Interview: 'Stonewall' Star Jeremy Irvine on LGBT Youth, Method Acting and That Infamous Trailer

Jose here. When I show up at the Stonewall Inn to speak to Jeremy Irvine I see him hanging from the scaffolding outside the historical locale with his co-star Jonny Beauchamp, they’re all smiles and jokes, their camaraderie is evident and I’m slightly surprised they’re not acting more solemnly given they’re carrying the weight of representing one of the most-talked about movies of the year. I expected to find them seated Congressmen-style, preparing grandiose statements about social issues. Expectations are indeed the operative concept at hand when discussing a film that has generated so much controversy even before opening, so I’m glad Irvine is able to find some levity. When I meet him again inside, he’s devouring a scone, “it’s a muffin actually”, he explains, as we sit in one of the booths of the legendary tavern. “That’s what you do in New York isn’t it? You drink coffee and eat muffins” he says with a smile.

Irvine became an overnight star with his leading role in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, and went on to appear in adaptations of famed novels Great Expectations and The Railway Man, I was surprised to see him land the lead in Roland Emmerich’s period piece, but it’s evident that he has an extremely likable quality, that leads filmmakers to think of him as a perfect audience surrogate, who they use to traverse through oft dense plots. Despite his succession of leading roles, Irvine has kept a very low profile and has confessed to prefer spending time in a pub with his mates, than attending big Hollywood premieres. Perhaps that’s why he seems so at ease at the Stonewall, where he proves to be quite candid and open about touchy subjects like the film’s infamous trailer and how he approaches people’s expectations.

JOSE: War Horse, The Woman in Black: Angel of Death and now Stonewall. What’s your fascination with period pieces?

JEREMY IRVINE: I don’t know! Apparently I like costumes (laughs). I don’t go after specific genres really, if I read a script and I’m still thinking about it a few weeks later, then that’s a pretty good sign. When there’s something that connects with you, you just know. Actually when I got the script for Stonewall, I’d just done three movies back to back. I had just finished shooting a movie in Budapest and I said to my agent “I need a break”, and then a couple of days later they sent me the script and said “you have to read this”.

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TIFF Review Index

Let this serve as the official TIFF Review reference guide since the festival closed up shop Sunday night after the Free screening of the People's Choice winner Room. We hope you enjoyed reading along with our reviews. Amir and I saw about 50 movies between us but we'll have to wrap up now as NYFF screenings have already started and Oscar charts MUST be updated and so on.

Fall Film Season is finally upon us!

3 of my favorites of the 29 I saw...

37 Films Reviewed
45 Years British marital drama (Nathaniel)
3000 Nights Palestinian prison drama (Amir)
Anomalisa Existential stop-motion dramedy (Nathaniel)
Arabian Nights: Vol 2 Portugueuse art film with politicial satire vignettes (Nathaniel)
As I Open My Eyes Tunisian music drama (Nathaniel)
Baba Joon Israel's immigrant family drama & Oscar submission (Amir)
Bang Gang French teen sex drama (Nathaniel)
The Clan Argentine true crime drama (Nathaniel)
Closet Monster Canadian LGBT drama (Nathaniel)
Dégradé Palestinian hair salon set female drama (Amir)
Demolition Canadian grief dramedy (Nathaniel)
Desde Allá Venezuelan LGBT Drama & Venice winner (Amir)
Dheepan French Immigrant drama, Palme d'or winner (Amir)
The Dressmaker Australian revenge dramedy (Glenn)
Embrace of the Serpent Black & White Colombian Amazon journey (Nathaniel)
Eva Doesn't Sleep experimental Argentine corpse drama (Nathaniel)
The Family Fang US Dramedy about a performance art family (Nathaniel)
Girls Lost Swedish LGBT Teen Drama (Nathaniel)
Granny's Dancing on the Table Swedish animated/live-action hybrid (Nathaniel)
The Here After Swedish School Drama (Nathaniel)  
Homesick Norwegian incest drama (Nathaniel)
I Saw The Light US musical biopic (Nathaniel)
Invisible Filipino immigrant drama (Nathaniel)
Love French 3D sex drama (Nathaniel)
Much Loved Moroccan docudrama on sex workers in Marrakech (Amir)
Mustang Turkish coming of age drama (Amir)
Phantom Boy French animated adventure (Nathaniel)
Room US family/crime drama, and People's Choice Winner (Nathaniel)
Spotlight, US journalist drama (Nathaniel)
Stonewall US gay history drama (Nathaniel)
Taxi Jafar Panahi's comedy & Berlinale Winner (Amir)
Truth US TV news political drama (Nathaniel) 
Victoria German continuous shot crime drama (Nathaniel)
The Wave Norwegian disaster epic (Nathaniel)
The Witch this year's Sundance horror sensation (Nathaniel)
Youth Showbiz drama (Nathaniel) 

upside down, VICTORIA turned me, inside out. and round and round

Other TIFF Articles
Best Actress Contenders (Nathaniel)
Red Carpet Opening Weekend (Jose)
Red Carpet Post-Venice (Jose)
Victoria's Single Take / Birdman Comparison (Sebastian)
People's Choice and Other Awards (Nathaniel)
Women He's Undressed - The Interview (Jose) 
IndieWire Critics Poll (Nathaniel) 

TIFF Juries of One
I polled the podcasters who stayed the whole fest. Here's what they said...

	Nathaniel R	Joe Reid	Nick Davis
Film	Room	Son of Saul	Arabian Nights
Director	Cirro Guerra, Embrace of Serpent	Ridley Scott, The Martian	Laszlo Nemes, Son of Saul
Actress	Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years	Cate Blanchett, Truth	Kalieaswari Srinivasan, Dheepan
Actor	Jacob Tremblay, Room	Abraham Attah, Beasts of No Nation	Frederick Lau, Victoria
Supp. Actress	Kate Dickie, The Witch	Julianne Moore, Maggie's Plan	Ghalia Benali, As I Open My Eyes
Supp. Actor	Stanley Tucci, Spotlight	Scoot McNairy, Our Brand is Crisis	Abdella Didane, Much Loved
Craft Contribution	Sound, Victoria	Cinematography, Son of Saul	Cinematography, The Assassin
	Cinematography, Embrace of Serpent	Art Direction, Room	Sound, Son of Saul
	Score, Spotlight	Costumes,  The Danish Girl	Camera Operator, Victoria

Emily Blunt is on a roll

Here's Murtada on a long time TFE favorite...

Blunt earlier this week at Sicario's London premiere

It’s a good week to be Emily Blunt. Her latest movie Sicario opened to strong reviews and scored the year’s best on screen average for a limited release indicating it might become a substantial hit when it goes wide. She’s one of the favorites mentioned for that Mary Poppins sequel. And her next movie The Girl on the Train just got a couple of high profile co-stars; an Oscar winner and Captain America himself.

Jared Leto and Chris Evans are set to join Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson and Haley Bennett in the adaptation of the best selling novel that will be directed by The Help’s Tate Taylor. The book, written by Paula Hawkins, is a publishing sensation, a la Gone Girl, having spent 20 weeks at the top of the hardback fiction charts. The plot is about alcoholic Rachel Watson (Blunt) who still pines for her ex husband (Evans) who is now married to Anna (Ferguson) while concocting a fantasy about the seemingly perfect couple (Bennett & Leto) she watches from the train on her daily commute. The story chronicles Bennett’s character disappearance and its effect on both Rachel and Anna. Though the book was set in London and Blunt will keep her English accent, the movie has been transplanted to the suburbs of New York City.

Clockwise L-R : Bennett, Leto, Ferguson and Evans

It’s exciting to see Blunt mixing it up. It would’ve been easy to be pigeonholed in action roles after her much lauded turn in Edge of Tomorrow. Even Sicario in which she plays an FBI agent is very different than her “full metal bitch” in Edge. Her Kate Macer is aces at her job but also overwhelmed by the grim reality of the drug trade along the US-Mexico border, a more nuanced characterization than the straight action-heroine of Edge. In a recent interview with Indiewire she talks about why only a handful of women are sought for all the action roles :

I think it’s because the list is very short, because we don’t see women in these kind of roles. So I think as soon as you do a role like that, like Charlize did or I did, or Rebecca’s done -- there’s like four of us or something. And Jen Lawrence. So I feel like us four, we get talked about -- and Angie, Angelina. So it’s a list of like, four women who are going to be considered for those kind of roles. So I think that’s why the rumors happen, because they’re like, "who else? Surely not another girl can wield a gun," you know what I mean? "A woman doing push-ups? There’s only one who can do that."

Sicario should take her to the next level, whether or not it brings her that first Oscar nomination. The film succeeds as both a vivid and violent thriller and a brilliant character study. At the center of it is Blunt’s Kate Macer who is by turns ferocious, steely, determined and also vulnerable and uncertain. It’s a great showcase of not only Blunt’s giant talent but Denis Villeneuve’s assured direction. Excellent word of mouth should translate into box office gold soon.

Have you seen Sicario yet? Isn't it funny that the two actresses who stole movies from Tom Cruise are going to be on screen together?

