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“It’s 10:00 at night.
    The dull dudes on the planet are sitting in their slippers and sipping their
                                      sherries.
  But the people who love to rock and to roll are ready to ride the rocking roller
   coaster once more. You are listening to Radio Rock, and I am The Count,
         and I’m counting you in as we count down to ecstasy and rock

               ALL THE DAY & ALL OF THE NIGHT.” - The Count

        In the mid-90s, he penned a brilliantly comic story about touchstone
moments in the lives of friends. In 1999, he took us to a travel bookshop where
young lovers became star-crossed. Two years later, he helped adapt a best-
selling tale of a young woman’s addiction to romance and cigarettes, and in
2003, he wrote and directed a film that explored loves as layered as they were
lifelong.
      And they were all blockbusters.
       Now, celebrated filmmaker RICHARD CURTIS (Four Weddings and a
Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Love Actually) brings audiences his
most personal comedy to date. Writing and directing the story of a band of rogue
deejays who captivated British radio listeners in the 60s, playing the music that
defined a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly,
preferred jazz, Curtis welcomes us aboard The Boat That Rocked.
      Leading the cast of the new film from the Emmy, BAFTA and WGA award-
winning writer/director are Academy Award winner PHILIP SEYMOUR
HOFFMAN (Capote, Doubt) as Radio Rock’s infamous deejay The Count; BILL
NIGHY (Love Actually, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End) as the station’s
owner (and ship’s captain), Quentin; RHYS IFANS (Notting Hill, Elizabeth: The
Golden Age) as mystic deejay royalty Gavin; NICK FROST (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of
the Dead) as the amorous, sarcastic disc jockey Dave; and KENNETH
The Boat That Rocked                                                     2


BRANAGH (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Hamlet) as the man out to
shut down Radio Rock, Minister Dormandy.
        Supporting the leads of The Boat That Rocked is a talented cast that
includes TOM STURRIDGE (Vanity Fair), JACK DAVENPORT (Pirates of the
Caribbean series), CHRIS O’DOWD (How to Lose Friends & Alienate People),
RALPH BROWN (Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace), RHYS DARBY
(television’s Flight of the Conchords), WILL ADAMSDALE (television’s Rosemary
& Thyme), TOM BROOKE (Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), TOM WISDOM
(300), KATHERINE PARKINSON (television’s The IT Crowd), IKE HAMILTON
(television’s Primeval), JANUARY JONES (television’s Mad Men) and TALULAH
RILEY (Pride & Prejudice).
     Reteaming with Curtis for their latest film are Working Title producers TIM
BEVAN and ERIC FELLNER (Love Actually, Bridget Jones series), joined by
HILARY BEVAN JONES (television’s State of Play, The Girl in the Café).
      The behind-the-scenes crew includes director of photography DANNY
COHEN (The Last Hangman, This Is England), production designer MARK
TILDESLEY (28 Days Later..., Happy-Go-Lucky), editor EMMA HICKOX (Kinky
Boots, A Walk to Remember), costume designer JOANNA JOHNSTON (The
Spiderwick Chronicles, War of the Worlds) and Oscar-winning make-up and hair
designer CHRISTINE BLUNDELL (Topsy-Turvey, Eastern Promises).
      Working Title’s DEBRA HAYWARD and LIZA CHASIN serve as executive
producers on the project. EMMA FREUD works as associate producer, while
RONALDO VASCONSELLOS joins as co-producer.
The Boat That Rocked                                                         3




       SYNOPSIS
         “The thing that makes sense of this crazy world is rock and roll.
             And I was crazy to think I could ever leave it.” - Gavin

       In 1966 - British pop music’s finest era - the BBC played just two hours of
rock and roll every week. But pirate radio played rock and pop from the high seas
24 hours a day. And 25 million people - more than half the population of Britain -
listened to the pirates every single day.
       Recently expelled from school, Carl (Tom Sturridge) has been sent by his
mother to find some direction in life by visiting his godfather, Quentin (Bill Nighy).
However, Quentin is the boss of Radio Rock, a pirate radio station in the middle
of the North Sea, populated by an eclectic crew of rock-and-roll deejays.
        They are led by The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman) - big, brash,
American god of the airwaves and totally in love with the music. He’s faithfully
backed up by his co-broadcasters Dave (Nick Frost) - ironic, intelligent and
cruelly funny; Simon (Chris O’Dowd) - super-nice and searching for true love;
Midnight Mark (Tom Wisdom) - enigmatic, handsome and a man of few words;
Wee Small Hours Bob (Ralph Brown) - the late-night deejay, whose hobbies are
folk music and drugs; Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke) - possessor of the smallest
intelligence known to mankind; On-the-Hour John (Will Adamsdale) - the
newsreader; and Angus “The Nut” Nutsford (Rhys Darby) - possibly the most
annoying man in Britain.
        Life on the North Sea is eventful. Simon finds the woman of his dreams,
Elenore (January Jones), and is married on the boat...only to be left by his bride
the next day. Gavin (Rhys Ifans) returns from his drug tour of America to his
rightful position as greatest deejay in Britain and, in doing so, clashes with The
Count. And Carl discovers the opposite sex and who his real father is.
         Meanwhile, pirate stations have come to the attention of government
minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh), who is out for the blood of these
lawbreakers. In an era when the stuffy corridors of power stifle anything
approaching youthful exuberance, Dormandy seizes the chance to score a
political goal, and The Marine Broadcasting Offences Act is passed in an effort to
outlaw the pirates and to remove their ghastly influence from the land once and
for all.
       What results is a literal storm on the high seas. With Radio Rock in peril,
its devoted fans rally together and stage an epic Dunkirk-style hundred-boat
rescue to save their deejay heroes. Some things may come to an end, but rock
and roll never dies.
The Boat That Rocked                                                         4



       ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
       Rocking the Boat: The Film Is Conceived

                            “Here’s the simple situation:
      Already the authorities dislike us. If you do this, they will hate us and -
      by hook or by crook - they will find a way to close us down.” - Quentin

       After the worldwide success of his directorial debut, Love Actually, Richard
Curtis began to consider ideas for his next film. As he imagined new stories,
Curtis reflected on memories from his childhood of late nights listening to rogue
rock-and-roll deejays who broadcast from ships and marine structures anchored
just outside UK. territorial waters in the late 1960s.
       These radio stations introduced enormous and enthusiastic audiences to
landmark acts such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks, as well
as legendary solo artists including Jimmy Hendrix, Dusty Springfield, Janis Joplin
and Aretha Franklin. The piracy was much to the chagrin of the government,
which did its very best to suppress illegal transmissions coming from the waters
to the homes of millions of Brits who loved everything they heard.
       Curtis’ passion for music from that era was evident throughout Love
Actually - from songs by Joni Mitchell and Darlene Love to tunes written by Paul
Anka and Lennon/McCartney. It seemed only fitting his next movie would fully
embrace his love of music from the late 60s. He would set his tale on a pirate
radio ship and ensure his favourite songs made up the soundtrack.
        “Every person in my generation has the same memory,” recalls Curtis.
“You would go to bed at night and put your transistor radio underneath your
pillow, switch it on and hear this fantastic music you could not hear elsewhere.
And your parents would shout from downstairs, ‘Go to bed! Turn off the light; go
to sleep!’ It was one of the things that made me love pop music most, that slight
sense of it being illicit and illegal.”
        Duly inspired by Robert Altman’s cult classic M*A*S*H and John Landis’
landmark Animal House, Curtis aimed to capture the essence of those comedies
in his new project. M*A*S*H, with its informality and loose structure, and Animal
House, with its maniacal and irreverent jokes, shared the male bonding and
comedic situations Curtis guessed occurred on the offshore boats. He explains: “I
started to write down a few scenes of things that could go wrong on a boat with a
lot of guys on it. You immediately start to think: What is the relationship of the
guys with girls? Do girls come over once a fortnight to have sex with the guys?
What happens if someone wants a girlfriend? How do you get a girlfriend?”
        Armed with many questions, sense memories and loads of time at the
computer, Curtis crafted The Boat That Rocked as a coming-of-age tale that
centers upon Carl, an 18-year-old who has been expelled from school and sent
to live with his godfather, Quentin, on a lawless boat in the North Sea. The virgin
is looking for answers to life’s questions, and his free-spirited mother feels he’ll
The Boat That Rocked                                                            5


find many of them on the vessel. His journey would take him to, as Curtis puts it,
“ramshackle boats in the middle of the sea, with disc jockeys with massive egos -
living and breathing and doing their shows 24 hours a day.”
       Screenplay in hand, Curtis took the project to long-time collaborators,
Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. “The music, the period, the story and
everything about the project was of huge interest to us,” recalls Fellner. “Tim and
I, and all of us at Working Title, have been very lucky to have an ongoing
relationship with Richard going back about 15 years. It’s always exciting making
a film with him. He is a wonderfully charismatic, creative individual.”
       Producer Hilary Bevan Jones had previously worked with Curtis on the
award-winning television drama The Girl in the Café, starring Bill Nighy and Kelly
Macdonald, and was a natural choice to join the team of The Boat That Rocked.
“I read the script and fell in love with it immediately,” recalls Bevan Jones. “There
were lots of ingredients that made it irresistible. It was funny, touching, and the
music was fantastic. Richard’s films have such a huge heart. You can’t but feel
warmth when you watch his work.”
       With the film greenlit, Working Title would now search for a cast and crew
to restore the world of 60s rock and roll to its glory days. They would look to a
stable of long-time company players and a recent Oscar winner to join the
production.

       Casting the Comedy

 “The drug takers and lawbreakers and bottom-bashing fornicators of our once
  great country. Well, here’s your little task, Twatt. I want Rock off the air in 12
    months, and I want you to be my private assassin.” - Minister Dormandy

       With dual duties as writer and director, Curtis would find taking The Boat
That Rocked from page to screen quite a challenge. While he had the luxury of
continuously editing his script to make flush with his actors’ skills, he admits it
was as intricate for the director as it was for the writer.
        “The casting process is where you discover what you have written and
what kind of film you are going to make,” Curtis says. “When casting, I look for a
particular texture, an informality and willingness of an actor to stretch something
to its comic limits - without it becoming unreal. For instance, in a search for the
person to play Carl, we saw 60 people. Tom Sturridge was the only one who had
that slightly casual manner that I was looking for.”
        The 23-year-old Londoner found his experience filming the comedy similar
to his character’s journey aboard Radio Rock. “When Carl arrives on the boat, he
is in awe of the deejays,” offers Sturridge. “I arrived on set to work with people
like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans and Nick Frost, and I felt the
same awe, excitement, fear and pleasure from being in their company as Carl
does in the company of their characters.”
       When casting The Count, a brash deejay whose enormous knowledge of
The Boat That Rocked                                                        6


rock is only dwarfed by his smugness, the production team was looking for an
American. “The most famous disc jockey of this era was an American guy called
Emperor Rosko,” says Curtis. “So it was an exciting treat that we cast an
American for the part. We were more than lucky to get the best actor in the world
to play The Count.”
        As he read the script, Hoffman was impressed by how committed Curtis
was at allowing The Count to embody the era’s spirit of rebellion. He found his
character to be “one of those guys whose home is where he can do what he
wants, which is to be a DJ. He could be anywhere.” Hoffman saw The Count as a
man who allowed millions of Brits to hear the same songs that spoke to him. “He
is this conduit of music for people to listen to,” he continues, “and he believes
that rock and roll is the medicine.”
        “Philip is arguably the greatest actor currently working on the planet,” says
co-star Bill Nighy. “He was adorable to work with and made us all feel
comfortable. He is one of those actors who flicks a switch and metamorphosises
into his character.”
        Nighy, who had previously worked with Curtis on Love Actually and The
Girl in the Café, was cast as Quentin, the laissez-faire captain of the pirate ship
Radio Rock. The actor agreed to take the role before he read the script. He
notes, “I admire Richard tremendously, and I adore his writing, so I knew it was
going to be OK. I was not mistaken; the script was cracking.” Of his director, he
adds, “Richard can do that rare thing, which is making hundreds and thousands
of people all laugh at the same time in the dark of a movie theatre.”
         Curtis admits that when he wrote the script, he hoped Nighy would be
available to play Quentin. “In every film, there are a couple of people who I have
in mind, and Bill is one of them,” he says. “On the whole, it’s surprising how
separate you can keep the casting from the writing process...and then how much
fun it is realising you’ve written the part for someone you already love.”
       To play the part of Gavin, the deejay who returns to Radio Rock to reclaim
his rightful throne as the top jock of the European airways, the Working Title
team cast another favorite player, Rhys Ifans. Ifans had worked with the
filmmakers when he played Spike, Hugh Grant’s character’s scene-stealing
flatmate, in Notting Hill. “We needed somebody to play Gavin, who would rival
whoever was playing The Count,” says Bevan Jones. “Rhys was perfect for the
role. His magnetism comes out in spades.”
       “It was brave of Richard to cast me in such a completely different role to
Spike,” offers Ifans. “He really handed me something very special. Richard’s
loving character shines through in this film. He genuinely comes from a place of
love - and that’s what the film is about.”
       To play the charismatic deejay Dave, the casting team selected comic
actor Nick Frost, best known for his comic turns in director Edgar Wright’s buddy-
cop thriller Hot Fuzz and rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead. “When you get a
phone call saying Richard Curtis wants to offer you a part in his new film, you
The Boat That Rocked                                                       7


would be mad to turn it down,” laughs Frost. “I don’t think there is anyone around
today that can do what he does. He makes films that are great yarns about
friendship...without a hint of cynicism.”
        For the additional deejays who kept Radio Rock blasting 24/7, a talented
group of actors was cast. Chris O’Dowd, best known for his role in Channel 4’s
comedy The IT Crowd, took the role of Simon, the unbelievably nice (and naïve)
breakfast deejay. Character actor Ralph Brown, known for such diverse roles as
Danny the drug dealer in Withnail & I and ill-fated inmate Aaron in Alien3, was
cast as Wee Small Hours Bob, “The Dawn Treader.” New Zealand comedian
Rhys Darby, known for his part as the band manager in the cult comedy
television series Flight of the Conchords, was cast as Angus “The Nut” Nutsford.
Tom Wisdom of 300 fame was selected to play the man who can seduce anyone
with barely a word, Midnight Mark, while Will Adamsdale was brought on to play
John, the “on-the-hour newsreader.”
       Rounding out key crew and guests aboard Radio Rock were Katherine
Parkinson - also known for appearing in Channel 4’s comedy The IT Crowd - cast
as the boat’s lovelorn lesbian cook, Felicity. Tom Brooke and Ike Hamilton,
respectively, play the aptly named Thick Kevin and shy-but-soulful sound
engineer Harold. American actress January Jones, lauded for her work in AMC’s
Mad Men, was tasked to play the love of Simon’s life, Elenore. Pride &
Prejudice’s Talulah Riley came on as Quentin’s coquettish niece (and the object
of Carl’s affection), Marianne.
        Curtis’ story not only introduces audiences to the colourful characters of
Radio Rock, but also the government zealots who were out to shut them down.
Quentin’s landside counterpart is Sir Alexander Dormandy, the cabinet official
whose objective in life is to destroy pirate radio stations and ban them from
polluting the airwaves.
       For the part of the smug Dormandy, a character AP Emma Freud dubs a
“three-dimensional, smiling villain,” the filmmakers turned to celebrated actor
Kenneth Branagh. “We were lucky enough to get Kenneth for our Minister,” says
producer Bevan Jones. “He is incredible and so funny in the part. I defy anyone
to say the word ‘sewer’ the way he does.”
      Over the years, Branagh and Curtis had crossed paths on numerous
occasions, but the two had never worked with one another. “I remember Emma
and Richard coming to see Much Ado About Nothing and Peter’s Friends and
they were both immensely encouraging, so it’s a joy to finally be doing something
together,” says Branagh.
       Branagh was impressed with both the ensemble comedy and strong
narrative he found in Curtis’ script. He continues, “The forces of darkness feature
strongly in the story, and there is a lot of subtle, nonintrusive social observation
about a crucial moment of change in our society during that period. Richard has
a way of looking at it comically and entertainingly through the impact of pirate
radio. He has caught the spirit of a really delicious comic anarchy in this picture
and, to me, that simply jumped off the page.”
The Boat That Rocked                                                         8


      Just as Quentin comes to develop a paternal relationship with Carl,
Dormandy has his own mentee. To complete the cast, Jack Davenport, best
known for his role as Norrington in another maritime adventure, the Pirates of the
Caribbean series, was cast as Dormandy’s well-meaning sidekick, Twatt. Sinead
Matthews, last seen in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, was selected as
Dormandy’s long-suffering secretary, Miss C.
      Cast set, the production began to imagine life on a questionably
seaworthy ship in the frigid waters of the North Sea and to choose the songs that
would help the cast and crew rock as they worked.

       All Those Waves: Shooting on Water

 “My aim is not to offend. It is to entertain and also, perhaps, to educate a little.
Because if you shoot a bullet, someone dies. When you drop a bomb, many die.
 If you hit a woman, love dies. But - and this is my profound and political point -
           if you say the ‘f’ word, nothing actually happens.” - The Count

       As he transitioned from one role to another, Curtis considered the
enormity of the task in front of him. He notes, “When you write, you worry about
making the film. It was a fantastic moment when we finished the script to think,
‘Oh my God. Now if this is the film we’re going to make, we’ve actually got to find
a great, big hulking boat, all the actors have to learn how to be disc jockeys...and
something quite exciting happens at the end of the film.
       “That’s where you get an amusing disconnect between writer and
director,” he continues. “The writer writes what he likes, and then the poor
director takes receipt of it. But it was an extraordinarily fun film to make because
we did have to get a real boat and go out on that boat and film in real weather.
We put a village onto it - 140 people: make-up, catering, costume, actors and
crew - and sailed out from a harbour every day for five weeks. No matter what
the weather, we shot whatever we could on this rusty old boat rented from
Scotland.”
       To prepare the actors for life on Radio Rock, Curtis sent much of the cast
to a “boat camp,” which involved living and rehearsing on the boat on which they
would be filming. Cast and crew slept in small cabins on the boat and rehearsed
throughout the day. In the evening they would eat, drink and play darts or table
football. “It really worked as a bonding exercise,” notes Rhys Ifans. “We
discovered very early on we had quite a special cast, and we got very close.”
      To ready the team for the type of movie they would be making, Curtis
screened Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H during rehearsals. “That film has stayed in
my mind all the way through shooting,” says deejay Bob, aka Ralph Brown.
“There’s a feeling of community between the characters in M*A*S*H similar to
what we were trying to achieve - an added texture of overheard conversations
and moments of interaction. There’s a sense that the camera is watching
something happening in front of it, rather than it being staged. That’s very much
what Richard wanted to do with this film.”
The Boat That Rocked                                                         9


       To assist the actors in their transition into credible disc jockeys, Emma
Freud and deejay technical advisor JOHN REVELL worked with the cast in a
mock radio studio in London. They met with ex-pirate radio deejay Johnny
Walker, as well as deejay Chris Evans, in a working studio to study various styles
of broadcasting. By the end of their training, the actors had to record an hour-
long show that was to be used in the film.
        “This was brilliant,” remembers Curtis. “Not only because we ended up
filming the hour of their show, but also because it made them understand the
relationship between who they were as a public person and who they were in
private. If they had not practiced their show, they would not realize how powerful
you feel when you are a disc jockey broadcasting entirely on your own to 25
million people for two hours a day.”
       “It’s hard learning how to deejay,” adds Freud, who regularly works on the
radio. “You have to find a voice that is true and honest, but also interesting and
funny and worth listening to. It made it doubly hard for the actors because they
weren’t deejaying as themselves, but as their characters in the film. So we taught
them the technical side first, queuing up records and working the cart machines.
Then during the rehearsals, they found their voice.”
       Because of scheduling commitments, Philip Seymour Hoffman started on
the production several weeks after the shoot began. This didn’t allow him the
luxury of long rehearsals and radio training the other cast enjoyed. “He arrived on
set and had one hour in which to learn how to be a deejay,” recalls Freud. “He
was so wonderful at the mic that he looked like he had been doing it all his life.
We worked out that his character would stand up during a show, and he held the
mic in such a gorgeous way when he broadcasted. It set his character apart from
the other deejay’s styles.”
     Principal photography began on March 3, 2008, and The Boat That
Rocked filmed for a total of 14 weeks. Five of those weeks took place in Portland
Harbour, Dorset, shooting on a boat called the Timor Challenger.
        Of the search to find the Timor Challengers, production designer Mark
Tildesley recalls: “It was quite difficult to find a suitable boat to film on. We were
looking for a craft that was seaworthy, one that could accommodate a certain
number of crew and had the right look for the period. A lot of the boats we liked
didn’t have working engines.”
       The search ended in Scotland when the filmmakers found the Timor,
which began life as a deep-sea fishing trawler, then became a hospital boat and
was finally adapted to serve as a rescue boat for the oil rigs. To make the Timor
look as if it was a functioning pirate radio station ship, two huge aerial masts
were erected on the deck.
        “Having masts did cause a few problems,” admits Tildesley. “We could
only film in calm conditions, because if it was really rough, we could not leave the
harbour.” Luckily, during the five-week shoot the weather was kind, and only
three days were disrupted by bad weather. Two sets were built in a warehouse
The Boat That Rocked                                                         10


next door to the dock, and during these three inclement days, filming continued
on shore.
       “There is a saying in the film industry: ‘Don’t work with children, animals or
on water,’” laughs Bevan Jones. “When there is water around you, it can
essentially be a disruptive character. It would take us 45 minutes to get out to
sea - and even longer to return to harbour - so our days were really long. The
current and the wind would constantly move the boat, and we had to have
tugboats keeping the Timor Challenger in position...so that the land did not get in
shot.”
       The choppy waters weren’t only a distraction to the plans mapped out by
Curtis and cinematographer Danny Cohen. Bevan Jones explains that a
queasiness factor inserted itself into every step of the production: “We also had
to make sure cast and crew had been armed with seasickness pills, as it could
be quite rough at times.”
       Filming some interiors of the boat took place on sets built at Shepperton
and Pinewood Studios outside of London. To re-create the movement of the sea,
the sets built were built on a hydraulic gimble that could provide just the rocking
motions the filmmakers required. Curtis, DP Cohen and designer Tildesley
believed re-creating and shooting in close corridors and little rooms would prove
a challenge, but that much comedy could come from big egos trapped in tiny
spaces.
         As an example, Dave and Carl have a hurried conversation in the WC
about Carl’s pathetic love life (before Dave’s girlfriend walks in). The scene was,
naturally, shot in the smallest space Tildesley could build. Curtis recalls, “I said to
Mark that it’s got to be a real cabin bathroom. It’ll be absolutely tiny; it should be
difficult to fit the three people in. So Mark made the tiniest room possible. Sure
enough, when we shot the scene, it was difficult to fit the three people in,
particularly if one of them’s Nick Frost. Then, we thought, ‘Where are you going
to put the cameraman and the soundman?’ So we took away a little wall, but it
was still fantastically crowded.”
       Curtis knew the traditional style of shooting wouldn’t work well on a boat
with narrow passageways. He and DP Cohen agreed that they should “have two
guys with cameras on their shoulders wandering around, picking different
positions so that anyone who sees the film will see Radio Rock is intended to be
very informal, very chaotic. There is no question of holding the line that people
are looking down, no wide shot or close shot. The camera just moves around
wherever it can.”
       For the cast, it was (despite occasional tight quarters) quite refreshing to
leave sound stages and closed sets to film out on the open seas. Curtis ensured
rock and roll permeated the production, and sounds of the 60s were played on
the journeys to and from the port. For some members of the cast and crew, there
was even a bit of time for fishing during breaks in the day.
The Boat That Rocked                                                       11


       The Kinks to The Who: Music of the Film
       Long-time Working Title Films and Richard Curtis collaborator, music
supervisor NICK ANGEL worked hand in hand with Curtis to bring some of the
best sounds from the 1960s to the big screen in The Boat That Rocked. “Richard
has worn his heart on his sleeve for this film, and the music is an integral part of
it” says Angel. “Quite simply, it’s music that Richard loves, and my job was to
make sure that we got the songs he wanted in the film.”
       The process started some two years ago when Curtis first mentioned to
Angel that he was writing a film based around the world of pirate radio set in
1966 and 1967. Angel, who had worked closely with the director before on
Notting Hill and Love Actually, began to gather songs he felt might be used in
creating the film.
      He recounts, “I made Richard some CDs featuring tracks I liked and ones I
thought were interesting from that period - things that he could listen to while he
was writing. Richard loves music, so he obviously had his own ideas. But with
some tracks, I wanted to jog his memory.”
       At this stage, the two men began to collect a catalogue of some 200 songs
that were potential contenders to make it into the film. To help his castmembers
brush up on their Chris Farlowe, Troggs, Supremes and Turtles, Curtis gave the
burgeoning deejays iPods crammed with his and Angel’s choice selection of
tracks from the 60s.
       “We wanted to give the actors a flavor of the music that their characters
would have been into,” Angel relates. “We can’t assume that a 23-year-old is
going to be that familiar with 1966 and 1967. And even if they were, everybody
has gaps in their music knowledge.
       As the start of principal photography approached, the song list was
whittled down to around 70 that were still in contention. After the footage was
shot and the editing process began, Curtis and music editor STEVE PRICE put
together the musical jigsaw and married select songs to fit specific scenes and
moods. In all, 54 songs feature in the finished film.
       “That’s quite a lot,” states the music supervisor. “But then, the story is set
on board a pirate radio station, so there is music virtually all of the time. We’ve
got a great blend. There are tracks that are very well known and loved, and there
are others that are less well known.”
        The result is a feast of vintage 60s music featuring The Rolling Stones
(“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Let’s Spend The Night Together”), The Kinks (“All
Day and All of the Night”), The Who (“My Generation,” “I Can See For Miles,” and
“Won’t Get Fooled Again”), Small Faces (“Lazy Sunday Afternoon”), Jimi Hendrix
(“The Wind Cries Mary”), Leonard Cohen (“So Long, Marianne”), The Supremes
(“The Happening”), Otis Redding (“These Arms of Mine”), The Hollies (“I’m
Alive”), Smokey Robinson and The Miracles (“Ooo Baby Baby”), as well as
Sandie Shaw (“Girl Don’t Come”) and many more.
       The soundtrack album is slated to feature 40 of the songs used in The
The Boat That Rocked                                                     12


Boat That Rocked. Triple Brit award-winning singer Duffy has recorded a version
of “Stay With Me Baby” for the film. Additionally, Oscar-winning composer Hans
Zimmer scored original music for a key section of the comedy.
       “We got almost everything we wanted for the film,” Angel proudly states.
“There were one or two tracks that, for various reasons, we couldn’t have, but
there were always alternatives. We’re delighted with the result.”


      Production wrapped, cast finally dry and Curtis and editor Emma Hickox
hard at work in the editing bay, the team reflected on working on The Boat That
Rocked and why Richard Curtis films seem to inspire a dose of levity.
       “Richard has this gift of attracting people who don’t regularly go to the
movies,” sums producer Fellner. “What that is, I’m not quite sure, but there
seems to be a magical element to his movies that persuades people it would be
good to go to the cinema - as they know that they’re going to enjoy the two hours
that they spend under his spell.”
        Of making a film that combines his love of music, comedy and romance,
Curtis concludes: “This was a fantastic era of music, and it’s exciting to make a
movie where you’ve got an excuse to put music over every single scene. I hope
it’s going to be one of those films where, when you watch it, you immediately feel
how lovely it would be to be amongst that bunch of people on that boat. One of
the charms of Four Weddings was that you really felt you were amongst that
group of friends. I hope this film will be like going for a very pleasant weekend
with all the people in the world you most love when they are on really good form.”
       Universal Pictures presents - In association with StudioCanal - A Working
Title Production: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost and
Kenneth Branagh in The Boat That Rocked. The film’s casting director is Fiona
Weir. The comedy’s costume designer is Joanna Johnston; the editor is Emma
Hickox. The production designer is Mark Tildesley; the film’s director of
photography is Danny Cohen. The Boat That Rocked’s associate producer is
Emma Freud; the co-producer is Ronaldo Vasconsellos. The executive
producers are Richard Curtis, Debra Hayward and Liza Chasin. The film is
produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Hilary Bevan Jones. The Boat That
Rocked is written and directed by Richard Curtis. © 2008 Universal Studios
www.theboatthatrocked.com


      ABOUT THE CAST
       PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN (The Count) was seen in the recently
released films Doubt, written and directed by John Patrick Shanley and co-
starring Meryl Streep, and Synecdoche, New York, written and directed by
Charlie Kaufman. Hoffman also starred in the independent feature The Savages,
for which he won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead; Mike Nichols’
Charlie Wilson’s War, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best
The Boat That Rocked                                                    13


