Drawing: Rachel Weisz

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

rachel weisz

It’s Weisz as in ‘vice’, which sums up my hobby of collecting signed sketches in a nutshell. It’s the correct way to say Rachel’s surname and if it’s with an hungarian accent even more correct. The quinessential ‘English Rose’, as she is often described and the 127th actress to receive the Academy Award ( to show off my trivia knowledge) was busy this week with two Gala screenings at the BFI London Film Festival, for The Lobster and Youth.This doubled my chances of getting my drawing signed. Rachel has signed a drawing I did of her in her Olivier Award-winning role as Blanche Dubois in the Donmar Warehouse production of A streetcar Named Desire a few years ago. That graph was a ‘full’ one with every letter recognisable because she did it sitting quietly in her dressing-room. In the heat of battle at a Premiere the sig become more streamlined with more flow than definition due to the demand and time constraint. Getting a dedication is a bonus. But all went swimmingly as the English say. I managed to get it signed at the first outing with an inscription and a heart…or maybe that’s an ice cream cone. Either way she was happy and I was happy.

Drawing: Rooney Mara

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Rooney Mara

Fresh from winning the Best Actress award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her role as Therese Belivet a young, aspiring photographer who falls for an older, married woman in Carol, Rooney Mara walked the red carpet at the Gala Screening of the film at the BFI London Film Festival last night. The film received a ‘standing O’ at Cannes and is tipped for more honours.

The umbrella is a mandatory accessory at the London Festival, making regular appearances on the red carpet during the 12 days. This year it has been a notable absentee…until last night. Passing showers threatened to put the kibosh on collecting graphs as the mandatory accessories were in full use, resembling a Mary Poppins Convention. But Rooney’s timed her arrival nicely between the precipitation and I happened to be positioned in the right place as she got out of the car and signed for me with a nice little dedication.

Drawing: Saoirse Ronan

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Saoirse Ronan It’s hard enough to spell ‘Saoirse’ let alone pronounce it. Even as I type it, a red line appears underneath, so even spell-check has concerns. The few drops of Gaelic in my blood composition isn’t enough to enable me to roll it off the tongue. It would be more rogue than brogue. I’m not alone. In fact there’s a YouTube video devoted to correctly pronouncing her name and many an interviewer broaches the subject as a rule rather than the exception. Saoirse herself says it’s pronounced ‘Sersha’ like ‘inertia’, although she said some Irish say ‘Searsha’. Either way it means ‘freedom’. The 21 year-old was born in the Bronx in New York City to Irish parents, but grew up in Ireland’s County Carlow, spending a great deal of it on film sets with her father, so her career path seemed inevitable. She came to prominance as the eccentric 13 year-old aspiring novelist Briony Tallis in Joe Wright’s Atonement in 2007, earning BAFTA, Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations.

On Sunday she was presenting a screen talk as part of this year’s BFI London Film Festival, before attending the premiere of her latest film Brooklyn the next day. A civilised crowd of us lined up to greet her at the back of the BFI on London’s South Bank, discussing how to pronounce her name when she arrives. ‘Ms Ronan’ seemed proper and easier, not that she needed reminding of her name and why we were gathered. But that didn’t stop the more vocal collectors calling out a number of verbal variations. She got the picture and it didn’t really matter how to say or spell it because she doesn’t seem bothered and doesn’t include it as part of her sig anyway.