Women's Pictures - Amy Heckerling's Vamps

How does it feel to be a relic in the new millenium? No shade intended towards Amy Heckerling. Her most recent film was obsessed with just that question. In Vamps, Heckerling attempted to take a bite (sorry) out of youth culture using 2012's movie monster of the moment, the vampire. But in her latest foray into social satire, the genre-defining writer/director who gave a voice to two generations of teens seemed drained (sorry) of the empathy that had made her previous work enjoyable. To put it bluntly: Vamps sucks.*

*If you dislike puns, don't B negative. They only get worse from here.

For a film about youth, Vamps has a surprising number of well-preserved throwbacks. Alicia Silverstone stars as Goody, a 300 year old vampire. She's joined by a colorful-though-pale cast including Sigourney Weaver, Wallace Shawn, Malcolm MacDowell, Richard Lewis, Marilu Henner and Krysten Ritter, who plays Goody's sister vampire, Stacy. Goody's hundreds of years of un-life as a 20-something have given her pesrpective on the fashions and follies of humanity, though she thinks the latest generation's slang and smartphones are a pain in the neck (sorry). Stacy, who was turned in the 1980s, acts as Goody's ambassador to modern youth culture, at least until Stacy falls for a human (Dan Stevens) in her night film class at NYU. Stacy's relationship, and the return of a past beau, suddenly makes Goody's world a bloody (sorry) mess. More...

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TIFF: Baba Joon, Dégradé, Much Loved

on the set of Baba JoonAmir files our last TIFF report on three films, one of them hoping for Oscar...

Baba Joon (Israel)
Israel’s Oscar submission is quite a unique experience: the lives of Iranian Jews who have left their homeland to live in Israel—and are consequently not allowed to re-enter Iran because of the two countries’ bitter relationship has never been portrayed on screen. In Yuval Delshad’s debut feature, the titular character and his clan—a son, his wife and their son—all live on a small turkey farm in rural Israel and live with very modest means. The tensions between multiple generations of the family, and the melancholia of living at once at home and away from home are the film’s central themes.

Baba Joon’s storytelling and the emotional beats are familiar. There is nothing in the strained father-son dynamics, troubled by decades of repression, that we haven’t previously seen on the big screen. The film’s abrupt but rather predictable ending lends it a saccharine flavour that might sit well with the Academy, but undermines the film. When the story’s resolution is presented so neatly with a gift wrap, very little is left for the audience to ponder. Still, this is a heartfelt film of genuinely well intentions, with a sizable novelty factor, whose fresh look at ethnic minorities in the Middle East is quietly delightful.

Dégradé (Palestine/France/Qatar)
This debut film from eccentrically named brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser, shows similar irreverence in depicting ethnic tensions with Israel. Part Almodovar-esque comedy of women on the verge of nervous breakdowns, part a thriller revolving a hostage situation, their film, which stars Hiam Abbas and Maisa Abd Elhadi, is based in a hair salon in Gaza, where the clientele hail from different social, religious and political backgrounds. As they wait their turns to be beautified, the salon becomes increasingly like a microcosm of Gaza’s society, and the world beyond the confines of the building is engulfed in violence.

Dégradé is an interesting look at life in the occupied territories because it broadens the conversation beyond the Israel-Palestine binary. In the film’s view, the community is rife with tensions and chasms, all exacerbated by the atrocious limitations of living in occupation. Yet, the image is much richer and layered than normally shown on screen, breaking the monolithic view of Palestinians in favour of a more complex perspective. That the film manages to convey these intricacies while remaining consistently entertaining is a significant accomplishment, and one that promises much more from the filmmaking duo.

Much Loved (Morocco/France)
The most daring film among the bunch comes from the more experienced hands of Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch. Ayouch surveys the night club scene in Marrakech, a world filled with sex, drugs and rampant decadence. Home to tourists from Saudi Arabia and Europe, the city’s nightlife is bustling and its sex industry is ever active, almost completely removed from the crisis-ridden country that surrounds it. Almost.  Following Noha (Loubna Abidar) and her entourage of less experienced escorts, Much Loved is as intimate a film as it is provocative.

Ayouch has had to field a lot of controversy, mostly due to the explicit displays of sex in his film; and while the murky release prospects of the film in the Arab world are understandable, it’s unfortunate if sex becomes the only talking point. This is the rare film that intertwines the lives of sex workers with socio-economic issues without becoming patronizing. Morocco’s complicated relationships with Europe and other Arab countries, and its tenuous political situation are subtly worked into the plot of the film. It’s intimate and superbly acted—mostly by amateur performers— and a film that's heartbreaking, humorous and evocative in equal measure. In a festival that is never short on big films from big directors, Much Loved was a true discovery.