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Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool: Red Carpet Interviews with Bening and Bell
The London Film Festival will be back in London’s cinemas starting from Wednesday, October 10th to Sunday, October 21st. The line-up will be published soon, but in the meantime here's our round up of one of the most interesting movies that were part of the last year programme: Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool.
The film presents the story of Gloria Grahame in two times: when she fell in love with Peter, played by Jamie Bell and in the second part the period during the production of The Glass Menagerie. It’s an intimate portrait of a fading star whose health is falling and who wants to find comfort in her former fiancée.
We had the chance of interviewing both the main stars, Jaime Bell and Annette Bening. We asked American Beauty’s and 20th Century Women’s main star Bening:
You played so many interesting roles in your career. I can think of 20th Century Women, American Beauty. Why did you decide to play this role? How did you prepare to interpret Gloria and do you feel some sort of responsibility to portray a real person, such an icon?
I did. I think I always feel that incredible sense of responsibility, but in this case… the character is a real woman, she was real. The book is really beautiful, that Peter wrote after his relationship with her ended and he described to me what it was like. He said that the book poured out of him. He needed to try to make sense of it, and don’t we all in a way? Don’t we all had one of these relationships that consumed us and it operates on such a deep level inside of us that it transcends the intellect? I thought we really had a go when he wrote this book and that was what brought us together initially. Barbara Broccoli is such a great producer, along with Vaines. We really had fun. It’s all about the people at this point, because I’m just there in the process and then I hand the movie over, and they do everything else.
We asked Jaime Bell:
The dance scene in the movie is impressing. You famously played a dancer. How was it like to play again an artist that gets to dance in a scene?
I really think the film in some ways isn't very much of a stretch. The character is the working-class guy, he is an actor and so am I. We share some similarities. The scene wasn’t rehearsed, we shot it four times and it came by very easy. Shooting this kind of movies can get heavy and intense and that was the really great moment of levity, where we can get to enjoy ourselves and had fun.
We also had the chance of interviewing the real-life Peter and he was really satisfied and overwhelmed with this on-screen rendition. He thought that it’s really an accurate adaptation. He was involved in the first stage of production and he became a really good friend with the cast.
The movie is now available on DVD. Have a look at the trailer:
