One of the better fan-obsession movies to come out in recent years, Roman Polanski’s 2017 drama “Based on a True Story” is, as the title implies, adapted from the real-life trauma suffered by French writer Delphine de Vigan following the publication of a highly personal novel devoted to her mother. The work is a best-seller but also brings out the trolls, who write her anonymous letters accusing her of having thrown her family to the lions. Depressed and suffering from writer’s block, Delphine is charmed when she meets Elle, an intelligent and sympathetic young woman who seems to understand her better than anyone else.

With a screenplay by Olivier Assayas, who was behind the hit movie “Personal Shopper” and starring Polanski’s partner in real life, Emmanuelle Seigner as Delphine and Eva Green as Elle, the film was made in just  12 weeks and premiered out of competition at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

Polanski spoke a little about the film before its release yesterday in Bangkok.

How did you get involved with this project?

Emmanuelle handed me Delphine De Vigan’s novel and told me, “you have to read this, this could be a film.” She was right! I reached out to Wassim Beji, the producer who retained the book rights. We met for the first time days prior to Cannes last year and everything unfolded incredibly quickly from that point on.

What appealed to you about the novel?

The characters and the peculiar and unsettling situations they find themselves in. These are themes I explored in “CuldeSac”, “Repulsion” and Rosemary’s Baby”. This is also a book that tells a story of a book, not unlike “Ghost Writer”.

How did Olivier Assayas become involved?

Olivier’s last two films were about women. I was familiar with his work, I knew that he had written for other directors, and that he was effective. So I was sure he would be able to deliver a great shooting script right out of the gate.

Did you always have Emmanuelle Seigner in mind to play the novelist?

Initially, we debated which role Emmanuelle would be best for, but as soon as we started writing, it became apparent that she was the perfect choice to portray the novelist. We therefore needed to find her counterpart, someone very unsettling. Eva Green immediately can to mind and you only need to see the film to understand why. I had been blown away by her performance in Robert Rodriguez’ “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For”. It was a wonderful experience working with Eva, but even more so working with Eva and Emmanuelle together. From the onset, Eva and Emmanuelle got along extremely well – which isn’t always a given between actors. Their friendship was a godsend.

Do you find it hard to direct the woman with whom you share your life?

It’s easier than … living together! [Laughs] What surprised me, with one much like the other, was how prepared both actresses were. And yet, they would receive the script piece-meal, which we were still tweaking whilst in production.  Emmanuelle and Eva were both consummate professionals and came to the table with excellent ideas. Emmanuelle was specifically interested in constructing a character which was a departure from her past roles.

What made you think of casting Vincent Perez as François, Delphine’s partner?

I have long been looking for an opportunity to work with Vincent Perez, he’s a friend. In the role of Francois, I wanted someone who resembled Delphine De Vigan’s real partner in life [François Busnel] who reminds me of Vincent. I thought of him immediately. We met and he quickly accepted the role. He instinctively knew how to balance the kindness and the distance that the character required.

You also cast Josee Dayan, Brigitte Rouan and Noemie lvovsky – who are all directors. Was that a coincidence?

I enjoy working with directors, as they are often very good actors and also generally very easy to work with. When writing a screenplay, I have a very clear idea of what my characters look like. So once we start casting, I seek actors that most closely resemble the image in my mind. Josee reminded me of a ‘tough’ book editor that I had once met. With Brigitte Rouan, it took longer. The actresses that we met with for this role didn’t fit my exact vision. One day, I fell upon a photo of Brigitte that perfectly corresponded with what I had in mind.

Have you met Delphine de Vigan?

Yes, of course. I met her as soon as Olivier and I started working on the adaptation. And then again, towards the end of the shoot. We wanted to shoot during the actual Paris Book Fair, and in order to do so we had to wait until March to capture these scenes in question. Whilst we were there, the organizers invited Delphine, Olivier and myself to meet with the readers. We experienced a warm welcome. The panel was very well attended – there were a lot of people – and when we asked who had read the book, two thirds of the room raised their hands, mostly all women. Delphine de Vigan wrote a story that spoke to women and it was not only important but also satisfying for me to create a film for them.

One of the world’s most important film events, the Berlin International Film Festival brought down the curtain for another year at the weekend after an enthralling 10 days of movies from all over the world.

Rookie female director Adina Pintilie from Romania took home the Golden Bear for her film “Touch Me Not”, which explores intimacy and sexuality among various people. The film also picked up the Best First Feature Award.

The Grand Jury Prize was awarded to another female filmmaker, Poland’s Malgorzata Szumowska for her latest feature “Mug”. Wes Anderson landed the Best Director Award for his latest stop-motion animation “Isle of Dogs”.

While it didn’t take home any awards, Lav Diaz’s latest film, the 230-minute-long “Season of the Devil” did win a great deal of critical acclaim. It also marks a departure in style for the Filipino auteur: “Devil”, he says, is a rock opera, albeit one without any musical instruments.

“When I make films, I never think of duration. The length of the film comes from the editing,” says Diaz of his latest oeuvre, which clocks in at slightly less than half the running time of “A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery”, the eight-hour work shown in Berlin back in 2016. Still, ‘Season of the Devil’ is almost four hours long, with long takes, and in black and white, which is not an easy style for the general audience to appreciate.

“Season of the Devil” takes the audience back the Philippines in the late 1970’s, when the country was under martial law imposed by President Ferdinand Marcos. Based on a true story and set in a remote village under military oppression, it shows how many characters who try to defy power of the military meet an unfortunate end.

“I asked Hazel to play a male soldier. This is part of the concept. The film is also conceptual. There’s also the ‘Janus Face’ guy, whose name is Chairman Narciso. He is a character that represents dictatorship. The character only sees himself,” says Diaz cryptically, referring to the casting of his regular actress Hazel Orancio as a military man who rapes women and tortures those who defy the military’s power. Filipino star Shaina Magdayao plays Lorena, a beautiful doctor who opens a clinic for poor people, but is later abducted by the military, while heartthrob actor Piolo Pascual portrays Hugo Haniway, Lorena’s husband, who is determined to find out what has happened to his wife.

“The songs have been around for a while and it’s good I can use them this time,” Diaz explains. “I wrote a lot of songs in the last quarter of 2016 so they were there when we entered the pre-production phase in September of that that year. Other songs were integrated during the shooting,” he says.

The songs, mostly lyrical laments sung a capella, are not only used to tell the story, but to reflect the political situation today back in the Philippines.

“Some of the songs were very different when I wrote them, but when I started shooting this film, I changed some lines, and changed some of the verses to fit the story”, he adds.

Yet even though there is no music, the form of “Season of the Devil” is similar to a traditional musical, where’s there’s choreographed dance. “We followed the musical format, the great orchestration, the very mani

cured movements,” he explains.

“First the actors rehearsed. I wrote the songs, then I recorded them, and sent them to the actors to practise.”

Given its veracity and knowing full well that the subject remains a sensitive issue in today’s Philippines, Diaz took his cast and crew to Malaysia for the filming.

“The story takes place when the country was under martial law. I witnessed it as a child in the Southern village where I grew up,” Diaz says, adding that history is now repeating itself.

“The military came and we witnessed it, and the same thing is happening again now. It’s a kind of cycle. Similar things are happening in other countries as well. Does any country in Asia have real democracy?”

Now that we live in a world seemingly ruled by authoritarian regimes Diaz feels it is his duty as a filmmaker to bring about change.

“It depends on how we battle evil. The only way is engagement. If you are an artist, you paint or sculpt and convey your message that way. Similarly, a writer must put his/her ideas down on paper and not stop. As a filmmaker, you must create something that is committed to change. If we stop, change is not going to happen. Any small movement can help. The real victim is all of us. The real problem is ignorance. Without examining our culture, we don’t think of the past, we don’t confront the past, we forget the past. The Philippines is a good example of this. The era of martial law was very recent, but young people don’t know about these incidents. If we are not careful, the populist leader will come again. The cycle will come back and we will become victims again.”

The newspaper confirmed Tuesday it is in talks with cable channels and online platforms on which the planned 30-minute show could run, according to Sam Dolnick, an assistant managing editor.

No specific timetable was announced for the show, which is expected to showcase the New York-based daily’s investigations and reporting.

A number of Times journalists are expected to participate in the project, according to CNN, which first reported the plans.

The Times, which already streams its own podcasts, would not be the first newspaper to venture into television.

In 1988, USA Today launched a daily television news broadcast that was pulled after 14 months.

Newer online services like Vice combine traditional news with television, including an HBO show called “Vice News Tonight.”

The Times has been transitioning increasingly to digital as more readers turn away from print.

In its latest quarterly update, the Times said it added 157,000 net digital subscriptions in the final three months of the year, which pushed subscription revenue for the full year to more than $1 billion.

Netflix provided Nasa, the American space agency, access to the pilot episode, which was transmitted to the International Space Station for the astronauts on board to watch.

Thirty years in the future, space colonisation has become a reality, and the Robinson family is among those selected to make new lives for themselves beyond Earth.

But when the new colonists are abruptly torn off course en route to their new home, they must forge new alliances and work together to survive in a dangerous alien environment, light-years from their original destination.

John Robinson, the expedition commander (played by Toby Stephens), and his wife Maureen (Molly Parker), a fearless aerospace engineer, decide to take the family into space. Their children are Judy (Taylor Russell), Penny (Mina Sundwall) and Will (Maxwell Jenkins).

Stranded along with the Robinsons are two outsiders who find themselves thrown together by circumstance and share a knack for deception.

The unsettlingly charismatic Dr Smith (Parker Posey) is a master manipulator with an inscrutable end game. And the roguish but inadvertently charming Don West (Ignacio Serricchio) is a highly skilled blue-collar contractor who had no intention of joining the colony, let alone crash-land on a lost planet.

Following a record-shattering opening weekend — raking in $242.2 million — the frenzy to see the 18th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe continued, bringing total domestic earnings to an astronomical $403.6 million in just 10 days, according to tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Its global take is now more than $700 million, with the film yet to open in China or Japan, the two largest overseas markets.

It is only the fourth movie ever to make more than $100 million in its second weekend, joining the elite club behind “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($149.2 million), and ahead of “Jurassic World” ($106.6 million) and Disney-owned Marvel’s “The Avengers” ($103.1 million).

Directed by Ryan Coogler, “Black Panther” features an almost entirely black cast led by Chadwick Boseman as the first non-white superhero to get his own standalone movie in the franchise.

Starring alongside the likes of Michael B Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o and Daniel Kaluuya, Boseman plays the titular superhero also known as T’Challa, king and protector of Wakanda, a technologically advanced, affluent, never-colonized utopia in Africa.

In at an anything-but-close second was newly-released dark comedy “Game Night,” with $17 million.

Featuring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, the film follows a group of friends whose game night descends into a murder mystery.

Dropping one place into third was “Peter Rabbit,” based on Beatrix Potter’s classic children’s book. Sony’s family-friendly offering brought in $12.8 million in its third week in theaters.

Paramount’s new science fantasy horror “Annihilation” was off to a weak start, debuting in fourth place at only $11.1 million.

Starring Natalie Portman, the film — based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer — tells the story of a team of military scientists who go into a quarantined alien crash zone known as “The Shimmer.”

Finally, in at fifth was “Fifty Shades Freed” — the last film in the trilogy based on the wildly successful novels by EL James — with takings of $7.1 million.

Rounding out the top 10 were:

“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” ($5.7 million)

“The 15:17 to Paris” ($3.6 million)

“The Greatest Showman” ($3.4 million)

“Every Day” ($3 million)

“Early Man” ($1.8 million)

n the film, which based on an infamous true-life crime, Williams portrays Gail Harris Getty, whose 16-year-old son John Paul Getty III – grandson of the oil tycoon J Paul Getty, then the world’s richest person – was kidnapped in July 1973 while he, his mother, and his younger siblings were living in Rome. The criminals’ $17 million ransom demand went unmet by the boy’s miserly 81-year-old grandfather, who suggested that if he met this demand, his other grandchildren might be kidnapped, and he’d have to pay those as well, leaving the divorced Gail as the clear-eyed force trying desperately to rescue her son.

The petite, Montana-raised actress made her breakthrough with TV’s “Dawson’s Creek” and went on to star in “The Station Agent”(2003), “Wonderstruck” and “The Greatest Showman”. In her Oscar-nominated performances – “Brokeback Mountain” (2005), “Blue Valentine” (2010), “My Week with Marilyn” (2011), and last year’s “Manchester by the Sea” – Williams has displayed diamond-like facets, pivoting from heartbreaking to haunting to an earthy grace that could cut glass.

Off-screen, Williams is a devoted mom to 12-year-old Matilda, her daughter with the late Heath Ledger. Sitting in a suite at New York City’s 1Hotel, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, Williams talks about the movie and her co-star as well as director Ridley Scott.

As you researched Abigail (Gail) Harris Getty, what struck you about her?

As soon as I got the offer to join the film, I set out to research her, looking at everything I could. In the clips of her from the time, there’s something about her directness, and the precision of her language, that I found intriguing. She had a very forward quality that helped me get a handle on her. She really held herself together. She exhibited a tremendous amount of strength. In the situation she found herself in, if she lost her wits or got too emotional, then she wouldn’t have become any closer to her goal, which was getting her son back alive. Flailing about wouldn’t bring him home, but staying clear on her objectives and then acting on those would hopefully save him. Abigail seemed to me like someone who very much was about progress and doing things, rather than feeling and emoting.

The film shows how the press implied Gail wasn’t a good mother because she wasn’t emotional.

I think she might have been given to that kind of response, but being emotional wasn’t going to serve the situation she found herself in. I think she believed that by making an impassioned, reasonable argument to these unknown kidnappers – if they could just hear her, if she could just reach them – then there could be some hope. She tried to keep herself together, and that, to her shock, backfired on her in the press.

She didn’t want to get “personal.” She was trying to say something that would work, that would reach these criminals, to say something persuasive. To do the right thing. And that’s not what the media at the time wanted from her. They wanted a kind of soap opera, and she was too accomplished and experienced to fall into that. She wanted to have authority in the situation, and be taken as seriously as any man would be. She wanted to be a real operative in the fight.

Something that linked Gail to the Getty family was fear, wasn’t it? Her fear of losing her son, and J Paul Getty’s fear of appearing weak.

That’s true – both Gail and J Paul Getty have a fear of being taken advantage of. It’s a struggle between something emotional and something practical, between thinking with your head and thinking with your heart. Most of us, especially if you’re a parent, would make a decision with their heart. But with her father-in-law, Gail was dealing with somebody with whom it would be of no use to plea. For J Paul Getty, only the numbers mattered. He was about financials, not emotions. That was the territory that family played in. They’re both trying to protect something they hold dear.

As you’ve played a mother more often in recent years, how has being a parent effected your portrayals of motherhood?

You learn so much about love being a mother, and a major part of movies are the connections between two people, two characters, which often involves love. And as an actor, you’re considering your character from that point of view: How many ways can I understand this person? How many ways can I put myself into this person’s shoes? And I think that’s intrinsically tied to parenting. When you become a parent, your heart suddenly feels like it lives outside of your body, and it’s susceptible and it’s open.

What was it like acting in a Ridley Scott film? Probably no time to slow down.

There isn’t! Sometimes, making movies can be boring, because you sit around a lot. But not on Ridley’s movies – you basically have to come to his films with a packed lunch, because you don’t take breaks. You have to make sure you always have enough food with you! Nobody on the set was on their phones, nobody had time to get bored or gossip or do anything but their job.

Performance-wise, Ridley was definitely only interested in things that were real and that were happening authentically in the moment. In the mornings, as we arrived on set, he would very often say something like, “Alright, welcome to work – the cameras are hidden all over the apartment, you can start over here if you want and you can end up there, and what do you say we rehearse on film?” And if he liked it, he’d say, “Okay, where are we going next?” One or two takes and then we were on to the next thing!

I was in heaven. I had the greatest time of my life. I thought, “I want to make this movie forever! Where’s the next one Ridley, I’m ready!” It was like doing a play, like every scene was a stage play. It was a great and satisfying way to work. And then you go home feeling like you know what you did today: You started something and you finished something, and you felt it all flow.

Chilean actress Daniela Vega has won acclaim for her turn as Marina, a young waitress and aspiring singer who falls prey to the prejudices of society, in “A Fantastic Woman,” the overwhelming favorite in the best foreign language film category.

Yance Ford is also shattering glass ceilings for his intensely personal documentary “Strong Island” as the first openly transgender director — or trans man in any category — vying for a statuette.

Ford is only the third-ever openly transgender nominee, after Anohni — formerly Antony Hegarty of experimental US band Antony and the Johnsons — lost out for best original song in 2016, and composer Angela Morley, known as Wally Stott before a sex change, was nominated twice in the same category in the mid-1970s.

“It’s a pattern happening in the last few years, since ‘Transparent’ or Laverne Cox in ‘Orange is the New Black’… and now the Oscars,” said Larry Gross, a social media and communications professor at the University of Southern California.

The history of transgender representation at the Oscars is predictably threadbare — but not completely nonexistent.

“The Crying Game” (1992) examined race, gender and sexuality against the backdrop of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, while Oscar-winner Hilary Swank starred as an American trans man who falls victim to a brutal crime in “Boys Don’t Cry” (1999).

More recently, Jared Leto won an Academy Award for his acclaimed performance as an AIDS-stricken transgender woman in “Dallas Buyers Club” (2013), while Eddie Redmayne was a losing nominee as a pioneer of the transsexual movement in “The Danish Girl” (2015).

‘Seismic moment’

On television, “Transparent,” starring Jeffrey Tambor as a Californian homemaker, has been an outlier in the movement for greater representation of transgender characters in entertainment.

But that conversation quickly developed into a call for more actors who are transgender in real life to be hired for these roles, traditionally given to the “cisgendered” — people whose sense of gender corresponds with their birth sex.

“I hope I’m the last cisgender man playing a transgender woman,” Tambor said when he won his second Emmy for the hit Amazon show in 2016.

When the Academy Awards take place on March 4, that breakthrough will truly be felt.

“It’s incredibly meaningful, especially to share this with Daniela Vega. Our work hopefully transcends the fact that we’re transgender,” Ford said in an interview with AFP.

“It is a seismic moment, a tiny earthquake, and hopefully it will begin to change the field overall, and the ability of trans actors and actresses and artists of all backgrounds to have recognition.”

“Strong Island” chronicles the arc of Ford’s African American family from the racial segregation of the Jim Crow era to the promise of a better life in New York, shattered by the unexpected, violent death of Ford’s brother.

William Ford Jr, a 24-year-old teacher, was fatally shot in 1992 during a trivial argument with a mechanic on New York’s Long Island.

A grand jury decided his killer had a “reasonable” fear for his life and shouldn’t be tried after Ford bizarrely became “the prime suspect of his own murder,” his character scrutinized for signs that he actually got what was coming to him.

