For the third premiere in three days (behind Divergent and Noah), it was a much smaller, intimate affair. However, as I'd decided I wasn't going to make it four in four days, I thought I'd better go anyway. And even though I'd photographed both Jared Harris before (as recently as yesterday) and Sam Claflin at the premiere of The Hunger Games Catching Fire , I still felt it would be worth it.
Here's how it went down.
The UK has entered summertime, which means premieres are now held in daylight! (What's odd is that this is a horror/thriller movie... probably the one kind of film that doesn't really benefit from a pleasant sunny day)
"We're hoping he shows up, but if not we're going to ask Jared Harris to hold up this picture and pose with us".
"I don't recognise any of these people, but if this Rory Fleck-Byrne dude can unravel my iPod headphones I'll be forever grateful" Damn... that could take hours.
"You've seen my film Ouija? That means you're either a time traveller or dead, right?" Olivia Cooke seems unfazed by either possibility.
"When Sam Claflin shows up, please don't get him to sign ALL of your Hunger Games stuff. It'll make both of you uncomfortable, plus you could have done that on set"
"Be honest, that's Justin Bieber coming from your earpiece, isn't it?" Sam Claflin has arrived, and he's just taken the moral highground away from the security staff.
Sam Claflin and actress/wife Laura Haddock pose for the engraver who'll be releasing a newly minted coin in their honour. Laura Haddock is best know for being in The Inbetweeners movie, and also apparently as "Autograph Seeker" in the first Captain America movie.
"It was a CREDITED role, so it totally counts!!" Sure it does. Just like I was living in Sydney during the time they filmed The Matrix, so there's every chance I'm in the background and worthy of a best supporting unaware wandering extra nomination.
Laura Haddock prepares for an outsourced rhymes and lyrics Rap Battle. I've just come off watching the movie Frozen and its seminal masterpiece 'Let It Go' rhymes 'Go' with both 'Dawn' and 'Sky', so I think rhyming dictionaries are out the window.
"You watched Frozen? Wasn't it delightful??" Please do not ever get me drunk and allow me to explain to people why Frozen, in spite of its amazing animation and fantastic music, is actually a story whose script tends towards incoherently illogical and verges on irrationally incompetent. That said, I liked it. It's just no 'Tangled', is all. Seriously, watch 'Tangled' and tell me it's not infinitely superior.
Yes I've watched Frozen, and I have listened to Miley Cyrus and I am aware of both the 'Selfie' craze and instagram..... I even attended the 'Divergent' premiere. But through it all I have to admit that I don't understand today's youth. I mean... is this business attire? School uniform? Somehow and in some way ironically meta?
It's an uncomfortable composition, but I like the aggressively indifferent pose of the journalist to my immediate left. Probably prefers Divergent to Hunger Games and doesn't care who knows it.
Woohoo! It's the payoff shot. While Sam Claflin explains the complications of being Sam Claflin in this hyperconnected world, journalist lady is elsewhere, in a better world, in a happy place.
Just found out about Battle Royale. Mind = Blown. (Just don't watch the sequel... it'll blow your mind in an entirely different and much more unpleasant way)
Jared Harris has arrived. Though I photographed him slightly blurrily at yesterday's Noah premiere, prior to this I'd only photographed him in the dark flurry of the Independent Film Awards a few years back. I'm surprised he seems to remember me.
Wait.. is Jarred Harris looking at me like that, or the woman in the Black Dress?
He's looking at ME? I'll be honest... I hadn't anticipated that. Mainly because my camera and I were... otherwise occupied.
"My wife is in attendance. I had no choice, people!" Ah. An excellent strategic choice, sir.
I think Jared Harris and I are having the same silent battle of wills and virtual kung-fu boxing as he had with Robert Downey Jnr in Sherlock Holmes A Game Of Shadows. Apparently I'm not losing by as much as I'd assumed.
Damnit, I think he's just won our battle of minds. In my defense, I was distracted by his tie. It's exquisite, and vaguely hypnotic.
Rory Fleck-Byrne's imdb entry is fairly quiet, including a mysterious gap of nothing from 2005's "Stealaway" to 2014's "Vampire Academy". So make up your own theories, while I assume that it's because it's taken 9 years for his agent to get him typecast as "guy who points". He's got a definite authority about him. I'd definitely look where he's indicating.
Director John Pogue is probably better known as a writer - he wrote The Skulls (and its two sequels), US Marshalls which I liked, and the screenplay for the 2002 remake of 'Rollerball' which currently has.... uh.... a rating of 2.9 out of ten on imdb. And I.... kind of think that's a bit generous. Ghost Ship, which has a 5.4, isn't exactly twice as good, either mathematically or conceptually.
"So it's number ten in race 4, number six in race 8 and number eight in races 10 and 11. Thanks, bro"
Is thinking of about six ways of using that pen as a weapon to gain entry to the building. Then remembers that he's JARED HARRIS and THAT'S they'll let him into the building.
So... that's another one. Next up, assuming I can get there in time for the crush that'll no doubt accompany it, is The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Until next time, it's another one for The Archive of Movie Premieres
Until next time!
Oh, and if you ever want to know when I post one of these journals, feel free to follow me on twitter @berndt2_photo or on facebook at premieresdotco.