Intriguing interview with Hammer CEO Simon Oakes, for new movie The Woman in Black. Read the interview on our Blog:

As The Woman In Black starring Harry Potter himself Daniel Radcliffe is set to take the world by storm and have audiences leaping out of their seats with fright, Premiere Scene's Claire Bueno snatched an opportunity to speak to Hammer CEO Simon Oakes about the much loved brand and how it's been lovingly brought back to life!

CB: You've used some big names like Hilary Swank, Christopher Lee obviously and now Daniel Radcliffe; was that a conscious decision that as a brand you mean business?

SO: Well yes and no. As you know Let Me In with Chloe (Grace Moretz) who is beginning to become a huge star but she really wasn't really known then. Matthew Vaughan very kindly let me look at an assembly of kick Ass. That's when I saw Chloe and thought she'd be amazing to be our young vampire in Let Me In and so the answer is where ever the material fits the bill; you know you'd be crazy not to cast a marquee name in it. But for example we're announcing a project tonight (The Quiet Ones) which is a poltergeist movie based on a true story about a group of scientists who are basically taken off campus by a maverick professor and they create a poltergeist, create an ectoplasm poltergeist and it's an ensemble piece so it won't be star driven, because in a sense the star of the movie is the movie itself in that situation. The thing about The Woman In Black is that Arthur Kipps is pretty much on screen pretty much all the time and therefore you're going to need to have some one who can grab people’s imagination and attention which I think Daniel does very well.

CB: And be able to carry it as well?

SO: Yeah, Yeah of course

CB: Would you like to encourage new comer actors and try to help launch new names?

SO: Sure, I think there are so many new young actors and actresses around and I wish that we did live in a world where you had a repertory group like Hammer used to have in the '50's '60's and '70's where you saw the same actors reprising roles like Cushing (Peter) and Lee (Christopher) and all these people. It's very difficult to do that now, it was great to have Christopher come in and do one of our first Hammer films (The Resident) and yes we'd like to think that actors that we work with come back and do stuff with us again. I don't think any of the British young actors in America or England need encouragement; I think if you find the right material then you know we'll cast them. There's some amazing talent coming through, Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne, the young boy who was in Great Expectations; all these young women, phenomenal actress; yes, absolutely.

CB: What creative input do you have? Or do you want to have in the films that you are making?

SO: A lot, as much as possible and as much as I’m allowed. There's a great team we have who often don’t get mentioned. My colleague Tobin Armbrust whose the Head of production, very involved, very cinema literate, very savvy; Ben Holden, Development, Shira Rockowitz these are all names I would love you to mention everyone is really involved they give copious script notes, we get involved with all aspects of casting, we really are involved; absolutely. So then if things work you take the benefit and if they don't you take the downside, but you can't be involved in this business and say here's a cheque go off and make your movie, otherwise it's a disaster.

CB: One of the failings sadly of Hammer in the beginning was that it didn't embrace the future, what are you doing to future proof the brand of Hammer?

SO: Such a tough question, I don't think you can future proof anything, I think what you have to do is to keep on, stick to your guns, stick to your philosophy. You know the world has changed in terms of the amount of space there is for content you have to think very laterally. The thing about Hammer is that there is no question that they simply didn't see what was coming and remember it was basically a congregation of American movies, movies coming from different parts of the world and they were sort of in this little time warp, I think the fact is since we started we've made two movies in the US, we made a movie in Ireland and the UK, we're doing another picture soon possibly in South Africa that you know it's a global industry now. I think Hammer was very much the plucky Brit in the mid '70's and it wasn't seeing what was coming. So I don't know, we've just got to work hard and make successful movies I guess.

At the World Premiere of The Woman In Black see what Daniel Radcliffe, screenwriter Jane Goldman and not forgetting the phantomous femme fatale Liz White have to say about their contribution to film.

Q&A with young actor Anton Yelchin for his upcoming new 3D horror Fright Night:

ANTON YELCHIN (Charley Brewster), with his recent highly acclaimed performances in “The Beaver,” “Star Trek” and “Charlie Bartlett,” as well as other starring roles in major films, is one of Hollywood’s rising stars. He will soon be heard as the voice of Clumsy Smurf in Sony’s animated feature “The Smurfs.” In addition, Yelchin starred in “Like Crazy,” which won the Grand Jury Prize when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011. He recently began filming “Odd Thomas.” In the title role, Yelchin stars as a short order cook with clairvoyant abilities who encounters a mysterious man with a link to dark and threatening forces.

Yelchin’s past film projects include his role in “New York, I Love You,” with an all star cast that includes Ethan Hawke, Robin Wright Penn, Shia LaBeouf, Orlando Bloom, James Caan, Julie Christie, Andy Garcia and Natalie Portman. He also starred in “Terminator: Salvation,” opposite Christian Bale and Sam Worthington, “Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac” with Emma Roberts, and “Middle of Nowhere,” opposite Susan Sarandon. His other film credits include “Alpha Dog,” “Hearts in Atlantis” (for which he received the Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film––Leading Young Actor), “Fierce People,” “House of D” and “You and I.” Yelchin also received the Explosive Talent Award at the 2002 Giffoni Film Festival in Italy.

Yelchin has appeared on some of television’s most critically acclaimed dramas. He starred opposite Hank Azaria on the Showtime original series “Huff” for two seasons, and had guest starring roles on “Criminal Minds” and “Law &; Order: Criminal Intent.”

Yelchin currently resides in Los Angeles.

Q: What made you want to do this movie?

A: There were two reasons. The first one was that I thought the script was very solid, with a very relatable arc for my character of Charley. He’s a kid who loses track of what's valuable to him and then he’s faced with something that threatens to take away everything that is precious. He struggles through a lot of guilt and remorse but overcomes that to protect the people he cares about. That's a very relatable story to me.

The second was that Craig Gillespie was attached to direct. I was a fan of his movie “Lars and the Real Girl” and I thought he was such a cool choice to make a horror genre film that's a bit more mainstream. He’s known as someone who likes really interesting characters and makes actor’s movies. It turned out to be true. Craig is very much an actor’s director. He gives you a lot of freedom to create your character.

Q: Did you see the first “Fright Night”?

A: Oh, yeah, I love the first film. I think it's really intelligent and enjoyable. I think it also represents the horror genre’s transition during the 1980s from classic Hollywood horror into a more entertaining, very self-conscious, funny, campy genre.

Q: You play a teenager in “Fright Night.” How was that for you?

A: I played an architect in “Like Crazy” and a week later I was in New Mexico shooting “Fright Night.” I'm happy it turned out that way, because the movies are so different and the characters are completely different people. That always gives me a certain level of satisfaction because that's what I try and do in my career, is shake it up a bit. Otherwise, I don't understand the point of this job. You have to try and take different roles every time.

Q: Imogen Poots plays your girlfriend in the movie. Is there a difference between English and American actresses?

A: I've been very lucky. The last couple of films I’ve done I’ve worked with Jennifer Lawrence, Imogen and Felicity Jones, all of whom are extremely talented and intelligent, regardless of their nationality. I think these women are just very interesting people and I feel lucky to have been able to work with them.

Q: You were born in Russia but immigrated here when you were six months old. Are you interested in making films in Russia?

A: I worked on a film there once. It was a very different experience. For me, it’s always about the filmmaker and I'm not particularly interested in going to Russia just to work in Russia. There are filmmakers there that I would really like to work with, though. If Alexander Sokurov was making a movie and called me up and said, ”Come make this movie with me,” I would be there in an instant. I’d also go to Austria to work with Michael Haneke or Denmark to work with Lars Von Trier. It isn’t about the country they’re in, it’s about their talent.

Q: What makes you scared?

A: What scares more than anything is probably the nature of humanity and the kind of horrible things that people can do to one another. That’s partly what “Fright Night” touches on.

Q&A with Colin Farrell and director Craig Gillespie for upcoming 3D horror Fright Night:

Q: Colin, what attracted you to this project?

A: I had done a lot of dramatic films and dramatic roles back to back for three or four years. I literally said to my agent, “I'd love to do something that's really, really different and that has some comedy to it, something that's fun.”

Then this came along. I was dubious about it, because I had seen the original when I was 11 or 12 and I loved it. I particularly loved how Chris Sarandon played Jerry and I had a little boy crush on him, so I didn't want to like the script when I read it. I said, “They're remaking ‘Fright Night.’ That could be a really bad idea,” but then I just really just loved the script and saw how this could be a lot of fun.

It was also very contingent on who was directing it, since that would determine whether the film worked or not. When I heard that Craig Gillespie was involved and we sat down and spoke, I realized it would be a blast to play a character that is unbridled by any human sense of fear, remorse, regret or compassion. The screenwriter, Marti Noxon, designed the character in a very particular way. She wanted Jerry to be the kind of vampire that is more malevolent, violent and cruel than the vampires who have been presented onscreen in recent years.

Q: What attracted you to this project, Craig?

A: Marti Noxon's script. I hadn’t really been dying to do a vampire movie. I felt like there was so much of the vampire stuff out there and I'd been working on a couple of smaller projects I was trying to develop. Then DreamWorks sent me the script for “Fright Night” and it was a great blend of horror and humor. I love mixing genres and I couldn't stop thinking about it and visualizing it, so I went for it.

Q: Did you consciously try to bring a sense of humour into the role, Colin?

A: No, I never felt any pressure to bring humor into the film. I think that was left up to David Tennant and Christoper Mintz-Plasse. Their two characters had a lot of the humorous dialogue and those boys know their way around humor. I was the horror and they were the humour.

Q: Craig, were you conscious of that as a director, that there was a split between humour and horror?

A: No. It had to be a horror movie. I wanted to make sure that the audience was genuinely scared at times and on the edge of their seats. The humor comes second and it’s about figuring out how much you can get away with. Much of the time, it's a great release in the middle of scary moments, but even as we were editing, we might decide that there was one too many jokes in a scene. It's a constant battle.

For Colin’s character, it was more important that he was having fun as a villain. That's what makes great villains for me, is that they have a sense of humor about what they're doing and they seem to enjoying it, as hellacious as it is. That part, he got down in spades. He was having fun with his cruelty.

Q: Was it obvious at the beginning that you would shoot this film in 3-D?

A: In my first meeting at DreamWorks, they told me that they wanted to make the movie in 3-D. I thought, “All right, I've seen these huge tentpole movies like "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland" in 3-D. Wouldn’t it be kind of cool to do a horror film where you've got two guys walking down a corridor and you want to look around them and see what's at the end of it?” I really got into the idea and had a great time shooting it that way.

Q&A Interview with Martin Sheen for his new movie The Way! Read it right here:

The Ohio native has appeared in more than 65 feature films including a star turn as Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard in Francis Ford Coppola’s landmark film APOCALYPSE NOW, which brought Sheen worldwide recognition. Other notable credits include WALL STREET (with son Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas), the Academy Award-winning film GANDHI (with Sir Ben Kingsley), CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (with Leonardo DiCaprio & Tom Hanks), THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT (with Michael Douglas & Annette Bening), and a Golden Globe nominated breakthrough performance in THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES.

In 2006, Sheen played ill-fated cop Oliver Queenan in Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award-winning film THE DEPARTED opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, and Alec Baldwin. The same year, Sheen joined another all-star ensemble cast for the highly acclaimed feature BOBBY, written and directed by his son Emilio Estevez. BOBBY was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and SAG Award among others. The film also starred Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Laurence Fishburne, Helen Hunt, Brian Geraghty, Sharon Stone, William H. Macy, Elijah Wood, Demi Moore, and Shia LaBeouf. For television audiences, Sheen is best recognized for his award-winning role as President Josiah Bartlet in NBC’s THE WEST WING.

Sheen is a passionate peace and justice activist. He has been arrested or cited 67 times for taking part in nonviolent demonstrations against various U.S. military policies, and has championed such causes as the alleviation of poverty and homelessness, human rights for migrant workers, and environmental protection. In 2008, the University of Notre Dame presented Sheen with the Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious award given to an American Catholic. Former recipients include: President John F. Kennedy and Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr.

In THE WAY, Sheen, plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son, Daniel (Estevez), killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking The Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. He elects to walk The Way himself, and experiences his own emotional, and spiritual transformation…

What did you like about Emilio’s script for The Way?

Tom has this sense of entitlement and you see that when he first has to stay at a hostel; he thinks he’ll have his own room but he’s there sharing this dormitory… ‘This is outrageous’. Then he can’t sleep and he gets stuck with that wretched Dutchman who is always eating, and he tolerates him. And what Emilio is saying, which I thought was very powerful, was that it’s very American to say, ‘We can do it. We’ll decide. I’ll walk this path alone.’ And every time that Tom did it on his own he got in trouble. It was only when he went into the community that he realised that he could rely on people, and that everyone is broken. That’s what it means to be human. But how we make up for brokenness is through each other, and I believe that is how God finds us. In each other. In community, that’s where it is. You don’t have to do it by yourself, and you shouldn’t.

When did you first walk the Camino?

It was the summer of 2003. We were going to take bikes, horseback, and then rented a car. It was stick-shift. Taylor, my grandson, and I couldn’t drive it. Our friend could drive it and he’d teach one of us to drive while the other one walked. At Burgos, though, we fell in love with this refugio [hostel], and we stayed a few extra nights and Taylor met the daughter of the guy who owned it. They’ve been together ever since. She had been serving pilgrims most of her life. They’re about the same age, and she had never done the pilgrimage, so she did it from Burgos and fell in love with the pilgrimage, too.

You’ve worked with Emilio several times now. Do you like his direction?

He understands my ticks and eccentricities. We’ve worked together half a dozen times now. I remember way back I saw Emilio on set of a TV show I was doing in LA, and I thought that he’d come to visit me, but he was in the same show! It was called Insight. It was an anthology series.

Are any of your kids more like you than the others?

It’s strange. You know them in different ways. You know when one child is honest and when one is not. If there’s something I don’t like when I look at one of my children, though, it’s usually a reflection of something I don’t like in myself.

Are you surprised that they wanted to follow you into the same profession?

It did surprise me, and I was totally unaware of it to begin with. I remember Emilio had written a play in high school, and was acting in it, and we went over there to watch it and I saw him do this very emotional scene and it just took my breath away. I looked at him and thought, ‘Oh gosh, him too!’ But he was so good that I was calm about it. I knew then that he’d be okay.

What are your memories of Charlie’s first forays into this world?

Charlie kind of backed into it. He was on the baseball team, and he was very good, but he wasn’t doing his studies. He was ill disciplined, so he got kicked off the team. Charlie really wanted to get back on the team, because they were going into the playoffs, so I went down to speak to the teacher, and he said, ‘Don’t do this to him. You’ll only make things worse. Don’t support him.’ So I was forced to see a side of Charlie that I’d blinkered up until then. So then, as a second thought, he took himself off for an audition and he got the part! I saw him in something and remember knowing that he too knew what he was doing. Then we did a little scene together in a show and he did it so well. The other kids came across in the same way, although not as intense.

How does Charlie’s current behaviour affect your faith?

I include Charlie in my prayers. I always lift him up. I know the hell he lives in, because I was there. So I’m extremely compassionate and understanding. The key is on the inside; you can’t force anyone to do anything, good or ill, without their allowing you in. We’ve been through some very difficult times, but we understand what Charlie’s hell is.

Ramon, another of your sons, worked with you on The West Wing…

Ramon had studied dance and singing and he wrote songs and had a professional song-writing partner in Tennessee. His heart wasn’t in acting, though he loved the business, so he’d work as my assistant very often. And yes, he was my assistant on The West Wing and after that we formed a production company together, ESP, Estevez Sheen Productions, and he was in the office. Then when The West Wing came to an end, my contract with WB was up and I had to leave the lot. But Charlie was still there at WB, so he took things over and the two of them worked together.

