If I were a British film-maker and someone gave me a few quid to make a movie, I'd cast two British actors as my leads: Mark Strong and Paddy Considine. They're both always brilliant in whatever film they're in, powerful character actors who hold the screen and who can switch the mood from dark to light and back again in an instant.
Well, I'm not making a film this week, but the very least I can do is have them both on Film Weekly for you. Mark Strong, after years of fine work in films from Fever Pitch to Syriana and RocknRolla, is finally mixing it with the big boys in Hollywood. He's in Ridley Scott's whizz-bang Middle East actioner Body of Lies, opposite Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio. Mark takes a break from filming Guy Ritchie's new Sherlock Holmes movie, with Robert Downey Jr, to talk to us about wigs, baddies and being patient.
Paddy Considine is perhaps best-known for his collaborations with Shane Meadows, as the menace in Dead Man's Shoes or A Room for Romeo Brass. He also created memorable characters in Pawel Pawlikowski's The Last Resort and My Summer of Love before taking his skills to Hollywood for Jim Sheridan's In America, Ron Howard's Cinderella Man and Paul Greengrass's The Bourne Ultimatum. Paddy's back on home turf for his directorial debut Dog Altogether, a moody, blistering short film featuring the mercurial presence of Scottish actor Peter Mullan. Ahead of a career retrospective at Bristol's Encounters Short Film and Animation festival (Nov 18-23), Paddy talks frankly and exclusively to Film Weekly about his work, past and future, and why it's not always up to his own exacting standards.
Also on this week's show, Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw and I see if the week's films meet our own exacting standards. German blockbuster The Baader-Meinhof Complex, Kevin Smith's Zack and Miri Make a Porno and debt documentary I.O.U.S.A are all up for discussion in our unmissable review section.
Let us know your thoughts, as ever. Have you got a favourite Paddy Considine moment? Have you worked with Mark Strong (he's been in everything, after all)? And if you've seen any of them yet, what did you think of any of the movies we've reviewed?
