“Toni got off the plane and straight into this bit of Welsh culture. On set, the Welsh actor and Game of Thrones star Teale, who plays Brian Vokes, was there to boost her confidence. Toni Collette in a scene with the film’s Dream Alliance.
“My friend, the writer Jack Thorne, asked her to read the script, which is often the hardest bit with a big star, as there are so many gatekeepers.” Lyn knew Collette had already played many different nationalities and, luckily, she loved McKay’s screenplay. “Jan has a real strength and determination, but also vulnerability, and I immediately thought of Toni,” said Lyn. The performance Collette gives as Vokes may also surprise audiences. “His father is Welsh and he has a brilliant ear anyway.” “It was wonderful to have Damian as Howard,” said Lyn. “I like its almost naive warmth and generosity of spirit, compared to the Billions world, which is all about transactional favour-trading.” “It was perfect timing,” the actor has said. Lewis, who lost his wife, the acclaimed actress Helen McCrory, to cancer earlier this year, is half Welsh and had been keen to work closer to home after starring in the flashy American hedge-fund drama, Billions, for Sky. They’ve all had such varied lives, including Howard Davies, the accountant that Damian plays, we knew we had to leave some of it out.” “Neil did a deep dive and spent a long time with the real people involved. The Dream Alliance story had already been told in an award-winning documentary, Dark Horse, but writer Neil McKay “went back to first base”, said Lyn. “It’s a question of filming different bits and then making it come together in the editing, and when sound is added later.” “We divided up every race into two furlong sections and had three sets of 10 thoroughbreds,” explained Lyn, who was determined to avoid the impression of jockeys holding a horse back from a win. And the crucial racing scenes had to convince.ĭamian Lewis and Joanna Page with the real Angela and Howard Davies. The premium he set on authenticity meant getting the right wallpaper and even posing his actors to match to photographs on show in the Vokes’s real home. You’ve got the great drama of the hills around you, and then across it there is a line of pylons with some heap of slag from an old tip in front,” he said. “Much of the valleys is ugly-beautiful really. They’ve suffered the most.”īehind the camera, Lyn, a welshman, held back from painting a picture postcard image of the valleys and, although there are spectacular racing scenes, the town, ordinary homes and meeting halls are faithfully rendered as shabby and dark. Youngsters, along with working-class people, have had such a tough time through the last year.
I really enjoyed it, and now I want youngsters to see it especially to show them you can follow a dream. “It was strange, but I never imagined they would get it all so well, even the accents. “It’s a funny thing seeing someone as you on the screen,” Vokes said this weekend, after a special screening in her home town. The Australian actress Collette, best known for Muriel’s Wedding, The Sixth Sense and Little Miss Sunshine, plays Vokes.
0 kommentar(er)
