where Are They Now? Dominic Cooper

Mamma Mia! The Movie boasts two Jane Austen movie adaptation alumni: Colin Firth and Dominic Cooper.

The film is about a recently engaged young woman (Amanda Seyfried) who wants what every girl wants at her wedding: to be given away by her father. She reads her mother's diary and finds the names of three candidates (Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, and Stellan Skarsgard). All the men had a relationship with her mother (Meryl Streep) around the time she was conceived. And thus a plot was born. Throw in a few ABBA songs, and you have a musical. Dominic Cooper plays the fiancee, and from what I understand, his shirt is missing in over half the movie. In a recent interview, both Colin and Dominic made a few observations about their singing:

Firth said that the film had been “by turns delightful and mortifying”. He added: “Once I fully understood the script, which took a while, I did it on the basis that it was going to be fun. Then I got called in and found myself singing in front of Björn (Ulvaeus) and Benny (Andersson). It was sheer terror at that point.”

Firth had sung before, although almost all of his performances had taken place in the shower. “And I have never really sung as myself. When I’m singing Johnny Cash to myself, I’m really doing him.”

Cooper said that he had spent a lot of time pretending not to know any Abba. Then a former girlfriend sent him a VHS tape of himself singing Money, Money, Money, word perfect at the age of 13. “It’s sort of been the back-drop of my life,” he said. (Times Online)


Dominic has been a busy boy since he played Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility. According to IMbD, some of his upcoming movie projects include: David Copperfield (2008) (pre-production), Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2008) (post-production), An Education (2008) (post-production), and The Duchess (2008) (completed).

• Interview with Dominic Cooper
  

• Funny but scathing review of the movie in Living.Scotsman.com

• Click here for the worldwide release dates

• Update: A critical review of ABBA's music
  

Posted by Ms. Place

Where Are They Now? James McAvoy - From Atonement to Action Hero

In a recent Just Jared! post James McAvoy reveals that the six pack he sports in his new action movie,Wanted, is real. In just a few years, James has built a solid film career, wowing critics as Dr. Nicholas Garrigan in the Last King of Scotland, fluttering Jane Austen's heart in Becoming Jane, and playing the doomed lover in Atonement. James' role in Wanted represents his first foray as an action hero in an A-list movie. At the start of the film, James as Wesley Gibson, plays a mild-mannered office geek whose boring life is falling apart. He then learns that a father he had always assumed dead had recently been assassinated, and from that moment on Wesley's life is never the same again. Starring Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, who recruit Wesley into their assassin's camp, the buzz surrounding this film is that it's a winner. I adore drawing room comedies and foreign films whose plots are based on relationships, but even I am tempted to see the film when it comes out this weekend. To learn more about the movie, click on an interview with James in the first link, and the film's trailer in the second link. If you plan on seeing the movie, tell us what you think afterward!

UPDATE: The movie's a hit! Taking in over 51 million on opening day. Critics think that Angelina Jolie is the reason why people are flocking to theatres, but Janeites know better. The males might well be ogling Ms. Jolie, but their spouses and girlfriends, who did not need to be dragged along to see an action flick this time, are focused on James.

Interview about Wanted with James McAvoy



Movie Trailer

Read more about James and Wanted in the following links:

• James McAvoy is a Wanted Assassin

• Wanted review from Reuters.

• Being Authentic: James McAvoy on Film Acting
  

• James McAvoy: Los Angeles Times Entertainment

Posted by Vic, Ms. Place

Where Are They Now? Matthew Mania Still Alive and Well

It's been three years since Matthew Macfadyen played Mr. Darcy, but MM fever still affects a lot of fans. Darcylicious has merged with the Matthew Macfadyen fansite. Click here to enter the new site and listen to an interesting podcast of Matthew's voice taking on several accents. The site lists several of Matthew's upcoming or recently completed projects: Miss Marple, Incendiary, Ashes to Ashes 7, and Frost/Nixon. In the photo at right he is portrayed as Arthur Clennam in Little Dorrit, a BBC production.

Matthew plays opposite his real life wife Keely Hawes (Wives and Daughters) in Ashes to Ashes 7. In this photo he looks decidedly unheroic, but Keely still loves her man.