For all those Brits out there watch BBC 2 tonight at 9pm. Richard is going to be a guest on “The Kumars At Number 42” – A new programme from the Goodness Gracious Me team.

2001

ABOVE: Here’s Richard with the Countess – good old Edward’s Mrs!!!

Richard was in Weybridge, supporting Breakthrough Breast Cancer, the Countess of Wessex was also there.

He didn’t actually shoot but he did play some golf, archery and did some jeep driving. Good on you, Richard!

Pictures from “OK” Magazine.

And here’s REG with Clair Southwell (who had Richard as her personal loader).

Details taken from Film Festival website (and this piece does include Richard.)

Robert Altman’s films are well known for having an ensemble cast. His latest, Gosford Park is no exception and this time around he brought most of them to the opening night of the Regus London Film Festival, where the film was making it’s world premier.

Altman himself was delighted with working in the UK for the first time, “It was the best I’ve ever had. Truthfully. I think because of the quality of the actors primarily and the crews. I couldn’t find the weakest link, with the actors that I had it was duck soup!” he said.

Richard E. Grant loved being reunited with the veteran filmmaker, “It was my third time with Robert Altman and you always have a good time because everyone is treated very democratically. The cast list is also phenomenal. It’s an upstairs-downstairs story told from the point of view of the people downstairs, but without any sentimentality. It’s done so well.”

Derek Jacobi explained the process of his casting, “I just thank my lucky stars that I could be in it. I was only just in it because I was doing a play at the time and I met Robert at a party and he said, “You must be in my film.” I said that I was doing a play and he said that didn’t matter, he will find you a little something. I play a downstairs valet.”

Emily Watson just loved working with Altman too and revealed the best moment for her was when the whole cast got together for a photo-shoot, “seeing ever body together was thrilling!” she added.

Stephen Fry, who plays the Jacques Tati-esque detective described his experience of working on the film, “I was just a small cog, but in a wonderful machine. I felt like a pig in chardonnay! It was fantastic. Robert is one of the few authentic masters of cinema working today. I have always admired his filmmaking and indeed the variety of it. This is the proof of it although the phrase Altmaneque may be used he doesn’t stay within a single genre. He is just interested in telling stories if that’s Hollywood, like The Player, or the army or a social gathering or country music. He just has this extraordinary way of opening up peoples’ lives with the camera. It’s almost mystical. People would crawl over broken glass to work with him.” And as for

Maggi Smith seemed to sum up the feeling of warmth towards the director when she declared, “We would do anything for him. And, indeed, have!”

-associated film: Gosford Park

2001 Regus London Film Festival

Peter Bradshaw sees Robert Altman play Cluedo.

Peter Bradshaw
The Guardian

The idea of yet another 1930s country-house drama peopled exclusively by distinguished English character actors sounds like a living death. The number of star names generally has an inverse relation to the actual thrill they collectively deliver; everyone just distracts from each other’s prestige. Add to that the antique cars sweeping up the gravelly drive, the chatelaine’s languid ennui, the cheeky footman, the mob-capped parlourmaid, and finally the comedy detective investigating the body in the library… well, it should be cliche hell, the sort of material the late Anthony Shaffer used sheepishly to write for those later Agatha Christie mysteries.

But it isn’t. The tired old Cluedo genre has turned out to suit Robert Altman’s ensemble approach nicely, shaping it, giving it discipline. Altman is sure-footed in this alien habitat, and the film – entertaining, and amusing if insubstantial – has a similar feel to Alan Bridges’s The Shooting Party or James Ivory’s The Remains of the Day. It would almost be quicker to list the big names who aren’t in it (they were off doing Harry Potter), but the director keeps them all more or less in check, and something in the brassbound typecasting prevents anyone showing off too much.

Michael Gambon is the glowering master of Gosford Park, Kristin Scott Thomas his elegant, disaffected wife. Below stairs, Clive Owen and Kelly Macdonald come worryingly close to a John Alderton/Pauline Collins double act. Ryan Phillippe, as the mysterious Scottish manservant, joins the list of leading men (including Ralph Fiennes and Freddie “Parrot Face” Davies) whose head is the wrong shape for a bowler hat.

Inevitably, there is one performer who blows them away with a deliciously unpleasant, scene-stealing performance, and that’s Maggie Smith as the vain, mean Countess of Trentham. While Jeremy Northam, playing Ivor Novello, croons interminably at the piano, Dame Maggie remarks acidly over a hand of cards at the opposite table: “What a large repertoire.” Of someone’s frock, she smiles sweetly: “Difficult colour, green…”

Once the murder is committed, quite late in the film, it all becomes very broad and you can see the ending a mile away. There’s nothing in the way of psychological insight or social comment; but Gosford Park is never dull, and it runs as purringly as an antique Bentley.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

Gosford Park premieres tomorrow but for those of you who want a bit of a teaser then check out the pics here.

Below is a pic of REG and Olivia at the premiere of the new Harry Potter film courtesy of Jolie and the Guardian website.