Dec 04,2009
The Last Station in theatres now for a week
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The Last Station is now in theatres for a week in Los Angeles and New York. Regular release is on January 15 for LA and NY as well. Tweet
Dec 02,2009
LATimes interview with James
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James McAvoy had to wait a few years for “The Last Station” to come together before he could play Valentin Bulgakov, personal secretary to exalted Russian writer and philosopher Leo Tolstoy. But when it finally did, with Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy, Helen Mirren as his long-suffering wife and Paul Giamatti his chief acolyte, with a script McAvoy loved (adapted by director Michael Hoffman from Jay Parini’s novel), the Scottish actor found it all something to sneeze at.
His character has the distracting habit of sneezing violently when nervous.
“It’s a complete opposite of so much film acting, [which is] ‘I know you’re feeling uncomfortable now but stop indicating it; do it with a look.’ Well, I’m not going to do it with a look; I’m going to physicalize it in the most overt, audible, unavoidable and most noticeable way I can. I loved that.
“I played Yepikhodov in ‘The Cherry Orchard’ when I was at drama school; he’s the character with the squeaky shoes. He can’t stop them: Squeaky shoes, squeaky shoes, squeaky shoes. As soon as I read that sneezing thing, I thought, ‘I know how to do this!’ ”
McAvoy is delightfully sneeze-free now, having left that set behind as well as overcoming the swine flu mini-epidemic that swept through the Savannah, Ga., set of his upcoming “The Conspirator” (directed by “the one and only” Robert Redford). Sounding hale and broguing heartily by phone from New York, the actor says he’s enjoying a weekend in “the Big Apple,” revisiting “The Last Station.”
The film concerns the disposition of Tolstoy’s estate as he nears the end of his life: Should the founder of the pacifist, private-property-rejecting “Tolstoyans” bequeath his copyrights to the public or his family? Tugging on either side are disciple Chertkov (Giamatti) and wife Countess Sofya (Mirren). McAvoy relished the easygoing nature of this rarefied crowd.
“None of us were very Method. None of us would really stay in it between takes,” he says. “That’s why I loved working with those guys. We were a bunch of actors, a bunch of thespians doing a play, which was nice”…………..
