Lone Ranger star Ruth Wilson spies film about her bigamist grandfather

Ruth Wilson won acclaim for her leading role in the ITV adaptation of Jane Eyre and will be shackled to a moving train by her ankles in the forthcoming remake of The Lone Ranger, starring Johnny Depp. The Olivier Award-winning actress is, however, now plotting her most daunting, and personal, challenge.

Mandrake hears that Wilson is planning to make a film about her grandfather, the MI6 officer and novelist Alexander Wilson, who was exposed as a serial bigamist. “I’m thinking about it,” confirms the 30-year-old actress.

Her grandfather wrote more than 20 espionage novels, mostly featuring the spymaster Leonard Wallace and the agent Hugh Shannon – prototypes of M and James Bond. Wilson did not discover that he had four wives until she was 18 and her grandmother, Alison, let her read a memoir that she had begun writing.

Her grandfather, who had seven children, had been arrested for fraud, for theft and for wearing false military honours. He died an undischarged bankrupt in Ealing, west London, in 1963. “What’s incredible is that these women fell for, and were duped by, Alex, but kept his secrets,” Wilson said.

He raised all his children in the Roman Catholic faith and taught them to be “modest, humble, strong-willed, independent and caring”.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Ruth in Interview Magazine

Thanks to Bicky for letting me know that Ruth is in the September issue of Interview Magazine.

http://www.opusbeauty.com/blog/location:london

If I find some scans I will add them here.

Ruth Wilson:acting up

I have just found this new Guardian article. I'm not sure if it's from Friday's or Saturday's paper. I'll find out tomorrow!

Emma Brockes
guardian.co.uk, Friday 31 August 2012 23.01 BST
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Ruth Wilson: ‘When I go back to the National now, it still brings back the scariest of feelings. Shudders go through me as I walk in.'

Jumpsuit, £750, by Yigal Azrouël. Photograph: Bjarne Jonasson for the Guardian. Styling: Erin O'Keefe
Ruth Wilson talks brusquely, in quick, ungainly sentences that take one back to her excellent Jane Eyre and make her seem, oddly, both older and younger than her 30 years. She is about to appear in Tom Stoppard's adaptation of Anna Karenina, directed by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley in the title role, is currently filming The Lone Ranger in Colorado, and shows every indication of joining the first ranks of Britain's leading ladies. "I've always been quite shy," she says. "Very confident but very shy." She laughs awkwardly. If there is such a thing as belligerent shyness, this is it what it looks like.

We are in a coffee shop in Manhattan, where Wilson is spending a few days before returning to Colorado. Anna Karenina is the first book adaptation she has done since the Brontë series and the TV version of Small Island – she avoided period dramas for a while and wasn't sorry to be occupied when Downton Abbey was casting. In all of those cases, the first thing she did on being cast was to read the book, not always a popular move with a director, since the character on screen has often moved away from what appears on the page. "So, in Anna Karenina, what I'm doing with the character of Betsy is so different from what's in the book. Reading the novel helps, and it doesn't as well. For Jane Eyre, it was my bible. Small Island, I loved using it. It gives you loads of notes, all the feelings and the thought processes. So you can use it as a cheat."

Her parents, now retired, often join Wilson for a few days on set, which is a nice treat for her – they all went riding in Colorado. She grew up the youngest of four children in Surrey, her mum a probation officer, her dad an investment banker. "Or fund manager – I never really know."

Her decision to go to drama school was considered eccentric within the family. Her poor dad, she says, was looking forward to having the last of his children financially off his hands, when she broke the news, after graduating from Nottingham, that she wanted to do another two years of study at Lamda. "They said, let her go, let's see what happens. Mum says she never had much faith that anything was going to happen!"

Things happened fairly swiftly. She had started acting as a teenager in a youth group and "always had an inkling" about carrying it on as a career, although "it felt quite embarrassing to say I want to be an actor". She chose Nottingham University for its on-campus theatre and, while doing a history degree, took part in student productions. One year, she and some friends created a show and took it to the Edinburgh Festival. "And people came to see it! I mean, they walked out in the first few days and then we changed it."

They wrote it in 10 days in an outhouse in St Andrews; it was a silent comedy, with lots of slapstick and slow-motion. "We've still got it on video somewhere. I keep wanting to do it again, but it might be a disaster." In any case, during the festival she realised how much she wanted to be a professional actor, not least for the travel. She didn't have to wait long. Shortly after graduating, she was cast as the lead in a new TV adaptation of Jane Eyre, opposite Toby Stephens as Rochester, a tough role to make her own in the wake of so many predecessors – most recently, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Mia Wasikowska and Samantha Morton.

Wilson, as it turned out, was very good; stoic, self-contained, implacable bordering on glum, hard to read and – much commented on at the time, this, since there is thought to be no greater test of an actor's powers than to subdue her own vanity – plain, as the role demands.

She was not, she says, intimidated by taking on such an iconic part – "I don't think that registered with me." Neither was she starstruck. "I can just get on with the job. If someone famous was in here, I wouldn't go up to them. I'd keep my distance until we were properly introduced." She was nervous, though, during the first read through of the Stephen Poliakoff drama Capturing Mary, which she appeared in the following year. She found herself round a table with Poliakoff, David Walliams and Maggie Smith – "such a weird combination. David, at the time, was very famous, very commercial, and then you had Maggie – just, you know, Dame Maggie – that was nerve-wracking." She looks fleetingly bleak. Did it feel as if she was being tested? "Yes. It's the first time you've performed it to other people. Some people just mumble into the page. Others really go for it. Everyone is thinking about their own stuff, so really you've got nothing to worry about. But you always worry what everybody else thinks."

It was on the strength of these roles that Wilson was cast in her first stage production, in Maxim Gorky's Philistines at the National Theatre. "It was a big moment. You aspire to be at the National and then you're like, oh God, am I ready for it? Opening the play was the scariest thing. When I go back to the National now, it still brings back those feelings. Shudders go through me as I walk in."

Since then, she has won two Olivier awards – for her role as Stella, in the 2009 Donmar Warehouse production of A Streetcar Named Desire, and two years later in the title role of the Donmar's Anna Christie. She has appeared opposite Idris Elba in the TV show Luther. And she has made Anna Karenina, conveniently located at Shepperton, where her parents live. (Her great friend, Michelle Dockery, is also in the film and Wilson invited Dockery to stay over in her parents' spare room one night before filming; an exciting prospect for her parents, both fans of Downton Abbey, to have Lady Mary in the house.)

Wilson's own home, which she's rarely in, is a rented flat-share in Waterloo – "not too expensive, great location"; her flatmate is an old friend from drama college who is now teaching. She supposes she should look for somewhere to buy. "To invest. But I want to wait until I can find somewhere that feels like home." When she returns to Colorado, it will be to the Johnny Depp/Helena Bonham Carter production of The Lone Ranger, directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates Of The Caribbean). Wilson is, she says, still learning her range, so it's fun to do an action movie. After that, who knows. But it seems likely the steady climb will continue.

• Anna Karenina is due for release on 7 September.

Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/aug/31/ruth-wilson-anna-karenina-fashion?newsfeed=true

The Lone Ranger update

Ruth Wilson has told how she will brave the roof of a moving train in stunts for The Lone Ranger.
The Luther star plays female lead Rebecca in Disney's new big-screen adaptation of the cowboy classic, starring Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger and Johnny Depp as his sidekick Tonto.
Ruth revealed: "I get to run along the top of a train and jump off a train as well.
"And there will be some lassoing, so it's going to be really exciting and working with Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer and Tom Wilkinson as well, it's a great cast."
The 30-year-old British star - who just picked up the Best Actress award for her stage work in Anna Christie at the 2012 Oliver Awards - told how her character will be mucking in with the lads in the heart of the action, and could even come between the famous cowboy and his loyal sidekick.
She said: "I play the Lone Ranger's sister-in-law so I'm in the middle of a little triangle there."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5g8PwKzPj8KIIV-F7inoe9JcDsOtA?docId=N0327301334576465900A

Ruth Wilson at Olivier Awards - Photos!