Supporting Actor; and Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Prior
to that, Hoffman starred in Capote, which he executive produced through his
company, Cooper’s Town Productions. In addition to winning the Academy
Award for Best Actor, Hoffman earned a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors
Guild (SAG) Award for his performance.
       Additional film credits include Mission: Impossible III, Along Came Polly,
Cold Mountain, The Party’s Over, Owning Mahowny, 25th Hour, Red Dragon,
Punch-Drunk Love, Love Liza, Almost Famous, State and Main, The Talented Mr
Ripley, Magnolia, Flawless, Patch Adams, Happiness, The Big Lebowski, Boogie
Nights, Twister, Nobody’s Fool, Scent of a Woman and HBO’s Empire Falls.
       Hoffman joined the LAByrinth Theatre Company in 1995 and became its
co-artistic director in 2001. As an actor, his theatre credits include LAByrinth
Theatre Company’s Jack Goes Boating (The Public Theatre), Long Day’s
Journey into Night (Broadway), The Seagull (The Public Theatre/New York
Shakespeare Festival), True West (Broadway), Defying Gravity (The American
Place Theatre), The Merchant of Venice (directed by Peter Sellars), Shopping
and F*cking (New York Theatre Workshop) and The Author’s Voice (The Drama
Department).
      His LAByrinth directing credits include the world premieres of The Last
Days of Judas Iscariot, Our Lady of 121st Street, Jesus Hopped the “A” Train
and In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings, each by Stephen Adly Guirgis. Hoffman’s
celebrated New York production of Jesus Hopped the “A” Train was presented at
the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won the 2001 Fringe First Award, and
London’s Donmar Warehouse, where it was nominated for a Laurence Olivier
Award for Best New Play in 2002. It then moved on to London’s West End for an
extended run at The Arts Theatre. Similarly, his acclaimed production of Our
Lady of 121st Street transferred off-Broadway to the Union Square Theatre,
where it ran for nearly six months.
        Additionally, Hoffman directed Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living at
MCC Theater in 2001. He traveled to Australia to direct Andrew Upton’s play
Riflemind at the famed Sydney Theatre Company and also mounted the play in
London last fall. Prior to that, he directed the Stephen Adly Guirgis play, The
Little Flower of East Orange, for LAByrinth.
       BILL NIGHY (Quentin) is one of Britain’s most distinguished and best-
loved actors, and has won awards throughout his career for many of his
numerous performances on both stage and screen. His latest film projects
include the Tom Cruise-produced Valkyrie, directed by Bryan Singer; Patrick
Tatopoulos’ Underworld: Rise of the Lycans; and Hoyt Yeatman’s upcoming
animated movie G-Force, alongside Nicolas Cage.
       Nighy’s film credits also include Flushed Away; Still Crazy, which earned
him the Evening Standard Peter Sellers Award for Comedy; Lucky Break; Love
Actually, which earned him an Evening Standard Peter Sellers Award for
Comedy, a BAFTA Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting
Role, and a London Critics’ Circle Film Award and Los Angeles Film Critics
The Boat That Rocked                                                      14


Association Award for Best Supporting Actor; I Capture the Castle; Lawless
Heart; Underworld and the sequel Underworld: Evolution; Shaun of the Dead;
Enduring Love; The Constant Gardener, which earned him a nomination for a
British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor; Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End;
Stormbreaker; and Notes on a Scandal, for which he earned a nomination from
the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards for British Supporting Actor of the Year.
       Television credits include leading roles in The Men’s Room; Longitude;
State of Play, which earned him a BAFTA Award for Best Actor; Play for Today;
Absolute Hell; The Lost Prince; The Girl in the Café, which earned him a Golden
Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or
Movie Made for Television; and Stephen Poliakoff’s Gideon’s Daughter, for which
he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a
Miniseries or Movie Made for Television.
       His work in the theatre includes, most recently, creating the role of Oliver
Lucas in David Hare’s The Vertical Hour on Broadway, for which he gained a
Theatre World Award nomination for Outstanding Debut Performance. He also
starred in the original casts of A Map of the World and Skylight, both by David
Hare; Pravada, by Howard Brenton and David Hare; Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, A
Kind of Alaska, Landscape and Silence; Mean Tears, by Peter Gill; Arcadia, by
Tom Stoppard; The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov and directed by John Caird; and
Blue/Orange, by Joe Penhall, for which he was nominated for the Laurence
Oliver Award for Best Actor.
      RHYS IFANS (Gavin) is one of Britain’s finest contemporary actors. He
was born and raised in Wales, attending youth acting schools at Theatre Clwyd,
Mold, and appeared in many Welsh-language television programs before
embarking on his film career.
       His breakout performance came in 1999, in Roger Michell’s Notting Hill,
opposite Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, for which he received a BAFTA Film
Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. Prior
to that, Ifans starred in Charles McDougall’s Heart, Kevin Allen’s Twin Town
(alongside his brother Llyr Ifans), Anthony Hopkins’ August and Karl Francis’
Streetlife.
       Since 1999, he has appeared in more than 20 films, including Andy
Hurst’s You’re Dead; Clare Kilner’s Janice Beard 45 wpm; Edward Thomas’
Rancid Aluminium; Dominic Anciano’s Love, Honor and Obey; Ed Bye’s Kevin &
Perry Go Large; Howard Deutch’s The Replacements; Steven Brill’s Little Nicky;
Michel Gondry’s Human Nature; Ronny Yu’s Formula 51; Mike Figgis’ Hotel;
Lasse Hallström’s The Shipping News; and Shane Meadows’ Once Upon a Time
in the Midlands.
      More recently, Ifans completed filming Gregor Jordan’s Informers and
Jaco van Dormael’s Mr Nobody. He recently starred in Jeff Balsmeyer’s Danny
Deckchair; Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair; Roger Michell’s Enduring Love, for which he
was nominated for a Best British Actor Award by Empire magazine; Martha
The Boat That Rocked                                                   15


Fiennes’ Chromophobia; Francesca Joseph’s Four Last Songs; Peter Webber’s
Hannibal Rising; and Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
        On television, most recently, he played the role of Peter Cook in Terry
Johnson’s Not Only But Always, for which he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best
Actor. He also appeared in Shakespeare Shorts (BBC); Trial & Retribution (YTV);
The Two Franks (S4C); Judas and the Gimp (BBC); Nightshift; Spatz (S4C);
Burning Love (S4C); and Review (S4C). In 2005, Ifans made a guest appearance
for the rock band Oasis in the video for their single “The Importance of Being
Idle,” for which he accepted their award for Video of the Year at the 2005/2006
NME Awards.
       In the theatre, he has appeared at the Donmar Warehouse in Robert
Delamere’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Patrick Marber’s Don Juan in Soho
and Michael Sheen’s Bad Finger; at the National Theatre in Matthew Warchus’
Volpone and Roger Michell’s Under Milk Wood; at the Duke of York Theatre in
Hettie MacDonald’s Beautiful Thing; at the Royal Court Theatre in James
MacDonald’s Thyestes; and at the Royal Exchange in Braham Murray’s Smoke
and Ronald Harwood’s Poison Pen.
       NICK FROST (Dave) first came to prominence as the character of roly-
poly gun-mad Mike Watt in Channel 4’s Spaced.
       Since then, Frost has become one of the UK.’s most sought-after comedy
actors. He earned a nomination for Best Newcomer by the British Independent
Film Awards for his role in the cult zombie movie Shaun of the Dead, starring
opposite Simon Pegg. Frost starred again with Pegg in the hugely successful
comedy hit Hot Fuzz, and was recently cast alongside Pegg in the upcoming
Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson Tintin project. Frost and Pegg will follow Tintin
with Paul, which they wrote and which Greg Mottola (Superbad) will direct.
Frost’s other film credits include Kinky Boots, Penelope and most recently, Wild
Child.
      He has appeared in the Channel 4 sitcom Black Books, with Dylan Moran
and Bill Bailey; hosted the Channel 5 series Danger! 50,000 Volts! and Danger!
Incoming Attack!; was the lead role in Hyperdrive, a sci-fi comedy series for
BBC2, which is now into its second season; and starred in two seasons of Man
Stroke Woman.
      A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, KENNETH BRANAGH
(Dormandy) made his West End acting debut in Another Country, for which he
won the Society of West End Theatres Award for Most Promising Newcomer.
Numerous stage appearances followed, including the Royal Shakespeare
Company’s Henry V, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Hamlet.
       In 1985, he founded the Renaissance Theatre Company. Productions
which Branagh either wrote, starred in or directed include Public Enemy, Twelfth
Night, The Life of Napoleon, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Hamlet,
Look Back in Anger, Uncle Vanya, King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and
Coriolanus.
The Boat That Rocked                                                      16