Caricature

In Sebastian Lelio’s “A Fantastic Woman” — “a love story that happens to a transgender woman,” according to the Chilean director’s own synopsis — Vega embodies a woman almost like any other, with feminine wiles but also strength and dignity.

“Marina and I share being trans, loving to sing opera and handsome men,” says Vega. “But that’s it.”

The actress described her character as “more elegant than me, more patient… a very peaceful woman” whereas Vega herself is “more explosive, more Latin.”

For Ford, Vega’s performance and the attention it has garnered are important because she was playing an ordinary woman.

For a long time, trans characters have been portrayed as disturbed, marginal, depressive and on edge — one clumsy remark away from committing mass murder.

“There were a lot of psychopathic killers, like in ‘The Silence of the Lambs,'” said USC professor Gross, contrasting Jonathan Demme’s 1991 thriller with “Transparent” and “A Fantastic Woman,” and their more authentic characters.

“The media industry loves it when they know a new twist becomes possible. Often the stories are about the challenges of being different,” Gross told AFP.

“This movie ‘A Fantastic Woman’ is an example of that. They’ve done it before with gay people, people of color, Jews — the old wine of your narrative in a new bottle… The big challenge always, is that the difference is good, rather than threatening.”

Since the 2018 edition of the Berlin International Film Festival kicked off a little more than a week ago, more than 400 films from around the world have been screened. The usual suspects – France, the US, the UK, Ireland, South Korea and, of course Germany – have all answered present and Thailand is there too, albeit with only one film in this year’s selection.

That movie is Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit’s “Die Tomorrow”. Released on November 23 in Thailand, it was still being screened in selected cinemas when it had its international premiere in the Forum section last Sunday.

“My film has already been released back home so showing it here is a real bonus,” Nawapol said after the international premiere.

“It’s good to show the film in Berlin because the festival attracts so many cinephiles.”

And indeed the venue, Zoopalast 2, was packed with film fans, among them the Thai ambassador to Germany Dr Dhiravat Bhumichitr.

“Die Tomorrow” is Nawapol’s fifth feature and sees him return to his indie roots after working with Thai studio GDH for the blockbuster “Heart Attack”. This film, as the title suggests, deals with death, a taboo subject in many cultures. “During my first Q&A session in Berlin, I was surprised to learn that death is a taboo subject for films in Germany too,” Nawapol told the audience following the second screening of the film in Berlin.

“I am from a Thai-Chinese family and in Chinese culture, death is taboo, as it is inauspicious to talk about it. My mother wanted to know why I was making a film called ‘Die Tomorrow’.”

Although Nawapol’s films are well known to international critics who are interested in Thai and Southeast Asian films, “Die Tomorrow” is the first of his movies to be selected by the festival. However, he is no stranger to the event, having been invited back in 2007 to attend the Berlin Talent Campus, a summit and networking platform for international filmmakers. Yet despite being one of the first Thai filmmakers to attend the programme, it took a long 11 years before he returned with his own film.

“I enjoyed the Talent Campus. I took classes and had some time for tourism,” Nawapol recalls of his first experience in Berlin, which was also the first time he had travelled to Europe.

“They asked participants to choose the classes we wanted to attend. There were many classes including discussing about filmmaking with Jia Zhangke,” he says of the event, which is known to feature many useful talk programmes for young filmmakers.

“There was one class that really influenced me, and that was the class on online movie promotion.”

Today filmmakers think nothing of using the social media to promote their work but 11 years ago, it was completely new and was a totally foreign concept to most Asian countries, Thailand included.

“The programme invited Arin Crumley and Susan Buice, directors of the film ‘Four Eyed Monster’, and Lance Weiler to be the mentors. All three had tried to promote their own films through the internet. The class convinced me that we could do the same thing. It changed my life,” Nawapol muses.

Nowhere was that change more obvious than in the promotion for “Die Tomorrow”. In 2017, Nawapol’s Facebook page had more than 190,000 followers, and because “Die Tomorrow” was a small, independent film, he looked no further than Facebook to market the film which, unusually for a Thai film at home, enjoyed a run of three months.