Here's a few photos of Ruth looking smashing at the Olivier Awards on Sunday night. If she looks happy its with good reason after winning Best actress for Anna Christie. :)

Sources:

http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/fashion/archive/2012/04/16/ruth-wilson-in-first-red-carpet-sighting-of-mcq-at-the-olivier-awards-2012.htm

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/celebritynews/theatre-star-ruth-wilson-thanks-her-harem-of-hunky-men-7647981.html

http://www.catwalkqueen.tv/2012/04/catwalk_to_cele.html

Ruth gets Best Actress at Olivier Awards

Best actress
Ruth Wilson for Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/apr/15/full-list-olivier-award-winners

Guardian article

Looks like Ruth was in the Guardian today (Saturday).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/apr/14/ruth-wilson-olivier-awards-anna-christie?newsfeed=true

Lone Ranger movie to start shooting in February

It looks like Ruth will be filming in New Mexico next month...

www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=86036

Ruth arriving at the Moet Independent Film Awards

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/cUTJwcF7hM7/Moet+British+Independent+Film+Awards+2011/IClEyyNtAQb/Ruth+Wilson

Truth About Lies

An article on the Daily Mail website about Billie Piper here mentions that she's making a movie called Truth About Lies with Ruth Wilson this winter. Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Ruth Wilson's Los Angeles

Ruth describes what she gets up to in LA...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/celebritytravel/8799373/Ruth-Wilsons-Los-Angeles.html

In praise of ... Ruth Wilson

The Guardian has a piece called "In praise of ... Ruth Wilson". Oddly enough I agreed with what they have to say.

Theatre critics have been left breathless by the actor's performance in the Donmar production of Anna Christie

It is only six years since she graduated from drama school. But she has established herself on stage, television and film as an outstanding talent in a very talented generation. She has a face that flits from luminous to plain, and a mouth whose long upper lip gives her the mobility of expression she exploits so dangerously. The critics are breathless. Last week in her latest role, as the eponymous Anna Christie in the Donmar production of the Eugene O'Neill play, Ruth Wilson won warm reviews that singled out her "languorous cadences" and her "toughness and vulnerability" – a hint at her ability to convey lightening mood changes without jeopardising the utter authenticity of her character as a woman heartlessly abused but not yet broken. Remarkably, Anna Christie is only her fourth professional stage role: she scored an equal triumph as a woman descending into madness at the Almeida last year in Through a Glass Darkly , and the year before in her debut at the Donmar in A Streetcar Named Desire, where she picked up an Olivier as best supporting actress. On stage, she is easily as powerful as the big names she appears alongside (Jude Law in Anna Christie, Rachel Weisz in Streetcar). She seems to thrive on the complex and the gritty. But as Jane Eyre on the BBC in 2006 she did stillness and gravity along with endurance. She does funny, too: see her first TV role, Suburban Shootout, and watch how today's feisty has its origins in earlier cocky. A courageous, edgy and compelling talent.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/15/in-praise-of-ruth-wilson

Lone Ranger movie on hold

According to a story on Www.telegraph.co.uk it looks like Disney has halted production of the new Lone Ranger movie that Ruth was connected to.

Ruth Wilson on Frontrow

Ruth was featured on BBC Radio 4's Frontrow programme.

Ruth Wilson stars with Jude Law in a new production of Anna Christie, Eugene O'Neill's play about a young woman trying to escape her past. She discusses her boating bonding session with her co-star, her TV performances from Jane Eyre to Luther, and why she is drawn to intense and damaged female characters.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012x134

Ruth Wilson on BBC Breakfast

It looks like Ruth appeared on the BBC's Breakfast show this morning.

Actress Ruth Wilson talks about why she loves performing on stage. She made her name when she starred in the BBC's adaptation of Jane Eyre five years ago. More recently she has appeared on television screens as Alice Morgan in the drama Luther.

Wilson is about to appear on stage opposite Jude Law at the Donmar Warehouse for a production of Anna Christie. She spoke to BBC Breakfast about why she loves performing in the theatre.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14289469

Ruth Wilson on her sizzling summer with Jude Law

Today's London Evening Standard newspaper has a Ruth Wilson article in their ES magazine.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/article-23971922-ruth-wilson-on-her-sizzling-summer-with-jude-law.do

Ruth Wilson is female lead in Lone Ranger movie

Variety is reporting that Ruth Wilson will play the female lead in a new movie based on the Lone Ranger character. She will play the Lone Ranger's sister-in-law, Rebecca Reid, opposite Johnny Depp.

However the movie is not due out until December 2012 so there's a bit of a wait.

You can read the variety article at www.variety.com.

Luther episode 2.2

Episode 2 of the new series picks up where the last one left off. Ripley has been kidnapped by the Punch killer and Luther has to find him.
Actually Luther is a bit busy. As well as dealing with the Ripley situation and foiling Punch's next plot he gets a phone call from the mother of the girl he rescued from the sex people in the previous episode. He pops around to her apartment and gets a nail hammered through his hand to get his attention. Some Bad People want him to silence a guy in witness protection. If he doesn't they will kill the mother and the girl he rescued - the one currently handcuffed to Mark's chair.

You see, when I type that out it sounds silly. But while I'm watching it I enjoy it.

So Luther has to find the witness protection guy and tells him to amend his statement. Then it's back to the Ripley situation. Eventually they work out Punch's plan which I won't spoil in case you've not seen the episode, but it is a bit chilling.

By now the episode is almost over, but where is Alice Morgan. It's why I'm watching after all! Luther gets back to his crummy flat and sure enough there is Alice waiting for him. She's obviously used the key card we almost glimpsed in the apple last week. She still wants to run off into the sunset with Luther but he says no. I wonder if such refusals will annoy her...

Overall an entertaining episode but I would have liked to have seen Alice break out of the secure hospital. There's an episode right there. Remember in the first series when she impersonated a doctor, started a fire, lured away a police guard, all so she could kill the serial killer who woke up from the coma?

And now that I've typed it I see that it all sounds a little silly. But it's pure entertainment.

A couple of Ruth sightings

Here's a non-story titled "Idris Elba Parties With Co-Star Ruth Wilson To Celebrate 'Luther' Return".

http://www.taletela.com/news/7364/idris-elba-parties-with-co-star-ruth-wilson-to-celebrate-luther-return

And here are a couple of photos of Ruth attending the 'Great British Talent Event'.

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/F-o5miYTG71/The+Great+British+Talent+Event/7aWMWy38rIH/Ruth+Wilson

Luther episode 2.1

"Now what?"

That was the question asked in the last episode of the first series when Luther, Alice and Mark stood over the body of Ian Reed as they listened to the sound of approaching sirens. It was also the first line of the new series as we are given a close up of Ruth as Alice Morgan being questioned in a secure hospital. It appears she's being held there for the murder of Ian Reed. Fair enough as she did it.

Meanwhile we see Luther facing a new day in a very run-down tower block. He plays Russian Roulette. Click. OK, maybe tomorrow. Later he is playing chess with Mark, which is an amusing sight.

Luther is now heading a team investigating serial killers and he recruits his former partner Ripley who has been demoted to being a uniform copper after preventing Luther getting shot by a sniper.

The killer in this episode is quite a nasty piece of work. Well he would be in an episode of Luther. This one wears a Punch mask and is quite happy to perform to the CCTV cameras as he kills his victims.

In the middle of the episode Luther has time to visit Alice in hospital. They speak of Luther leaving his police job and going traveling to see "the desert" and "see some sharks". Alice expresses her desire to see the Very Large Array of radio telescopes in New Mexico, a nice reminder of her physicist background. "It's quite spectacular," she whispers, with her eyes closed. Then suggests "we could go togeather". But it all feels like they are talking in code. What is not being said I wonder?

Luther makes a great song and dance (metaphorically speaking) about taking an apple from his pocket and eating it. Then he tells Alice he has to go catch "madmen". Outside the hospital he throes the apple over the wall, but not until he pushed something inside. Something that looks like a card. On the other side of the wall Alice sees the apple and picks it up. She is smiling. You've got to look carefully at the apple, just above her little finger...

This episode marks a departure from the first series as things are not wrapped up in 60 minutes. As the end of the episode approaches it becomes clear that the killer will not be caught before the end credits. Indeed there is a delicious cliffhanger after some handy misdirection.

A strong opening episode. I look forward to the next one.