She’s avoided the Bond girl curse to star in Stephen Frears’s raucous, raunchy new comedy. Cath Clark hears about squeezing into outfits, her new Sloaney look and ‘Midsomer Murders’

Rising star Gemma Arterton left Rada three years ago. Since then, she has played a head girl (‘St Trinian’s’), a Bond girl (‘Quantum of Solace’) and a canny kidnap victim (‘The Disappearance of Alice Creed’) and been in a blockbuster or two (‘Clash of the Titans’, ‘Prince of Persia’). Now she’s the heroine of black comedy ‘Tamara Drewe’, Stephen Frears’s adaptation of Posy Simmonds’s comic strip. Newspaper columnist Tamara is forced back to the village where she grew up. Once an ugly duckling, she returns, post-nose-job, as a smouldering femme fatale, entangling a trio of admirers: indie-drummer, fit farmer and philandering crime novelist.

Tamara makes a memorably slutty entrance back in the village, wearing the shortest denim shorts ever, prompting the catty comment, ‘I hope they don’t give her thrush’. Did you have any say in the shorts?
‘That’s such a Daily Mail reader’s comment isn’t it? Those shorts. Ugh. I really wanted them to be culottes, more flattering on the bottom. But for that joke to work they had to be alarmingly tight and offensive to a woman. I was in Paris about a month ago, where the film is already out. There are these posters of me in those bloody shorts everywhere.’

The ‘Tamara Drewe’ graphic novel is much loved. Did you know it already?
‘No, I hadn’t even heard about it. At the start, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do the film. I really liked the script and I knew that I could do it but I had a little bit of apprehension. I’m not sure why. Then they sent me the comic, and that was the deal-maker. I’ve always loved Thomas Hardy [‘Tamara Drewe’ is loosely based on ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’] and I just fell in love with the comic. Posy is so clever. She did a drawing of me as Tamara. It’s in my bathroom: the front cover of the book but with my face. It’s brilliant.’

Stephen Frears said that he wouldn’t make the film without you. Did he tell you that?
‘It’s funny when he says things like that because he’s so bumbling. I remember when I met Stephen, I had read with his casting director. She’d phoned him to say that I should be Tamara. So I met up with them both and he said: “Oh yes, you’ll do.” He’d never seen me in anything. I was asking if I could please audition – or something! I wanted to make sure he knew he had made the right decision. A lot of us are quite close to our characters.’ Continue…

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“The Disappearance of Alice Creed” will be heading to DVD and Blu-ray on November 23rd. You can check out the cover at here in the gallery and you can pre-order the DVD now!

The current bonus materials include:

– Commentary tracks featuring director J Blakeson
– Extended Scenes with optional Commentary
– Storyboards
– And more

Can’t wait!

Yahoo has released the U.S. trailer for “Tamara Drewe” which you can watch below! HD captures are also available in the gallery. The movie will be having its North American premiere in just a few days at TIFF with Gemma expected to attend. Can’t wait!

Gallery Link: Tamara Drewe > Trailer #2 Captures

Gemma spent her weekend attending the V Festival which featured talent from Kings of Leon to Florence + the Machine and Ellie Goulding. Here are two photos so far of Gemma posing for the cameras, I’ll do our best to get more!

Gallery Link: Appearances in 2010 > 08.21-22.10: V Festival 2010

I haven’t updated in a few days, so I’ll be working in on filling in the gallery. To start us off, here are some stills of “Tamara Drewe” that I hadn’t gotten around to adding. Enjoy!

Gallery Link: Tamara Drewe > Film Stills

Gemma Arterton doesn’t want to be remembered as Strawberry Fields forever.

Although she was aware of the typecasting danger when she won that Bond girl role in Quantum of Solace.

Since then, the 24-year-old London lass has snagged a few more high-profile parts in big-studio special-effects pictures released this year.

She played Princess Tamina in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opposite Jake Gyllenhaal’s Prince Dastan this spring and, earlier in the year, she co-starred as the immortal Io to Sam Worthington’s Perseus in Clash of the Titans.

Next up is something different for her. Arterton plays a kidnap victim in the low-budget independent movie, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, which opens in Vancouver Friday.

In the sparse, three-character movie, written and directed by J Blakeson, the caper is not what it appears to be. The kidnappers, Vic (Eddie Marsan) and Danny (Martin Compston), squabble among themselves while a desperate Alice (Arterton) plots an escape before the ransom is delivered.

Arterton’s portrayal counts as a riveting eye-opener, but the truth is, she almost missed out on the role because of her past involvement in the blockbusters, especially the Bond flick.

“It was quite a big departure for me ( Alice Creed), and it really was deliberate that I went for it, because it was polar opposite to what I had been doing previously,” admits Arterton. Continue…

Gemma is featured in the September 2010 issue of Nylon Guys with a new article and photoshoot. Can’t wait to see outtakes!

Gallery Link: Scans from 2010 > September 2010: Nylon Guys

The “Prince of Persia” DVD release date was announced recently and now it’s officially available for pre-order. Heading our way on September 14, the movie will be available in both regular DVD and Blu-ray. Unfortunately both versions have fairly limited special features:


The standard version:

• An Unseen World: Making Prince Of Persia

The Blu-Ray:

• An Unseen World: Making Prince Of Persia
• CineExplore: The Sands Of Time – Take control of the dagger and use it to unlock secrets behind your favorite scenes! Turn back time and uncover over 40 spellbinding segments – Including “Walking Up Walls”, “Filming In Morocco”, and “Ostrich Jockey Tryouts” – with this exclusive interactive feature. Blu-ray puts you in control! [exclusive to Blu-ray in Combo Pack]
• Deleted scene: The Banquet: Garsiv Presents Heads

Be sure to check back here for captures from the DVD – can’t wait!

Gallery Link: Photoshoots from 2010 > 2010: Globe and Mail

Call her the Not-It Girl.

For the past few years, the English actress Gemma Arterton, 24, has been on a trajectory that Hello! magazine dreams are made of: graduation from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts; roles in a gritty Guy Ritchie movie (Rocknrolla) and a frothy Richard Curtis one (Pirate Radio); starring as Elizabeth Bennet and Tess (of the D’Urbervilles) on British TV. Then (drumroll), the break that every starlet fantasizes about: playing Bond girl Strawberry Fields in Quantum of Solace.

Arterton rolled in flagrante with Daniel Craig, and yes, it was good for her. Hollywood and its megabudgets came calling. In Clash of the Titans, she got both a death and a resurrection scene – setting her up for the sequel, which she’ll film next year. In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, she intoned mystical prophecies like a pro. It appeared that a new It Girl had arisen.

Except for this small hitch: “I don’t want to be an It Girl,” Arterton said in an interview in Toronto last week. “I didn’t plan to be in those types of movies. I’d always seen myself as a character actress. I felt, God, I’ve got to do something about this, otherwise I’ll forever end up being Princess of Something. Or not forever – you don’t have much shelf life that way.” My guess is that Megan Fox, whom Arterton resembles a little (light eyes, dark hair, full mouth), would concur. Continue…