You knew The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin from American President, but did you expect the show to do as well as it did?

I knew Aaron was good, and I had just a few small scenes in the pilot, but I knew it was a special show. We all did, but we didn’t have the confidence of it working on a commercial station; we thought it belonged on cable, because our show was not going to be selling cars or placing products. That was the big surprise. We didn’t think it was commercial. It was so non-commercial, and we started in 1999, before Bush. The first two years we were on the air, then he stole the office, was made President and that was the most difficult time for us, because we were so diametrically opposed, so in a sense we were a parallel universe, how things could be. We dealt with the same domestic and international issues as the real President’s office, and this Bartlett guy came from a moral frame of reference. He was Catholic and didn’t separate that from his office. He didn’t go and start a war with someone just to prove to his father that he is a man, which is what our idiot did. If you removed Bush from that office and looked at what we did, what would he be? A mass murderer.

Did you always take your children away on location with you, like to Mexico for Catch-22 and the Philippines for Apocalypse Now?

They came away with me a lot, especially when they were little and didn’t really have a lot of say in the matter. I just grabbed them out of school and took them to some pretty remote places. I did that quite often and we would get right into the community. Going to Mexico was memorable. We just left a blizzard in New York City then we were in San Bernado desert, and the boys would bring home kids from the fishing village. I remember one night Ramone disappeared during this huge carnivale. Here we are in a foreign country and I’ve lost one of my kids! We looked everywhere and then I found a kid, Manuel, from the community and he went and found Ramone for me. That was a crazy time.

Q&A with Zac Efron and Burr Steers for Charlie St. Cloud!

The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud Press Conference

The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud is released in the UK on October 8

Q: You both have evident affection for Charlie but he started out life as words on a page of Ben Sherwood’s novel, how did you find your own way to Charlie St.Cloud and how did you come to inhabit him as a character?

Burr: Well it was actually Zac that bought me to Charlie!

Zac: Yeah I read the script first and when I read it there were so many similarities between Charlie and my own sort of philosophy. Early on when he’s about to go to school, which is where I found myself a couple of years ago and when this all started to happen, I had that sort of mentality that if I put my mind to it I could accomplish anything and that was really the mantra that was responsible for me. Also the relationship between the brothers; I thought it was very well written, something that I had some personal insight into, some perspective on - I could relate to Charlie and the story in a lot of ways.

Burr: Yeah I had worked with Zac before on 17 again, and when he talked about it, it was a part that he could really inhabit he understood it and he felt it, and that was exciting about working on it with him.

Q: It’s a film that deals with what comes next, life after death. Just wondering if the film has shaped your views on the afterlife - what happens after you die and what those views are?

Burr: No ...I still don’t know, which I think is the great thing that you go through life trying to figure that out and there is nobody that can tell you. But it is the big question.

Zac: That just sound cooler than anything that I’m going to say so I’m just going to second that.

Q: You also kept it quite open in the movie about how to interpret it...

Burr: It was something we had talked about – is this something that is actually happening to Charlie or is it his mind showing him what he needs to see, you know has he cracked it or is he imagining it.

Q: Given some of the themes of the film, how important was it to have Field of Dreams star Ray Liotta? and Zac how was it having your life saved on screen by him rather than having it sent in the other direction as it has in so many other films?

Zac: I will never forget being in that scene, I just remember Ray saying “come on fight me man fight me” and I’m like I don’t want to! He was really going for it with those paddles and it was intense it was really cool to be willed to do more by him. I realised that at the level Rays at there’s no inhibition - You know he’s totally not afraid and I appreciate this. A very cool experience to be brought back to life by Ray Liotta!

Q: He’s probably quite relieved as well not to be doing the bad guy...to be playing a saviour.

Burr: Yeah and casting someone like that you know a tough guy in kind of a sentimental part, you’re playing against what it could be as opposed to being sort of a mushy role

Q: What sort of roles do you like to take on?

