December 8, 2013 - Zap2It - Bonnie & Clyde Review #3

'Bonnie & Clyde': Holliday Grainger and Emile Hirsch are the 'original reality TV stars'

By Jacqueline Cutler

December 8, 2013 4:00 PM ET

 

Bonnie and Clyde captivated the public as they went on a bloody bank-robbing spree 80 years ago, and Lifetime, History and A&E Network hope the public's fascination continues as they premiere "Bonnie & Clyde" Sunday and Monday, Dec. 8 and 9.

After History's surprise huge hit with the "Hatfields & McCoys" miniseries, broadcasters have been looking for another chapter of American history that resonates the same way: familiar but not too familiar.

This four-hour miniseries, starring Emile Hirsch ("Into the Wild") and Holliday Grainger ("The Borgias"), was in the works before the History hit. It has a cinematic feel and takes a few risks, particularly with showing Clyde's sixth sense and Bonnie's hysteria and presenting the story in a leisurely fashion.

"It is a morality story and has some parallels to our modern era," Hirsch tells Zap2it. "They were almost the original reality TV stars. They were playing out their lives in the media, and that is an interesting parallel.

"I feel like something about the Bonnie and Clyde story will appeal to people for generations and generations," Hirsch continues. "It is a real love story that is flawed and tragic. As horrible as they were, the one thing that was always consistent, that never changed, was their love for each other."

The film does a great job of capturing the period, the costumes, cars and feel of the Depression. People may think they know the story well, but the miniseries aims to reveal who they were beyond the bank robberies.

Clyde is shown to have suffered a serious fever as child, and after that he was said to have a sixth sense. He had visions, including one of Bonnie, long before he met her. He first saw Bonnie at her wedding, and even the fact that she was married did not deter Clyde.

Bonnie is given to weeping fits, and only her mom (Holly Hunter) can calm her.

Until she began working on this, Grainger was among those who thought she knew the story well.

"I was very aware of Bonnie and Clyde growing up, in the way you know about Romeo and Juliet and Thelma and Louise," Grainger says. "It wasn't until I started researching the part, and I realized how quite short their lives on the road were. It was only two years. It must have been a long two years, constantly moving."

The miniseries reminds us how they held up small banks for tiny amounts. This being the Depression, people had no sympathy for the banks. But they developed a kinship with Bonnie and Clyde because of a newspaper reporter, P.J. Lane (Elizabeth Reaser, "The Twilight Saga"), who wrote sympathetic stories.

Her reporting drove Texas Ranger Frank Hamer (William Hurt) crazy. He explains that police usually nab the bad guys based on tips from the public, but because of Lane's stories, no one was turning in Bonnie and Clyde.

Clyde, long a thief, had done time in prison, where he was raped and beaten. He never intended to kill during the robberies; Bonnie was the trigger-happy one.

Bonnie married young and was abandoned by her husband. She had a flair for the dramatic, wrote poetry and desperately wanted to be in the movies.

"She is very intelligent and quite manipulative but very vain and shallow and selfish and single-minded in that she has an aim for her life to get out of certain situations," Grainger says. "She is almost a fame-hungry reality TV star. She wants to get her name known somehow. She is quite ruthless in that way, but at the same time the part of Bonnie that really came out is just this lost little girl. She was such a mommy's girl but needs to be loved as much as she is manipulating. She thrives on the love and affection and needy vanity and needs to be recognized by someone."

Bonnie and Clyde killed nine officers, or "laws" as they were called, and a few civilians in their wake before they died in a hail of bullets on May 23, 1934. Bonnie was 23, Clyde 25.

Despite the bloody robberies and their transient existence, they were in love. And it was this romance that drew Lifetime to the project, says Rob Sharenow, the network's general manager.

"Our version is the most historically accurate that has ever been told," he says. "It is an incredible love story. They fall in love at a very dangerous time. There is a lot known about them. All sorts of elements of this story are not familiar to people who think they know the story."

While most TV movies are shot in under a month, Bruce Beresford ("Tender Mercies") directed this over 50 days.

"People will see a tragic love story and a real slice of American history," Sharenow says. "These were desperate times. And for me, the big revelation of the script was really Bonnie and how much she drove the story and the escalation of violence. It was the story of her wanting to be famous, forging this bond with the journalist and wanting to be a star."

And ultimately, getting what she wanted - for 80 years later, people still know her name.

