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– Jun 26 | The 72nd Annual Edinburgh International Film Festival – ‘In Darkness’ Screening
After being frustrated with the limited roles she was being offered, the actress co-wrote her new film with her partner Anthony Byrne.
In an Earl’s Court apartment block hallway, Natalie Dormer gestures for me to sit down. “Get yourself over to the stairs,” she smiles, “the red Hitchcockian stairs.”
The film she is shooting is In Darkness, a contemporary thriller – as if her nod to Hitchcock hadn’t already given that away – about a pianist named Sofia. Played by Dormer, the visually impaired Sofia gets entangled in a murder case when her upstairs neighbour is killed.
Today’s scene sees Dormer fumbling her way into the building’s lift, white cane in hand, with the creepy Marc (played by Ed Skrein) – who may or may not be the killer – in pursuit.
Dormer, the fiercely intelligent and striking-looking 36-year-old, who rose to fame on The Tudors and Game of Thrones, has spent days with people at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, getting “a crash course in visual impairment” to help perfect her character.
Intriguingly, Dormer is also the co-writer of In Darkness, scripting it with the director – and her off-screen partner – Anthony Byrne.
“There was a drought of intelligent thrillers when we started writing this seven years ago,” she says, when we retire upstairs to chat, sitting at the dining room table on the set of Sofia’s apartment.
After being frustrated with the limited roles she was being offered, the actress co-wrote her new film with her partner Anthony Byrne
In an Earl’s Court apartment block hallway, Natalie Dormer gestures for me to sit down. “Get yourself over to the stairs,” she smiles, “the red Hitchcockian stairs.”
The film she is shooting is In Darkness, a contemporary thriller – as if her nod to Hitchcock hadn’t already given that away – about a pianist named Sofia. Played by Dormer, the visually impaired Sofia gets entangled in a murder case when her upstairs neighbour is killed.
Today’s scene sees Dormer fumbling her way into the building’s lift, white cane in hand, with the creepy Marc (played by Ed Skrein) – who may or may not be the killer – in pursuit.
Dormer, the fiercely intelligent and striking-looking 36-year-old, who rose to fame on The Tudors and Game of Thrones, has spent days with people at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, getting “a crash course in visual impairment” to help perfect her character.
Intriguingly, Dormer is also the co-writer of In Darkness, scripting it with the director – and her off-screen partner – Anthony Byrne.
“There was a drought of intelligent thrillers when we started writing this seven years ago,” she says, when we retire upstairs to chat, sitting at the dining room table on the set of Sofia’s apartment.She cites films like Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One and Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia remake as rarities in the field. “And then when Denis Villeneuve popped up and did Prisoners, we were like ‘Exactly!’”
With a cast that also includes Joely Richardson and Emily Ratajkowski, Dormer is keen for the film to paint the nation’s capital in authentic brush strokes. “I get frustrated about not seeing the real London on camera. You either see candy box London, if it’s a [Richard] Curtis movie, or you see rough estate gangster [films]… you don’t see central cosmopolitan middle-class London, which is textured.”
For Dormer, creating her own script is a first – well, since her days at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. “Like most drama students I wrote a play while I was at drama school and thought I could write,” she says.
LONDON (Reuters) – “Game of Thrones” actress Natalie Dormer gets in front as well as behind the camera for thriller “In Darkness”, a movie she began writing nearly 10 years ago frustrated by the lack of “three dimensional” roles for women.
The 36-year-old, also known for television series “The Tudors” and “The Hunger Games” films, stars as blind pianist Sofia, who hears her upstairs neighbour being murdered, leading her into a dark world of war criminals.
Dormer started the script in 2009 but says things have changed on screen since then with female-lead films in movies such as “Black Swan” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.”It was pre this revolution we’ve had in wanting fully fleshed out three-dimensional flawed women as our protagonists. I think we can, storytelling wise, see that wave – slower than we would have wanted but it’s happening,” she said in an interview.
“Behind the camera is a much more pertinent question … If it took me seven years to get my independent movie shot it’s … the female writers, directors cinematographers who are trying to get their stuff made. Now that we won’t see for years.”
Women made up 18 percent of writers, directors, producers, editors and cinematographers who worked on the 250 biggest grossing movies in the United States last year, little changed from 1998, according to the Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film.
Dormer shares the film’s writing credits with her fiance Anthony Byrne, who directs. Both are producers.
Asked about working behind the camera for the first time, Dormer told Reuters: “It’s just a completely different experience from being a gun for hire.
“I’m concerned and invested in everybody doing their job in that room which is a completely different thing to being an actor.
“To be perfectly honest I love the team sport element of it and I got a real kick out of it.”
The 36-year-old actor said though writing the psychological thriller “In Darkness” with Byrne was a challenging experience, she has “huge respect” for him as a director and a partner.
LONDON: “Game of Thornes” star Natalie Dormer has said she will not be teaming up with her fiance Anthony Byrne for writing another film.
The 36-year-old actor said though writing the psychological thriller “In Darkness” with Byrne was a challenging experience, she has “huge respect” for him as a director and a partner.
“Couples say terrible things to each other that you would never say to your best friend. We learned very quickly that we couldn’t write in the same room. Doors got slammed at various points and I wouldn’t necessarily rush into writing with Anthony again, but I have huge respect for him,” Dormer said.
The actor plays blind pianist Sofia in the film, which also features Emily Ratajkowski and Ed Skrein.
According to Femalefirst, Dormer said that as part of her training for the role she also spent time at Royal National Institute of Blind People.
“You’re never going to fully appreciate what it’s like because you have the safety net there – your eyes – but I have to do a massive shout out to the RNIB because they gave me my cane lessons and showed me how to walk up and down the street and navigate around my own house. You realise you know a lot just by memory and sound,” Dormer said.
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– Screen Captures
Natalie Dormer knows you want to ask her about Game Of Thrones. Sure, she’s working on other projects, and she’s played a part in many a franchise (The Tudors and The Hunger Games among them), but the Game Of Thronesobsessives always want more (and rightfully so). She can feel the vibration of my question forming, and, even though her character, Margaery Tyrell, has already been killed off the much-loved drama, Dormer is always ready to offer her own opinions as to where the princes, queens, and dragon-slayers on the show will end up.
When we sit down together at Bustle HQ, Dormer admits she’s worried about Sansa (“I love her journey as a character”), she wants Cersei to have a “massive revelation of self,” and she tacks on the exceptionally juicy tidbit that she knows how it all ends. “They’ve been shooting a lot of battle sequences… it’s the fight to the finish,” she says, letting the statement lie, with an unmistakeable emphasis on the word “finish.” Though Dormer loved her time on Game Of Thrones and is happy to have been a part of the series, she’s beyond ready to move on.
No longer satisfied with the stories men have projected onto women in the industry, Dormer is among those actresses and storytellers who is taking matters into her own hands. In one of her post-Game Of Thrones projects, In Darkness (in theaters now), Dormer plays Sofia, a blind musician who, after she hears the murder of a neighbor, is thrown into the gritty underbelly of London, complete with war criminals, fight sequences, and plenty of intrigue. While playing a character like Sofia would be a boon for many actresses, Dormer took it a step further — she wrote In Darkness, too, along with director Anthony Byrne.
