Film interviews

More than a million people live in south-east London but, incredibly, many were starved of movies for years. Until recently, Crystal Palace and West Norwood had no cinema of any kind. Ditto Brockley, Dulwich and Blackheath. The south-east of the capital was like a black hole when it came to film-going. Unless you were willing to travel to Greenwich (for the likes of the Picturehouse) or Peckham (for the cheap and cheerful Peckhamplex), the telly was all you had. But in the last few years, an entrepreneurial spirit has been awakened to end the drought. Since 2014, a slew of pop-up, do-it-yourself cinemas have sprung up. Most have used multi-purpose public spaces not usually associated with the movies. Some are young, not-for-profit community interest companies. Others are family-run. And three of the majors – Everyman, Picturehouse and Curzon – have followed suit. With more new cinemas planned in the Lewisham area (a Catford site was approved last year), this homegrown breed of indie ‘craft’ cinemas shows no sign of abating, with their owners all insisting that they offer something different and unique. Jayne Williams, 30, who runs the Rivoli Ballroom in Crofton Park, remembers seeing George Michael shoot a video in her grandparents’ historic venue. But it wasn’t until she returned to the family nest five years ago, after studying graphic design at Central Saint Martins, that she decided to right a wrong and put on a movie night. ‘There’s something about the ballroom, it’s...

What do you think of when you think of suffragettes? Genteel ladies wearing sashes and big hats, marching arm-in-arm? A new film, ‘Suffragette’, out on October 12, will change that cosy impression for ever. It’s a hundred years since the suffragettes fought to get women the vote, but unbelievably this is the first film about their bitter struggle. After years of being ignored by the government, humiliated and demeaned, in 1909 they got militant: smashing windows and blowing up postboxes.‘Suffragette’ is an important film: tough and shocking. Written by Abi Morgan (‘The Iron Lady’) and directed by Sarah Gavron (‘Brick Lane’), this is the story of ordinary working-class women. Carey Mulligan is Maud, a Bethnal Green laundress whose eyes are opened to the movement by her workmate Violet (Anne-Marie Duff). Romola Garai is their boss’s suffragette wife. Meryl Streep appears as the formidable Emmeline Pankhurst, rallying her troops from a London balcony.Mrs P’s speech ends: ‘I’d rather be a rebel than a slave’. That idea of finding your voice, keeping your nerve and fighting the impulse to be a ‘good girl’ is a powerful one in the film. It’s perfect, then, for our photoshoot with Mulligan, Streep, Garai and Duff, four women who tell us why the fight for equality still isn’t over and why the suffragettes were ‘bad-ass’ feminists.

His close friends call him ‘Serena’. Meant as a campy play on ‘Sir Ian’, it’s an oddly appropriate nickname for an actor who exudes an air of such immaculate serenity. Whether he’s glad-handing ‘X-Men’ fans on the red carpet, defending gay rights in his role as co-founder of Stonewall or saving Middle Earth as Gandalf the Grey, Ian McKellen is the calm eye of whatever storm happens to be raging. And he’s just as laidback in person, spending a fair portion of our interview umm-ing, aah-ing and gazing wistfully out of the window – not in a senior-moment sort of way, but with the confident demeanour of a man who simply refuses to be hurried. But like any stage veteran, he does occasionally show his thespian streak: grabbing his back theatrically to evoke the aches of old age, or grinning slyly as he recounts a cheeky anecdote about working with Will Smith. We’re at the Langham Hotel in central London to discuss ‘Mr Holmes’, in which the 75-year-old McKellen dons ageing make-up to play a 90-year-old Sherlock Holmes, who’s living in a quiet corner of post-WWII Sussex until an old case rears its head. It’s an incredibly controlled performance, packed with pathos and subtlety: not as crowd-pleasing, perhaps, as Gandalf or Magneto, but every bit as memorable. Have you always wanted to play Sherlock Holmes? ‘I never thought I’d play him. Sometimes these things just happen. I never thought I’d play Hitler, but someone once asked me to and it was a jolly good script!’ The list of...