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Photo/Video credit: A&E Networks

December 8, 2013 - The Guardian - "Bonnie & Clyde" Review #2

Bonnie and Clyde: can the History Channel get away with this?

Your reaction to this bloated remake will depend on what level of desecration you are prepared to see visited on a beloved classic

 

• 
• • Erin McCann
  • theguardian.com, Sunday 8 December 2013 15.57 EST

 

Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger attend the Bonnie And Clyde premiere in New York City. Photograph: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

 

To even think about watching the History Channel's Bonnie and Clyde, you must first accept two unfortunate truths: yes, they really made this and no, at this point in the production cycle, you can't do anything to stop it.

What potential viewers must decide – much as they did for NBC's live Sound of Music last week – is exactly what level of desecration they're willing to see visited upon a beloved classic. Is your good sense often overruled by displays of beautiful costumes and a good old-fashioned car chase? Then yes, this is the remake for you.

But if you're a fan of the 1967 film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, stay away. And if you have even a passing familiarity with the real-life story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker … stay far, far away.

The History Channel's strategy here is to make it as difficult as possible to avoid watching this version. Airing in two parts across Sunday and Monday nights, Bonnie and Clyde is taking over three networks: History, A&E and Lifetime. The cast includes Emile Hirsch as Clyde and Holliday Granger as Bonnie, and Holly Hunter and William Hurt as the Academy Award-winning actors who are presumably being paid very well to lend some sort of credibility to this glossy project.
By the end of the first half-hour, you begin to have a sense for how this film was put together: the executives of three networks, having met in a neutral location, agreed to the basics but left it to writers Joe Bateer and John Rice to reverse-engineer enough action to fill four hours of primetime. They were woefully unprepared for the task.

Everything in this movie has been done better somewhere else. We have so many good examples of films and TV series that digest the Depression era's crime waves – The Untouchables, the original Bonnie and Clyde, Public Enemies, Boardwalk Empire – that it's impossible not to make comparisons that end poorly for this remake, no matter how pretty the costumes are.

But the production isn't even content to confine its thefts to the appropriate era. There's what the writers probably hoped was a charming scene in which Clyde, flush with the money from his first robbery, walks into a fancy clothing store, looking to spend it. A saleswoman takes a look at his farm duds, sniffs her nose and asks him to please not get his grubby hands all over her silks. It's Julia Roberts on Rodeo Drive all over again, but instead of giving the clerk her comeuppance ("Big mistake! Huge!"), he waits until dark and breaks in, to steal the five shirts he wanted.
This is four hours of missed opportunities in which a scene is built up, almost tap-dances to a satisfying clap … and falls apart instead.

There are feminist outlines to this Bonnie Parker, who compares herself to Amelia Earhart and makes sure the local reporters know she's in the game every bit as much as Clyde. But she is crippled by writers who seem to have gained their understanding of feminism from frat houses and men's rights forums on the darkest corners of the internet.

The subreddit almost writes itself: Clyde loves his parents, his mother especially. It's just that the woman he loves, the woman he's sought since childhood, goads him into this life of crime. She's a vixen who flounces around in her silken lingerie, gets turned on by car chases and friend-zones the local sheriff. ("I've got enough damn friends," he says, shortly after she turns him down.) This Bonnie is a rejected actress who just wants to make a name for herself somehow, and Clyde is too smitten to notice that she doesn't love him nearly as much as he loves her.

"I'm not afraid of a commitment," Clyde tells Bonnie at one point. "I ain't afraid of making a baby." She grimaces.

There are threads that could have saved the film: Elisabeth Reaser as the journalist who latches on to the story first; Hunter as Bonnie's severe but loving mother; Hurt as a quiet lawman drawn out of retirement to track down the robbers. With four hours to fill, the time was certainly available to devote to tracing these characters. Instead, the extra time is spent lingering on Hirsch and Granger, with their bad Texas accents and near-complete lack of spark.

The crime here isn't that they've had the gall to remake Bonnie and Clyde – it's just that they did it so badly.

December 8, 2013 - ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ Writers Talk Turning Facts Into Drama: We’re ‘Telling a Tale’

Joseph Viles/Lifetime

 

John Rice and Joe Batteer tell TheWrap what influenced their script for the Lifetime miniseries about the iconic criminals

Lifetime’s “Bonnie & Clyde,” which will also air on A&E and History channel, tackles the lives and demise of the iconic criminal couple with a new spin.
In the miniseries, Bonnie Parker (Holliday Grainger) takes a more active role than she had in previous portrayals of her and boyfriend Clyde Barrow’s (Emile Hirsch) crime spree.
“Our main mantra was if we’re going to do ‘Bonnie & Clyde,’ we’re going to make sure that it’s a Bonnie and Clyde both us and the audience had not seen before,” co-writer John Rice told TheWrap. “We were looking for a spark of something that was both true and obscure, which is what we drew the characters from.”


In the two-part miniseries, viewers will meet Clyde as his crimes escalate after serving time in prison and meeting Bonnie. With a failed marriage behind her, Bonnie is an aspiring entertainer who’s finding it difficult to break into the industry before discovering Clyde could be her ticket to fame. Together, they go on a crime spree that captures America’s fascination in the 1930s.
Executive-produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, it also stars Holly Hunter, William Hurt, Sarah Hyland and Lane Garrison.

TheWrap: What made you decide to portray Bonnie as the driving force of the couple?
John Rice: We found out that Bonnie had an interest in getting attention, from singing a honky-tonk song at her father’s funeral to sending her headshots to Hollywood. And at the time, Pretty Boy Floyd was in the newsreels and the True Crime magazines. So, what if rising up as an outlaw couple kind of occurred to Bonnie in stages as she kind of drives the wheel of where they’re going to go, because she’s kind of the first reality star?


For Clyde, you took the interpretation that he was motivated by revenge against the government for what he went through in prison.
Joe Batteer: For a kind of global perspective on that, he came from a family that lived under a viaduct to just the times of the depression and how do I find a way for myself? Then, getting thrown in prison and the experiences there. One thing was he wasn’t going to go to prison again after what happened there the first time.

JR: One specific thing was that a lot of people believe that the first man he killed was in that prison and it was the man that sexually assaulted him. So, it was a huge part of Clyde Barrow’s life. He robbed some hardware stores and stole some cars and they sent him to hard time. So, we wanted to delve into that and show that it was a part of who that guy was.


There’s a disturbing movement, in my opinion, among TV critics and audiences in which they demand that drama be factually correct. What are your thoughts on that?
JR: My favorite movie was ‘Amadeus’ and it exposed me to Mozart by making a drama where there’s a lot of truth and there’s a lot of conceit that probably isn’t true in any way at all. But, it worked as a movie and made us aware of this man’s life. We like to say there are 57 truths in Bonnie and Clyde that people don’t know anything about. Other movies didn’t get four hours of screen time to tell all the truths. Our conceit is based on truth for both of the characters, that everything is 100 percent true is probably not true… There’s so much that we get to tell by shaping it as a drama that adheres first to a story that people want to watch as opposed to a historical retelling in a chronological order.

JB: We weren’t interested in doing a documentary. Even the best documentary isn’t actually true with a capital T. There’s opinions and points of view. Ultimately, we’re dramatists and we’re trying to tell a story. We don’t just want to write down the facts. Hell, anyone can do that. We’re interested in telling a tale, taking people on a ride and we think we did.

Once the casting was done, did you re-write anything to accommodate what Holliday and Emile brought to the parts?
JB: Both Emile and Holliday were great choices and I can’t think of anything.

JR: They made it work. One thing that John ad I marveled at was that our script was cared for so much by the producers and by [director] Bruce Beresford. It was amazing, actually. Bruce comes from a writing background and he was fighting to keep things in that we were willing to let go. So, the script, pretty much what we turned in was what got shot.
Part 1 and 2 of “Bonnie & Clyde” air Sunday and Monday at 9/8c, respectively, on A&E, Lifetime and History.

December 8, 2013 - "Bonnie & Clyde" Review starring Emilie Hirsch and Holliday Grainger

BONNIE AND CLYDE Review: Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger Star in the Multi-Channel Miniseries Event

by Allison Keene Posted 7 hours ago

In 1934, two young adults — Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker — were ambushed and killed by law enforcement in North Louisiana, immortalized after a murderous two-year crime spree that had captivated the nation. The tale of the two elicited such a frenzied response not because of the crimes themselves, which were mostly petty or forgettable during a time that included such infamous figures as John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd, but because of Bonnie. She wasn’t a captive during Clyde’s raids, she participated and occasionally led them. Pictures found of the two from a hideout showed a cigar-smoking, gun-toting female, linked up with a man she was involved with, but not married to. The tabloid nature of the duo’s misdeeds still carries some resonance today, which the new miniseries Bonnie and Clyde focuses on. Hit the jump for more.

