The first look of Paul Feig’s latest reveals a serious note to the holiday rom-com and Emma Thompson doing an accent.
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER – Christmas came early on Tuesday night when the Last Christmas trailer dropped online, revealing some new plot details to Paul Feig’s holiday-themed romantic comedy starring Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding.
The Paul Feig-directed project sees Clarke star as Kate, a disillusioned retail worker and self-described “mess” working as an elf at a year-round Christmas shop under the management of an exacting boss played by Michelle Yeoh. “I have nicknamed her ‘Lazy the Elf’ because she appears never to work,” Yeoh says loudly to a group of visitors to the shop in the trailer. When Clarke begins to bump into Tom (Henry Golding), she starts to confide in him — but starts to wonder about who he is when he disappears for short bouts.
The screenplay, penned by Emma Thompson, who also stars in the film as Clarke’s heavily Eastern-accented mother, sees Clarke play a somewhat meta role as a woman who nearly died due to a condition that isn’t revealed in the trailer. Clarke revealed that she suffered two life-threatening brain aneurysms over the course of her time starring in Game of Thrones in a story for the New Yorker in March. “I was really sick and I nearly died. I don’t tell people because they get weird, but I don’t think you’ll get weird,” Clarke says in the trailer. “I’m just scared all the time.”
Serenading viewers will be Clarke, who at one point in the trailer begins spreading Christmas cheer by singing “Deck the Halls” in front of a homeless shelter, and the late George Michael, whose music will accompany the film, named after his 1984 Wham! hit.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year, Feig said that he was attracted to Thompson’s Last Christmas screenplay because “it’s not necessarily about, ‘I’ve gotta find a husband, I’ve gotta find someone to complete my life,'” he says. “I much more like movies about people who have to straighten their own lives out, and then once they do, then the real prize at the end of the film is that you’ve actually fixed your life and put yourself in a better place.”
Last Christmas will release on Nov. 8.
While presenting Clarke with the Britannia Awards for British Artist of the Year on Friday night at the British Academy Britannia Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, “GoT” co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss recalled her auditions for the role.
Even after showing HBO executives the pilot for “GoT,” Clarke was asked to audition again for the president of the network.
The meeting took place in “HBO’s corporate theater, which was large, dimly lit and empty except for us two and the president of HBO,” Weiss said. “We were smiling. He wasn’t. It was quite possibly the least inviting audition environment we had ever witnessed.”
After Clarke’s initial reading, said president remained poker faced.
“Emilia asked if there was anything else she could do to lighten the mood and David asked, ‘Can you dance?’ And without missing a beat, Emilia did the robot,” Weiss said. “She did it with commitment and she did it well…and even the president had no choice but to smile. She got the job 10 seconds after she left the room and the two of us ran to tell her before she left the building because letting her get on an 11-hour flight home without knowing seemed like cruel and unusual punishment.”
In her acceptance speech, Clarke suggested that Weiss and Benioff “deserve their own bravery award for hiring someone whose biggest job up until than was catering parties dressed as a Snow White.”
I’ve added some photos to the gallery as well:
Gallery Links:
- APPEARANCES > 2018 > Oct 26: 2018 British Academy Britannia Awards – Red Carpet
- APPEARANCES > 2018 > Oct 26: 2018 British Academy Britannia Awards – Show
- APPEARANCES > 2018 > Oct 26: 2018 British Academy Britannia Awards – Press Room
VARIETY – “Game of Thrones” and “Solo: A Star Wars Story” star Emilia Clarke will be on the jury of the Official Competition of the 62nd BFI London Film Festival, which runs Oct. 10-21. Another “Thrones” star, Natalie Dormer, is on the fest’s First Feature Competition jury, which hands out the Sutherland Award.
Joining Clarke on the Official Competition judging panel are “Mamma Mia” star Dominic Cooper and actress Andrea Riseborough, whose credits include “Birdman” and “Black Mirror.” Also on the jury are Daily Mail journalist Baz Bamigboye; Cairo Cannon, the producer of Carol Morley’s “Out of Blue,” screening as a Special Presentation in the festival; and Gonzalo Maza, the producer and screenwriter of Oscar-winner “A Fantastic Woman.” Director Lenny Abrahamson, Oscar nominated for “Room,” is the jury president, as previously announced.
Dormer, whose recent credits include “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” is joined on the First Feature Competition jury by jury president Francis Lee, director-writer of the BAFTA-nominated “God’s Own Country”; production designer Maria Djurkovic, who was Oscar-nominated for “The Imitation Game”; Will Poulter, whose recent credits include “Maze Runner: The Death Cure” and “The Little Stranger”; Rotterdam Film Festival programmer Inge De Leeuw; and rapper, comedian, actor, screenwriter and radio presenter Ben Bailey Smith, a.k.a. Doc Brow.
The jury for the Documentary Competition section, which presents the Grierson Award, is headed by documentary producer Simon Chinn, who won Oscars for “Man on Wire” and “Searching for Sugarman.” Joining Chinn are documentary director Lucy Cohen, BAFTA nominee and winner of last year’s Grierson Award for “Kingdom of Us”; the director and critic Charlie Lyne, whose film “Lasting Marks” is a Short Film Award nominee at this year’s festival; BAFTA-nominated director, producer and cinematographer Daisy Asquith (“Queerama,” “After the Dance”); and radio and television presenter Anita Rani.
The president of the Short Film Competition is director Rungano Nyoni, whose film “I Am Not a Witch” was in the First Feature competition in the festival last year, won the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British writer, director or producer, and is the U.K.’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2019 Academy Awards.
Nyoni’s fellow Short Film section jurors are director Ayo Akingbade (“Tower XYZ,” “A Is for Artist”); Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy, a.k.a. the filmmaking duo Desperate Optimists (“Helen,” “Who Killed Brown Owl”); musician and composer Oliver Sim from the Mercury Prize-winning British indie pop band The XX; and BAFTA Rising Star Award nominated actress Anya Taylor-Joy, who starred in Sutherland Award winner “The Witch” as well as “The Miniaturist” and “Split.”
The winners will be revealed in front of a public audience on Oct. 20.
EW – The first footage from the final season of Game of Thrones is here (below). HBO revealed a surprise video Sunday night touting the premium cable network’s 2019 lineup. Included in the trailer is footage from both the previous season of GoT and a few glimpses Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington in the highly anticipated season 8.
Let the countdown begin. pic.twitter.com/kW4mesXStQ
— HBO (@HBO) August 27, 2018
Also in the mix: A first look at True Detective‘s long-awaited season 3, Meryl Streep joining Big Little Lies season 2 and the return of Veep following its hiatus for star Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ cancer treatment. The footage aired in front of the season finale of Sharp Objects.
One big title absent from the 2019 trailer: A first look at Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen, which shot a pilot and recently received a series greenlight with a premiere planned for next year.
GoT returns for its final six episodes that will air during the first half of 2019. There have been reports over the weekend claiming the show’s return has been “delayed” to mid-2019 making not eligible for Emmys until 2020. Rest assured, “first half of 2019” means exactly that, and HBO expects the show will air all its episodes in time for the 2019 Emmy eligibility cut off.
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER – Han Solo is setting course for Cannes.
Solo: A Star Wars Story will be unveiled at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. The screening will occur May 15, 10 days before the Lucasfilm project’s official opening on May 25.
Solo stars Alden Ehrenreich as Han Solo and Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, as well as Emilia Clarke and Woody Harrelson. Ron Howard, who stepped in following the firing of Phil Lord and Chris Miller last June, directed the film.
Star Wars has had a presence at Cannes in the past. Both 2002’s Attack of the Clones and 2005’s Revenge of the Sith played out of competition at the festival. The previous three Star Wars films — 2015’s The Force Awakens, 2016’s Rogue One and 2017’s The Last Jedi — have had their world premieres in Los Angeles. Howard brought his Da Vinci Code to the fest in 2006.
Cannes is set to run May 8-May 19
Kit Harington joined in too, all for charity!
HUFFINGTON POST – To be a fly on the wall for that viewing party.
On Saturday in LA, actor Brad Pitt offered up over a hundred grand for the chance to watch an episode of “Game Of Thrones” with Daenerys Targaryen herself, Emilia Clarke.
Pitt’s bid of $125,000 was part of a charity event for J/P Haitian Relief Organization & Disaster Relief Organization, founded by Sean Penn to help relief efforts after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
The event was attended by celebs like Lena Dunham, Jason Segel, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Leonardo DiCaprio and Clarke’s “Thrones” co-star Kit Harington.
Pitt initially bid $80,000, then increased that to $90,000. After Harrington offered to join Clarke and the winning bidder, Pitt raised his bid to $120,000.
Unfortunately for Pitt (but fortunately for the people of Haiti), an unidentified individual won the auction by outbidding him and putting up $160,000 to watch “Game Of Thrones” with Emilia Clarke and Kit Harrington.
That’s a large sum to watch one episode, but ultimately for a good cause. By night’s end, the gala raised an astounding $37 million to fund J/P HRO’s relief efforts in Haiti.