       Branagh directed the hit stage comedy The Play What I Wrote, which
transferred from London’s West End to Broadway, where it received a Tony
nomination. He returned to the stage in Richard III at the Crucible Theatre in
Sheffield to great acclaim, and to the London stage with David Mamet’s Edmond
at the National Theatre.
      His first venture into film met instant success. His 1989 production of
Henry V won a score of international awards and received Academy Award
nominations for Best Actor and Best Director.
       Branagh was subsequently invited to Hollywood to direct and star in Dead
Again, which was a huge international hit. He next directed the ensemble film
Peter’s Friends, which won the Evening Standard British Film Awards’ Peter
Sellers Award for Comedy. His second Shakespearean film success was Much
Ado About Nothing and, in the same year, his short film of the Chekhov play
Swan Song received an Academy Award nomination.
       He went on to direct Robert De Niro in the financially successful Mary
Shelley’s Frankenstein. His black and white film In the Bleak Midwinter (A
Midwinter’s Tale) opened the 1996 Sundance Film Festival and won the
prestigious Osella d’Oro at the Venice International Film Festival. His critically
acclaimed full-length version of Hamlet, in 70mm, received four Academy Award
nominations. Branagh’s fourth Shakespeare film adaptation was a 1930’s
musical version of Love’s Labour’s Lost.
      More recently, Branagh directed HBO Films’ As You Like It, a film of
Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, and Sleuth, written by Harold Pinter and starring
Jude Law and Michael Caine.
       Branagh’s other film work includes acting roles in Pat O’Connor’s A Month
in the Country; Oliver Parker’s Othello; Robert Altman’s The Gingerbread Man;
Woody Allen’s Celebrity; Danny Boyle’s Alien Love Triangle; Paul Greengrass’
The Theory of Flight; Barry Sonnenfeld’s Wild Wild West; Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit-
Proof Fence; and the second Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of
Secrets. Branagh starred as Gilderoy Lockhart, Professor of Defense Against the
Dark Arts, with a richly comic performance.
      Branagh appeared in three outstanding television dramas: Shackleton for
Channel 4 Television Corporation and A&E; Conspiracy, for which he won an
Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie and received a
Golden Globe Award nomination; and Warm Springs, in which he played Franklin
D Roosevelt and was nominated for an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a SAG
Award.
         In 2008, he returned to London’s West End to five-star reviews in the title
role in Chekhov’s Ivanov. He also stars in a major new BBC crime series,
Wallander, as Detective Kurt Wallander, from Henning Mankell’s best-selling
thrillers. This year, he will direct a film of the comic hero Thor for Marvel
Enterprises and Paramount Pictures.
       TOM STURRIDGE’s (Carl) film credits include Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair,
The Boat That Rocked                                                     17


opposite Reese Witherspoon and Jonathan Rhys Meyers; István Szabó’s Being
Julia, opposite Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon; Keith Fulton
and Louis Pepe’s Brothers of the Head; and Gregory J Read’s psychological
thriller Like Minds, alongside Toni Collette. He recently finished filming James
Keach’s Waiting for Forever, leading a cast that includes Rachel Bilson, Richard
Jenkins and Blythe Danner.
     On television, Sturridge appeared in William Boyd’s A Waste of Shame:
The Mystery of Shakespeare and His Sonnets.
      CHRIS O’DOWD (Simon) trained at London Academy of Music &
Dramatic Art. He is perhaps best known for his role in the Channel 4 Television
comedy series The IT Crowd, directed by Graham Lineham, which is in its
second season on British television.
      In 2005, O’Dowd received the Best Actor in a Scottish Film Award from
the Scottish BAFTA Awards, for his performance as the stand-up comedian
Tommy O’Dwyer in Festival. His other film credits include John Deery’s
Conspiracy of Silence; Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake; Sonja Heiss’ Hotel Very
Welcome; Gareth Carrivick’s Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel;
and, most recently, O’Dowd completed filming Beeban Kidron’s Hippie Hippie
Shake, starring opposite Cillian Murphy and Sienna Miller.
        O’Dowd’s television credits includes Gareth Carrivick’s Roman’s Empire,
Ben Bolt’s Doc Martin, Justin Chadwick’s Red Cap and the award-winning docu-
drama The Year London Blew Up: 1974. He is also well known on Irish
television, having starred in the popular RTÉ drama The Clinic and the drama
Showbands II, alongside Kerry Katona.
       RHYS DARBY (Angus) is the genre-breaking, boundary-leaping comic
genius from New Zealand. By combining stand-up story telling with physical
theatre, Darby has developed a truly unique style of comedy performance.
      He has enjoyed success as one of the most sought after live acts in the
country. More than simply a stand-up, Darby is also a prolific comedy playwright.
He has written and performed in six plays since 2000, four of which were solo
productions in which he took on all the roles.
        In 2002, he performed his first solo show in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
and the following year, he moved to London to set himself up on the British
comedy scene. He quickly became a cult figure on the circuit and a much talked
about act amongst the critics and other comics alike. He was soon signed up for
work at the prestigious clubs including The Comedy Store and Jongleurs, and
because his material had such a universal appeal, he has been scooped up and
requested for performances in many other countries including Germany, France,
Italy, Holland, Iceland, The Falklands and, more recently, the Middle East, to
name a few.
      Darby can be heard playing the character of Brian Nesbitt in the cult BBC
Radio 2 series The Flight of the Conchords. Darby can also be seen on the new
CBBC flagship children’s show Mighty Truck of Stuff on Saturday mornings.
The Boat That Rocked                                                      18


       Recently, Darby moved to New York to star in the new HBO sitcom The
Flight of the Conchords, playing the role of Murray Hewitt, the Conchords’
manager in the 12-part series. Also in the works is the sitcom Based on Actual
Events, which is being developed for a New Zealand audience. Darby is also
working on a new live show, based on his ranger character Bill Napier.
       KATHERINE PARKINSON (Felicity) studied classics at Oxford University
before training at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art.
       She is best known to British audiences for playing Jen in the Channel 4
Television comedy The IT Crowd (opposite Chris O’Dowd), and for her portrayal
of Pauline in ITV’s Doc Martin. Other television credits include guest roles in
Ahead of the Class (starring Julie Walters), Christmas at the Riviera and regular
sketch character contributions to Katy Brand’s Big Ass Show for ITV2, having
been friends with Brand since Oxford.
      Stage credits include Masha in The Seagull at the Royal Court Theatre,
opposite Kristin Scott Thomas; The Lightning Play at the Almeida Theatre; Other
Hands at the Soho Theatre; The Unthinkable at the Sheffield Crucible Theatre;
Cigarettes and Chocolate at the Kings Head Theatre; Flush at the Soho Theatre;
The Riot Act and The Increased Difficulty of Concentration at the Gate Theatre;
and The Age of Consent at the Edinburgh International Festival and Bush
Theatre, to name a few.
        Before filming The Boat that Rocked, she filmed a lead role (opposite
Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, Jessica Biel and Ben Barnes) in a remake of
Noel Coward’s Easy Virtue, directed by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) and due for release in 2009.
       TALULAH RILEY (Marianne) is one of the most diverse young actresses
to come out of Great Britain in recent years. Her roles in St Trinian’s and Pride &
Prejudice could not be more different, yet Riley has the ability to truly transform
herself in each performance, gaining her a growing reputation as a bright young
star.
       Riley played the part of Annabelle Fritton, alongside Rupert Everett, Colin
Firth, Stephen Fry, Gemma Arterton and Mischa Barton, in the remake of the
classic Ealing Studios film St Trinian’s. The film tells the tale of a school for
young ladies filled with a spirited group of girls who band together to save their
school from bankruptcy.
      Riley has also starred as Lila, an awkward teenager with a mentally ill
mother, in the television drama Nearly Famous, a show about a group of
performing arts students.
      In 2006, Riley made a name for herself starring as Mary Bennet in Joe
Wright’s Pride & Prejudice. The film was nominated for four Oscars and six
BAFTA Awards, boasting an all-star cast including Keira Knightley, Donald
Sutherland and Matthew Macfadyen.
      The year 2005 saw Riley’s stage debut in The Philadelphia Story at The
Old Vic, quickly followed by her performance in Tennessee Williams’ Summer
The Boat That Rocked                                                       19


and Smoke at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in London. She has
also appeared in two television dramas: Agatha Christie: Poirot, alongside David
Suchet, and the television movie Marple: The Moving Finger.


       ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
        RICHARD CURTIS (Directed by/Written by/Executive Producer) was born
in New Zealand in 1956 and raised in the Philippines, Sweden and the UK. He
has now lived in London, off and on, for more than 20 years. He began writing
comedy after leaving Oxford University in 1978. While at Oxford, Curtis worked
with Rowan Atkinson, and continues to do so. His first job on television was
writing for BBC’s four seasons of Not the Nine O’Clock News. He then went on to
write the Blackadder series, a situation comedy set in four different eras of British
history, always starring Rowan Atkinson in a different amusing haircut. The last
three seasons were co-written with Ben Elton.
       During these years, Curtis, Atkinson and Elton staged two comedy revues
in London’s West End and Curtis wrote his first film, The Tall Guy, directed by
Mel Smith and starring Jeff Goldblum, Emma Thompson (in her film debut) and
Rowan Atkinson as a cruel, heartless comedian starring in a West End show.
The film was not autobiographical and was produced by Working Title, the
production company with whom Curtis has always worked since.
       Back on television, Curtis and Atkinson then began work on Mr Bean, and
continued for some years to make intermittent programs starring the man in the
tie who says very little. In 1991, Curtis wrote Bernard and the Genie, a
wholesome Christmas fantasy starring Lenny Henry and Alan Cumming. In
December 1993, Curtis was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Writers Guild of Great Britain.
        His second film, Four Weddings and a Funeral, starring Hugh Grant and
Andie MacDowell, was directed by Mike Newell, produced by Duncan Kenworthy
and released in March 1994. The film won a French César, an Australian Film
Institute Award for Best Foreign Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Film. At the
Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best
Film.
        In 1994, Curtis was made a MBE and started writing The Vicar of Dibley, a
situation comedy for the BBC, starring Dawn French as a female vicar in a small
village suspiciously full of eccentric characters. The movie Bean, co-written with
Robin Driscoll, directed by Mel Smith and starring Rowan Atkinson, opened in
Britain at the end of August 1997.
      His next film, Notting Hill, starred Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant and was
released in May 1999 - and for a while, was the highest earning British film ever.
      In 2001, Curtis was co-writer of the award-winning screenplay Bridget
Jones’s Diary, starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.
       In 2003, he wrote and directed Love Actually, a story about lots of different
The Boat That Rocked                                                   20


kinds of love, set at Christmas and featuring 22 leading characters. He was also
co-writer of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
      In 2005, he wrote The Girl in the Café, a television drama based around
the G8 summit, which received three Emmy Awards in 2006.
        Curtis is co-founder and vice chairman of Comic Relief, the organization
that runs Red Nose Day and Sport Relief in Britain. He began the charity after a
trip to Ethiopia during the famine of 1985. He has co-produced the 10 live nights
of Comic Relief for the BBC since 1987. Comic Relief has made approximately
500 million pounds for charity projects in Africa and the UK.
       Curtis was a founding member of the Make Poverty History coalition and
throughout 2004 and 2005 worked on the campaign and Live 8, which
concentrated on trade justice, more and better aid and debt cancellation for the
world’s poorest countries.
       In April 2007, Curtis was executive producer of Idol Gives Back for the
FOX show American Idol. The shows raised more than $75 million for projects
helping the poorest children and young people in the US.A. and Africa. Idol
Gives Back received the Governor’s Emmy Award in 2007.
        In 2000, he was made a CBE and was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship in
2007.
      Working Title Films, co-chaired by TIM BEVAN and ERIC FELLNER
(Produced by) since 1992, is one of the world’s leading film production
companies.
       DEBRA HAYWARD (Executive Producer) serves as head of film and is
creatively responsible for the company’s slate of motion pictures, in conjunction
with her US counterpart, LIZA CHASIN (Executive Producer).
       Founded in 1983, Working Title has made more than 90 films that have
grossed more than $4.5 billion worldwide. Its films have won six Academy
Awards and 26 BAFTA Awards. Bevan and Fellner have received the Michael
Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema at the Orange
British Academy Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) and both have been
honoured with CBEs (commanders of the Order of the British Empire).
        Working Title’s extensive and diverse list of credits include:
      Seven films with Joel and Ethan Coen: Burn After Reading; Fargo; The
Hudsucker Proxy; The Big Lebowski; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; The Man Who
Wasn’t There; and, currently in postproduction, A Serious Man.
      In collaboration with writer Richard Curtis: Mr Bean, Bridget Jones’s Diary,
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill
and Love Actually (which Curtis also directed).
        Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, directed by Joe Wright.
        United 93 and The Green Zone, directed by Paul Greengrass.
The Boat That Rocked                                                  21


      Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, directed by Edgar Wright.
      About a Boy, directed by Paul Weitz.
      The Interpreter, directed by Sydney Pollack.
      Dead Man Walking, directed by Tim Robbins.
      Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, directed by Shekhar Kapur.
      Frost/Nixon, directed by Ron Howard.
     Nanny McPhee, directed by Kirk Jones, with Nanny McPhee II, directed by
Susanna White, shortly to go into production.
       Billy Elliot, directed by Stephen Daldry. The success of the film has
continued on the London, Sydney and Broadway stages with a stage-musical
version directed by Daldry - with songs composed by Sir Elton John.
       Currently in postproduction are Beeban Kidron’s Hippie Hippie Shake,
starring Cillian Murphy, Sienna Miller, Emma Booth and Max Minghella; Kevin
Macdonald’s State of Play, starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Robin Wright
Penn and Helen Mirren; Joe Wright’s The Soloist, starring Jamie Foxx, Robert
Downey Jr, and Catherine Keener; and Paul Greengrass’ The Green Zone,
starring Matt Damon.
        HILARY BEVAN JONES’ (Produced by) credits as a producer include the
television dramas Red Dwarf, Cracker, Far From the Madding Crowd, Butterfly
Collectors, The Secret World of Michael Fry and the multi-award-winning
conspiracy thriller State of Play.
       In 2004, along with writer and long-time collaborator Paul Abbott, she
started the production company Tightrope Pictures. In that year, Women in Film
and Television honored her with the Contribution to the Medium Award.
       For Tightrope Pictures, she has produced the dramas All in the Game and
Dad and was executive producer of To the Ends of the Earth, The Innocence
Project and, most recently, the ITV drama Instinct.
       As part of the Make Poverty History campaign, she produced the The Girl
in the Café for HBO and the BBC. Scripted by Richard Curtis and starring Bill
Nighy and Kelly Macdonald, the film won a number of awards, including two
prime-time Emmy Awards: one for Macdonald as Outstanding Supporting
Actress in a Miniseries or Movie and one for Outstanding Made for Television
Movie. It also went on to receive a Humanitas Prize in recognition of its
humanitarian message.
       In 2006, she was made chairperson of the British Academy of Film and
Television Arts, the first woman ever to hold this position.
      DANNY COHEN’s (Director of Photography) long list of credits includes
photographing the feature films Dead Babies, Only Human, Creep, Festival, The
Last Hangman and Shane Meadows’ features Dead Man’s Shoes and This Is
England.
The Boat That Rocked                                                      22


       His other credits include Warp Films’ first production, My Wrongs
8245-8249 and 117, which won the Kodak Award for Best Cinematography as
well as the BAFTA Award for Best Short Film in 2003.
      Cohen has shot music videos for such bands as Blur, Mull Historical
Society, New Order and, in another collaboration with Warp Films, for Arctic
Monkeys. His work for television includes the series Nathan Barley, The Book
Group, Murder in Suburbia and the dramas Longford and London.
       MARK TILDESLEY (Production Designer) co-founded the Catch 22
Theatre Company and directed, designed and performed in its productions. He
continued designing for the theatre, working on numerous productions for the
New Vic Theatre (under the direction of Michael Bogdanov) and at the Royal
Opera House.
       His feature film credits as production designer encompass notable
collaborations with several directors. His most recent is working with Mike Leigh
on Happy-Go-Lucky. He won a British Independent Film Award (BIFA) for
Sunshine, his third film with Danny Boyle, following 28 Days Later... and Millions.
His films for Michael Winterbottom include I Want You, With or Without You,
Wonderland, The Claim, 24 Hour Party People and Code 46. The latter two films
earned Tildesley British Independent Film Award (BIFA) nominations.
      His other films as production designer include Fernando Meirelles’ The
Constant Gardener, Roger Michell’s The Mother and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s
28 Weeks Later.
      EMMA E HICKOX ACE (Editor) has accumulated a body of work across a
range of feature films, from A Walk to Remember, directed by Adam Shankman
in 2002, to Blue Crush, for Universal Pictures.
       Other credits include working with John Maybury on The Jacket and,
recently, on The Edge of Love, and with Julian Jarrold on Kinky Boots and
Becoming Jane.
       JOANNA JOHNSTON (Costume Designer) most recently finished
designing the United Artists thriller Valkyrie, directed by Bryan Singer and
starring Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh, and Mark Waters’ The
Spiderwick Chronicles.
       Johnston earned a Costume Designers Guild Award nomination for her
work on the Universal Pictures comedy-drama About a Boy. She has
collaborated on several films with Steven Spielberg, including Munich, War of the
Worlds, Saving Private Ryan and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Johnston
also worked with director Robert Zemeckis on The Polar Express, Cast Away,
Contact, Forrest Gump, Death Becomes Her, Back to the Future Part II and Back
to the Future Part III.
        Johnston started her career designing the costumes for Who Framed
Roger Rabbit. Her creations for the film included Jessica Rabbit’s trademark
form-fitting evening gown. Johnston’s other film credits include Ron Howard’s
romantic epic Far and Away, Lawrence Kasdan’s French Kiss, M Night
The Boat That Rocked                                          23


Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, and Richard Curtis’ Love
Actually.

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The boat that rocked production notes

  • 1. “It’s 10:00 at night. The dull dudes on the planet are sitting in their slippers and sipping their sherries. But the people who love to rock and to roll are ready to ride the rocking roller coaster once more. You are listening to Radio Rock, and I am The Count, and I’m counting you in as we count down to ecstasy and rock ALL THE DAY & ALL OF THE NIGHT.” - The Count In the mid-90s, he penned a brilliantly comic story about touchstone moments in the lives of friends. In 1999, he took us to a travel bookshop where young lovers became star-crossed. Two years later, he helped adapt a best- selling tale of a young woman’s addiction to romance and cigarettes, and in 2003, he wrote and directed a film that explored loves as layered as they were lifelong. And they were all blockbusters. Now, celebrated filmmaker RICHARD CURTIS (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Love Actually) brings audiences his most personal comedy to date. Writing and directing the story of a band of rogue deejays who captivated British radio listeners in the 60s, playing the music that defined a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, preferred jazz, Curtis welcomes us aboard The Boat That Rocked. Leading the cast of the new film from the Emmy, BAFTA and WGA award- winning writer/director are Academy Award winner PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN (Capote, Doubt) as Radio Rock’s infamous deejay The Count; BILL NIGHY (Love Actually, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End) as the station’s owner (and ship’s captain), Quentin; RHYS IFANS (Notting Hill, Elizabeth: The Golden Age) as mystic deejay royalty Gavin; NICK FROST (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) as the amorous, sarcastic disc jockey Dave; and KENNETH
  • 2. The Boat That Rocked 2 BRANAGH (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Hamlet) as the man out to shut down Radio Rock, Minister Dormandy. Supporting the leads of The Boat That Rocked is a talented cast that includes TOM STURRIDGE (Vanity Fair), JACK DAVENPORT (Pirates of the Caribbean series), CHRIS O’DOWD (How to Lose Friends & Alienate People), RALPH BROWN (Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace), RHYS DARBY (television’s Flight of the Conchords), WILL ADAMSDALE (television’s Rosemary & Thyme), TOM BROOKE (Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), TOM WISDOM (300), KATHERINE PARKINSON (television’s The IT Crowd), IKE HAMILTON (television’s Primeval), JANUARY JONES (television’s Mad Men) and TALULAH RILEY (Pride & Prejudice). Reteaming with Curtis for their latest film are Working Title producers TIM BEVAN and ERIC FELLNER (Love Actually, Bridget Jones series), joined by HILARY BEVAN JONES (television’s State of Play, The Girl in the Café). The behind-the-scenes crew includes director of photography DANNY COHEN (The Last Hangman, This Is England), production designer MARK TILDESLEY (28 Days Later..., Happy-Go-Lucky), editor EMMA HICKOX (Kinky Boots, A Walk to Remember), costume designer JOANNA JOHNSTON (The Spiderwick Chronicles, War of the Worlds) and Oscar-winning make-up and hair designer CHRISTINE BLUNDELL (Topsy-Turvey, Eastern Promises). Working Title’s DEBRA HAYWARD and LIZA CHASIN serve as executive producers on the project. EMMA FREUD works as associate producer, while RONALDO VASCONSELLOS joins as co-producer.
  • 3. The Boat That Rocked 3 SYNOPSIS “The thing that makes sense of this crazy world is rock and roll. And I was crazy to think I could ever leave it.” - Gavin In 1966 - British pop music’s finest era - the BBC played just two hours of rock and roll every week. But pirate radio played rock and pop from the high seas 24 hours a day. And 25 million people - more than half the population of Britain - listened to the pirates every single day. Recently expelled from school, Carl (Tom Sturridge) has been sent by his mother to find some direction in life by visiting his godfather, Quentin (Bill Nighy). However, Quentin is the boss of Radio Rock, a pirate radio station in the middle of the North Sea, populated by an eclectic crew of rock-and-roll deejays. They are led by The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman) - big, brash, American god of the airwaves and totally in love with the music. He’s faithfully backed up by his co-broadcasters Dave (Nick Frost) - ironic, intelligent and cruelly funny; Simon (Chris O’Dowd) - super-nice and searching for true love; Midnight Mark (Tom Wisdom) - enigmatic, handsome and a man of few words; Wee Small Hours Bob (Ralph Brown) - the late-night deejay, whose hobbies are folk music and drugs; Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke) - possessor of the smallest intelligence known to mankind; On-the-Hour John (Will Adamsdale) - the newsreader; and Angus “The Nut” Nutsford (Rhys Darby) - possibly the most annoying man in Britain. Life on the North Sea is eventful. Simon finds the woman of his dreams, Elenore (January Jones), and is married on the boat...only to be left by his bride the next day. Gavin (Rhys Ifans) returns from his drug tour of America to his rightful position as greatest deejay in Britain and, in doing so, clashes with The Count. And Carl discovers the opposite sex and who his real father is. Meanwhile, pirate stations have come to the attention of government minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh), who is out for the blood of these lawbreakers. In an era when the stuffy corridors of power stifle anything approaching youthful exuberance, Dormandy seizes the chance to score a political goal, and The Marine Broadcasting Offences Act is passed in an effort to outlaw the pirates and to remove their ghastly influence from the land once and for all. What results is a literal storm on the high seas. With Radio Rock in peril, its devoted fans rally together and stage an epic Dunkirk-style hundred-boat rescue to save their deejay heroes. Some things may come to an end, but rock and roll never dies.
  • 4. The Boat That Rocked 4 ABOUT THE PRODUCTION Rocking the Boat: The Film Is Conceived “Here’s the simple situation: Already the authorities dislike us. If you do this, they will hate us and - by hook or by crook - they will find a way to close us down.” - Quentin After the worldwide success of his directorial debut, Love Actually, Richard Curtis began to consider ideas for his next film. As he imagined new stories, Curtis reflected on memories from his childhood of late nights listening to rogue rock-and-roll deejays who broadcast from ships and marine structures anchored just outside UK. territorial waters in the late 1960s. These radio stations introduced enormous and enthusiastic audiences to landmark acts such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Kinks, as well as legendary solo artists including Jimmy Hendrix, Dusty Springfield, Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin. The piracy was much to the chagrin of the government, which did its very best to suppress illegal transmissions coming from the waters to the homes of millions of Brits who loved everything they heard. Curtis’ passion for music from that era was evident throughout Love Actually - from songs by Joni Mitchell and Darlene Love to tunes written by Paul Anka and Lennon/McCartney. It seemed only fitting his next movie would fully embrace his love of music from the late 60s. He would set his tale on a pirate radio ship and ensure his favourite songs made up the soundtrack. “Every person in my generation has the same memory,” recalls Curtis. “You would go to bed at night and put your transistor radio underneath your pillow, switch it on and hear this fantastic music you could not hear elsewhere. And your parents would shout from downstairs, ‘Go to bed! Turn off the light; go to sleep!’ It was one of the things that made me love pop music most, that slight sense of it being illicit and illegal.” Duly inspired by Robert Altman’s cult classic M*A*S*H and John Landis’ landmark Animal House, Curtis aimed to capture the essence of those comedies in his new project. M*A*S*H, with its informality and loose structure, and Animal House, with its maniacal and irreverent jokes, shared the male bonding and comedic situations Curtis guessed occurred on the offshore boats. He explains: “I started to write down a few scenes of things that could go wrong on a boat with a lot of guys on it. You immediately start to think: What is the relationship of the guys with girls? Do girls come over once a fortnight to have sex with the guys? What happens if someone wants a girlfriend? How do you get a girlfriend?” Armed with many questions, sense memories and loads of time at the computer, Curtis crafted The Boat That Rocked as a coming-of-age tale that centers upon Carl, an 18-year-old who has been expelled from school and sent to live with his godfather, Quentin, on a lawless boat in the North Sea. The virgin is looking for answers to life’s questions, and his free-spirited mother feels he’ll
  • 5. The Boat That Rocked 5 find many of them on the vessel. His journey would take him to, as Curtis puts it, “ramshackle boats in the middle of the sea, with disc jockeys with massive egos - living and breathing and doing their shows 24 hours a day.” Screenplay in hand, Curtis took the project to long-time collaborators, Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. “The music, the period, the story and everything about the project was of huge interest to us,” recalls Fellner. “Tim and I, and all of us at Working Title, have been very lucky to have an ongoing relationship with Richard going back about 15 years. It’s always exciting making a film with him. He is a wonderfully charismatic, creative individual.” Producer Hilary Bevan Jones had previously worked with Curtis on the award-winning television drama The Girl in the Café, starring Bill Nighy and Kelly Macdonald, and was a natural choice to join the team of The Boat That Rocked. “I read the script and fell in love with it immediately,” recalls Bevan Jones. “There were lots of ingredients that made it irresistible. It was funny, touching, and the music was fantastic. Richard’s films have such a huge heart. You can’t but feel warmth when you watch his work.” With the film greenlit, Working Title would now search for a cast and crew to restore the world of 60s rock and roll to its glory days. They would look to a stable of long-time company players and a recent Oscar winner to join the production. Casting the Comedy “The drug takers and lawbreakers and bottom-bashing fornicators of our once great country. Well, here’s your little task, Twatt. I want Rock off the air in 12 months, and I want you to be my private assassin.” - Minister Dormandy With dual duties as writer and director, Curtis would find taking The Boat That Rocked from page to screen quite a challenge. While he had the luxury of continuously editing his script to make flush with his actors’ skills, he admits it was as intricate for the director as it was for the writer. “The casting process is where you discover what you have written and what kind of film you are going to make,” Curtis says. “When casting, I look for a particular texture, an informality and willingness of an actor to stretch something to its comic limits - without it becoming unreal. For instance, in a search for the person to play Carl, we saw 60 people. Tom Sturridge was the only one who had that slightly casual manner that I was looking for.” The 23-year-old Londoner found his experience filming the comedy similar to his character’s journey aboard Radio Rock. “When Carl arrives on the boat, he is in awe of the deejays,” offers Sturridge. “I arrived on set to work with people like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans and Nick Frost, and I felt the same awe, excitement, fear and pleasure from being in their company as Carl does in the company of their characters.” When casting The Count, a brash deejay whose enormous knowledge of
