Andrea Riseborough on Brighton Rock and Why Being Picky Isn?t Necessarily Bad
If it feels like Andrea Riseborough has been on the cusp of a breakout for the last calendar year, that’s probably because she has. Last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, Riseborough appeared in three films — Never Let Me Go, Made In Dagenham and Brighton Rock (out in limited release now) — and this year she’ll show up in Toronto, again, with the Madonna-directed W.E.; the life of a budding breakout actress never seems to slow down.
In Brighton Rock — first-time director Rowan Joffe’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s famed ’30s-set novel — Riseborough stars as Rose, a cafe waitress who falls for small-time hood Pinkie Brown (Sam Riley) to heartbreaking results. The chipper Riseborough rang up Movieline earlier this week to discuss the new film, how director Mike Leigh taught her a valuable lesson about character, why being picky is a good thing, and the “godly” Helen Mirren.
You’ve worked with a lot of directors and in a lot of genres, what specifically led you to Brighton Rock?
Just the way that it always works, really. You have a meeting; you kind of chat about whether you both want to do it. Of course, if you don’t, there’s absolutely no reason to do it. (Laughs) If you do, and there’s something — initially when you get the script, you peruse the script. It was so simple with Brighton Rock. The feeling, intuitively, was there. It’s like reading a half of a whole, and you see the other half. That’s not to say that you’re destined to play every role you respond to like that, nor is it to say that you might find enough of them. But there are certain things,…
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