HARD SELL AS NETFLIX VIES FOR FIRST OSCAR
and basically not taking up any space. They’re behind you or in front of you, but they walk with you. It’s almost like a dance. It’s just a very intriguing, kind of hidden and secretive world.”
When Rapace’s character Sam is hired to protect Zoe it starts out as a straightforward job, until a shadowy group attempts to kidnap Zoe and forces the two women to go on the run.
Rapace says of Sam: “She would die for the people she protects, but she also has a lot of ghosts from her past that she’s not really dealing with, and she doesn’t have a lot of STAR SECURITY: Jacquie Davis, above, has guarded clients including, from left, Nicole Kidman, Justin Bieber and JK Rowling. Left, Sophie Nelisse and Noomi Rapace in film
personal relationships. She doesn’t let people in.
“[Davis] has seen the dark side of humanity several times, and her heart is heavy but also strong. I feel like my peek into this world stayed with me. It left a mark on me.”
Rapace’s assessment of Davis is accurate, but experience has taught her to avoid some of the bad people she comes across.
“You need to know who you are looking after and why you are looking after them,” she says of her approach to jobs. “Are they the good guys?... That is what you need to know.
“We’ve had people come along and say can you find my wife and my daughter and you have to ask, ‘Why? Have they gone into hiding to get away from you?’ A couple of times I’ve been inclined to find the wife and daughter and say, ‘Be careful – he’s looking for you’.”
While Davis has worked for many Middle Eastern families, she also protected a client who had “upset a certain Russian president” and they spent the next two years constantly moving from country to country to escape his agents.
However, she has plenty of memories of easier jobs with well-known clients. While protecting Harry Potter author JK Rowling in London she was informed the “principal” would be travelling to King’s Cross train station in a blue Ford Anglia.
But not having read any of her books, she had no idea why a billionaire would be travelling in a small family car that last rolled off the production line in the late 1960s. It took a quick text to her 10-yearold god daughter to get up to speed on its role as Harry and Ron Weasely’s flying car in The Chamber Of Secrets.
WHILE Rowling was a dream client, there are some Davis would not work with again and that list includes a certain young pop star. “I would never look at Justin Beiber again because at that time he was a 15-year-old brat,” she says.
She reckons being a woman is always an advantage as attackers assume she is a personal assistant or secretary. “The attacker never thinks it is going to come back from you, so you have a 30-second advantage.” AS WELL as chasing a global audience of millions with blockbuster movies, the streaming giant Netflix is desperate to win its first Oscar.
The company’s best hope this year is Roma, based on the childhood of the film’s director, Alfonso Cuaron, in Mexico City.
A Spanish language drama made in black and white may not sound like Oscar material.
But Netflix is so keen for Cuaron’s stylish film, about a maid in a wealthy Mexican household, to net an Academy Award they have hired strategist Lisa Taback to co-ordinate a multimillion dollar campaign.
She has arranged for billboards advertising the movie to be erected all over LA, organised promotional cocktail parties hosted by stars such as Angelina Jolie, and sent out a mail shot of a $175 (£135) book about the film
Roma has already won Golden Globes for best director and best foreign language film. No foreign language film has ever won the Oscar for best film, but if the reviews are anything to go by Roma has a better chance than most.
The Guardian has described it as “an epic of tear-jerking magnificence”, while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote: “Cuaron has done more than break through walls of language, culture and class to craft the best movie of the year.” She needed that in London last year when her client was attacked in the street. “I body covered and removed my client,” she says. A female colleague took on the assailant as she spirited her away.
“I could see out the corner of my eye my colleague taking a couple of thumps,” she says. “Then she decked the threat.”
Many of the scenes she describes may not be as thrilling as the dramas portrayed in the film but Davis is always ready to put her life on the line to save those she protects.
“Ultimately, you have to be prepared to take a bullet, especially in this country where you’re not allowed to carry a hand gun,” she has said. “I keep saying it’s time to wind down, but I miss my job too much. I need the adrenalin.”
● Close airs on Netflix today