It's Ben Kingsley Week
I shall be deputising for Mr Mark Kermode for three weeks in August, on both Five Live and News 24 (which I think might now be called BBC News - whatever). This means I am now seeing a lot of film screenings. It's always fun to be back in the film critic's saddle, but mainly because I don't have to see all the films every week. That would be a living hell, obviously. Anyway, I'm working my way through the 18 or so I have to see and this week, by chance, I have only seen films with Ben Kingsley in them.Alright, the film I saw on Monday night had Ben Kingsley in it, and the film I saw last night had Ben Kingsley in it, but that's a 100% record so far. The two films could not have been more different, and stand as testament to the sheer breadth of work "Sir Ben" now does. Monday night's was The Love Guru, already heavily advertised on London buses (and, presumably, other buses in other places) and out on August 1. This is a Mike Myers vehicle, which I daresay I must not review yet due to embargoes, but I will say is not a classic Mike Myers (to the point where I'm finding it hard to remember what was a classic Mike Myers?). Anyway, Ben Kingsley cameos as a cross-eyed Indian guru. It is, to say the least, broad.
The film I saw last night with Ben Kingsley in it was The Wackness, which is released on August 29. This has already been praised at festivals and is one of those much-talked-about indie sleeper hits. (Which has nothing to do with the band Sleeper having a hit.) Again, I won't review it, but it's as good as they are already saying it is: low-key, low-budget, no explosions, no cross-eyed gurus. When I arrived at the screening - which was at the relatively new, and very nice, screening room in the Soho Hotel, tucked away down a cul-de-sac you'd never ordinarily walk down - someone from the film company ushered me into the bar and asked if I'd like to "chat with Ben?" Because it's a small film, my first thought was: oh no, the director, called Ben, is here, and I have to chat to him at a screening of his own film! However, Ben turned out to be ... you're way ahead of me, here ... Ben Kingsley, who was just stood there, near the bar, having a glass of wine with his wife, and son, and son's friend/girlfriend. I didn't even notice him at first. Then the person from the film company took me out of the conversation I was having and introduced me to Ben. (The director's name is Jonathan. He wasn't there.)
Hey, I'm an old hand at meeting film stars. They're actually not film stars, despite all the hoo-ha. They're actors. And actors are insecure, and need a lot of loving. The "star" part is no help when it comes to alleviating an actor's insecurity. I learned this during my two and a half years' service on Radio 4's Back Row, when I must have interviewed at least one, if not two actors a week, some hugely famous (Hanks, Costner, Thurman, Depp, Hopkins, Allen), some less famous and more approachable and off-guard (Morton, Hawke, McGregor, Walters, Seymour Hoffman). However, you at least get the chance to acclimatise when you're interviewing someone. To prepare. Here I was, well, just meeting Ben Kingsley. Chatting to him. In the event, I chatted to him for about five minutes, standing near the bar, me with my shoulder bag on my shoulder and a Marks & Spencer reusable plastic carrier bag in my hand. It was quite surreal. I weighed straight in with the fact that I'd seen him the night before in The Love Guru, and I remarked that mainstream American comedies these days seem to be aimed specifically at an imagined 14-year-old boy. (This was my way of getting out of the fact that I didn't like it - and a very slick way, I think.) He agreed, and said that he'd loved working with Myers, something I don't doubt. It didn't change my opinion of the film, but chatting to him made me remember that actors have no idea what they're getting into - whether the film will work or not work, whether it will be a success or not, whether it will be released at the cinema or not - so their choices are made in the dark. Ben felt like doing a broad comedy, and working with Mike Myers: he succeeded in both. He actually compared Myers to Chaplin, which, in terms of the power he seemingly wields, is not as daft as it first seems. I chatted to Ben about Sexy Beast, which I loved him in, like the rest of the world, and told him that his turn as Don Logan had opened to door for other "serious" actors to be cast as Cockney gangsters in thrillers, such as Ralph Fiennes in In Bruges. He's very proud of Don Logan. And I chatted to him about the film we were about to see, which I'd heard good things about. It was time to go into the screening room before I had chance to compliment him on his performance in The Sopranaos.
He came on to introduce the film, humbly and briefly. He hoped we'd like it. He's clearly very proud of it, in that I don't see him introducing a screening of The Love Guru. (Mind you, if I was Mike Myers I'd not be super-keen to introduce it either. You'll note that Ben does not appear on the poster.) It must surely be agony to watch a film you're in with a roomful of London critics. But he did. He sat it out to the end. And then went back to the bar, with his wife and family and friends, and where I was too humble to follow him and renew our new friendship. (I am, by the way, fully aware of what happened in the bar. But I still enjoyed chatting to Ben Kingsley, for fun. It's possible that he's on a charm offensive, to fend off these rumours that he's a diva and demands to be called "Sir Ben". He certainly succeeded there. Maybe they're out of date rumours and he's cheered up.)
I will still review both films honestly on Five Live and News 24, but it was cool to meet Ben Kingsley. I always used to say on Back Row that the day I wasn't excited about meeting a famous actor was the day I should throw in the towel. I have yet to stop being excited about meeting famous actors. Spare me from ever becoming jaded.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 9:06 AM
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23 Comments:
After seeing his manifestation of Don Logan, I would never go near Ben Kingsley just in case he turned.
Did you ask him about Ghandi? You know Kinglsey flew to the Middle East to argue that peaceful resistance was preferable to violent resistance and showed the film Ghandi in its entirety to them.
Ghandi met Mahmoud Abbas as well. Theres a story about it here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4419343.stm
Personally I think its the most impressive thing he's done
I met Rick Mayall once when I was a teenager at an Edinburgh Fringe show party. I was quite drunk and insisted on showing him this comedy handshake I'd just learnt. He stood patiently and nodded as i told him he could use it in The Young Ones.
I still wake up sweating thinking about it to this day.
Still, I think so long as there is at least the possibility that you will either do or say something cringingly embarassing when you meet someone really famous, you're never going to become jaded.
Ironically, I never even liked The Young Ones that much. But as with much of punk music at the time, you were sort of carried along with the power of the cultural tornado - whether you liked it or not.
Hey, I walked up to Gene Hackman on the terrace of the Sunset Marquis in LA - he was eating alone - and told him that he was the greatest living American screen actor (which I believe). I was a bit drunk, so it could have been worse. He was gracious and patient; thanked me and allowed me to shake his hand. Then I left him to his red wine. I'm bloody glad I did it.
Did he shake your hand in a 'comedy' way Andrew?
If so, maybe Rick passed my piece of sublime comic stagecraft on after all. Or ... possibly not.
May i sugest 'So i married as axe murderer' as the last of the good Mike Myers films.
On refection, it may not have stood the test of time that weel, but it does have Myers' best character , the Scotish father, still cracks me up. "He's not a huge head, it's like on orange on a toothpick,... och he'll be crying hemself to sleep tonight on his huge pillow...'
And a brassed up version of the La's 'There she goes'
Backtoblack
In my line of work I have chanced to meet quite a few successful popular musicians, and perhaps this is just me but broadly speaking their charm seems inversely proportional to my appreciation of their work. viz: Peter Hammill - a great favourite of mine = rather hard work. Sting - whose work I am unable to endure = quite the most agreeable fellow.
There's a lesson there, but I'm slightly too dim to grasp it
I'm very idiotic around anyone remotely famous.
They don't get much more famous than "The Men They Couldn't Hang", I'm sure you'll agree. I met the singer at the tail end of their career probably around the time they scraped together a "Best Of". It was at a Cathal Caughlin gig and I was, inexplicably, wearing a TMTCH t-shirt. I recall that Cathal himself was wearing a "Keep Music Evil" t-shirt that I found impossibly cool. The TMTCH dude came up to me and told me who he was and how nice it was top see someone wearing the t-shirt at which I explained that I wasn't really a fan any more that much and just happened to be wearing the t-shirt. What was a thinking! Idiot.
On a similar note, I once informed Jim Reid from "Jesus and Mary Chain" that, in my considered view, "The Blue Nile" were the finest Scottish band ever. He didn't seem too offended and proceeded on a long discourse about the depths of his alcoholism.
I saw The Blue Nile last night, btw. didn't expect a great deal for some reason but they were awesome. I was literally filled with awe.
Yes, Gene Hackman. One of my all-time heroes also.
I like the fact that he doesnt seem to do many chatshows etc and I consequently know hardly anything about him other than his on-screen roles.
You stop worrying about getting old when you see how cool Gene Hackman looks. Not groomed and prissy like Sean Connery, charming the ladies at the local golf club. But lived-in.
In my experience horrible famous people far outweigh pleasant famous people. When they're nice they're really nice and when they're not they're awful.
Here's my nice list:
http://five-centres.blogspot.com/2007/09/nice-list.html
Great Nice list Five-centres, good idea.
Isn't there some quote that success merely gives you the freedom to be who you really are? So it brings out the best or worst of people, depending on who they are at heart? Or something like that.
I met the guy who played Danny in The Cops once, on my 29th birthday I think. I was incredibly drunk (so much so that I missed work the next day - the first and only time I've done that I might add). Anyway, he was a really great guy, genuinely surprised that I thought he was a good actor and didn't mind me questioning him in great detail about the sex scenes he did with the woman who's now in the BT adds with the guy from My Family (well if he did, he hid it well, comes from being an actor I suppose).
The woman who plays Gail Platt in Corrie on the other hand...
Deb H
PS We don't get the same class of "star" up here in Manchester, not since Eric Cantona left Utd.
I've just chanced across Richard Herring's biography at Avalon. I notice that it lists his "playing age" (whatever that is if you're not an actor) as 26-35. Hmmm. It looks like it was completed in 2005, when he was 39. But even so, 26? Really? Hmm
http://www.avalonuk.com/pdf/pdf_herring.pdf
He is an actor, Mike. He played Percy the shepherd in Servants (2003), Mike the Postie in Time Gentlemen Please (2000-2001) and Ian in You Can Choose Your Friends (2007), as well as all those characters in Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy. Also, he played the part of Richard Herring on stage and in our podcasts. He dresses like a student and could thus easily pass for 26. He is well fit.
My mother-in-law met original Sooty fondler Harry Corbett when she was about 5 and he told her to p*ss off! Children's entertainers eh. That always makes me laugh.
Andrew - I caught you on 5's 'Greatest Disaster Movies' last night! You were enjoyable as ever and I particularly liked the fact that you tried not spoil the endings of films for people. I'm not sure what Ruth Badger was doing on there though. And I would never class some of those films as disaster movies (The Rock? Really? Predator? Eh?. No Titanic though - and Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno should have been at the top surely!!) Anyway, you were funny. I liked the story about your dad doing the Donald Sutherland Invasion of the Body Snatchers noise at you when you came back from your bike ride.
Andrew, will you be reviewing Puffball, the interesting-yet-so-far-hated-by-critics Nic Roeg film? I'm eager to see what it's like.
Did i miss Jaws in the disaster movie countdown? I like the fact that seemingly all glamour models are also diaster movie fans, what a coincidence.A small cheer went up 'round ours' for the Poseidon Adventure, as i knew you wouldn't be far behind.
about the only famous person i ever met was Jon Pertwee, who openned a Summer fate near us, and used someone my Mum knew to change. He was very nice, but seemed some what 'tired' I don't recall that did, but my Mum does!
BACKTOBLACK
I can't hear the name Ben Kingsley without thinking 'Ben Kingsleh clown union'
I didn't even know the disaster movie programme had been on! I thought it was never going to run. Which side was it on? I hope it's repeated.
on five, not sure if it's to be repeated, make sure you gewt your repeat fee if so!
BACKTOBLACK
You don't get repeat fees for talking head jobs. If only.
mind you getting paid to talk about TPA, a film you love, and that you've written about incessantly [Empire got you to do a bit on the 're-imagining' didn't they...as the should you being former editor *cough*] not a bad job, really
BACKTOBLACK
I've met Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge, Gary Lineker and Terence Trent D'arby (when I say met I mean shaken hands and said hello)..it doesn't get any better then that in my book.
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