Nicole Kidman to play the villian in Paddington Bear film; Colin Firth to voice Paddington

Nicole Kidman attends the Calvin Klein show during New York Fashion Show this week. Kidman will play an evil taxidermist in an upcoming film about beloved British children's book character Paddington Bear. Picture: Getty Source: Getty Images

 

The Daily Telegraph reports

Nicole Kidman will play the villain in a new movie about marmalade-loving children's character Paddington Bear - to be voiced by Oscar-winning British actor Colin Firth.

Firth, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Britain's stuttering king George VI in The King's Speech, has told British newspaper Daily Mail that the Peruvian bear would be computer-generated, with the rest of the characters played by real actors including Kidman.

"Paddington will be computer-generated, and I will speak his lines with, I suspect, a slight Peruvian flavour,'' Firth told the Mail.

"Every other character in the film will be real, live human beings.

"But the idea is that Paddington will have something of me in his DNA because I'm going to do some sessions wearing one of those helmets with cameras to capture my face muscles, and all that data will somehow be incorporated into Paddington.''

Kidman will play the villain in the movie spearheaded by David Heyman, the producer of the Harry Potter movies.

One of the best-loved characters of classic English children's literature, Paddington is known for his duffle-coat, battered suitcase and love of marmalade sandwiches. He is unfailingly polite, but has a knack for getting into trouble.

He first appeared in 1958 in Michael Bond's book A Bear Called Paddington, in which the Brown family find him sitting in London's Paddington train station, having made his way there from "darkest Peru''.

The family adopt the bear - who carries a sign reading Please Look After This Bear - and he goes on to have 20 books' worth of adventures.

Heyman had announced last year that he was teaming up with France-based film studio Studiocanal to update Paddington's adventures for the big screen.

Filming starts in September and it is due in cinemas in November 2014.

The movie will also feature Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent, both of whom worked with Heyman on the Harry Potter films.

Paul King, director of the British TV comedy series The Mighty Boosh, is to direct the film, according to the film trade magazine Screen Daily.

The Hollywood Reporter said Kidman would play "an evil taxidermist out for revenge''.
The stories have previously been adapted in cartoon form and using puppets.

Cate Blanchett tipped to star in Barbra Streisand's first film as director in 16 years Skinny And Cat with Colin Firth

Returning to movies as a director ... Singer and actress Barbra Streisand, now 70. Picture: AFP/Robyn Beck Source: AFP

The Daily Telegraph reports

Cate Blanchett is tipped to play the female lead in a movie to be directed by Barbra Streisand.

Streisand, 70, who hasn't directed a film since the romantic comedy The Mirror Has Two Faces 16 years ago, is in the process of raising funds for the film Skinny And Cat.

Colin Firth has been linked to the other lead role in the movie about author Erskine Caldwell and his late photographer wife Margaret Bourke-White. Despite a relatively short marriage, they collaborated on a number of books.

Streisand is reportedly yet to raise the $US20 million needed before the film can get underway.

Colin Firth struggles to portray tortured in paradise

 

Colin Firth brings a touch of Hollywood to Ipswich. Photo: Lucy Nicholson

Dan Nancarrow, The Age, reports

It's the question every international celebrity confronts when facing the media in Australia: "What do you think of it here?"

At a press conference on the Gold Coast today Colin Firth, the Academy Award winning actor in town to shoot the film adaption of novel The Railway Man, handled that most perfunctory of queries with the same modest charm he exudes on camera.

He gleefully spoke about the beauty of Queensland's glitter strip - "It's a little hard to get yourself in the mindset of a tortured person when you are surrounded by paradise ... it's been bliss" - before giving an honest assessment of his time in Ipswich, west of Brisbane, where he shot scenes recently.

"My only experience in Ipswich was a rail yard in which I was trying to cross a courtyard, thrown into a cell and kicked about," he said.

"I'm sure it's lovely but that experience has probably not given me the full picture."

The Railway Man began shooting in southeast Queensland earlier this month after initial filming took place in Scotland and Thailand.

The film tells the true story of Eric Lomax, a British prisoner of war who was forced to work on the Thai/Burma railway during World War II, who returns to the Bridge on the River Kwai to confront his Japanese tormentor, Nagase, played by Hiroyuki Sanada.

The great challenge of the film for Firth was to get into the mindset of a man who had experienced torture and tell a story that Mr Lomax himself still struggles to be completely open about.

For Sanada though, the challenge is speaking about an issue - Japanese treatment of prisoners of war in World War II - that is largely unspoken of in his homeland.

"I think we have an education problem in Japan," he said.

"Nobody knows what happened. That's why I thought this was a good chance to re-examine what happened in the past and think about now and the future for me and the younger generation [to make] a better future together.

"We should reexamine that, go to the next step, to make peace."

The UK and Australia co-production is backed by Screen Australia, with Screen Queensland and Creative Scotland also lending support.

Andy Paterson, British producer and co-screenwriter of the film, said southeast Queensland was used in the film for its visual similarities to Singapore.

Ipswich in particular was selected for the North Ipswich rail yards

While the POW camp scenes will be filmed on the Gold Coast.

Firth said it was fitting part of The Railway Man was filmed in Australia

"This isn't just a business arrangement between the UK and Australia it is also historically, culturally and in a personal way a story which represents the narrative of both countries and their people," he said.

"Hellfire Pass, which is one of the sites heavily featured in the film, is now an Australian war memorial and I think a lot of people from both countries will connect with the story we are telling."

Australian screen star Nicole Kidman plays Firth's wife in the film.

Firth said it was much less of a stretch to play Kidman's husband than to play a tortured man.

"Some things are just easy," he said.

"I mean in an awful amount of this one just had to imagine how this is possible that I did not have to imagine.

"She did the most beautiful job."

Firth finished shooting his scenes yesterday, but the filming continues in Queensland for the next three weeks.

Ipswich plays host to Hollywood star Colin Firth but co-star Nicole Kidman won't be in town

British heartthrob Colin Firth is filming in Ipswich. Source: AP

Brittany Vonow, The Courier-Mail, reports

Ipswich, west of Brisbane, is about to hit the big screen thanks to a new movie starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman.

Heart-throb Firth was in Brisbane yesterday, speaking to students at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre.

Kidman and Firth, famous for his role as a rich Austen bachelor in Pride and Prejudice, star in The Railway Man, a story of a man forced to confront his past as a prisoner of war after the fall of Singapore.

The movie has already been filmed in Scotland and Thailand.

Firth plays the tortured role of Scottish soldier Eric Lomax and the Aussie Kidman plays his wife.

Filming for the project is expected to begin at the North Ipswich Rail Workshops and continue on the Gold Coast.

Firth's female co-star is yet to be sighted, with film sources saying her part has been completed.

Nevertheless, news has sparked excitement in the community, with Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale saying Kidman would be treated like royalty if she were to roll into town.

Film publicist Tracey Mair said the actress would not be joining her male co-stars in the city, after having previously said all the leads would be travelling to Ipswich.

"Kidman's scenes were actually completed in the UK and Thailand, but the rest of the cast, including Firth, will be filming on the Gold Coast and in Ipswich," Ms Mair said.

Nicole Kidman and family in town for wee visit

Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman. Credit: Kevork Djansezian/AP

Annette Sharp, The Daily Telegraph, reports

Fresh from Cannes and all the controversy that followed her being required to pee on her co-star in her latest film, Nicole Kidman flew home to Sydney on Thursday with husband Keith Urban and two pretty young daughters Sunday and Faith.

Looking summery in a floral and cream boho sundress following a week in the south of France, Kidman and her family will settle back into Sydney life for the next three weeks while Urban records The Voice.

Devoted father Urban has been happy enough to remain in his wife's shadow while she promoted The Paperboy with co-stars Zac Efron and Matthew McConaughey at Cannes, but yesterday as the pair pulled open the shutters at their Lavender Bay apartment, sources said Kidman was equally delighted to take a back seat now that Keith is enjoying unprecedented fame in Australia.

Kidman heads to Thailand later this month to shoot Death Railway alongside Colin Firth.

Firth plays real-life British Army officer Eric Lomax who was sent to a Japanese POW camp in 1942 and was sent to work on the construction of the Burma Railway.

Kidman plays his wife Patti in the film.

Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth on right track to adventure

Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman attend a photocall to announce the start of filming The Railway Man on April 27, 2012 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Source: Getty Images

The Herald Sun reports

Nicole Kidman stepped back in time with Academy Award winner Colin Firth yesterday as filming started on The Railway Man.

Kidman braved chilly conditions as the cameras started rolling in the Scottish city of Perth.

Kidman plays Patricia "Patti" Wallace, the wife of WWII veteran Eric Lomax, who wrote the memoir on which the film is based.

The story follows Lomax's time as a prisoner of war, building the Burma Railway, and coming to terms with the scars of war.

Production will move to Thailand in May before coming to Australia in early June.

Slim chance of landing a role with Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman is set to star with Colin Firth in The Railway Man, being filmed on the Gold Coast. Picture: AP

Felicity Caldwell, mX, reports

Landing a paid role in a film alongside big-name Hollywood actors may be as easy as surfing the net.

Paid extra work is being advertised on Gumtree, with an ad posted this week for The Railway Man, starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth.

The movie, due for release next year, needs Caucasian men who are very thin to play prisoners of war and Japanese/ Korean men to play soldiers.

The job pays $20-25 per hour, with filming on the Gold Coast in June and July.

V Management's Tiffany Fon-Lowe said men aged 18 to 35 interested in The Railway Man should email through photos today, for casting auditions for tomorrow.

Fon-Lowe said it was an opportunity to get six weeks of work and it was "possible'' they could meet Kidman.

Don't despair if you don't fit this bill, talent agents say there's work available for many different types of looks.

New Farm talent agency Ego Management manager Gillian Samuels said producers need a range of looks for extra work.

"Extras are meant to be background people and not meant to be recognisable so they're not featuring them in any way,'' Samuels said.

"There's no criteria about what you look like to be an extra. It's about creating a crowd scene.''

She said potential extras should be mature, have professional headshots and be flexible with their availability.

For more info, email brisbanebookings@vmanage ment.com.au.