Drawing: Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, the fanatically awaited season of Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch playing the great Dane sold out. Well not quite..more likely the amount of time it took for me to two-finger type it. The sale of the 100,000 tickets for the 12-week run at London’s Barbican Theatre was the fastest in British theatrical history.Hysteria and madness surrounded the production, with fans travelling from the four corners to get a glimpse of the the man or if they were lucky, to actually see him on stage. Many camp out overnight to grab the 100 tickets that are held back each day for £10, and are twelve deep to catch him when he sometimes comes out after the show, after initially saying he wasn’t going to do so. Needless-to-say this was not conjusive to collecting his graph on my sketch. I have battled hysteria before and it’s not pretty.Theatre staff were instructed not to accept anything at the stage door for him, so that scuttled that plan.I decided to take a more saner route and get a wristband for the BFI London Film Festival’s Gala Screening of Black Mass at the Odeon in Leicester Square yesterday. Both Benedict and Johnny Depp were scheduled to appear and they duly did. I even managed to get a good posse near the drop-off. So far so good. you may have noticed that ‘Benedict Cumbebatch’ is quite a lengthy moniker and he signs in full, which takes time. No ‘BC’ for Sherlock, although he did have a brief spell initializing his sig for Star Trek stuff. Therefore, and rightly so, it’s only one item per person. Here’s my dilemma. For four years I have carried around an A4 sized Tinker Tailor Solder Spy poster which had been signed by all the cast members, except Benedict. Try as I did through rain, hail and shine, I never managed to get it graphed. Do I try to get it signed this time or do I go with the drawing? I decided to go with the sketch, and it proved an excellent choice, because he was very pleased with the rendering and took time to, not only dedicate it, but write a nice message. I took the opportunity to ask, apologetically, if he wouldn’t mind also signing the poster, which he kindly did. Here’s the sketch. The poster and it’s tale is for another day.

Drawing: Kenneth Cranham and Claire Skinner in The Father

Posted on October 10, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Kenneth Cranham Claire Skinner The Father

‘The most acclaimed new play of the decade’, The Father has just transferred to London’s Wyndham’s Theatre for a limited 8-week run after it’s UK tour. Receiving an unprecedented nine 5-star reviews from all of the British major newspaper critics and winner of France’s highest theatrical honour, the 2014 Moliere Award for Best Play, this Theatre Royal Bath and Tricycle Theatre production is based on Christopher Hampton’s ‘crisp and witty’ adaption of French playwright Florian Zeller’s savagely honest study of dementia. Tony and Olivier Award nominees Kenneth Cranham as the titular character Andre and Claire Skinner as his daughter Anne lead the superb cast. The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish wrote,”One of the most absorbing and distressing portraits of dementia I’ve ever seen.” The writer wants the audience to ‘get lost in a mental labyrinth’, not to simply be a witness of the effects of Alzheimer’s, but to actually feel the confusion and the devastating realisation and loss of what is slipping away. In many reviews it was reported that the final scene has most of the audience sobbing and some having to be helped from the auditorium.

The stage doors of both the Wyndham’s and Noel Coward Theatre’s open out onto a small shared alleyway. Photograph 51 with Nicole Kidman is currently running at the later, attracting a large crowd for it’s A-list star, which means The Father cast can be a little difficult to find emerging at the same time, especially on a Saturday night. Howeve, I managed to locate both Kenneth and Claire to sign my sketch.

Drawing: Terry Gilliam

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

terry gilliam

“One of the most multifaceted visionary talents alive,” is how the London Literature Festival organisers described one of the most, if not the most multifaceted visionary talents alive, the one and only Terrance Vance Gilliam, who appeared for the one-off Inside The Head Of Terry Gilliam evening at the Royal Festival Hall this week. The man, who apparently has the nickname ‘Captain Chaos’ and first found fame as a member of the surreal cult comedy troupe Monty Python before creating 12 memorable feature films has also been labelled ‘half genius, half madman.’ Jeff Bridges, who has appeared in several of Terry’s films has described him as “an ‘ancient child’…’child’ because he has retained the optimism, playfullness and bewilderment of a kid and ‘ancient’ because there is a timeless, wizard vibe about him.”

I did this quick portrait of Terry, but it’s a bit daunting giving a fellow artist a drawing, especially one of his stature. Anyway I do have one thing in common, we are both the same height, physically that is. He once said he used to have this reoccurring dream that he was flying – not a high flyer, but darting about, close to the ground, ‘below the radar’ as he put it. I know all about keeping low. When he eventually exited through the stage door, or as The Royal Festival Hall people call it, the ‘Artist’s Entrance’, there were a few loyal disciples left to greet him. When I showed him my sketch, he asked “Did you do that?” A number of possible answers in anticipation of a number of possible responses flashed through my head, so I simply, almost apologitically said “guilty”…I mean, “yes.” To which he said, ” I look pretty good, thank you,” and duely signed it.