The miniseries, starring Emile Hirsch (Into The Wild) and Holliday Grainger (The Borgias) as the infamous pair, will air on back-to-back nights on three networks simultaneously: A&E, History and Lifetime. Such scheduling seems to be in the hopes of making this a grandiose “television event,” which, if successful, might be the first of many. But where Arthur Penn‘s 1967 Bonnie and Clyde film script was heavily influenced by French New Wave, playing off of the style of gangster films of the 1930s while modernizing it, there’s nothing so inspired about this latest offering. Still, it has certain charms.
Any film or series that focuses on well-covered history is in the interesting position of either playing up to the audience’s knowledge, or finding a new way to explore the material that makes the history just the backdrop. The new Bonnie and Clyde chooses the former. Not only does it open on the car and corpses from the infamous final shootout scene, but it makes the very odd choice to give Clyde “second sight,” where his visions predict what viewers know are indeed future events.
So that part is pretty hokey. But the idea is not misguided. By incorporating Bonnie and Clyde’s darkest moments leading up to their bloody demise, it gives a decent sense of foreboding to their antics and joy rides. On the other hand, the execution (no pun intended) of those moments leaves much to be desired, particularly when it comes to Bruce Beresford‘s scattered direction and straggling pace.
The miniseries also spends a lot of time on Clyde’s formative years before launching into the heists (the nitty gritty of which is mostly glossed over). It sticks closer to the facts than that earlier film, though lacks more personal moments, like the sparring and shrillness between Clyde’s sister-in-law Blanche Barrow (Sarah Hyland) and Bonnie, when the law breaking duo had become a quintet, as well as any question of Clyde’s sexuality (sex being, of course, a driving factor when it comes to interest in the story both then and now). Though the miniseries does show the historical suggestion that Clyde had been sexually assaulted while in prison, his demeanor doesn’t change much afterwards, whereas accounts at the time suggested that had a life-altering effect on him.
Instead, it’s really a sociopathic Bonnie who acts as the instigator, with Clyde along for the ride and the occasional shootings. Clyde is torn up over the group’s first accidental murder, while Bonnie says: “Am I a horrible person? That poor man is dead … and I’m upset they used my sophomore picture [in the paper].” Grainger is luminous as Bonnie, and a good foil for Hirsch’s staid and likable Clyde, but can overdo some of her delusions of grandeur in her obsession with fame. Then again, part of the blame must rest on the uninspired and often uneven script, which relies heavily on the theatrics of a star-crossed lovers theme.
Though the miniseries (which is beautifully costumed and features lush sets) does stick fairly close to facts, its fictional flourishes can be head-scratching. In a bizarre change, Clyde, who seems to garner no pleasure from the heists, appears to choose to stop himself and Bonnie by driving them straight into a trap set up by storied Texas ranger Frank Hamer (William Hurt), whom he both fears and seems to admire (despite his general hatred of law enforcement). In doing so, he’s also intwining his fate with someone who is also famous, reinforcing the theme of this particular telling. Because of that, it nearly works, even though it makes Clyde bent on some kind of suicide mission, which puts a very strange and glum spin on their “spree.”
The miniseries follows the trajectory of the media of the day — Bonnie and Clyde go from folk heroes to despised outlaws — but it lacks spark, and despite the knowledge that “the end is nigh” for the two and the rest of their gang, there is strangely never a sense of urgency. But it sticks to its theme, like when Hamer shames the journalist PJ Lane (Elizabeth Reeser, in a terrible bird’s nest of a wig), for glamorizing such a murderous couple, even though she can’t ever decide personally if she is pro-the duo or against them.

The lesson here is that the desire for fame coupled with desperation (the miniseries cuts the action with photos from the Great Depression) can be a powerful one, but without the media supporting that desire for celebrity, it might have extinguished on its own. For such an old story, that’s certainly still a very contemporary issue. Bonnie’s dreams of celebrity though end with bullets and blood spray. Perhaps the most resonating fact about that moment, which Clyde foresees and drives into, are his words, “I was giving my Bonnie just what she wanted: a big ending.”
The Bonnie and Clyde 2-night event begins at 9 p.m. Sunday, December 8th with simultaneous broadcasts on A&E, Lifetime and History.

Read more at http://collider.com/bonnie-and-clyde-review/#ampg8W2p6HjFtLqR.99

December 8, 2013 - Holliday Grainger Interview for Bonnie & Clyde (with PHOTOS)

Holliday Grainger Talks BONNIE & CLYDE, How She Views Bonnie Parker, Her Beautiful Wardrobe, and Playing a CINDERELLA Evil Stepsister

by Christina Radish Posted 7 hours ago

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In this special two-night, four-hour event that’s airing simulcast on A&E, History and Lifetime, Bonnie & Clyde retells the fascinating tale of the legendary couple whose crime spree enraptured the American public. Directed by Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy), Clyde Barrow (Emile Hirsch) and Bonnie Parker (Holliday Grainger) were able to stay one step ahead of the law and escape capture, time and time again, which led to riskier and more dangerous crimes, making them the most famous criminals of the modern era. The film also stars Holly Hunter, William Hurt, Sarah Hyland, Lane Garrison, Elizabeth Reaser, Austin Hebert and Dale Dickey.
During this recent exclusive interview with Collider, actress Holliday Grainger talked about how she won this role from an audition she put on tape, what she most loved about this script, how she viewed Bonnie Parker, how she found her performance, working with her partner-in-crime Emile Hirsch, having such a beautiful wardrobe, and just how bizarre it was to film Bonnie and Clyde’s fatal final shoot-out. She also talked about playing one of the evil stepsisters in Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella and feeling like they’re making a fairy tale come to life, as well as how she misses being a part of the Showtime series The Borgias, in which she played Lucrezia. Check out what she had to say after the jump.

