A short video commissioned for International Women’s Day 2011 features veteran stage and screen actor Daniel Craig in James Bond attire, and in drag, to highlight the inequalities women still face in the workplace. Tony and Academy Award winner Judi Dench appears in a voiceover in the style of James Bond’s boss, “M,” whom she has played opposite Craig in the Bond film franchise.
The Women’s Day short was directed by Sam Taylor-Wood, written by Jane Goldman and produced by Barbara Broccoli. The short is the first film featuring the James Bond character to be directed by a woman.
For more information, visit weareequals.org. To watch the film, look below: (more…)
He’s directed Kander & Ebb (Cabaret), Chekhov (The Cherry Orchard), Hare (The Blue Room) and currently tackles two more Shakespeares (As You Like It and The Tempest as part of The Bridge Project at BAM), but Sam Mendes may take on his toughest challenge yet: Bond. Yes, James Bond.
The stage and screen director is in negotiations to helm the next 007 film, The Hollywood Reporter reports. Filming could begin as soon as June for a possible 2011 release. Frost/Nixon playwright Peter Morgan will join screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade for the next installment to star recent Broadway newbie Daniel Craig (A Steady Rain).
Mendes earned praise and an Academy Award for his directorial debut of “American Beauty” and has also worked on “Road to Perdition,” “Jarhead,” “Revolutionary Road” (starring his wife Kate Winslet) and last year’s “Away We Go.”
“Hello, Cousin,” exclaimed Daniel Craig, extending the right hand of fellowship to his “Americanized” cousin, the equally British-born actor, Simon Jones, when the latter bopped by after A Steady Rain Nov. 25 with his wife, Nancy, and son, Tim.
This hands-across-the-Green Room, backstage at the Schoenfeld, marked the first time the two Englishmen ever connected, and it was achieved easily with only one degree of separation: Geoffrey Polischuk, who had been Rupert Everett’s dresser in Jones’ last Broadway outing, Blithe Spirit, is currently Hugh Jackman’s dresser for A Steady Rain, so, said Jones, “I asked him to find out if Daniel would be interested in meeting. Turns out, Daniel had, in fact, heard of me and did know who I was and said he would be happy to see me, so we got tickets on Wednesday and, as soon as they’d sold their sweaty T-shirts [for a BC/EFA fundraiser], we went around to see them, and we had a little family chat. It was nice to linger. I sent him a family photo of his great-grandparents, who are my grandparents.”
A steady rain of heavy coins has been following A Steady Rain at the Schoenfeld for a month now, and on Nov. 19 Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman made history in their fund-raising for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS when their show became the first to reach $1 million all by itself — $1,029,833, to be precise.
Jackson came closest to that figure when he raised $612,000 during his Boy From Oz run. “There have been several shows that have come close to that — Rent, Hairspray, The Producers,” said a jubilant Tom Viola, BC/EFA’s executive director. “Basically, when a show — it’s usually a musical — raises $250,000, that’s a tremendous success. The fact that Hugh and Daniel, in the fourth of six weeks of fund-raising, have raised a million dollars is incredible and really speaks to their extraordinary generosity and great good will.”
A Steady Rain stars Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig have thrown down the fundraising gauntlet with their curtain speech plea to help raise funds for Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS.
On Oct. 23, A Steady Rain’s first day of fundraising for the upcoming BC/EFA Gypsy of the Year event, Jackman began, “Well, congratulations. We got through the entire show without one cell phone going off!” The duo then proceeded to auction off (and sign) the t-shirts they wore during the show for $5,000 each. They also took 20 pictures with audience members for $1,000 each. Those items, added to the sale of signed posters and Playbills as well as standard bucket collections, totaled $38,900 for the night — an all-time, one-night record.
The figure bested the previous one-night fundraising record – held by Jackman himself during his run in The Boy from Oz – by over $5000.
Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa will celebrate Broadway and its stars during the week of Oct. 5.
“Live! with Regis and Kelly” will welcome Bye Bye Birdie star John Stamos Oct. 6: The stage and screen star will offer a preview of his newest musical outing. On Oct. 7 the legendary Julie Andrews, last on Broadway in Victor/Victoria, will discuss her newest book, “Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies.” And, new “James Bond” Daniel Craig will chat about his Broadway debut in A Steady Rain on the Oct. 8 airing of the morning chatfest.
“Live!” airs in the New York metropolitan area on WABC, Channel 7 beginning at 9 AM ET.
Hugh Jackman in A Steady Rain photo by Joan Marcus
Producers of the two-character Broadway play A Steady Rain announced Sept. 29 — the play’s opening night at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre — that the production shattered the record for highest weekly gross for any non-musical production ever on Broadway.
For the week ending Sept. 20, the Keith Huff play took in $1,167,954, also a house record at the Schoenfeld Theatre. The highest gross for a non-musical was previously Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays with $1,061,688 for the week ending May 22, 2005.
In related news, Steady Rain co-star Hugh Jackman did what many theatregoers over the past few years would have liked to themselves: He recently stopped the show mid-performance to admonish a patron whose cell phone interrupted the play. Someone happened to be filming the performance, and TMZ.com posted Jackman’s reaction.
Jackman co-stars with Daniel Craig in the two-hander, which is playing a limited run through Dec. 6.
The upcoming Broadway run of Keith Huff’s A Steady Rain, starring Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman, has released the first shot of the stars to tempt ticket buyers even more.
The two-character, Chicago-set cop drama begins previews Sept. 10 and opens Sept. 29 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre for a 12-week engagement through Dec. 6.
Here are the Hollywood heavyweights in a photo by Greg Williams:
