julian_craster

Actress Julie Christie on Alzheimer's role

BBC News:

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Actress Christie on Alzheimer's role

British actress Julie Christie has spoken about the intense personal effect of playing a woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease in new film Away From Her.
Based on The Bear Came Over the Mountain, a short story by Alice Munro, Away From Her is directed by 28-year-old actress-turned-director Sarah Polley, star of the recent remake of Dawn Of The Dead.

Christie, who co-starred with Polley in 2005's The Secret Life of Words, plays a woman who moves into a nursing home after she begins to suffer from Alzheimer's.

As her memories of her husband, played by Gordon Pinsent, begin to disappear, she begins a new relationship with another man in the nursing home.
"I've got rather too many friends whose parents have Alzheimer's - it seems to be people at my age, their parents start to get it around now. It's terribly common," she told BBC World Service's The Ticket programme.
"Of course it's a truly dreadful thing to have to be carer and watch your beloved drifting away from you, in every sense.
"I found it very interesting pursuing the phenomenon of someone taking responsibility for their own Alzheimer's illness - but that's Alice Monroe's story," said the 66-year-old Go Between star.
Mortality
Considering its difficult and potentially depressing subject matter, the actress is delighted with the reception the film - which was officially selected for festivals in Berlin, Toronto and Sundance - has received.

"It certainly makes you think - I think it's very good for that," said Christie.
"We tend to avoid mortality - it's not a concept that is built into the Western thought pattern. I don't think it's dealt with on any level.
"So I think it's quite a remarkable feat to have people thinking about these issues and not feeling wretched.
"Nobody I know has come out of the film thinking, 'my God, why see a film like that'."
Reflecting on her own past - which includes starring roles in films such as Billy Liar, Doctor Zhivago and Don't Look Now, as well as the best actress Oscar for Darling in 1966 - Christie said she views her history in film as "irrelevant".
"That was interesting, but I've put it away in a drawer - it's got nothing to do with anything," she said.
"I've fought hard to get over some of the bad things that happen when you get that much fame and attention."
"Some of the demanding aspects of your character are still there, but I can look at them and see them and know they're there because I've been terribly spoilt at one period in my life.
"That's the only thing that's left - but that might have been there anyway."
Celebrity interest
Christie's most recent Oscar nomination was in 1997 for Afterglow, while the actress has recently starred in films including Finding Neverland and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Christie was one of the film world's biggest stars in the 1960s
But in general Christie is happy living a "quiet life in the country".

"The film world is not the greatest to be in, because there's all this financial pressure, and selling and advertising attached to it," she explained.
And she notes that this is one aspect of life that has changed dramatically since the 1960s, with a much greater interest in celebrities.
"Now, because everybody's vying to fill their magazines fuller and fuller of rubbish, they've got to run around like rats on cocaine and pursue you everywhere, way beyond the limits of decency.

"It's horrible. I'm glad I'm not part of that world now."

Moor Larkin

I do hope she made that one up herself.... That's brilliant!!

[code]http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487363@N02/sets/72157606700675506/code]

julian_craster

Since when has the Royal Court theatre been in the West End ?


BBC News
Sunday, 10 June 2007


Julie Christie stars in West End return

Christie last appeared in Harold Pinter's Old Times in 1995

Oscar-winning actress Julie Christie is to return to the West End stage for the first time in 12 years.
The 66-year-old will appear in Cries From The Heart at the Royal Court Theatre, a one-off production on 17 June in aid of Human Rights Watch.
Also appearing will be Jeremy Irons, Sinead Cusack, Tom Stoppard, Sophie Okonedo and Juliet Stevenson.
Christie, 66, will read a piece based on the real-life experience of a Somali widow and a selection of poems.
Also appearing will be journalists George Alagiah, Fergal Keane and Rageh Omaar. Christie last appeared on the British stage in a revival of Harold Pinter's Old Times in 1995. She won an Oscar in 1965 for Darling, while her film career has included acclaimed performances in The Go-Between, Doctor Zhivago, and Don't Look Now, and most recently appeared as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease in Away From Her.

Phil Turner

She is the subject of Barry Norman's article in this week's Radio Times and I was interested to read that she turned down roles in Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, The Godfather, They Shoot Horses Don't They?, Anne of the Thousand Days and Nicholas and Alexandra. She's always been one of my favourite actresses but, despite her considerable achievements in the cinema, I was amazed at the quality of the material she rejected.

Naturally, I'm delighted that she's still making interesting films and returning to the West End this month.

Regards
Phil Turner