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NEWS
EXTRAS
EXTRAS
Vinyl
, which premieres later this month on
Sky, is shaping up to be one of the HBO
events of the years: the showrunner is
Boardwalk Empire
’s Terence Winter, while
the executive producers are Mick Jagger
and Martin Scorseses; the latter, who
worked with Winter on
Boardwalk Empire
,
also directed the pilot episode and is keen
to take a more hands-on approach with
this television project. Bobby Cannavale
(
Ant-Man
) heads the cast as Richie
Finestra, a record company executive
hustling to make a living in the diverse
New York music scene of the ‘70s, while
Olivia Wilde (
Love The Coopers
) plays his
wife Devon. The ensemble also includes
comedian Ray Romano, Juno Temple and
Mick Jagger’s son James. Keep an eye out
for it on DVD later this year.
A
lexander Skarsgård fully understood
the risk involved with playing the
kind of bloke who would sleep with
his girlfriend’s teenage daughter. “It could
easily have been too predatory, where you
just hate him from the first scene to the last,”
explains the 39-year-old actor.
Skarsgård plays Monroe, the slacker
boyfriend of Kristen Wiig’s Charlotte, whose
attention turns to the easy availability of her
15-year-old daughter Minnie. “I don’t think
I could have done it if we hadn’t found the
right young actress to play Minnie,” adds the
True Blood
star, who immediately shared
chemistry with Brit actress Bel Powley, now
23, in
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
. “Bel was
amazing. Without her, it would have been
too easy for the audience to just sit back
and go ‘Creep! Get away from him’, and that
wouldn’t be interesting.”
Set in San Francisco in the mid-70s,
straddling the dying days of the hippy
movement and the birth of punk rock, Powley
relished her costumes, despite her severe
bangs, high-waisted flares and turtleneck
sweaters. “I couldn’t wait. I remember
going to some disco and then trying on
the costume and starting to feel a bit more
like Minnie,” says Powley. “Then sitting in
a kitchen in the production office with a
hairdresser and she hacked off my hair into a
fringe. As soon as it happened, everyone was
like ‘Oh, Minnie’s here’.”
Meanwhile, Skarsgård grew a moustache.
“I’d seen lots of photos of my dad during
the ‘70s when he had a moustache, so that
was my inspiration,” says the son of veteran
Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård.
Despite the movie’s decidedly adult theme,
Powley encourages teenage girls to sneak
in to cinemas anyway. “I think it’s healthy
for young women to see a normal young
woman’s body on screen, a body that isn’t
airbrushed, that isn’t tanned, that isn’t too
skinny, and that makes them love themselves
and their bodies.
“Also I don’t want teenage girls to feel
alone anymore in their sexual development.
I feel like it’s such a taboo subject. Hopefully
our film will open a conversation about it.”
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
is out now.
SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
is a brutally honest and often funny
story about a 15-year-old growing up in the ‘70s.
By Gill Pringle
CLARKE’S KIWI EXPERIENCE
Everest
tells the harrowing true story of one of
the worst ever disasters on Mt Everest, which
saw eight die during a blizzard in 1996.
Australian actor Jason Clarke plays the
lead role of pioneering Kiwi mountaineer Rob
Hall and he was determined to be as true as
possible to the real-life character. First off,
he traveled to New Zealand to meet Hall’s
widow Jan – played in the movie by Keira
Knightley – and their daughter Sarah. “It was
quite extraordinary,” says Clarke. “We had two
or three days together, and I’d never heard
their side of the experience – and this was 17
years later. During those couple of days, we
shared a lot, even though there was a lot of
nervousness to begin with on their part.”
Clarke also spent time climbing with Guy
Cotter (played in the film by fellow Australian
actor Sam Worthington), who survived the
disaster and took over the running of Hall’s
business Adventure Consultant after his death.
“Guy was one of Rob’s best friends, and he’d
known him and climbed with him for a long
time,” says Clarke. “Finding a friendship with
Guy, and finding a way to understand that New
Zealand sense of humor, which is very different
to Australia, really helped inform me.”
For his part, Cotter was impressed by
Clarke’s portrayal of his old friend. “Jason
was very protective of Rob’s credibility and
his reputation,” Cotter says.
“He wanted to make sure the
film didn’t try and simplify the
story for dramatic effect, and
steer away from the real truth,
because Jason felt particularly
close to the character and did
a great job of portraying Rob’s
strengths and his approach to
doing things.”
Everest
is out now
on DVD and Blu-ray