Drawing: Helena Bonham Carter in Sweeney Todd

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

helena bc

I drew this minimal fine line sketch of Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs Lovett in Tim Burton’s film version of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street for the 2007 Premiere,but never got it signed. Subsequently, Helena has signed another drawing I did, but this one has, for reasons that became clear yesterday, always stayed in my folder over the years.

I headed to the opening of this year’s BFI London Film Festival yesterday afternoon at the Odeon in Leicester Square, where Suffragette was screening, with Helena attending along with Meryl Streep and Carey Mulligan. I hadn’t intended ‘bothering’ Helena again, but the red carpet was invaded by the ‘Sisters Uncut’ action group, protesting against the government cuts in the service for domestic violence victims, which blocked the middle of the red carpet. Helena had just arrived, so while the various authorities tried to sort out the interruption, she was kept down at the drop-off point and had more time to sign. I then remembered the Sweeney sketch was still on my personage…obviously a sign to sign and she did and in a variation I didn’t have in my collection-‘HBCr.’ When asked about the protest, Helena said, “Perfect…if you feel strong enough about something and there’s an injustice you can speak out and try to get something changed, “…an apt synopsis of the film really.

Drawing: Barbara Feldon as Agent 9

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

barabara feldon 99

“They wanted to call her ‘Agent 100′, but ’99’ seemed like a girls number,” said American character actress Barbara Feldon about her famous role as the smart sidekick to ‘Agent 86’, ironically called Maxwell Smart played by Don Adams in the hit 60’s TV comedy Get Smart. Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, it was a parody on the James Bond films and the Cold War politics of the time. Barbara’s character spent most of the show’s episodes trying to stop the dimwitted Smart from doing something stupid. Twice nominated for an Emmy, Barbara’s intelligent portrayal of ‘99′, always having the right answer, went against the trend in that era.…and is why I naturally had a boyhood crush on her.

I was watching a rerun of Get Smart a while back, deciding to draw this sketch and send it to Barbara at her apartment in the Upper East Side of Manhatten in New York. In next to no time it arrived back signed and dedicated, a great memento to add to my nostalgia.

Drawing: Sylvia Milo in The Other Mozart

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Sylvia Milo

Wolfgang Armadeus Mozart had a sister who was equally brilliant-a prodigy keyboard virtuoso and composer named Maria Anna, called Marianne or by her nickname Nannerl. They would tour Europe together as the ‘wunderkinder’. However history seemed to forget her, until Polish award-winning actress,playwright and producer…oh,and violinist, non resident in New York, Sylvia Milo wrote and performed her solo play, The Other Mozart about the forgotten sibbling. the new york times described it as ‘strikingly beautiful.’ After a successful off-Broadway run, Sylvia bought it to the St James Theatre in London for a short season last month. “I am writing to you with an erection on my head and i am very much afraid of burning my hair,” she wrote to Wolfgang about her large ‘erected’ hairdo for the Mozart family portrait. Sylvia replecates the hairstyle and an even larger dress that covers the entire stage as she plays the lost genius.

Sylvia signed my sketch and was delivered through my mailbox with a large wet liquid patch on the envelope-like a seal that smelt of some berry juice. unfortunately it didn’t stop there and stained the sketch, so Sylvia’s won’t have to worry about burn in hair with a watermark absorbed into her forehead.

Drawing: Marvin Chomsky

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Mark Winter / Chicane

Marvin Chomsky

8.8.88 is a special date. It doesn’t happen often.It a was quite a special day, when I spent it on the set of Brotherhood of the Rose at the Larnarch’s Castle in the southern port town of Dunedin in New Zealand.It was special in so many ways not the least of being able to watch the great american director and three-time Emmy winner, Marvin J.Chomsky at the helm. The film featured the legendary Robert Mitchum, Peter Strauss, David Morse and Connie Sellecca-all great company, but it was Mr Chomsky and his signature cigar that became the subject of this quick-fire on-the -spot caricature, which he loved and signed.