RICHARD MADDEN
JULY 2023
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What’s new this month? |
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Xxx - date |
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Wednesday 12
July 2023 |
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It’s very quiet on the
Richard Madden front at present; Killer Heat having finished filming in Crete
and Athens and wrapped. One of Richards’s co-stars, Shailene
Woodley, said it was the best team she’d ever worked with! In general,
productions aren’t moving forward at present due to the ongoing writers’
strike and it has been mentioned that the release of Citadel 2 is not
expected to hit our small screens until late 2024 or early 2025. Meanwhile, an
investigation has been launched by Amazon’s CEO into the massive production
overspends currently being experienced, including upon Citadel: Amazon CEO Takes Aim at Hollywood Studio's Overspending
(screennearyou.com) 'Citadel' Just 'Needs Time to Grow' Domestically, Says
Amazon Exec - Variety Amazon’s Citadel reportedly cost $250m – but flopped with
viewers | GamesRadar+ Is Anyone Actually Watching Amazon’s $300 Million
‘Citadel’? (forbes.com) I probably
wouldn’t have watched Citadel if Richard hadn’t been starring in it, although
I’m now hooked and can’t wait to find out the resolutions to so many
unanswered questions! I agree
that the series has been more popular outside of the US. A lot of the over-spend was due to creative differences. For example, the opening scene on the train
was filmed in Atlanta as part of the reshoots. I don’t
tend to watch many series, as I can’t find the time … working full-time, and
often being exhausted and sleeping the remainder of the time!!! However, randomly, I did enjoy The Tourist,
Inside Man, and The English.
Fortunately, Bodyguard was also a series I decided to watch, because
the trailers looked interesting. |
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London Action
Festival and the UK Premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – 25
and 26 June 2023 |
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Having
been bitterly disappointed by the exclusion of fans from any participation in
the global premiere of Citadel held in London back in April … a crap job done
by their marketing team … I decided to try my luck for a red carpet crowd pen
position at the recent Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny UK premiere in
London. I’ve been a fan of Harrison
Ford since I saw Stars Wars in 1978, so it was a very logical choice as I
don’t feel able to put myself through the stress involved for just any old
actor. LOL. On this
occasion I booked an overnight stay in a hotel, because I had a ticket to
attend the London Action Festival on Sunday 25 June, with the Premiere being
held at Cineworld (Empire) in Leicester Square on
Monday 26 June. My
adventure didn’t get off to the best of starts as, having walked to St Albans
city station to catch the train to Blackfriars, I was greeted with the news that
there were no southbound trains running due to problems with the overheard
electric cables – presumably a heat-related issue due to the recent hot
weather. I knew I
couldn’t catch a train from Hatfield into London because of engineering
works, so my only option was a bus to Watford and either a train from Watford
Junction or from the Metropolitan underground station close to Cassiobury Park.
It never crossed my mind to catch the 724 Green Line bus at the
station … so I walked up to the City Centre to catch the 321, only to find
the city centre bus stops were closed due to a Festival taking place along
the main thoroughfare. So I headed to
the next bus stop, where a notice informed me that in order to catch a 321
bus, I needed to head for Chime Square or Westminster Lodge … I choose the
latter as it was all downhill. I was just
in time to catch the bus … another passenger having asked the driver to wait
a few seconds for me to reach the bus stop. The fare was only £2 (although I
am very much looking forward to getting my bus pass). I decided to alight at
Watford Junction, as it was a shorter distance to walk – it was hot and I’d
already done far more walking than I’d bargained for so early in the day. I caught
the local train heading to Euston, and changed at Queens Park onto the
Bakerloo Line – I’d booked a hotel in Southwark to be near to Thameslink Blackfriars station, typical. At Waterloo, I changed onto the Jubilee
Line and travelled one stop to Southwark underground station and walked the
remaining distance to my hotel, where I dropped off my suitcase to be
collected that evening ahead of my stay. I’d
arranged to meet my friend at 10:00 originally, and finally reached her at
Blackfriars underground station at 11:40.
The initial plan had been to walk to Leicester Square to see if there
was any ‘action’ regarding the
Indiana Jones premiere but, instead, we headed to South Kensington where the
London Action Festival was being held.
We ‘booked in’ at the
Festival, which was taking place at the ‘Illuminate’ event space within the
Science Museum, along with other venues close by, before heading to
Kensington Gardens to buy something to eat. |
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View from the Illuminate auditorium |
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We
returned to Illuminate just after the ‘Natalie
Holt in conversation’ event had begun, quietly taking our seats in the auditorium.
Natalie Holt composed the music for Disney’s Loki series. The second ‘in conversation’ involved film editors – namely Nathan Orloff who worked on John Wick 4, Eddie Hamilton who has
been the editor on a number of Mission Impossible films including the latest
one, and Tim Porter, Game of Thrones. It was fascinating to find out about
the editing, and also how much ends up on the cutting room floor in order to
reduce the running time, etc. And missing footage is usually filmed on a very
timely basis, the editor having asked for the additional shots. The final
‘in conversation’, which talked
about the role of the show-runner and also marked five years since the
release of Bodyguard, involved Jed Mercurio, the
producer Simon Heath, and the director Thomas Vincent. The director had been
due to work on a different project with Jed, which fell through, and Jed
chose him for Bodyguard because he felt a French director would be very
suited to deal with the romantic content within Bodyguard! We were
treated to a video of the rooftop gunman scene, and the explosion scene, with
the guys talking about both of these. It had originally been intended for
Andy, the gunman, to jump off the roof rather than shoot himself, but it was
impossible to set up the scenes required for this in Central London, for
security reasons. For the same reason, the gunman was never actually visible,
it was CGI. It probably didn’t help that the office block used, is situated
opposite The Old Bailey!!! I recall
reading that the initial railway scene was originally envisaged to be filmed
at Waterloo station, but for security reasons, relocated to the Mid-Norfolk
Railway in Dereham, Norfolk. Unfortunately
Jed was unable to answer questions about future projects, as he was
supporting the writers’ strike taking place at this time … so no information
was forthcoming as to whether a Bodyguard 2 series is in the pipeline, or
will ever be in the pipeline. |
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Interviewer, Jed Mercurio,
Simon Heath and Thomas Vincent |
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Anyway,
event over for us, we headed to Leicester Square to see if the Premiere
location was being prepared, which it was.
We stopped off to eat at an Italian restaurant just beyond the Square,
before heading down to the embankment and along the Thames to Blackfriars,
where I said goodnight to my friend. I
then headed to my hotel, collected my suitcase, and found my room on the
third floor, handily opposite the elevator. Fortunately I’d purchased a
powerful charger unit recently as, surprisingly and unlike the Premier Inn at
County Hall, this one didn’t have phone charging sockets and I’d not bought a
charger plug with me … but will do in future, just in case. I didn’t
sleep well, partly due to cramp in my feet (which would have been a result of
dehydration), and because I needed to be up early in order to be in with a
chance of a wristband for the Premiere.
In the event, I set off at 04:45 to walk to Leicester Square; the
tubes don’t start running until between 05:00 to 05:30 each morning. My route took me along Stamford Street,
past the BFI Imax and across the Jubilee Bridge, east side, through Trafalgar
Square, up Charing Cross Road to Leicester Square. There were only a handful of people waiting
outside Cineworld, although it transpired that 150
wristbands had already been handed out between 11:30 and 15:00 on Sunday. |
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Sunrise of the River Thames,
with Waterloo Bridge in the foreground |
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Leicester Square, preparations
ahead of the premiere, featuring a tuk tuk! |
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We had to
wait until 09:10 for further wristbands to be handed out, my number was 158, the
total available being 217. We were asked to return by 15:30. This being the
case I headed back to my hotel, walking the familiar route to Waterloo
Station to buy food and drinks, before catching the tube to Southwark and
walking the remainder of the way to the hotel. I ate two of the sandwiches I’d bought and
made myself a cup of tea, before packing up my belongings, leaving them with
reception and checking out. I walked
across Blackfriars Bridge, to purchase a return ticket for my home journey
later that evening. I then headed along Embankment before turning right at
Temple and heading to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where the secret Premiere
for Citadel had been held; I took photographs. I then returned to Trafalgar
Square and visited a nearby patisserie for cake and a drink, before heading
down Northumberland Avenue to the park, just beyond the Corinthia
Hotel. I spent time sitting on a
bench, before taking a loo break and heading back to Leicester Square by
tube. It took
ages for the organisers to arrange everyone into wristband order, in fact it
was 17:10 before I was placed in one of the crowd pens, second row of three
rows in each. The ghastly pap, who has made Richard’s life a misery, blagged
his way in … why does that not surprise me? He and his friend blagged their
way into Eternals too, and had the nerve to accuse myself and friends of
cheating because we’d started to queue the night before but had been sent
away by the guy in charge of security because he was worried about our safety
overnight at the BFI. Anyway, being later in the queue for Indiana Jones had
worked out well, because there were no obnoxious professional autograph
hunters in my pen! When the
stars arrived, we saw Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, John Rhys-Davies
(Sallah), Paul Freeman (from Raiders of the Lost
Ark), Terry Gilliam, Dexter Fletcher (Rocketman’s
director), Sam Ryder, and Strictly Come Dancing’s Kai Widdrington
too, amongst others. Despite attempts
by one of the security guards to usher John inside the cinema, he refused to
go before he’d signed an autograph and/or taken a selfie,
with everyone who requested it! |
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Indiana Jones himself – Harrison
Ford |
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Harrison
doesn’t do selfies … but I have his autograph and a
photo featuring him and me from 1982 when he publicised Blade Runner … I just
need to find it!!! My autograph book
also contains Andre Agassi’s autograph. A statue of
Indiana Jones has been unveiled too, in Leicester Square, to join those of
Paddington, Gene Kelly, Mary Poppins, Mr Bean and
Batman to name but five of the others. Once
everyone was inside the cinema, we were released from the pens to go on our
way. All in all, a very pleasant
experience – Eternals was great too, both being Disney productions! After spending a penny in the nearby
McDonalds, I walked down to Embankment tube station and caught the train to
Blackfriars, headed across the bridge, past the Tate Modern and onwards to my
hotel to collect my suitcase. I caught
the train, an all stations one, back to St Albans and walked home, arriving
at around 21:40. I was very tired and barely able to walk by this time but,
in contrast to April’s Citadel event, it had been a thoroughly enjoyable
experience. I’ve not seen the
movie yet … and would dearly love to watch it in 4DX format but, this year,
I’m too concerned about my aches and pains to do that! |
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