When “Black Narcissus” was released in 1947, the film was hailed as a cinematic masterpiece for its Technicolor visuals. It was also condemned by the Catholic Church for its salacious premise involving nuns.

In 2020, saturated color in film is the norm, and what was once considered risqué now seems chaste, all things considered. And although a classic, it’s a film that most contemporary audiences are unfamiliar with — including Gemma Arterton, who stars in the miniseries remake. Introducing new audiences to the story was top of mind for the producers, as was updating dated elements of the original screen adaptation.

“Our producer is the grandson of one of the producers of the original film,” says Arterton, at home in London. “There was great admiration and love that we wanted to show, in terms of the design and certain shots.”

The remake stars Arterton as Sister Clodagh, who leads a group of Anglican nuns to a remote Himalayan town, where they plan to help establish a school and hospital. A major theme of the series is renouncement of identity, and sexual repression; the original film was controversial for its depiction of desire within the religious context. The three-part miniseries doubles the length of the original movie — which was based on a novel by Rumer Godden — and the expanded format allows for more time to build on the tension between characters.

Gemma Arterton doesn’t mind being indoors. “You can just get cozy,” she joked during a call with W from her home in London. During the city’s second official pandemic lockdown, the actress has spent her time devouring books (Revolutionary Road was a recent favorite) and contemplating what she’d be like as a director (a “really anxious” one, she guesses). But she’s also been examining her participation in a project that’s been a long time coming: her starring role in Black Narcissus, a mini-series remake of the Oscar-winning epic from 1947, based on Rumer Godden’s novel of the same name.

In the three-part series, which airs its final chapter tonight on FX, Arterton plays Sister Clodagh, a self-flagellating Anglican nun tasked with leading her order to the Himalayas and bringing a divine presence to a formerly hedonistic palace. While she’s there, she finds herself reminiscing—against her own will to employ the most self-control a person could possibly exert—on her past in Ireland, before she cut off her hair, donned a wimple, and started practicing custody of the eyes (averting one’s gaze to maintain pure, chaste thoughts).

But it’s so hard to look away when in the presence of the majestic Himalayan landscape, the Sisters soon learn. The panoramic mountain view is, after all, what really secured the original film as a Technicolor masterpiece, and as actors in the remake, the cast experienced that firsthand, Arterton said. After countless flights and long drives, the cast and crew finally arrived at their filming destination in Nepal last year, to witness the natural terrain that causes the nuns in the story to somewhat lose their minds. “You understand why the nuns were so taken by the beauty of the place,” the actress told me. “Because it really is so pure. It’s so untampered with and so fresh, and because you’re so high up you can quite get quite delirious up there.”

New stills of Gemma in Vita & Virginia have been added to the gallery. Enjoy the new additions!

STELLA MAGAZINE – Gemma Arterton is explaining the little-known art of ‘pistol-whipping’. ‘Sounds pretty mad, doesn’t it?’ says the 34-year-old star of Quantum of Solace, Clash of the Titans and Tamara Drewe with a peel of laughter. ‘Like a euphemism, or like you’re going to be slapping someone around the face with a pistol.’ And the term has been used in that way more recently, but in Matthew Vaughn’s action-packed prequel to the Kingsman spy sagas – set during the First World War – ‘it’s not that,’ she assures me. ‘It’s more flipping it up and around in the same way you see gunslinging being done in westerns.’

Not enough of Gemma’s pistol-whipping made it into the final cut of The King’s Man – which is ‘typical’, says the Kent-born actor. Having spent months being taught how to do something that cool by ‘a lovely ex-marine named Tony’, and having ‘practised it incessantly, it’ll inevitably end up being one second in the film. And there you are desperately asking everyone: “Wait – did you see that amazing pistol-whip thing that I did?”’

Gemma needn’t worry. If ‘pistol-whipping’ were a euphemism, then her character, Nanny Polly, pistol-whips her way through and around every character in the drama – from Ralph Fiennes’ Duke of Oxford to his son Conrad (played by star-in-the-making Harris Dickinson), to a toddler hanging on her apron strings. (The cast also includes Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Matthew Goode and Stanley Tucci.) Simply put: Polly’s a pistol-whipping, Yorkshire-accented Mary Poppins. ‘And not just a nanny,’ Gemma explains, ‘but a matriarch who runs everything. She’s the emotional anchor; everybody’s rock.’

Check in our gallery the beautiful photoshoot Gemma did for the magazine, together with scans from the issue! Enjoy :)

Hi there, it’s been a while! Of course, with everything that is happening, there isn’t much to update….but we have some news on Gemma’s new movie Summerland. Brand new production stills, posters and behind the scenes have been added to the gallery and the trailer for the movie can be watched below! Too bad there wont’ be a promotional tour for this movie….but at least you can enjoy the new additions!

THE GUARDIAN – More than 50 of the biggest acting names in the UK, including Gemma Arterton, James Norton, and Lennie James, have signed up to appear in a series of digital plays written in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Unprecedented: Theatre from a State of Isolation will feature more than 10 new plays, which will be rehearsed and filmed using digital conferencing technology and come from playwrights, including James Graham and April De Angelis.

The series of plays is curated by Headlong, Century Films and BBC Arts, and “explores our rapidly evolving world”, while responding to “how our understanding and experiences of modern Britain are evolving during the crisis”.

Other names working on the project include the Mighty Boosh actor Julian Barratt, Rory Kinnear, Meera Syal and Alison Steadman. The plays will be broadcast by the BBC as part of its Culture in Quarantine initiative and will be available to stream from May.

Headlong’s artistic director, Jeremy Herrin, said: “I’m finding that making these shows is a way of processing all the contradictions of this alarming historical moment. At a time when we are all feeling isolated, creating a community around this project feels like a soulful thing to do. We can actually be supportive of our family of freelance artists and create decent work whilst doing so. Personally, I’m finding it a great distraction at a time when the iniquities in our society are being shockingly exposed.”

A statement said that the Unprecedented series will “ask how we got here and what the enduring legacy of this historic episode might be”. The new works will aim to “give an immediate insight into this extraordinary communal experience”.

In a blogpost about its Culture in Quarantine series, BBC Arts director Jonty Claypole said it would be a “virtual festival of the arts” rooted in the experience of isolation. “All this will be done hand-in-hand with the wider arts and cultural sector through coverage and collaboration,” he said.

The BBC announced a number of other theatre productions as part of Culture in Quarantine, including streams of Mike Bartlett’s play Albion, which has had two runs at the Almeida, Emma Rice’s Wise Children and half a dozen Royal Shakespeare Company productions.

Other online initiatives triggered by the Covid-19 outbreak include the National Theatre’s decision to stream some of its most popular plays for free during the lockdown. The National Theatre at Home programme started with One Man, Two Guvnors, starring James Corden, which was watched in more than 200,000 households when it went out on the evening of 2 April.

Other productions to be streamed by the NT include Bryony Lavery’s adaptation of Treasure Island, which is available until Thursday, and the 2017 Twelfth Night, with Tamsin Greig as Malvolia. More titles are to be announced.

On Wednesday night (March 11) Gemma attended the ‘On Blueberry Hill’ Press Night After Party held at the Trafalgar Studios in London.

Several photos from the evening have now been added to the gallery, thanks to my friend Emily for some of them! Enjoy :)