Collider: How did you come to be a part of this? Was this a role you had to audition for?
HOLLIDAY GRAINGER: It happened shockingly quickly. It was my first project that I’ve ever gotten from a tape. I’m so used to taping myself and sending it off and never hearing back. I started to believe that nobody actually ever sees my tapes, apart from my agent. And then, I got a phone call saying, “They liked your tape. Can you put yourself on tape again, for the other scene that you never got around to doing?” I was like, “Yeah! Wow, someone actually watched it and liked me? Amazing!” It was the best script I’d read in ages. And then, I Skyped with (director) Bruce [Beresford] for five or 10 minutes, and got the part the next week. I was really freaking out because I hadn’t met anyone. I was like, “You’re trusting me to play an American icon, and you’ve not actually met me?” He’d only seen my audition tapes. It scared me. I was like, “Are you going to get me a dialect coach?,” and they were like, “Yeah, when you get over here.” So, I was like, “I’ve gotta get my own dialect coach.” I completely freaked out and took myself to ballet lessons and started researching panic attacks. Everyone was like, “You can start prep when you come over, in a few weeks.” I just dove into Bonnie Parker, head first.
Once you did get to meet Emile Hirsch, did you breathe a sigh of relief that things would actually work?
GRAINGER: Yeah! I was in Louisiana for five days, before any of the other cast arrived. I met Emile and we were on the same wavelength about it. And then, I met Holly Hunter, as well. My first scenes were with her, and she was just so generous and so lovely. She really held my hand through it. She could tell how nervous I was. She said, “You know, you’re doing great.” She really put my nerves at rest. I started to enjoy it, from then on.
When you read this script, what most stood out for you?
GRAINGER: I loved the surreal elements that were in the script, and the way that it dances around and between present and pasta. And the fact that Clyde has second sight was something that I read into in biographies and thought it was really interesting to play on that. I very rarely want to play a character that I don’t like, but after reading the script, by the end of the script, I hated her. I just thought she was the most thick-skinned, selfish, manipulative little bitch, every. She was like a selfish little teenage girl, in adult form. She was fame-hungry and self-centered. It all was so complex, with her desires and her need for recognition and her need for something more out of life. And then, when I started reading more about her in biographies, and reading about the era and being a product of the Depression, there was no hope in a small suburb of Dallas. There was nothing beyond waitressing or secretarial work, if you were lucky. This girl really took her life into her own hands and really did something with it. I was intrigued, as well, with her diary entries and her letters to Clyde, when she was younger. There was a totally different side to this manipulative woman that was in the script. She was quite a naive young girl. It was that juxtaposition that really intrigued me.
With as much as Bonnie enjoyed the fame and celebrity, she probably would be someone who would love to be a reality star today?
GRAINGER: Exactly! It’s like she was the original fame-hungry reality star. She would have loved to have gone on Pop Idol, or something like that.
Were you ever hesitant about taking on this story and this character, knowing that these are not just historical figures, but that they’re cinematic icons, too?
GRAINGER: Gosh, no! I think I’m a bit like Bonnie, in that I’m selfish when it comes to work. I’m like, “Oh, that will be fun! I wanna do that!” I never think beyond my participation in a project. It’s never something that plagues my mind when I’m working on something. And then, I finish and I’m like, “Oh, yeah. I hope people agree with my version.”
When you were doing your research for this, were there specific things you read about Bonnie that helped you find how you wanted to play her and how you wanted to carry yourself, physically?
GRAINGER: The Bonnie that I created in my mind from biographies that I’d read, and then from the script, seemed like two totally different people, so I went with the Bonnie in the script because I thought she’d be more interesting to play. Also, of course, we’re making a TV show and not a documentary. But, what I did take from reading her diary entries was that element of innocence and this need to be liked and wanted. She needed to be liked by her mom. She needed to be liked by Clyde. She needed a guy in her life to follow. She needed to be liked by the public. She was so distraught that people would think she smoked cigars. They took a police officer hostage and the one thing that Bonnie asked him to do, when they let him go, was to tell the world that she didn’t smoke cigars. She cared about her image. She had this innocence and naivete, and then this aesthetic preoccupation for such a young girl.
How did you approach acting out the panic attacks to make them as realistic as possible?
GRAINGER: I thought I should look in the mirror, but every time I looked in the mirror while I was doing it, I just thought it all looked horrendous. I spoke to friends that have panic attacks, and I spoke to a doctor who has panic attacks, himself. I also did a bit of research into them. It seemed like everyone’s version of a panic attack had slightly different physical things. So, I decided to choose my own physical things. And then, I related that to what I do, whenever I’ve felt panicked or anxious in my life, and just tried to exaggerate that feeling with the physicalities. I also sat with Holly [Hunter] for awhile and we went through mechanisms that might have been good for her mother to bring Bonnie out of the panic attacks. I freaked out after the first time I did the panic attack, but Bruce told me that it was utterly believable. That was the nicest feedback he gave me after a scene, so that was good.
What was it like to work with Emile Hirsch on this? Does it feel like you’re partners in crime, when you’re doing such intense work together?
GRAINGER: Yeah, especially when you’re on location. We were on location in Louisiana for three months, and in Nowheresville, Louisiana for quite a lot of it. It’s always very intense because you spend so much time together, and so much time together, in the mind-set of Bonnie and Clyde. You finish work so late, and then you sit over dinner, going through the scenes for the next day, and there’s no breaks in the character, really. It feels like you’re constantly working on it, thinking about it, running scenes and talking about it. Bruce was quite open to us making little changes, as well, so it felt organic and very much our own.
How was it to wear this beautiful wardrobe while carrying around a shotgun and robbing banks?
GRAINGER: I love that juxtaposition. That’s who Bonnie wanted to be. She wanted to be this cool, glamorous fashion icon. The outfits were beautiful. Marilyn [Vance], the costume designer, did an amazing job. My trailer was plastered with pictures of the 1920s and 1930s front covers of Vogue, and Bonnie’s outfits were straight off the covers of Vogue. It was amazing!
We all know the fate of Bonnie and Clyde, so it’s not a spoiler to talk about how they died. What was it like to see your death scene? Is it just totally bizarre to watch yourself get all shot up and be all bloody like that?
GRAINGER: It was actually far more bizarre acting it out than it was to watch it. It was terrifying! I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so scared on a film set. Just a second before they said, “Action!,” Emil and I were sitting in this car with squibs all over our bodies and all over the car in front of us. There were hundreds of them. And then, the whole crew were like 10 feet away from the car, wearing protective masks and protective ear wear. And then, the effects guys were like, “Don’t worry! They don’t really hurt. Just make sure you keep your eyes closed and your skin away from most of them because they can burn.” Emile had just done this action war movie, called Lone Survivor, and he had witnessed a few people being hit by them. He just turned to me and said, “Make sure you shut your eyes. They do hurt.” And we knew they had one take. They took seven hours to set this car up, and we just had one take to go for it. It really felt like we were being executed. Emile and I actually held hands in the car.
What’s it like to go from doing Bonnie & Clyde to playing one of the stepsisters in Cinderella?
GRAINGER: I know! It’s so daft, isn’t it? It’s great! I had a little film in between, as well, to break me down. I went and played a contemporary Northern girl for a bit, in Posh. And then, I went on to play one of the stepsisters, which is quite silly comedy.
When you do something like Cinderella, do you think about the fact that you’re retelling the story of Cinderella, or can you focus on it as just another story that you’re telling?
GRAINGER: Whenever I walk out of my trailer and see Lily [James] in her costume, I think, “My god, I’m shooting Cinderella!” When she’s in her ball gown, she looks like the fairy tale version of Cinderella that you remember dreaming about, as a kid. The first time I saw her in her ball grown, I felt a bit starstruck. It’s just Lily. She’s one of my contemporaries. We’ve known each other from before. But when she’s in the Cinderella dress, she’s just perfect. That’s when you go, “Oh, my gosh, we’re actually making a movie! We’re making a fairy tale come to life!”
Just how nasty do these stepsisters get?
GRAINGER: Like anything, you’ve gotta find the humanity in the characters. I talked a lot about backstory with (director) Ken Branagh. I feel like they’re slightly emotionally stunted, like Bonnie, in a way. Anastasia is very preoccupied with aesthetics, and she’s quite emotionally stunted. I don’t think she realizes quite how selfish she’s being. She’s just this selfish little toddler.
With everything that happened with The Borgias, were you disappointed with the way the series ended, or did you feel a sense of closure with how the story concluded?
GRAINGER: It’s a shame that we didn’t get a chance to wrap it up. I think there’s an e-book on sale, with the final two episodes that (show creator) Neil [Jordan] was planning to do, so I want to read that, at some point. I was pleased that it didn’t go, in a way, because I could then do Posh and Cinderella. But, I miss it now. The last three years, I was there in Budapest with everyone, playing Lucrezia, and I just miss the lifestyle of it.
Bonnie & Clyde airs on A&E, History and Lifetime on December 8^th and 9^th.

