A sketch of Adrien Brody from The Pianist (2002), directed by Roman Polanski, who won the Oscar for Best Director and Adrien became the youngest actor (age 29) to win the Best Actor Academy Award and the only American actor to receive the French César Award.
He was filming King Kong at Stone Street Studios in Wellington, New Zealand in late 2009 and was happy to sign my sketch.
Due to the popularity of this post, here are two more of my Benedict Cumberbatch sketches:
Benedict signed these sketches at the National Theatre stage door after a performance of After The Dance in August 2010
Keira Knightley and Elisabeth Moss signed this sketch for me at the Comedy Theatre stage door after a performance of The Children’s Hour on the 30th March 2011.
Danny Boyle returned to theatre direction with an adapted version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by Nick Dear at the National Theatre in London in 2011.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternated the two lead roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature. On the 17th and 19th of March 2011, the production was broadcast to cinemas around the world as part of the National Theatre Live programme.
Benedict and Jonny both shared the Olivier Award and the London Evening Standard Award for Best Actor for their respective performances. However, the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards’ Best Performance by an Actor in a Play was given solely to Benedict.
They both signed my programme after I saw one of the two world premiere opening nights in February 2011 (Benedict was the Creature, Jonny was Frankenstein) but a signed sketch never came back from the theatre. I drew another one and waited until Jonny was attending a Dark Shadows premiere in Leicester Square in May 2012 and he gladly signed for me. But I couldn’t get Benedict until he was at the latest Star Trek: Into Darkness world premiere, also in Leicester Square. Amongst a real frenzy I managed to get his attention. He loved the sketch, and dedicated it for me, saying “great drawing”.
New Zealand-born Russell Crowe returned to his hometown of Wellington in April 2006 with his band “The Ordinary Fear of God” (TOFOG) as part of a three gig tour. His former band “Thirty Odd Food of Grunts” dissolved and evolved into the new TOFOG the previous year.
In 2002, he won a Golden Globe for his performance in A Beautiful Mind, and went on to win the BAFTA, but missed out on the Oscar when Denzel Washington pipped him for Training Day. However, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association gave him the Globe, but didn’t have a gong for New Zealand’s big hope, Peter Jackson’s first instalment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring.
I sent him a copy of an editorial cartoon I did back then to mark the event. He signed and sent it back – writing his name under his usual ‘Russell’ siggy, just in case I didn’t know it was his ‘graph.
Sir Anthony Hopkins is considered to be one of the greatest living actors. His role as the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs won him a Best Actor Academy Award – surprisingly his only Oscar, given the diversity and acclaim of his career. In fact, it’s one of the shortest lead roles to win the coveted gong. He only appears for little over 16 minutes (14% of the film’s running time). The American Film Institute have listed his character as film’s number one villain.
However, it’s a role Sir Anthony shuns. When I met him while filming The World’s Fastest Indian, the biopic of speed bike racer Burt Munro, in my hometown of Invercargill in New Zealand, he said he wanted to move on and had refused to sign Lecter images. Some years earlier I sent him a portrait based on the character and he signed it. In his trailer he had piles of fanmail wanting ‘graphs on Silence of the Lambs material, which he was ignoring. So I drew an Indian sketch, which he loved and wanted the original. He signed some copies for me. One with ‘Tony’ which is the name he’s known by in the industry, except by one Steven Spielberg, who was so in awe of him that he refused to call him ‘Tony’ and always referred to him on the set of Amistad as “Sir Anthony”.
I left this sketch of theatrical knight Sir John Gielgud at the Garrick Club in London back in 1994. He returned it soon after signed along with his compliments card.
A few wine ‘toons
The second Sundance London Film and Music Festival has just concluded after a four day run at the O2 Arena. It’s a condensed version of the original Sundance Festival held earlier in Utah. It’s founder and President, the legendary Robert Redford, also returned this year after a successful inaugural event in 2012.
Mr Redford… or “Bob” to some, is not known to be an accommodating signer in public. I attended his Q+A last year and was one of three people waiting at the exit , but his PA said, “Mr Redford doesn’t sign autographs.” He was right.
This year he attended all four days, including the History of the Eagles, Part I documentary and Q+A with the band members after the screening. I don’t know anyone who got his autograph, or even tried. However, when he’s around his numerous offices, he is apparently a good signer, according to the autograph aficionados.
Late in 1994 I was in Los Angeles, more specifically in Santa Monica. He has an office on Montana Ave. I found out he was around that day. I duly found it and left my sketch with a nice note and a reply envelope. It duly arrived back, signed!
In 1998 I had the pleasure of working with ‘Bob’ and Sam Neill to arrange the New Zealand Premiere and Charity Screening of The Horse Whisperer, when I managed Movieland 5 in Invercargill. He not only secured a print for us from the distributors, but sent a signed message from the event’s programme.
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