Playing Under the Piano - From Downton to Darkest Peru

Informationen zum Autor Hugh Bonneville Klappentext "A moving, laugh-out-loud memoir from one of today's best-loved British actors, whose credits include Downton Abbey, Notting Hill, and Paddington. From getting his big break as Third Shepherd in the school nativity play, to navigating Highclere Castle's complex Labrador policies, to bizarre Hollywood encounters, Hugh Bonneville creates a brilliantly vivid picture of a career on stage and screen. What is it like working with Judi Dench and Julia Roberts, or playing Robert De Niro's right leg, or not being Gary Oldman, twice? A naturally gifted author and uproariously funny storyteller, Bonneville also writes with poignancy about his father's dementia and of his mother, whose life in the secret service emerged only after her death. Whether telling stories of his B&H-smoking, G&T-drinking, horse-race-addicted grandmother, or working with an invisible bear with a penchant for marmalade, this is a richly entertaining memoir"-- Leseprobe Introduction They’re Going in a Different Direction     “Not really my cup of tea,” said my agent. “Well, Donna, I think it’s going to be a global phenomenon,” I said. It was 2009, and the script under discussion was Downton Abbey . I didn’t in fact predict the show’s worldwide success but we’re only a few lines in here and I want you to think I’m smart. Nine years and fifty-two episodes later we were about to do the readthrough for the first Downton Abbey film. A memo came through from the publicity team saying that Focus Features, the financiers of the movie, had come up with a shiny idea with which to tease our audience. As we assembled on a sound stage at Twickenham Studios, a film crew would capture us clasping each other as we reunited after three years apart. Moments of coffee drinking and satsuma peeling would be caught on camera for posterity as the returning heroes prepared for another foray into the world of the British aristocracy between the wars; the show that its creators had first pitched as “Merchant Ivory meets The West Wing .” Then, during the readthrough itself, a supercool 360° camera would record the experience in a digitally shimmering way and there would be a photographer snapping it for all eternity. A knot tightened in my stomach. Readthroughs in any genre of entertainment are awkward at the best of times. For the writer(s) it’s like giving birth on the centre spot of a football pitch in front of a capacity crowd. For everyone else it’s first day at Big School. Because of the number of personnel involved, it usually takes place in an anonymous hall, deconsecrated church or, if at a British film studio, in an airless condemned sound stage with what looks worryingly like asbestos billowing out of the chicken-wire walls. On a table in one corner next to the scalding/freezing urn is a tower of Styrofoam cups, tea bags, coffee (granulated if it’s theatre, cafetière if it’s TV, barista – chain or possibly in-house – if it’s a movie), a smattering of fruit and biscuits and a stack of croissants that no one dares touch because you’re on a diet, obviously; now that you’ve got a job you’re no longer prone to stuffing your face with the unfairness of it all. If you’re lucky you’ll know a couple of people from other jobs and if so you cling to each other like shipwreck survivors, reliving the horrors of Harrogate ’88, or Peak Practice ’09. Some real car crashes of productions, some invented but worth amplifying anyway in these nerve-shredding circumstances. Over there is a producer, in a daze because he or she never thought they’d actually get to this point without either having a nervous breakdown or being fired by the money people. Nearby is the director, either quivering because they’ve finally agreed that the schedule is unshootable, or worryingly relaxed (beta blockers) for the same reason – knowing they too ...

Product details

• Authors: Hugh Bonneville
• Publisher: Other press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 08.11.2022
• EAN: 9781635423426
• ISBN: 978-1-63542-342-6
• No. of pages: 384
• Dimensions: 159 mm x 236 mm x 31 mm
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet