Rising star Gemma Arterton left Rada three years ago. Since then, she has played a head girl (‘St Trinian’s’), a Bond girl (‘Quantum of Solace’) and a canny kidnap victim (‘The Disappearance of Alice Creed’) and been in a blockbuster or two (‘Clash of the Titans’, ‘Prince of Persia’). Now she’s the heroine of black comedy ‘Tamara Drewe’, Stephen Frears’s adaptation of Posy Simmonds’s comic strip. Newspaper columnist Tamara is forced back to the village where she grew up. Once an ugly duckling, she returns, post-nose-job, as a smouldering femme fatale, entangling a trio of admirers: indie-drummer, fit farmer and philandering crime novelist.

Tamara makes a memorably slutty entrance back in the village, wearing the shortest denim shorts ever, prompting the catty comment, ‘I hope they don’t give her thrush’. Did you have any say in the shorts?
‘That’s such a Daily Mail reader’s comment isn’t it? Those shorts. Ugh. I really wanted them to be culottes, more flattering on the bottom. But for that joke to work they had to be alarmingly tight and offensive to a woman. I was in Paris about a month ago, where the film is already out. There are these posters of me in those bloody shorts everywhere.’

The ‘Tamara Drewe’ graphic novel is much loved. Did you know it already?
‘No, I hadn’t even heard about it. At the start, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do the film. I really liked the script and I knew that I could do it but I had a little bit of apprehension. I’m not sure why. Then they sent me the comic, and that was the deal-maker. I’ve always loved Thomas Hardy [‘Tamara Drewe’ is loosely based on ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’] and I just fell in love with the comic. Posy is so clever. She did a drawing of me as Tamara. It’s in my bathroom: the front cover of the book but with my face. It’s brilliant.’

Stephen Frears said that he wouldn’t make the film without you. Did he tell you that?
‘It’s funny when he says things like that because he’s so bumbling. I remember when I met Stephen, I had read with his casting director. She’d phoned him to say that I should be Tamara. So I met up with them both and he said: “Oh yes, you’ll do.” He’d never seen me in anything. I was asking if I could please audition – or something! I wanted to make sure he knew he had made the right decision. A lot of us are quite close to our characters.’

You’re not like Tamara are you? She’s outrageous.
‘Not character-wise, no! But I drive a Mini in real life. She drives a Mini. Her light-heartedness, her freshness, the cheekiness – that was kind of the easy bit for me. And she’s a modern woman.’

You’ve done a lot of period work. Is it harder without the costumes? Do they tool you up?
‘You haven’t got anything to hide behind. Luckily I know someone who is Tamara Drewe: she had a nose job when she was 15, moved to the big city and became a success but she hasn’t really got any friends; she’s a real temptress but doesn’t have any respect for herself. So I had this really clear idea of Tamara.’

The film is a raucous black comedy with bonking and a dash of Agatha Christie. Very English. Was it hard to find the right tone?
‘It could have become like a really bad episode of “Midsomer Murders”. But Stephen is an expert on getting the tone right. I think he’s done an amazing job. I don’t think anybody else could get it right.’

Were you familiar with the country-living world of ‘Tamara Drewe’? Did you grow up on a farm somewhere?
‘Not at all. I grew up on a council estate in Kent. It’s funny, when I turned up on set in a Barbour jacket, corduroys and Wellingtons, with my hair all Sloaney, my husband was like, “Argh!”. We live in Battersea, quite close to Chelsea, so there is quite a bit of that around us. But where I grew up, no way!’

You have come a cropper in a lot of films: drowning in oil, kidnapped and handcuffed to a bed… Was it a relief that all you had to contend with for this film was a prosthetic nose?
‘I know. I was thinking there was going to be some kind of sticky end to Tamara Drewe. It’s refreshing not having to do a dying scene. They are always the eggy ones to do – you wake up and think: I’ve got to do the death scene today.’

Your first big part was as a Bond girl. Can it ever feel like a ball and chain?
‘Not for me. At the time, people talked about the curse of the Bond girl, saying I’d never work again. But that’s not happened – though I’m for ever going to be “Gemma Arterton, Bond Girl”. When I did “Alice Creed”, the director wasn’t sure if I was right for it because I’d been in a Bond movie. You have to just accept that and hope they give you a chance.’

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A big thank you goes out to Lorna!

GALLERY LINK:
- Scans: Daily Record (UK) – August 30, 2010

The first film, made for about $125 million, has earned $491.9 million worldwide.

Greg Berlanti (Green Lantern), Dan Mazeau (The Flash, Jonny Quest) and David Leslie Johnson, writer of next year’s Red Riding Hood worked together on the treatment, with Mazeau and Johnson now writing the script.

Sam Worthington and Gemma Arterton are among the actors expected to return for the second installment.

The star admits she was pleased with the death scene in her upcoming movie Tamara Drewe because character Nicholas Hardiment (Roger Allam) – who is killed by a herd of cows which have been spooked by a dog – is not a pleasant man to his wife Beth (Tamsin Grieg).

Tamara Drewe is released in the UK on September 10 and in the US on October 8.

“That’s an amazing moment in the film actually because I think it suddenly turns into a Greek tragedy. It’s in this valley and it’s like this big western. And you see Tamsin running down the hill. It’s really dramatic!” Contactmusic quoted her as telling Bang Showbiz.

“Yeah, he’s a baddie, so it’s good that he gets killed. And then Tamsin gets to punch me in the face! Which is the only moment we get to really connect!” she added.

Tamsin also loved the brutal scene because it is beyond belief and she likes the way it is offset by the way Bill Camp, who portrays geeky author Glen McReavy, runs away from the animals.

“It’s a fantastically brutal death. It’s really, really shocking. And the fact that you can make something so brutal so funny, Tamsin said.

“I mean, Bill Camp, running away from those cows and the cows are coming and he runs like a cartoon. The audience when we saw it in Cannes were beside themselves with joy and terror because it’s beyond belief that you can get away with that in a film. It’s absolutely ridiculous!” she added.

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Gemma seems to be enjoying a vacation in Italy right now.

GALLERY LINK:
- Candids: August 28, 2010

It’s an unforgettable moment in her new film Tamara Drewe – and has even been used on the movie’s poster.

The film has only been released in France but is already a huge hit.

But Gemma, who starred alongside 007 Daniel Craig in Quantum Of Solace, says she’ll remember the sexy scene as one of her most uncomfortable.

“I’m such a prude,” laughs Britain’s rising star.

“Did I choose those shorts? Oh yeah – I begged the director. I said, ‘Please can you make them the shortest, most uncomfortable shorts ever!’

The denim hotpants are a key part of the film, she admits.

Gemma, 24, plays the title character in the film, a beautiful young journalist who returns to her West Country roots and causes chaos.

After she turns up to a local shindig in her skimpy shorts, she becomes the centre of attention, lusted after by men and envied by local women.

Gemma says: “The hotpants were part of the original book and I had to wear them for the punchline of the scene to work”.

And according to Gemma, it was the movie’s director, Stephen Frears, who was determined to show off a little cheek.

The brunette star recalls: “We had a screen test where I wore different styles of shorts for Stephen. Each time, he went – shorter, shorter!”

She jokes: “We’ll be auctioning them for charity at the end of the year.”

But it wasn’t all glamour for the stunning actress, because the film flashes back to her awkward teenage years when Tamara had a bad haircut – and a large, beaky nose.

She laughs: “I have a prosthetic nose. They put a nose on me and gave me a dodgy wig and an awful school uniform. It’s a black comedy.

“My husband gets freaked out when he sees that picture of me from the film.”

It’s been a busy year for Gemma. Earlier this summer, she starred in the action fantasies Prince Of Persia and Clash Of The Titans as well as the thriller The Disappearance Of Alice Creed alongside Scots star Martin Compston.

She also did a stint onstage in London’s West End – and somehow found the time to marry fiance Stefano Catelli in a hilltop ceremony in Spain’s Andalucia in June.

The actress wore a fitted white gown for her big day. But with a schedule as busy as Gemma’s, she admits she didn’t have time to set up the wedding herself.

She says: “We had a wedding planner – it was the only way, as I’m really, really disorganised.” And among the hectic hurly-burly of films and premieres this year, it was the wedding that kept her going

“It was a shining light at the end of all that work,” admits Gemma, who had been engaged to Italian fashion sales manager Stefano for a year after he popped the question at last year’s Download festival.

She says: “It was the best day of my life, for sure. Absolutely thrilling.

“I’ve long been someone who didn’t see the point of marriage, but now that I’m in that situation, I kind of understand it a bit more.”

Gemma turned down work so she could have some proper honeymoon time with her new husband.

But now she’s back in the publicity whirl for Tamara Drewe, which premieres in North America at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Sometimes the down-to-earth star struggles with her new fame and admits she doesn’t enjoy walking up the red carpet at premieres.

“It’s part of the job but I’d rather not do it,” she admits.

Instead the shy star tries to live a normal life in London. However, like Tamara Drewe, when she goes home to Gravesend in Kent she attracts a lot of attention.

“If I go into a restaurant there, people recognise me, whereas in London they don’t really notice,” admits the actress, who says new husband Stefano is very protective of her when they are out in public

“He’s my bodyguard,” she jokes. “When he’s around no-one dares approach me.

“Unlike Tamara, I hide in the toilets. She puts on hotpants!”

Gemma’s rapid rise to stardom began when she left drama school three years ago.

She played head girl Kelly in the film St Trinian’s and turned a lot of heads by beating out more than 1000 candidates for the role of Strawberry Fields in 2008′s Quantum Of Solace.

She also showed up as Elizabeth Bennet in the ITV series Lost In Austen, and played Tess in the TV series Tess Of The D’Urbervilles.

She followed this up with cameos in Guy Ritchie’s crime thriller RocknRolla and the Richard Curtis comedy The Boat That Rocked.

But 2010 has been her banner year with appearances in Hollywood blockbusters such as Prince of Persia. Already she’s been lined up for a sequel to Clash Of The Titans.

But not everyone in the film industry has cottoned on to Gemma as a hot property.

When she landed the role opposite hunk Craig in Quantum Of Solace, some fans raged that she wasn’t their idea of a Bond beauty.

She recalls: “James Bond is such a massive deal, and there hadn’t been a Bond girl in a while, so it was an even bigger deal. I got letters saying I wasn’t hot enough.”

But Gemma took the insult in her stride and even gave it a positive spin.

She says: “I took it to mean that maybe I was too serious an actress for them. In a way, I understand how they felt.

“When they cast me in Prince Of Persia, my first thought was, ‘Why didn’t they cast Natalie Portman or Freida Pinto?’ These are the kinds of beautiful actresses who should get these roles.”

Maybe they didn’t wear the right kind of hotpants.

Tamara Drewe is released on September 10.

Aug 30 2010 By Siobhan Synnot

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Gravesend-born Arterton, 24, had already appeared in several movies when she hit the big time as a Bond girl in Quantum of Solace.

But she is now starring as the title character in Tamara Drewe, which arrives in cinemas on September 10.

She plays a high-flying media ace returning home to the West Country to find a den of violence and laughs.

The film is being promoted as the British feel-good hit of the season.

Her last movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time wasn’t universally loved by the critics, but it did well with audiences, helped on by Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead.

He joins forces with beautiful princess Tamina, played by Arterton, to prevent a villainous nobleman from controlling the Sands of Time, a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world.

It wasn’t an easy ride to the top for Arterton.

Her parents, a cleaner and a welder, divorced when she was five and she was brought up on a Gravesend council estate by her single mum.

After attending Gravesend Grammar School for Girls she took a performance arts course at the Miskin Theatre in Dartford, and then trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

She said: “The whole scale of Prince of Persia was out of this world.

“When we were in Marrakesh before we started filming they took me to visit the set for the kingdom where my character, Tamina, lives. It was unbelievable.

“There were streets you could walk around and palaces and fortresses and market squares.

“And I was thinking, ‘I’m playing the princess of this place, just little old me’. It’s humbling because after everybody’s done all this work, you think, well, now I really have to come up with the goods.

“The princess is a bit of a tomboy sometimes, and she even has to pretend to be a sort of fictional 6th century cocktail waitress at one point.

“I’ve also got some great costumes with henna tattoos and jewels in my hair and things like that. I’m the only girl in the film, so I have to try to look good.”

When told she had the part, she said: “It was surreal. I just sat there on my bed not quite taking it in. It’s weird to think you’re going to be a princess.”

And she gets to kiss Gyllenhaal, saying: “My friends were always asking if I kiss him. And I say, ‘Yes, I do, so there!’ They’re all wildly jealous.”

As for her future, a Hollywood mansion is still not on the cards because she likes to stay near Kent.

Gemma said: “I love London and I need to stay somewhere where I’m around normal people, like my parents, who really keep me grounded.

“I also need to be able to go down the pub now and then.

“Do they even have pubs in Hollywood?”

• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is available on Disney Blu Ray, DVD and Double Play, out September 13.

GALLERY LINK:
- Tamara Drewe (2010): USA Trailer

Follow us: http://twitter.com/gemma_arterton

Gemma Arterton has revealed she has kept the prosthetic nose from her new film, Tamara Drewe.

The Prince Of Persia star dons a big fake nose to play the title role in Stephen Frears’ new drama, but rather than saying goodbye to it once filming ended, she gave it the pride of place in her bathroom.

“I actually have that nose in my bathroom, framed – it’s great, I just look at it sometimes,” she said.

In the film, based on Posy Simmonds’ comic strip, Tamara returns to her childhood Dorset village as a smouldering femme fatale with a glamorous job and a new nose after leaving as an awkward teenager.

“The nose started off as just being a big nose and not ridiculously big, and then Stephen thought it would be funny to just keep making it bigger and bigger, so I had this big beak,” Gemma recalled.

“It’s amazing how much it changed my face but some people didn’t know it was me wearing it. I went on set and I had the whole get-up on, and I went to make a cup of tea and someone said ‘Oh sorry, that’s only for people making the film’.”

:: Tamara Drewe will be released on September 10.

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Gemma Arterton goes to the toilet to hide from her fans.

The British actress recently visited her hometown and received so much attention in the restaurant she was eating in she had take evasive action in the rest room.

Referring to her character in new movie ‘Tamara Drewe’, Gemma – who grew up in Gravesend, Kent, South East England – told BANG Showbiz: “I grew up in a town that’s not that far away from London at all, but not the countryside, and I went home two weeks ago for a visit. I went to a restaurant and people kind of recognise you more when you are from there. It is kind of weird. And they idolise you and put you on a pedestal. In London I think everyone is preoccupied with their own lives to even care. But it is weird going back to your hometown. Unlike Tamara I just go and hide in thetoilet. Tamara goes and puts on some hot pants!”

In ‘Tamara Drewe’, the 24-year-old screen beauty stars as the journalist character of the same name who returns to her childhood home in the English countryside after her mother dies and surprises the locals with her new sexy look.

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* Storyboard featurettes
* Audio commentary with director J Blakeson
* Extended scenes with commentary

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Gemma Arterton reveals what’s the secret of surviving as a female on a film set.

Big thanks to the always helpful Lorna!

GALLERY LINK:
- Scans: SFX (UK) – September 2010

Follow us: http://twitter.com/gemma_arterton

The 24-year-old, who appeared in Quantum Of Solace with Daniel Craig and gritty drama The Disappearance Of Alice Creed, says: “My parents are working class – mum’s a cleaner.

We were quite poor and mum was a single parent. I always liked performing so I did it as a hobby. When I was 16, someone said, ‘You should do it properly’. So I went to performance college in Kent.”

She moved to London at 18 to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on a full scholarship.

She says: “It’s really hard to get into a drama school like RADA, so you take it seriously when you do. At performance college you just muck about.”

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GALLERY LINKS:
- The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009): Production Stills
- Events: Virgin Media Louder Lounge at the V Festival #1
- Events: Virgin Media Louder Lounge at the V Festival #2

Follow us: http://twitter.com/gemma_arterton

This year’s list has just been announced, and includes: directors Clint Eastwood, Danny Boyle, Robert Redford, Ben Affleck, Werner Herzog and Errol Morris; actors Nicole Kidman, Matt Damon, Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Clive Owen and Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Paul Giamatti, Marion Cotillard, and Ellen Page; and musician Bruce Springsteen, NBA great Steve Nash, eco-activist David Suzuki and computer person Bill Gates. And, of course, our lovely Gemma Arterton.

Read more here.

Providing a dollop of Hollywood glam, Gemma Arterton rolled up in some forever-on-trend leopard print enlivened by a slick of red lippy and a pair of over-the-knee boots as a nice alternative to all those muddy wellies.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time will be available on DVD and Blu-ray on September 14, 2010. You can pre-order it from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

Gemma and Jake are adorable!

GALLERY LINK:
- Prince of Persia (2010): DVD Screencaptures – An Unseen World: Making Prince of Persia

Follow us: http://twitter.com/gemma_arterton

Based on a cartoon strip by Guardian and Observer cartoonist Posy Simmonds, it features a full British cast and crew. It’s already received outstanding reviews following its special screening out of competition at the Cannes festival. All of the cast are expected to attend the premiere including Gemma Arterton and Dominic Cooper.

Click here for your chance to walk down the red carpet with the stars.

The closing date is midnight on 3 September.

To learn more about Tamara Drewe follow the film on Facebook www.facebook.com/tamaradreweuk

The Tamara Drewe premiere
The Odeon, Leicester Square
Date: 6 September 2010
Time: 6:45pm
Duration: Three hours

Arterton, 24, may be best-known to North American audiences for those two blockbusters, but all that’s going to change with The Disappearance of Alice Creed, a grimy little thriller about a kidnapping that stars Arterton, Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston.

Arterton is not just another pretty face, and The Disappearance of Alice Creed, opening Friday, is proof.

In Toronto recently to promote the film, Arterton says, “With this one and the one at TIFF next month — it’s called Tamara Drewe — I feel like, ‘This is me!’ These are the films that, when I read the script, I think, ‘These are the movies I’d go to the cinema to see.’ ”

The Disappearance of Alice Creed is dark and surprising, and Arterton proves to be far less a victim than her kidnappers believe. That’s about all that can be said without spoiling the story, but the performances are riveting.

Arterton has nothing but praise for her two male co-stars.

“There’s something to be said about working class actors,” she says, “in that it hasn’t been handed to them on a plate, and they keep it real. All three of us come from very normal backgrounds, with normal things going on in our lives … It was a really down-to-Earth set. We had fun, and we didn’t take ourselves too seriously.”

The Kent-born Arterton is indeed a working class girl — her mother is a cleaner, her father a welder — and while she may not take herself too seriously, she is very serious about her work. The RADA grad has been working non-stop since she finished school three years ago. Actually, since before she finished — Arterton made her theatre debut (in Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Globe) before graduating, and also had a role in the BBC drama Capturing Mary while still at school. Her film debut came in St. Trinian’s, in 2007, and she’s been in a dozen movies since. And she made her West End debut this year in The Little Dog Laughed.

Moviegoers will see her next in Tamara Drewe, the story of an ugly duckling adolescent who becomes beautiful as a young adult. The impossibly beautiful Arterton as an ugly duckling?

“I have a prosthetic nose. They put a nose on me, and gave me a dodgy wig and an awful school uniform. It’s a black comedy. My husband gets freaked out when he sees that picture of me from the film,” she says, laughing.

Insofar as she thinks about her appearance, Arterton is just happy that she looks quite different in every film she makes. “When I was at RADA, I never considered myself the actress who was going to get the hot girl role, or whatever, because they always cast me against that. I used to play men, I played crack addicts, I played unattractive roles all the time. A friend said to me the other day, ‘Well, you’re a character actress, but people don’t see you as that at the moment.’ And I feel I am a character actress, and I’m really uncomfortable in the kind of, ah, beauty roles, in a way.”

She continues, “One of the reasons I did Alice Creed was that I’d just come off a movie where it felt like the most important thing was that I looked good. And I wasn’t interested in that in the least. It puts so many restrictions on you. I wanted to do something where I could eat,” she says, laughing. “And if I woke up with bad hair that it was better that I had bad hair! Alice Creed was liberating. Nobody was worrying about it and I could concentrate on acting, on the task at hand.”

By LIZ BRAUN

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