Thursday, February 27, 2014

1982 Interview with Rupert Everett & Kenneth Branagh

Hello. The endless barrage of snow can bring your spirits down, and times like this, I like to shake things up. So we're gonna take a look over 30 years into the past, at two young, rising actors named Kenneth Branagh and Rupert Everett. Here, the young thesps are interviewed by Newsnight during their run in the 1982 stage play, Another Country.

This play was written by Julian Mitchell, and deals with the famous spy Guy Burgess. AC is an examination of the effects of society, at school, upon Burgess. The author's goal, it seems, is to consider how Burgess was influenced by negative social attitudes of his era, as well as an inclination toward homosexuality and exposure to Marxism.

Why should we be interested in the video below? Well, the play did win Play of the Year in the Society of West End Theatre Awards, and it must have been a big deal to garner the attention of a 60 Minutes-esque television program. It's also worth mentioning that as nice as it must've been to premiere with Ken and Rupert, the following year featured Colin Firth as the lead.

And then the year after that (1984), the cinematic version came out, which was written by Mitchell and starred Everett and Firth. This site is about film (and, sometimes, TV), which makes it an appropriate topic for a post.

For me, however, the real pull is the look at these two now long-familiar faces, but from far before I ever heard their names.

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