Nicole Kidman radically transforms for drama ‘Destroyer’

‘Beautiful Boy’ tackles family’s battle with drug addiction

LONDON, Oct 15, (RTRS): Hollywood star Nicole Kidman undergoes a dramatic makeover for new drama “Destroyer”, playing a tired-looking and worn out police detective with a painful history.

The Oscar winner swaps her blonde locks for a short bob and rugged style to play Erin Bell, a detective whose past continues to haunt her years after infiltrating a criminal gang undercover in an operation with devastating consequences.

“I just felt her and I felt sadness and I felt pain for her,” Kidman said at the BFI London Film Festival on Sunday.

“I thought there was a restlessness and a complexity to her anger which I thought I had never seen on screen, particularly in the form of a female.”

The 51-year-old is no stranger to changing her looks for roles, such as when she played Virginia Woolf in “The Hours”, for which she won an Oscar.

Critics have praised her performance in “Destroyer” and described her appearance as “almost unrecognizable”.

“The way I look and behave in the film is the result of a lot of trauma,” Kidman said. “That’s the beauty of cinema, you use the image, you don’t always have to have the words.”

Director Karyn Kusama described Bell as a “really complicated human” dealing with regret, guilt and shame. A team of hairdressers and makeup artists worked together to transform Kidman’s looks.

“We talked a lot about sun damage and lack of sleep and drinking too much and not eating well and we landed at a very extreme version of all of that lack of self-care,” Kusama said.

LONDON:

Also:

A family battling with drug addiction is the focus of new Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet drama “Beautiful Boy” with the duo portraying a father and son struggling with the problem for years.

Known for comedies like “Anchorman” and “The 40-Year-Old” as well as the darker “Foxcatcher”, Carell plays real-life American writer David Sheff in the movie, which is based on the memoirs of Sheff and his son Nic.

The tough and at times tear-jerking film sees Carell’s character struggle to come to terms with the problem, as a teenage Nic, a keen reader and writer with a promising future in college, gets addicted to drugs including crystal meth, goes to rehab, but repeatedly relapses.

“I identified with the fear of a father, of really any parent,” Carell, who has two children, said at the movie’s UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on Saturday.

“I think it’s relevant, it’s very timely, it’s an epidemic ... I hope that people realize ... addiction ... has all sorts of stigmas applied to it which it shouldn’t have.”

Chalamet, who was nominated for an Oscar this year for “Call Me by Your Name”, plays Nic, vividly portraying the character as he moves between

highs and aggressive lows.

LOS ANGELES:

After weeks of speculation, “Crazy Rich Asians” has landed a release in China. The brash Asian-centric romcom hit is scheduled to hit theaters on Nov 30.

Doubt over a release in the world’s second-biggest film market had dogged the Warner Bros film, with observers wondering whether its depiction of ostentatious wealth among the ethnic Chinese super-elite in Singapore would pass muster with China’s film regulators. The Chinese government has recently tightened its control of the culture and media sectors, insisting that they uphold “core socialist values.”

But film authorities announced Monday that “Crazy Rich Asians” would get an outing in China after all. Warner Bros is expected to confirm details on Tuesday.

The date is some three and a half months after the picture’s Aug 15 theatrical outing in North America, and more than two months after its release in some East Asian territories. It released in Singapore, where much of the film is set, on Aug 22, in Hong Kong on Aug 23, and in Taiwan on Aug 24.

Chinese authorities set the release dates for imported films. And they vet films for content. Delays are not uncommon and release dates not always coordinated with outings in other territories.