Other Thai filmmakers also visited Berlin back in 2007, though only one domestic production made it into the festival proper. That film was “Dorm” by Songyos Sugmakanan and it returned home with the Crystal Bear from the Generation section that year.

“I saw only one part of Berlin, which is the Berlin Talent Campus so I don’t know much if there have been many changes to the festival in the years that followed. The city itself hasn’t changed much. I remember I had the chance to see only two or three films including ‘Village People Radio Show’ by Amir Muhammad. I could only watch a few films as there was a limited quota for tickets.”

He is pleased with the feedback he received from the screenings of “Die Tomorrow” in Berlin.

“It is the first time I’ve been to a big film festival. I mean, I had a film in Venice earlier and Venice is also a big festival, but my film was in the Biennale College Cinema, which is the section that screens films in which the festival has invested. So you already know in advance that you’re film is going to be shown whereas for Berlin, my film was actually selected.”

“Die Tomorrow” is now all set to continue its journey outside Thailand, starting with the Osaka Asian Film Festival in March, where it will be in competition. It has also done well in the nominations for Thailand’s equivalent to the Oscars – the Subhanahongse Awards – with 12 nods in 11 categories including Best Director.

In the early morning hours of July 10, 1973, 16yearold John Paul Getty III was kidnapped by a gang of petty criminals in the Piazza Farnese in Rome. Balking at a $17 million (Bt534 million) ransom demand for his safe return, his billionaire grandfather, J Paul Getty refused to meet the kidnappers demands. By November of that year, when an envelope from the kidnappers containing a lock of hair and a decomposing human ear was received by the Italian broadsheet Il Messaggero, Getty Sr began reconsidering his options.

“I was familiar with the incident, but wasn’t initially interested,” admits director, Ridley Scott, who quickly changed his mind about adapting the Getty story to the screen after reading David Scarpa’s screenplay. “Within a few lines [of the script] and after meeting with Dan and Bradley (producers Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas), I knew I was in good hands…I absolutely wanted to make this movie.”

“All the Money in the World” features an allstar cast including Charlie Plummer as John Paul Getty III, Michelle Williams as his devoted mother, Gail, Mark Wahlberg, as Getty Sr fixer Fletcher Chase, and Christopher Plummer as the legendary billionaire.

Indeed, it was Christopher Plummer’s last-minute addition to the ensemble that left eyebrows elevated in November when Scott, in the final stages of editing, announced he would cut Kevin Spacey (originally cast as Getty Sr) entirely out of the film following allegations of misconduct. “There was no way that we would move forward with the film as it was originally shot,” explained producer Dan Friedkin. “When Ridley and I made the decision to recast with Christopher Plummer, our entire cast and crew could not have been more supportive, and we can’t thank them enough for their unfailing commitment throughout this entire process.”

Scott, Friedkin and Christopher Plummer, along with Mark Wahlberg, Charlie Plummer, and screenwriter, David Scarpa, gathered at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles to discuss the making of the new film and shooting it in just nine days.

Tell us about your decision to replace Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer.

Scott: It was pretty straightforward. The biggest thing was when the [news] landed…I knew this was going to really affect the film. And so, the first thing I did was call Dan Friedkin and said “We’ve got to replace him”. So, rustling the team back together, we sat down and figure out what needed to be done – what’s available, what’s not available, who’s available… The big question was can I get the right person to [play] Getty? I flew that night to New York and met with Christopher Plummer, and that was it.

Did you have any reservations about jumping straight into the film?

Christopher Plummer: I had no time to consider anything… I love taking risks and so does Ridley, so we welcomed it in a funny way. I just had to rely on my memory, which I thought, ‘My god, I’m getting on. I wonder if I can really do this in nine days?’ Because there were these huge monologues – he (Getty) never stops talking! I guess my theatre training helped me in that department (laughs)…

Wahlberg: He actually didn’t ‘call’ me. He was sitting there in my hotel room when I got back from doing press for “Daddy’s Home 2” in New York. He told me what he wanted to do, and I completely understood. Everybody understood the circumstances and the necessity behind the reshoot. Next thing you know, I’m walking on set, saying hi to Christopher Plummer for the first time as Ridley is saying “Rolling…”

Williams: I said, you can have my salary and you can have my Thanksgiving holiday [to do the reshoot]. The salary wasn’t much to speak of, so they just took my Thanksgiving holiday (laughs)…

Scarpa: I was initially called back with the idea that we might have to change something, but we really didn’t. It’s so rare that you get a chance to do something a second time around, so everybody started coming up with ideas: “What if we do it like this? What if we try that?” Claire Simpson, our editor, really had to put the hammer down. All these scenes really needed to fit in the exact slot that they were in before and Ridley felt the same way.

Did you make any other changes to the film?

Scott: No, the film was otherwise perfect, excuse me for saying (laughs)…

What was the biggest challenge making the film?

Charlie Plummer:At first, it was just overwhelming to get to work with the people I was getting to work with. Beyond that though, I had to be careful, knowing that this is someone that people may have their own perception of, but at the same time I knew I didn’t want to be mimicking anything. It was really important for me to bring something of myself so that it felt truthful, especially in those moments that are particularly intense. To bring a sense of truthfulness to all of those things, I think, was something that was challenging for me to wrap my head around.

Scott: Honestly, I never think of ‘challenges’. I just think of how much I enjoy doing what I do, what needs to be done, and get on with.

When you first learned of Ridley’s plans for the reshoot, did you think he’d actually be able to pull it off?

Charlie Plummer: Certainly. He has done so much in his career. It didn’t even cross my mind that it wouldn’t happen.

Scarpa: The miracle of the digital era is they could sit there in Rome, push a button and send [the footage] all the way back to Claire’s editing room where she could start working on it right away. They’d shoot a scene, she’d cut it, and boom, pop it in… By the time they wrapped that shoot, they had a cut.

What is it about the Getty story that still resonates with audiences today?

Charlie Plummer: So much of it still fascinating. Even just looking at the family dynamic between the richest man in the world leading an empire while his grandson and his son are off partying in Morocco… And then this thing happens.

Wahlberg: It’s fascinating. Here is the richest guy in the history of the world at the time, yet he does his own laundry because he doesn’t want to pay someone else to do it, let alone pay for the return of his grandchild. I understand [his position] when it comes to negotiating with criminals… but somebody’s life is at stake. With your own child what you would do? That’s the question you ask yourself as you watch the movie? And the more I learned about what took place, the more interested I became. Whether people are familiar with the story or not, I think they’re going to find it fascinating.

Christopher Plummer: It’s a terrific story. And people always love a good story.

If his first visit in 2015 was any indication, the place will be sold out.

Min Hyuk shot to K-pop stardom with CNBlue in 2010 and their debut EP “Bluetory”, with the hit single “I’m a Loner”. The band have since released two albums and eight more EPs in Korean as well as eight albums and two EPs in Japanese.

Min Hyuk has also become an actor, starring in many hit TV dramas.

In 2012 he starred in “My Husband’s Got a Family”, which topped the ratings charts for 25 consecutive weeks.

After a three-year hiatus, he made his television comeback in the SBS musical drama “Entertainer” in 2016, for which he won an Excellence trophy at the SBS Drama Awards.

Last year Kang was cast in his first leading role, as Kwak Hyun, a doctor who volunteers to go to sea as part of his military service in the MBC drama “Hospital Ship”.

And this year Kang has a supporting role in the upcoming historical comedy-drama film “The Princess and the Matchmaker”.

Seats for the Bangkok show cost Bt2,000 to Bt5,000 at https://Ticket.achi.co.th.

Learn more at the site of promoter A Chi Activation and AChiActivation on Facebook.