Irreplaceable You | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix
Gugu was born in Oxford, England, she appeared in TV series Bad Girls, Bonekickers and Doctor Who. In 2013 She starred in Amma Asante's film Belle.Followed by starring in Gina Prince-Bythewood's film Beyond The Lights. Also starred in Jupiter Ascending, Concussion, Free State of Jones, Miss Sloane and Beauty and the Beast.
Showing posts with label Netflix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Netflix. Show all posts
Thursday, 15 February 2018
Saturday, 11 November 2017
AFM: Netflix swoops on 'Irreplaceable You' with Gugu Mbatha Raw, Michiel Huisman (exclusive) - Screendaily
In a multi-million dollar deal, Netflix has swooped on world rights to romantic-drama Irreplaceable You, the feature directorial debut of former Veep producer and director Stephanie Laing.
Belle star Gugu Mbatha Raw and Game Of Thrones actor Michiel Huisman play best friends and romantic soulmates whose lives come crashing down when one is given a terminal cancer diagnosis.
The stellar supporting cast includes Christopher Walken, Kate McKinnon, Jacki Weaver, Steve Coogan, Tim Simons and Claire Holt.
Walken and the previously unannounced McKinnon, star of Ghostbusters and Saturday Night Live, will play characters in a cancer support group which is led by Steve Coogan’s character.
Read more: All the latest AFM news
Bess Wohl wrote the script. Jonathan Tropper, Farah Abushwesha, Matt Kaplan, Brian Robbins and Laing are producing. The Exchange was previously on board for sales.
The potential Sundance debut will be branded as a Netflix Original and will debut on the service next year as part of the streaming giant’s monster 2018, which is due to include 80 ‘originals’.
Netflix snapped up the film earlier this year before seeing footage of the project.
Mbatha Raw recently played in Miss Sloane and Beauty And The Beast and will next star in Ava DuVernay’s Disney fantasy A Wrinkle In Time and Bad Robot’s Cloverfield Movie. She also starred in the San Junipero episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror.
Huisman, who plays Daario Naharis in HBO’s Game Of Thrones, recently starred opposite Lily James in Mike Newell’s upcoming romance-drama The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Friday, 4 November 2016
Video: Gugu Mbatha-Raw & Charlie Brooker Talk "Black Mirror" E! Live from the Red Carpet
Gugu Mbatha-Raw & Charlie Brooker Talk "Black Mirror" | E! Live from the Red Carpet
Published on 27 Oct 2016
Find out what influenced Charlie Brooker's writing style for the Netflix series and why Gugu decided to join the show's cast!
Saturday, 29 October 2016
Spoilers: Black Mirror's Gugu Mbatha-Raw on the Heartbreaking and Hopeful "San Junipero" - Cosmopolitan
Black Mirror's Gugu Mbatha-Raw on the Heartbreaking and Hopeful "San Junipero"
If computer-generated life after death were an option, would you take it?
Spoilers ahead.
If you’ve heard anything at all about Black Mirror, you’ve probably heard that it’s a vicious, unsettling commentary on technology, our dependence upon it and its corrosive effect on society. Brilliant, you’ve probably heard, but too bleak to binge. All of that is true — except that the show’s newly released third season features its most hopeful and heartfelt episode to date.
"San Junipero" begins as a love story between two young women in the 1980s, Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis), and evolves into something more complex, a bittersweet fantasy about the redemptive possibilities of technology. The town of San Junipero, as it turns out, is a computer-generated afterlife to which people can upload their consciousness — either temporarily, for five hours per week as "tourists," or permanently after their death, allowing them to live forever in suspended reality.
Cosmopolitan.com spoke to Gugu about 1980s nostalgia, the episode’s ambiguous ending, and whether a real-world San Junipero would appeal to her.
Spoilers ahead.
If you’ve heard anything at all about Black Mirror, you’ve probably heard that it’s a vicious, unsettling commentary on technology, our dependence upon it and its corrosive effect on society. Brilliant, you’ve probably heard, but too bleak to binge. All of that is true — except that the show’s newly released third season features its most hopeful and heartfelt episode to date.
"San Junipero" begins as a love story between two young women in the 1980s, Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis), and evolves into something more complex, a bittersweet fantasy about the redemptive possibilities of technology. The town of San Junipero, as it turns out, is a computer-generated afterlife to which people can upload their consciousness — either temporarily, for five hours per week as "tourists," or permanently after their death, allowing them to live forever in suspended reality.
Cosmopolitan.com spoke to Gugu about 1980s nostalgia, the episode’s ambiguous ending, and whether a real-world San Junipero would appeal to her.
You must have been familiar with the show. But how was your episode pitched to you?
Yeah, I was familiar with it, but I actually hadn’t seen it. I had heard about it, and I got sent the script by my agent, and I was like, “Ohhh, Black Mirror. I’ve heard that’s cool.” So I started reading it instantly on my phone and I was actually at Oxford Circus [in London] about to get a bus to Brixton. I read the whole script between Oxford Circus and Brixton because it was such a page-turner. And I read the whole thing on my phone, which is very Black Mirror-esqe, I suppose.
Yeah, I was familiar with it, but I actually hadn’t seen it. I had heard about it, and I got sent the script by my agent, and I was like, “Ohhh, Black Mirror. I’ve heard that’s cool.” So I started reading it instantly on my phone and I was actually at Oxford Circus [in London] about to get a bus to Brixton. I read the whole script between Oxford Circus and Brixton because it was such a page-turner. And I read the whole thing on my phone, which is very Black Mirror-esqe, I suppose.
Did you see the twist coming?
I didn’t see it coming. I couldn’t — it was unpredictable. But it was also emotional and playful and really makes you think. So then I met with Charlie [Brooker, the creator] and [executive producer] Annabel Jones and Owen Harris, the director. And I watched his episode that he’d done before, “Be Right Back,” which was so emotional and beautifully executed. So it was a no-brainer [to take the part].
I didn’t see it coming. I couldn’t — it was unpredictable. But it was also emotional and playful and really makes you think. So then I met with Charlie [Brooker, the creator] and [executive producer] Annabel Jones and Owen Harris, the director. And I watched his episode that he’d done before, “Be Right Back,” which was so emotional and beautifully executed. So it was a no-brainer [to take the part].
It’s interesting you hadn’t seen the show — maybe you didn’t realize your episode is so much different than the rest?
I think Charlie did that intentionally [as] a palate cleanser from a lot of the other more paranoid or more cynical-toned episodes in previous seasons.
I think Charlie did that intentionally [as] a palate cleanser from a lot of the other more paranoid or more cynical-toned episodes in previous seasons.
Nostalgia is so huge, and this episode taps into that a bit. There’s this desire for people to recover some era of their lives. Did that resonate with you?
Yeah, absolutely. I was born in the ‘80s, so I don’t really remember it very strongly, but the music is so iconic. And so those artists — Madonna, Prince, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston — you still hear those songs all the time. And there’s such a distinctive style — the clothes, the shoulder pads, the big hair, the perm. You look back and you think it wasn’t that long ago, but it’s actually very distinctly different from where we live now and you see how rapidly our culture is evolving.
Yeah, absolutely. I was born in the ‘80s, so I don’t really remember it very strongly, but the music is so iconic. And so those artists — Madonna, Prince, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston — you still hear those songs all the time. And there’s such a distinctive style — the clothes, the shoulder pads, the big hair, the perm. You look back and you think it wasn’t that long ago, but it’s actually very distinctly different from where we live now and you see how rapidly our culture is evolving.
How long did it take you to get “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” out of your head, because it’s still on a loop in mine.
It’s really good like that, isn’t it? It’s annoying, but it’s fabulous. I went back and watched the original Belinda Carlisle video. It’s like her, sort of all in black, with these guys walking around with these globes. It’s very surreal. I remember sending it to Owen Harris when I first got the job and was like, “Have you seen this?” But yeah, I love that song and I think it’s so resonant for the episode. It really ties it together.
It’s really good like that, isn’t it? It’s annoying, but it’s fabulous. I went back and watched the original Belinda Carlisle video. It’s like her, sort of all in black, with these guys walking around with these globes. It’s very surreal. I remember sending it to Owen Harris when I first got the job and was like, “Have you seen this?” But yeah, I love that song and I think it’s so resonant for the episode. It really ties it together.
How was it developing your relationship with Mackenzie Davis?
Well, Mackenzie Davis is a wonderful actress. We had a very rapid shoot period. It was about three weeks, but I think we actually shot for 14 days — like, seven days in London and seven days in Cape Town. So that’s really fast considering the scale of some of the locations. We didn’t really have much time to rehearse. We didn’t read through. And we met our other counterparts [the actresses who played the older versions of their characters], but that was kind of it. It was really fun.
Well, Mackenzie Davis is a wonderful actress. We had a very rapid shoot period. It was about three weeks, but I think we actually shot for 14 days — like, seven days in London and seven days in Cape Town. So that’s really fast considering the scale of some of the locations. We didn’t really have much time to rehearse. We didn’t read through. And we met our other counterparts [the actresses who played the older versions of their characters], but that was kind of it. It was really fun.
I didn’t think this was up for debate, but some people are wondering whether Kelly and Yorkie really do end up together or not. Was that ever a question in your mind?
I love the fact that people are talking about it and it’s raising all of these questions. I think for me, I always felt that they were, but I guess it’s open for interpretation. That’s the great thing about Charlie’s writing — it provokes people and everybody brings their own experience and their own interpretation [to it].
I love the fact that people are talking about it and it’s raising all of these questions. I think for me, I always felt that they were, but I guess it’s open for interpretation. That’s the great thing about Charlie’s writing — it provokes people and everybody brings their own experience and their own interpretation [to it].
Does the idea of a place like San Junipero appeal to you? Do you think you’d want to do that or not?
In a weird way, I think it depends on your circumstance. I would certainly maybe try it. I would be a tourist, but I don’t know if I would go permanent. I don’t know.
In a weird way, I think it depends on your circumstance. I would certainly maybe try it. I would be a tourist, but I don’t know if I would go permanent. I don’t know.
It’s such a strange thing. Like all of Charlie’s ideas, it seems less and less theoretical. It’s so easy to imagine that being an option in 50 years time.
We’ve already got half of our lives uploaded onto a cloud. What does that even mean? We just accept it as a part of our vocabulary, but do we really know that means? And that, to me, is fascinating. [There is] all this information about us that’s on the internet … how much of somebody could you really replicate or, you know, create?
The genius of Black Mirror is that [Charlie] comes up with these things that are not wildly sci-fi fantastical. So you don’t go, “No, no, no. That could never ever happen.” Because we recognize the world [the show is set in], I think it opens up your brain to the possibilities. And then some of these things are not so fantastical. Sadly not.
All three seasons of Black Mirror are available on Netflix now.
Follow Emma on Twitter.
We’ve already got half of our lives uploaded onto a cloud. What does that even mean? We just accept it as a part of our vocabulary, but do we really know that means? And that, to me, is fascinating. [There is] all this information about us that’s on the internet … how much of somebody could you really replicate or, you know, create?
The genius of Black Mirror is that [Charlie] comes up with these things that are not wildly sci-fi fantastical. So you don’t go, “No, no, no. That could never ever happen.” Because we recognize the world [the show is set in], I think it opens up your brain to the possibilities. And then some of these things are not so fantastical. Sadly not.
All three seasons of Black Mirror are available on Netflix now.
Follow Emma on Twitter.
Sunday, 23 October 2016
Gugu Mbatha-Raw on Black Mirror: 'It was almost like a release - I just needed to express some joy'
Gugu Mbatha-Raw on Black Mirror: 'It was almost like a release - I just needed to express some joy'
As eerily prescient sci-fi series Black Mirror arrives on Netflix tomorrow, Gugu Mbatha-Raw talks living between London and LA and searching for a human connection in a high-tech world
One day, during the Cape Town shoot for the latest series of Black Mirror, filming was interrupted by an unusual intruder.
“We were in this residential area, it was almost like The Truman Show, some of the houses were so new,” remembers Gugu Mbatha-Raw, star of the black comedy’s most intriguing new episode.
“At one point this ostrich walked through the housing estate and on to the beach. And he sat down in the sand and started having a sort of sand bath. We were trying to film but, y’know, what do you do if an ostrich wanders into frame? It was so surreal … sort of magical.”By now the Oxfordshire-born Mbatha-Raw, 33, is au fait enough with TV and film sets to appreciate a little divergence from the norm.
Moreover, her schedule has been so non-stop of late that she probably just appreciated the break.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw in the forthcoming Black Mirror (netflix)
After making her name as Ophelia to Jude Law’s Hamlet on Broadway in 2009, she had her first starring role as a mixed-race aristocrat in Amma Asante’s 2013 period drama Belle.
Since then she’s built up both credits and kudos in theatre, TV and film.
Recent triumphs include starring opposite Matthew McConaughey in Free State of Jones and with Will Smith in Concussion, playing the title role in Nell Gwynn at Shakespeare’s Globe and serving on the London Film Festival’s Official Competition jury.
Then there’s the role that we’re meeting today to discuss in San Junipero, a mind-bending, moving and strangely hopeful episode of Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker’s Emmy award-winning sci-fi anthology.
She plays Kelly, a fun-loving party girl who leads astray timid newcomer Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis) when they meet at a nightclub in the California beach town of the title one evening in 1987.
“The outwardly sort of sparkly bits of the character were really fun to play with like the clothes, the hair the make-up, the music,” she says.
“I’ve done a few different periods in history but the Eighties is now a period! And I was born in the Eighties. It’s not that far away but it’s enough that people look at the shoulder pads and go ‘Oh yikes! Is that really what people thought was cool?’”
Previous series of Black Mirror have included enough incidents of uncanny prescience (remember #Piggate?) to elevate the show from witty entertainment to major cultural event.
After American audiences fell for the off-beat British drama, Netflix paid $40 million for the rights to this, its third season. Actors are queuing up to have their names associated with it but that wasn’t what drew Mbatha-Raw to get involved.
“
Well, for me it was almost like a release, I think, because I’d spent six months earlier in the year doing quite serious roles in quite serious films.
Well, for me it was almost like a release, I think, because I’d spent six months earlier in the year doing quite serious roles in quite serious films.
"Concussion has a heavy subject matter and my character had a miscarriage, and then I went to do Free State of Jones and my character was a slave and had a lot of emotional trauma in her past and present … I just needed to express some joy,” she says, releasing a burst of laughter to illustrate her point.
“I had a lot of pent-up joy after the serious stuff.”
In person, Mbatha-Raw laughs generously and infectiously, giving off every impression of being the life and soul of the party.
This newspaper’s critic described her Nell Gwynn as “a rollicking good evening’s entertainment”, and any beneficiary of her company can well imagine such rollicking, though the actress insists she does very little of it in her private life.
“I’m not really a clubber … she says, pouring her loose-leaf tea!” More laughter. “I mean, I love to dance but I’m not a crazy party animal. I think sometimes it’s hard to find places that aren’t full of attitude.
"I can’t be bothered with all that peacocking sort of stuff. I’d rather just lose my inhibitions and have fun and not be worrying about, y’know, a scene.”
She was in a relationship with Harry Lloyd, the Game of Thrones actor and great-great-great-grandson of Charles Dickens, until 2012 but if there’s a new love in her life she’s not telling.
It would be hard to pursue anything serious while living the itinerant life of a successful actor. “Gypsy nomad! I do have a base in LA but it’s so nice to be able to travel for work and get to go on these adventures.”
When she’s out of town she misses her mum, of course, but aside from that, it’s a supermarket that has captured her heart: “Oh my gosh! I was just talking about it this morning. I was like [exhales in deep contentment] ‘Oh, Waitrose!’.
"I don’t know why, I just love it. It’s just the lovely Waitrose-ness.”
In apparent contrast to this carefree attitude, there’s a second, more politicised or, as she puts it, “heavy”, strand to Mbatha-Raw’s back catalogue.
She’s appeared in several films which explore historical attitudes to race and gender, while collaborating with three of the most prominent black female directors working today: Amma Asante, Ava DuVernay and Gina Prince-Bythewood.
Her next project will be the starring role in Prince-Bythewood’s screen adaptation of Roxane Gay’s novel An Untamed Heart, about a Haitian woman’s harrowing experience of kidnap.
Yet while she insists she’s happy to talk about topics of race, diversity and representation, they don’t seem to get her particularly exercised.
Does she feel like now is a good time for the representation of black and mixed-race people in film? “I mean, I’ve never felt that it’s a bad time, being mixed race myself, whatever that means…”
Then later, when the subject comes up again: “I genuinely have never felt limited. I feel really privileged. I’ve had really great opportunities.”
The night before we meet she spends supporting her old friends Asante and David Oyelowo at the red-carpet premiere of Asante’s latest film, A United Kingdom, and recently caught up with Oprah Winfrey, a friend since Belle, at the opening of the Winfrey Theater at the National Museum for African American History and Culture in Washington DC.
But as for whether she’s made a deliberate decision to support female film-makers, she says: “I’ve worked with great male directors as well, and certainly I’ve found that female directors have given me some wonderful roles to play.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw at the A United Kingdom premiere (Dave Benett)
"But again, that’s not the only case…It’s not like I deliberately go out looking to work with female directors.”
Mbatha-Raw is equally unruffled about what must be the most contentious industry topic of the moment, the upcoming release of The Birth of A Nation.
In the year of #OscarsSoWhite, this fact-based drama about an 1831 slave uprising would have been much discussed, even if Nate Parker, the film’s writer, director and star, hadn’t become embroiled in controversy over a 1999 rape charge.
Parker strongly denied the accusation and was acquitted. In the wake of the story resurfacing, the film’s distributor Fox Searchlight have adopted a damage limitation strategy, while actress and rape survivor Gabrielle Union, who appears in the film, wrote about her complicated feelings in an op-ed for the LA Times.
Mbatha-Raw, who co-starred with Parker in the 2014 romance, Beyond The Lights, seems to have a more straightforward take:
“I mean, I don’t know what to say really….I think it’s a real shame that that’s taken the focus. I can’t wait to see the film because then at least, once I’ve seen the film I can speak in a more balanced way about the work.
"I mean we had a great experience working together and he’s a really great actor.”
Is this Mbatha-Raw burying her head in the sand, like that oblivious ostrich on the Cape Town beach?
It seems more likely that she’s aware that a faculty for politely side-stepping awkward topics has factored into her unusual success.
Not every actor can flit so effortlessly between stage and screen, from one side of the Atlantic to the other, making fast friends wherever she goes.
Controversy may swirl around Mbatha-Raw but she floats
elegantly above it all. She still regularly meets up with her Belle co-star Sarah Gadon and counts her contemporaries from National Youth Music Theatre among her closest confidants.
elegantly above it all. She still regularly meets up with her Belle co-star Sarah Gadon and counts her contemporaries from National Youth Music Theatre among her closest confidants.
“Being an only child, I have always found my siblings in theatre,” she says.
For such a social person, Mbatha-Raw is not big on social media (“I think sometimes if you have too much out there it’s harder for people to believe in the characters”).
But nor is she scared of technology — even after a stint starring into the black mirror to confront its darkest possibilities.
“I’m generally a positive person and I think what appealed to me about the episode is that there’s one thing that technology can never replace, and that is a soul.”
So perhaps it’s just that the topical talking points don’t capture her attention as much as the eternal questions.
“Who knows where we’ll end up with artificial intelligence and all that stuff. To me, there’s that indescribable …‘ness’ that is, I don’t know … a human connection?”
Black Mirror series three is available exclusively on Netflix from tomorrow.
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