GALLERY LINKS:
- RocknRolla: DVD Screencaptures

Available in single-disc ($27.95 SRP) and double-disc ($34.99 SRP) editions, extras on the latter include commentary by Guy Ritchie and Mark Strong and “Guy’s Town”, a featurette about Guy Ritchie shaping a crime saga around London’s evolving landscape. Both editions feature a digital copy (on disc on the 2-disc, possibly via a download link on the single-disc).

GALLERY LINKS:
- RocknRolla (2008): Production Stills
- Candids: November 1, 2008 in London
- Stage: Guiding Star (2004)
- Stage: Massacre at Civitella (2002)
- Online Interviews: Plenty of interviews at the World Premiere of Quantum of Solace

The moment Gemma Arterton heard she’d be the new Bond girl is ingrained on her mind for ever. She was on a boat, just off the coast of Gibraltar, filming the comedy Three and Out with Mackenzie Crook. Dressed in full scuba-diving gear – what else would a prospective Bond girl be wearing? – Arterton answered her mobile phone to her agent, who immediately began humming the James Bond theme down the line; the role of Agent Fields in the 22nd 007 film, Quantum of Solace, was hers. So moved was Crook, he shed a tear for his co-star and uttered, “This is such a big moment in your life.”

Crook’s assessment has not been lost on the 22-year-old. Raised “in a house of women”, as she calls it, Bond was not a big influence on her childhood, yet she’s well aware of what it means. “It’s such an institution in Britain, and such an iconic thing to be involved in,” she says. “I’m so proud of it.” At 5ft 7in, with pale skin and a chirpy estuarine accent, she may not be typical Bond girl material. What’s more, how many Bond girls can claim to have been born with six fingers – on each hand? “It’s my little oddity that I’m really proud of,” she says. There’s something devil-may-care about her attitude that makes her perfect casting.

The last time I met Arterton was 18 months ago, when she had come to Cannes to promote St Trinian’s, the garish update of the film series in which she played the head girl of an anarchic private school. A total unknown, she was still in full costume after a promotional photo-shoot: black bob, crisp white blouse, pencil skirt, seamed stockings and killer high-heels. While she might’ve been looking “a little bit dominatrixy”, there was still a fresh-faced innocence to the girl who had left drama school to come to Cannes. “This is my first feature film, so it’s quite exciting,” she said, breathlessly. “The casting director said to me, ‘You don’t know what’s hit you yet.’ And I said, ‘No I don’t!’”

Since then, her rise in the industry has been nothing short of staggering. Even before Quantum of Solace hits the screens, Arterton has already this autumn appeared in Guy Ritchie’s gangster flick RocknRolla, and taken key roles in two primetime television dramas, Lost In Austen and Tess of the d’Urbervilles. With a forthcoming cameo in Richard Curtis’s pirate-radio comedy The Boat That Rocked, you’d think her life would be unmanageable by now. “It’s been kind of good,” she reflects. “I’ve been working, working, working, and not had time to do anything else. I don’t go out and go to parties and do all of that. That’s when you start feeling the change … I haven’t had the opportunity to really be around any fuss, so I don’t feel that different – just a bit more tired.”

Little wonder she’s feeling the strain. When we catch up again, Arterton has just finished a day’s filming at Pinewood Studios and is planning a less-than-glamorous evening at her gym in Muswell Hill. She’s midway through shooting Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a huge-scale adaptation of the popular Arabian Nights-style video game that will make Quantum of Solace look like a no-budget short.

So far, her anonymity has been preserved because she’s barely recognisable from one role to the next. As Thomas Hardy’s fated heroine Tess, she has chestnut-brown locks down to her waist; for Bond, she is a redhead. And Prince of Persia has forced her to darken her hair from its natural brunette colouring. “The other day, we were looking at pictures of my career so far – photo-shoots and things like that – and I wouldn’t even recognise myself! That’s handy because people don’t recognise you, which is really nice for me, as I like doing normal things.”

Quantum of Solace is set to change all that. Pairing her with Daniel Craig, now in full command of James Bond in what is his second outing, Arterton can claim her casting was destiny. “I was in the car on the way to the audition and the Bond theme tune ‘Nobody Does It Better’ came on the radio,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘This is a sign!’” Playing Agent Fields, Bond’s MI6 contact in Bolivia when he arrives to investigate a mysterious group called Quantum, she claims that the film is set to continue the reinvention of the franchise that 2006’s Casino Royale began. “It’s a lot more – I hate to say edgy but it is more edgy. It’s dirty and ragged. This one’s a desert movie with loads of scummy places. It’s not as crisp and slick.”

There’s no question, Arterton brims with the confidence of youth. You might even call her fearless. “I remember on my first day, everyone saying to me, ‘Are you nervous? Are you nervous?’ And I was going, ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ But I wasn’t. If Daniel had been wearing a tux that day, or said one of his catchphrases, I might’ve felt intimidated but he didn’t.” Still, she had to kiss Craig on that first day, “another surreal moment in my life” as she puts it. “At the time I can remember thinking: ‘What on Earth is going on? This is insane! If I phoned up my mates now they would be killing themselves laughing.’”

Curiously, she compares her character to both Bond’s lovelorn secretary Miss Moneypenny and Rosaline, the similarly “haughty” character she played in a production of Love’s Labour’s Lost at The Globe that first convinced the Bond casting directors to offer her an audition.

“With the Bond films, the women are so unobtainable to a normal guy. I wanted to make her someone you could go down the pub with,” she says. “She’s not particularly hot. She’s just this girl that ends up sleeping with Bond. It’s not like she’s really saucy or anything. She’s normal looking and not glamorous. But it is funny – people always say, ‘Ah, you’re the Bond girl, you’re the Bond girl’, and I don’t feel like one at all!”

Perhaps this is just as well, given the so-called “curse of the Bond girl” that has often called time on the careers of those who play them. Arterton appears to have taken the whole experience in her stride, which includes acting opposite the series’ renowned regulars. “I probably should get a bit more star-struck but I never do,” she says. “I think it’s because I’ve got my head in the clouds. I just turn up and do it. I remember the day Judi Dench [who plays MI6 chief M] was on set. I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s Judi Dench and now I’m going to act with her.’ I didn’t get that worried about it. I probably should get really nervous but I just enjoy working.”

Whatever Bond does for her, Prince of Persia is liable to do even more. Starring opposite Jake Gyllenhaal, she plays the Arabian princess Tamina in a sixth-century adventure she describes as “Indiana Jones meets Gladiator“. Arterton represents yet another astute casting choice by the über-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who previously gave Keira Knightley her international breakthrough when he put her in Pirates of the Caribbean. How does she feel about the inevitable comparisons? “Well, Keira has done incredibly well,” she says, carefully. “I’d love to get the parts that she gets. If I’m being compared with her, who knows…?” She pauses for a second as a thought occurs. “It’s funny,” she says. “Especially with girls, people always want to put them in little brackets. I don’t belong in the same bracket as Keira. I’m completely different, from a very different background. I’m confident enough in my own ability to not worry about being compared with other people.”

Brought up on a Gravesend council estate, Arterton’s working-class roots – her father is a welder, her mother a cleaner – certainly differentiate her from Knightley. Raised with her younger sister Hannah, she went to a grammar school, which she left when she was 16. “I liked learning but I hated being confined in a space and being talked at,” she recalls. “That’s why I left.” She didn’t read much. “I was quite lazy,” she says. “I was too busy going ‘Argh!’ and being silly.” In truth, she sounds like a St Trinian’s misfit. “I was quite naughty at school,” she grins.

After her parents divorced, she and her sister remained with their mother. “She encouraged independence in us,” notes Arterton. “I think that’s really brilliant. She never tried to control us, and we’ve both ended up being really successful in what we wanted to do. She’s very free and creative, and it kind of rubs off.” Her mother’s side of the family all have “this arty-punk streak”, she says. “Her uncle was [the new-wave singer] Wreckless Eric so it’s all trickled into us. There’s something about being a punk rocker that stays with you even when you’re older.”

If punk flows through her veins, so does a restless desire to succeed. After leaving school, where she had first started acting, she went on to a sixth-form college to study the discipline more seriously. From there, she won a place at Rada but it didn’t stop there. Winning her first role, on the TV show Capturing Mary, while still a student, by the time she won the role in St Trinian’s there was little point in graduating. The industry was taking notice, as demonstrated when she took a cameo in RocknRolla. “We loved her,” says Guy Ritchie. “We thought she was class. She only came on set for a day, but we all thought there was something brewing there.”

While Arterton is well aware of the effect she has on men, if anything points to her potential, it’s that she appeals to women as well. Her TV work this autumn proves that. In the quirky Lost in Austen, she was charming as Pride and Prejudice’s heroine Elizabeth Bennett, who inadvertently swaps places with a modern girl, but it will be as Tess Durbeyfield that she will be long remembered.

She got the role during the middle of filming Quantum of Solace and literally jumped for joy, for this was her chance to prove she can really act. Understandably, she avoided watching Nastassja Kinski’s take on the character for the classic Roman Polanski film. “I wanted it to be my Tess,” she states, confidently. It’s clear this role meant more to her than anything she’s done to date. “I could not keep my mind off it,” she says. “I was really nervous. I put everything into it.”

Given her meteoric rise, I wonder how she’s managed to stay so down-to-earth. “All the people I hang around with are really grounded,” she answers. “Everyone wants me to be myself. I want to be myself. I feel sometimes that people think you’ve changed because you get picked up in cars or sent things, but they’re things you don’t ask for. They’re perks – and it’s easy to see how you could change, because you could get used to that. But I don’t want to and I don’t feel as if I have.”

If anything has been difficult for Arterton during the last year-and-a-half, it’s been finding time for love. “It’s hard maintaining relationships,” she says. “You have to have people who really understand you and your life, and trust you, and trust that you want to be with them and spend time with them – but you really can’t because you’re on the other side of the country.” This is the point that her real friends have “come out of the woodwork”, she’s discovered. With all the craziness that’s about to engulf her, she’ll need them more than ever.

Quantum of Solace opens on 31 October

Interview by James Mottram
Saturday, 18 October 2008

Source: The Independent

Thanks to Lorna for her fabulous help!

GALLERY LINKS:
- Magazine Scans: Total Film (UK) – November 2008

Guy Ritchie’s latest action flick RocknRolla won’t hit theaters here in the U.S. until Oct. 31, but in case you can’t take the wait, here are six clips to give you a sneak peek. In the film, London’s toughest criminals go head to head in the race for a bunch of money. Gemma appears briefly in the fifth clip.

In the meantime, I’ve kept myself busy capping the first episode of Tess.

GALLERY LINKS:
- Tess of the D’Urbervilles: Episode 1 (September 14, 2008)

Her favourite actress is Elizabeth Taylor, her film Mary Poppins and her book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. She is teaching herself Spanish and is a fine singer. She is the protagonist of BBC1’s adapation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles and the hot new Bond girl who’s gonna blow everyone away. Watch out for Gemma Arterton!

Is it me or Tatler (and the production of Prince of Persia) went for a modern and tanned version of Cleopatra?

GALLERY LINKS:
- Photoshoots: Empire (2008)
- Magazine Scans: The Herald Newspaper (UK) – September 16, 2008, thanks to Lorna
- Magazine Scans: Tatler (UK) – October, thanks to Lorna

The actress says she quickly adapted to filming in a male-dominated environment after previously working on a nearly-all female movie.

The 22-year-old said: “RocknRolla was properly boys’ own. I’d just done St. Trinian’s, so I was like, ‘Oh, there aren’t any girls.’

“I came on set and I, literally, was the totty. I had tight jeans on and a tight top with a push-up bra. Everybody was like, ‘A girl?!’ and talking to me at boob height. I thought, ‘I’ll let you off, as you haven’t had any boobs to stare at for a while.’

“Sometimes it’s nice to be around blokes though, because I don’t fuss too much about hair and make-up and neither do they? It’s quite tiring when you’ve got loads of girls ‘Oh, I don’t want that in my hair.’ ”

Gemma also revealed working on new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace struck a happy medium between the “screaming girls” on the St. Trinian’s set and the macho environment of the Guy Ritchie-directed RocknRolla.

She added: “On ‘Bond’ it was fine. Although I didn’t get any time with Olga there were plenty of girls in the crew. In my next project, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time I’m the only girl in the whole film. It’s a boy’s world, but I’m quite cool with that.”

Quantum of Solace, which also stars Daniel Craig as James Bond, Olga Kurylenko and Mathieu Amalric is released on October 31. While we’re at it, don’t forget to pay a visit to the excellent fansite dedicated to former Bond girl Eva Green who played Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, the prequel to Quantum of Solace.

(C) BANG Media International

Source: My Park Magazine

RocknRolla, which premiered last week, opened at number one in the film charts and took £1,562,017.

The gangster movie, starring Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton, Gemma Arterton and Tom Wilkinson, is set in London and deals with a Russian real estate scam.

It has been described as a return to form by some critics following the disappointments of Ritchie’s Swept Away and Revolver.

The British director hit fame a decade ago with the gangster caper Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.

Last week Madonna joined her husband on the red carpet for the opening of RocknRolla, which could be turned into a trilogy.

Source: The UK Press Association

Today Gemma Arterton is a rising star of everything from Bond films to bodice-rippers.

But lean times are not hard to forget and Gemma, whose mum brought her up alone while working as a cleaner, has an eye for a bargain at Primark.

Last night four million viewers watched Gemma, 22, playing Lizzie Bennet in ITV’s comedy period piece Lost in Austen. And she will soon take the starring role in Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, the BBC’s new costume drama.

But it’s not just prime-time TV that Gemma is fast conquering.

Following her big screen debut in the St Trinian’s movie, Guy Ritchie cast her in his latest gangster flick RocknRolla.

Gemma also saw off 1,500 hopefuls to become a Bond girl in the 007 thriller Quantum of Solace.

She is now in Morocco filming the action adventure Prince Of Persia.

But if you think this meteoric rise has gone to her head you couldn’t be further from the truth. For starters, she still shops at budget fashion store Primark.

“I still have student debts to pay off,” says Gemma. “I’ve used most of my earnings buying bits from Primark.”

And anyway mum Sally, who raised Gemma single-handedly after splitting from her father Barry, a welder, makes sure her talented daughter keeps her feet firmly on the ground.

“I was brought up quite liberally by my mum,” says Gemma. “My sister Hannah and I were quite confident kids. Everyone always used to say to us, ‘You seem older than you are,’ which was helpful.

“Mum’s very proud but she doesn’t go on about it. She was never that into film when I was growing up.

“When I got to drama school there were all these people going, ‘Oh, my dad used to watch Ken Loach films’ and I would be thinking, ‘Who is Ken Loach?’ ”

She might not have grown up in an acting environment but Gemma was drawn to performing from an early age.

While at Gravesend Grammar School for Girls, in Kent, she first appeared onstage in an amateur production of Alan Ayckbourn’s The Boy Who Fell Into A Book.

Jane Fenlon, secretary of the Gravesend and District Theatre Guild, recalls: “We’ve got a lot of talented youngsters and you get used to seeing them, but Gemma was one of the better ones.

“I remember her being a pretty girl who was friendly and really enjoyed acting.”

Kay Caroll, who runs the drama group, adds: “Gemma was doing well as a child. She appeared in the school play, which was entered into a competition at a local festival, and won the best actress prize.”

Gemma left school at 16 to go to acting college and then the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She could afford her place at Rada only because she got a full Government grant and says while she was there she “got up to my eyes in debt with a student loan”.

Life was hard but she never lost her drive and determination.

Gemma’s relatives, who live in Gravesend and Rochester, are still in awe of her incredible success.

Trace Arterton, 42, who is married to Gemma’s cousin Gary, says: “It’s incredible for us to see her starring in Hollywood films and TV shows.

“The family feel very proud but it’s also very strange seeing her on the television.

“We saw an advert the other night for Tess of the D’Urbervilles and it’s really funny when her face appears on the telly.

“Her parents are both hardworking people and she wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

“But she’s always had this incredible presence ever since she was a kid.

“When Gemma walks into the room everyone knows it. Then she’ll break the silence by saying, ‘Hello!’ and coming over to chat.

“She’s got a very nice personality. She’s bubbly and always makes the effort to make conversation.”

Glowing words, yet it seems nobody is prouder of Gemma than her dad.

“Barry keeps saying he can’t believe how well she’s done,” says Trace.

“He’s still a welder, so for him to see his daughter being so successful so early on in life, he can’t believe it. He’s gone to Morocco with her stepmum Theresa to be with Gemma while she’s shooting the Prince of Persia out there.”

Her family are not the only ones reeling from her success – Gemma is, too.

It wasn’t so long ago that she was working on a beauty counter to pay her rent after drama school.

She says: “It has actually been quite freakish. I don’t think it usually happens this quickly so I haven’t had time to get my head round it. It all feels very unreal.

“My family are very down-to-earth people. We are not showbizzy at all.

“They are proud and excited and want me to be me as long as possible. They are not from this world, which is really nice. I just want to stay as grounded as I can.

“The whole acting thing is quite alien to my family. When I got to Rada, dad kept saying: ‘But can you really make a living from this?’”

Clearly she has proved that you can. In fact, given that she is so much in demand as an actress, it is surprising she can find any time for romance.

Earlier this year she split up with her live-in boyfriend John, a 27-year-old animatronic modeller, and she is now being romantically linked with Spanish stuntman Eduardo Munoz.

They met on the set of Prince of Persia, where Eduardo, 19, was hired to teach her to ride a horse.

“Gemma has made no secret of her romance on the set,” says a source working on the movie.

“She and Eduardo are always kissing and cuddling. They are inseparable.”

She is happy to be a sexy Bond girl but Gemma believes less is more: “You don’t need to show flesh to get attention.”

That confidence is part of the secret of her success. When she started out she was determined to aim for what she wanted – even turning down a West End theatre part in favour of film projects.

“If you do this big film it will open the doors for all these other brilliant things, “she says. “But you have to do the big film first. It’s like the Keira Knightley thing.

“Everyone ridiculed her for doing the Pirates films but now she’s getting great parts. She can choose what she wants.”

Gemma is under no illusions how hard it is for women to make it in male-dominated Hollywood.

“It’s difficult for a young girl like me,” she says. “Because there’s a certain time for young actresses, which is like a really juicy period when all the parts are love interests and young heroines. Of course, there’s always work for men whatever age they are.”

Source: Mirror.co.uk

Guys and gals, we have plenty of new scans for you today! Most of them thanks to our faithful collaborator Lorna. But that’s not all. Tran was also kind enough to send us a scan from the Australian magazine Frankie. Please take a look to our last uploads to see what’s new.

Lost in Austen premieres in the UK this Wednesday, on ITV1, at 9pm. Be sure to watch it! However, I have to admit to admit that, while I love Jane Austen film adaptations, I’m most excited about Tess. I love Roman Polanski’s works and his 1979 film. In fact, I love period films and films based on masterpieces of literature. The BBC’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles website was updated with a trailer, but unfortunately you can only view it if you’re in the UK.

Gemma didn’t attend the London premiere of RocknRolla, that’s why you’re not seeing any photos from it in our gallery.

Last but not least, rumour says the second Quantum of Solace trailer will be on the 9th September 2008 at 9:00am CET instead of the 11th.

GALLERY LINKS:

Out of our recent gallery additions, I’d like to highlight the following articles:

- Magazine Scans: Frankie (Australia) – Issue 25 (September / October 2008), thanks to Tran
- Magazine Scans: Sky Magazine (UK) – September 2008, thanks to Lorna
- Magazine Scans: Sunday Times (UK) – August 31, 2008, thanks to Lorna
- Magazine Scans: Daily Mail Weekend Supplement (UK) – August 30, 2008, thanks to Lorna

According to sources, Tess of the D’Urbervilles will start Sunday, September 14. It will be released on DVD October 27.

By the way, we will probably wait for the DVD releases before adding screencaptures or videos on the site. None of us will be in the UK during the releases so to make things less complicated, I will bring you the high quality coverage once the DVDs are available.

By the way, RocknRolla will be released September 5 (UK), October 3 (USA, limited) and October 31 (wide).

I think it is fair to say that September 2008 will be the month of the Gemma.

Total Film interviews Gemma about her good and busy year, her thoughts about London, Prince of Persia, Quantum of Solace and fame.

GALLERY LINKS:
- Magazine Scans: Total Film (UK) – August 2008, thanks to Lorna

Guy Ritchie is back in his old stomping ground with RocknRolla. The Lock, Stock… and Snatch director has returned to the world of dodgy dealers, shady scams and back-stabbing that made his name, with a story of a tale of Russian mobsters running amok in the Big Smoke.

Featuring Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton, Jeremy Piven, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Tom Wilkinson, The Wire’s Idris Elba and Gemma Arterton amongst the cast, the film is out on 5th September but Empire has the world exclusive look at the first trailer for you right here, right now.

GALLERY LINKS:
- RocknRolla (2008): Trailer Captures

“RocknRolla is one of three films and Guy’s keen to get going on that straight away,” Newton enthused. “[The second and third films in the series] are going to be excellent. I can’t wait.

“We shot incredibly quickly [on the first]. There were three weeks pre-production,” Newton added of her thoughts on how quickly the crime story could begin shooting. “He just gets on with it. He absolutely does not see challenges as intimidating.”

Also starring Gerard Butler, Jeremy Piven, and Ludacris, RocknRolla is a game of “follow the money,” said Newton, as it connects to a variety of disparate and needy characters.

But don’t expect all those characters to return for the sequel, Newton exclaimed. After all, a lot of them don’t make it through the first.

“Well I managed to get away, but a quite a lot of them died,” Newton laughed of her doomed co-stars. “[The sequel] will follow whoever’s left.”

Newton, who plays Stella, a “crooked accountant,” is the first real female lead Ritchie has written (and, no, we’re not counting “Swept Away.”) So Ritchie must have really loved Newton’s presence to invite her back right?

“Actually, I didn’t get a whole lot of feedback because Guy hires you and you get on with it,” she chuckled.

Source: MTV Movie Blog