Read more at http://collider.com/holliday-grainger-bonnie-and-clyde-cinderella-interview/#kzVWzwg8JUJqEWji.99

December 2, 2013 - Bonnie & Clyde Premiere (Holliday Grainger)

tars Holliday Grainger, Emile Hirsch, William Hurt, and Lane Garrison attend the "Bonnie And Clyde" New York Premiere Party at The McKittrick Hotel on December 2, 2013 in New York City.




Emilie Hirsch


Lane Garrison


Austin Herbert


Sinclair & James DuMont

September 22, 2013 - Holliday Grainger to star on new Cinderella movie

First Picture of Lily James as 'Cinderella' in Disney's New Movie

25 September 2013 3:52 PM, PDT | Monsters and Critics | See recent Monsters and Critics news »

We have added a first picture of Lily James as the title character "Cinderella" in Walt Disney Pictures and director Kenneth Branagh new live action adaptation of the classic fairy tale. Principal photography started recently at Pinewood Studios in London on "Cinderella" which also stars Richard Madden (“Game of Thrones”), Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter, Hayley Atwell, Stellan Skarsgård, Holliday Grainger, Sophie McShera and Nonso Anozie. Director Kenneth Branagh says: “It is impossible to think of Cinderella without thinking of Disney and the timeless images we’ve all grown up watching. And those classic moments are irresistible to a filmmaker. With Lily James we have found our perfect Cinderella. She combines knockout beauty with intelligence, wit, fun and physical grace. »

- Anthony Pearson

November 20, 2013 - Ethereal New Preview for Bonnie & Clyde with Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger

Ethereal New Preview for Bonnie & Clyde with Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger

20 November 2013 7:00 AM, PST | HeyUGuys.co.uk | See recent HeyUGuys news »

Bringing the notorious eponymous outlaws to screens once more, this time on the small screen, Bonnie & Clyde is less than three weeks from its simultaneous broadcast on History, Lifetime, and A&E in the Us.

The four-hour miniseries will be split across two nights in December, and a new preview has debuted online, teasing Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger looking rather beautiful in their 1930s attire with a nod to another of America’s most famous outlaws, Jesse James.

Bonnie & Clyde is a star-studded miniseries for History, Lifetime and A&E networks. The four-hour, two-night event miniseries stars Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) andHolliday Grainger (The Borgias) in the title roles of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, the Depression-era outlaw couple whose criminal exploits have assured them lasting fame for eight decades.

The leading duo are joined by a very promising cast, starring alongside Holly Hunter,William Hurt, Sarah Hyland, »

- Kenji Lloyd