Zac: As far as growing up and picking roles I don’t really know, but I’d say this turned out to be an ideal role. Working with Burr and figuring out Charlie’s character - I wouldn’t change the experience for the world. But did I know before I read the script? No not at all, so it’s like I can’t necessarily pin point, other than really the sort of genre it would be in.

Q: ...You have to do everything before you can look back and say that was the ideal role, you have to experience it first?

Zac: Yeah

Q: What kinds of roles would you like to do in the future as an actor?

Zac: I don’t know...good ones! I don’t know yet, there’s nothing that’s not appealing to me right now. It’s just a matter of wrapping my head around it, probably ones that are a bit scary.

Q: Have you seen a ghost in real life? If so can you give us a bit of detail?

Zac: Only in Disneyland, I haven’t seen any in real life, so I don’t have any details to share right now.

Q: What was it like working with your younger co-star Charlie Tahan, and does he remind you of your-self when you were starting out?

Zac: He’s way further along than I was

Burr: He’s further along than any of us!

Zac: He really is, the first thing within minutes of meeting him I remember...it’s so weird being in an audition where I sort of figured out he was perfect for it... we were outside the audition room, he’s got this really funny intelligent sensibility about him.

Burr: Yeah

Zac: He’s super smart and I had more fun times and conversations with him on-set than anyone else.

Burr: We read with hundreds of kids, and Zac read with him and it was really finding the person Zac clicked with and he was younger than the character was written but they had chemistry and really had that relationship.

Q: Zac, You’ve recently started a production company and bought rights to a Swedish film is that correct? I just wondered what it’s called and what do you plan to do with it?

Zac: It’s called Snaba Cash or Starter Cash and you know we were looking at all sorts of things but trying to find something in the crime world. I really like the story because it’s a guy who for very innocent reasons finds himself in over his head which just about explains everything in my life at this point so I like that, and the movie was incredibly well done. So we’re having a really great time right now adapting it and making it more American...sort of.

Q: You don’t really feel like you’re in over your head do you?

Zac: Ah yeah, well sometimes, sure.

Q: Zac, just going back to the film – you’ve got a great relationship with your brother, do you ever get to the point of punching with him...I mean what’s your relationship like with your brother?

Zac: We go way past punching (joking). It got really serious at times. We would watch 3 Ninjas or the Matrix.

Q: But what really is your relationship like with him?

Zac: It’s good I mean he’s 18 now and he’s going to college, I think the older he gets the more he’s... well he’s just now like a real person to me again. All of a sudden he’s not my little brother anymore...he’s just my brother you know, I don’t know we’re in a different place and we’re starting to become even better friends than when we were growing up.

Q: Just going back to when you said you were in over your head can you tell us a bit about what it’s like being you and being in such a big movie franchise?

Zac: I don’t know it’s exciting, the stakes are high, and I’ve got a lot to learn. But at the same time I feel hungry and ambitious and in no way does the task at hand feel daunting, you know I’m just purely trying to navigate all the twists and turns right now. I mean there’s never been a more exciting time and I learned a lot from Burr in this Movie. Honestly I’m just excited about everything right now, with the production company it’s like we’ve really got the ball moving

Q: Hi Burr, I just wondered if Ben Sherwood had any direct involvement in the production?

Burr: He’s a very litigious man and he was on the set, he put so much in to the book and when he came to the test screening he was actually crying because it had come that far which was really gratifying .

Q: Zac you probably get this question a lot I know I do, but do you think that being good looking has held you back in your career?

Zac: You know what it’s a big part of why I’m here and it’s a big part of why my fans come to the movies but at the same time it just makes me more driven to get to people that aren’t so easily swayed by that sort of thing you know what I mean!

Q: …do you come up against that; I mean have you gone in to talk to somebody and known that they have a pre-conception about you?

Zac: I used to get in those conversations all the time but you know now I have this ugly beard so it’s slowing down (laughs)

Q: Is the beard for a particular reason or are you just relaxed?

Zac: It could be for something I don’t know I’m just sort of testing it out, like how do you know what it’s going to look like if you’ve never grown one and just to set fire to the internet (everyone laughs)


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