  • 6. The Boat That Rocked 6 rock is only dwarfed by his smugness, the production team was looking for an American. “The most famous disc jockey of this era was an American guy called Emperor Rosko,” says Curtis. “So it was an exciting treat that we cast an American for the part. We were more than lucky to get the best actor in the world to play The Count.” As he read the script, Hoffman was impressed by how committed Curtis was at allowing The Count to embody the era’s spirit of rebellion. He found his character to be “one of those guys whose home is where he can do what he wants, which is to be a DJ. He could be anywhere.” Hoffman saw The Count as a man who allowed millions of Brits to hear the same songs that spoke to him. “He is this conduit of music for people to listen to,” he continues, “and he believes that rock and roll is the medicine.” “Philip is arguably the greatest actor currently working on the planet,” says co-star Bill Nighy. “He was adorable to work with and made us all feel comfortable. He is one of those actors who flicks a switch and metamorphosises into his character.” Nighy, who had previously worked with Curtis on Love Actually and The Girl in the Café, was cast as Quentin, the laissez-faire captain of the pirate ship Radio Rock. The actor agreed to take the role before he read the script. He notes, “I admire Richard tremendously, and I adore his writing, so I knew it was going to be OK. I was not mistaken; the script was cracking.” Of his director, he adds, “Richard can do that rare thing, which is making hundreds and thousands of people all laugh at the same time in the dark of a movie theatre.” Curtis admits that when he wrote the script, he hoped Nighy would be available to play Quentin. “In every film, there are a couple of people who I have in mind, and Bill is one of them,” he says. “On the whole, it’s surprising how separate you can keep the casting from the writing process...and then how much fun it is realising you’ve written the part for someone you already love.” To play the part of Gavin, the deejay who returns to Radio Rock to reclaim his rightful throne as the top jock of the European airways, the Working Title team cast another favorite player, Rhys Ifans. Ifans had worked with the filmmakers when he played Spike, Hugh Grant’s character’s scene-stealing flatmate, in Notting Hill. “We needed somebody to play Gavin, who would rival whoever was playing The Count,” says Bevan Jones. “Rhys was perfect for the role. His magnetism comes out in spades.” “It was brave of Richard to cast me in such a completely different role to Spike,” offers Ifans. “He really handed me something very special. Richard’s loving character shines through in this film. He genuinely comes from a place of love - and that’s what the film is about.” To play the charismatic deejay Dave, the casting team selected comic actor Nick Frost, best known for his comic turns in director Edgar Wright’s buddy- cop thriller Hot Fuzz and rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead. “When you get a phone call saying Richard Curtis wants to offer you a part in his new film, you
  • 7. The Boat That Rocked 7 would be mad to turn it down,” laughs Frost. “I don’t think there is anyone around today that can do what he does. He makes films that are great yarns about friendship...without a hint of cynicism.” For the additional deejays who kept Radio Rock blasting 24/7, a talented group of actors was cast. Chris O’Dowd, best known for his role in Channel 4’s comedy The IT Crowd, took the role of Simon, the unbelievably nice (and naïve) breakfast deejay. Character actor Ralph Brown, known for such diverse roles as Danny the drug dealer in Withnail & I and ill-fated inmate Aaron in Alien3, was cast as Wee Small Hours Bob, “The Dawn Treader.” New Zealand comedian Rhys Darby, known for his part as the band manager in the cult comedy television series Flight of the Conchords, was cast as Angus “The Nut” Nutsford. Tom Wisdom of 300 fame was selected to play the man who can seduce anyone with barely a word, Midnight Mark, while Will Adamsdale was brought on to play John, the “on-the-hour newsreader.” Rounding out key crew and guests aboard Radio Rock were Katherine Parkinson - also known for appearing in Channel 4’s comedy The IT Crowd - cast as the boat’s lovelorn lesbian cook, Felicity. Tom Brooke and Ike Hamilton, respectively, play the aptly named Thick Kevin and shy-but-soulful sound engineer Harold. American actress January Jones, lauded for her work in AMC’s Mad Men, was tasked to play the love of Simon’s life, Elenore. Pride & Prejudice’s Talulah Riley came on as Quentin’s coquettish niece (and the object of Carl’s affection), Marianne. Curtis’ story not only introduces audiences to the colourful characters of Radio Rock, but also the government zealots who were out to shut them down. Quentin’s landside counterpart is Sir Alexander Dormandy, the cabinet official whose objective in life is to destroy pirate radio stations and ban them from polluting the airwaves. For the part of the smug Dormandy, a character AP Emma Freud dubs a “three-dimensional, smiling villain,” the filmmakers turned to celebrated actor Kenneth Branagh. “We were lucky enough to get Kenneth for our Minister,” says producer Bevan Jones. “He is incredible and so funny in the part. I defy anyone to say the word ‘sewer’ the way he does.” Over the years, Branagh and Curtis had crossed paths on numerous occasions, but the two had never worked with one another. “I remember Emma and Richard coming to see Much Ado About Nothing and Peter’s Friends and they were both immensely encouraging, so it’s a joy to finally be doing something together,” says Branagh. Branagh was impressed with both the ensemble comedy and strong narrative he found in Curtis’ script. He continues, “The forces of darkness feature strongly in the story, and there is a lot of subtle, nonintrusive social observation about a crucial moment of change in our society during that period. Richard has a way of looking at it comically and entertainingly through the impact of pirate radio. He has caught the spirit of a really delicious comic anarchy in this picture and, to me, that simply jumped off the page.”
  • 8. The Boat That Rocked 8 Just as Quentin comes to develop a paternal relationship with Carl, Dormandy has his own mentee. To complete the cast, Jack Davenport, best known for his role as Norrington in another maritime adventure, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, was cast as Dormandy’s well-meaning sidekick, Twatt. Sinead Matthews, last seen in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, was selected as Dormandy’s long-suffering secretary, Miss C. Cast set, the production began to imagine life on a questionably seaworthy ship in the frigid waters of the North Sea and to choose the songs that would help the cast and crew rock as they worked. All Those Waves: Shooting on Water “My aim is not to offend. It is to entertain and also, perhaps, to educate a little. Because if you shoot a bullet, someone dies. When you drop a bomb, many die. If you hit a woman, love dies. But - and this is my profound and political point - if you say the ‘f’ word, nothing actually happens.” - The Count As he transitioned from one role to another, Curtis considered the enormity of the task in front of him. He notes, “When you write, you worry about making the film. It was a fantastic moment when we finished the script to think, ‘Oh my God. Now if this is the film we’re going to make, we’ve actually got to find a great, big hulking boat, all the actors have to learn how to be disc jockeys...and something quite exciting happens at the end of the film. “That’s where you get an amusing disconnect between writer and director,” he continues. “The writer writes what he likes, and then the poor director takes receipt of it. But it was an extraordinarily fun film to make because we did have to get a real boat and go out on that boat and film in real weather. We put a village onto it - 140 people: make-up, catering, costume, actors and crew - and sailed out from a harbour every day for five weeks. No matter what the weather, we shot whatever we could on this rusty old boat rented from Scotland.” To prepare the actors for life on Radio Rock, Curtis sent much of the cast to a “boat camp,” which involved living and rehearsing on the boat on which they would be filming. Cast and crew slept in small cabins on the boat and rehearsed throughout the day. In the evening they would eat, drink and play darts or table football. “It really worked as a bonding exercise,” notes Rhys Ifans. “We discovered very early on we had quite a special cast, and we got very close.” To ready the team for the type of movie they would be making, Curtis screened Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H during rehearsals. “That film has stayed in my mind all the way through shooting,” says deejay Bob, aka Ralph Brown. “There’s a feeling of community between the characters in M*A*S*H similar to what we were trying to achieve - an added texture of overheard conversations and moments of interaction. There’s a sense that the camera is watching something happening in front of it, rather than it being staged. That’s very much what Richard wanted to do with this film.”
  • 9. The Boat That Rocked 9 To assist the actors in their transition into credible disc jockeys, Emma Freud and deejay technical advisor JOHN REVELL worked with the cast in a mock radio studio in London. They met with ex-pirate radio deejay Johnny Walker, as well as deejay Chris Evans, in a working studio to study various styles of broadcasting. By the end of their training, the actors had to record an hour- long show that was to be used in the film. “This was brilliant,” remembers Curtis. “Not only because we ended up filming the hour of their show, but also because it made them understand the relationship between who they were as a public person and who they were in private. If they had not practiced their show, they would not realize how powerful you feel when you are a disc jockey broadcasting entirely on your own to 25 million people for two hours a day.” “It’s hard learning how to deejay,” adds Freud, who regularly works on the radio. “You have to find a voice that is true and honest, but also interesting and funny and worth listening to. It made it doubly hard for the actors because they weren’t deejaying as themselves, but as their characters in the film. So we taught them the technical side first, queuing up records and working the cart machines. Then during the rehearsals, they found their voice.” Because of scheduling commitments, Philip Seymour Hoffman started on the production several weeks after the shoot began. This didn’t allow him the luxury of long rehearsals and radio training the other cast enjoyed. “He arrived on set and had one hour in which to learn how to be a deejay,” recalls Freud. “He was so wonderful at the mic that he looked like he had been doing it all his life. We worked out that his character would stand up during a show, and he held the mic in such a gorgeous way when he broadcasted. It set his character apart from the other deejay’s styles.” Principal photography began on March 3, 2008, and The Boat That Rocked filmed for a total of 14 weeks. Five of those weeks took place in Portland Harbour, Dorset, shooting on a boat called the Timor Challenger. Of the search to find the Timor Challengers, production designer Mark Tildesley recalls: “It was quite difficult to find a suitable boat to film on. We were looking for a craft that was seaworthy, one that could accommodate a certain number of crew and had the right look for the period. A lot of the boats we liked didn’t have working engines.” The search ended in Scotland when the filmmakers found the Timor, which began life as a deep-sea fishing trawler, then became a hospital boat and was finally adapted to serve as a rescue boat for the oil rigs. To make the Timor look as if it was a functioning pirate radio station ship, two huge aerial masts were erected on the deck. “Having masts did cause a few problems,” admits Tildesley. “We could only film in calm conditions, because if it was really rough, we could not leave the harbour.” Luckily, during the five-week shoot the weather was kind, and only three days were disrupted by bad weather. Two sets were built in a warehouse
  • 10. The Boat That Rocked 10 next door to the dock, and during these three inclement days, filming continued on shore. “There is a saying in the film industry: ‘Don’t work with children, animals or on water,’” laughs Bevan Jones. “When there is water around you, it can essentially be a disruptive character. It would take us 45 minutes to get out to sea - and even longer to return to harbour - so our days were really long. The current and the wind would constantly move the boat, and we had to have tugboats keeping the Timor Challenger in position...so that the land did not get in shot.” The choppy waters weren’t only a distraction to the plans mapped out by Curtis and cinematographer Danny Cohen. Bevan Jones explains that a queasiness factor inserted itself into every step of the production: “We also had to make sure cast and crew had been armed with seasickness pills, as it could be quite rough at times.” Filming some interiors of the boat took place on sets built at Shepperton and Pinewood Studios outside of London. To re-create the movement of the sea, the sets built were built on a hydraulic gimble that could provide just the rocking motions the filmmakers required. Curtis, DP Cohen and designer Tildesley believed re-creating and shooting in close corridors and little rooms would prove a challenge, but that much comedy could come from big egos trapped in tiny spaces. As an example, Dave and Carl have a hurried conversation in the WC about Carl’s pathetic love life (before Dave’s girlfriend walks in). The scene was, naturally, shot in the smallest space Tildesley could build. Curtis recalls, “I said to Mark that it’s got to be a real cabin bathroom. It’ll be absolutely tiny; it should be difficult to fit the three people in. So Mark made the tiniest room possible. Sure enough, when we shot the scene, it was difficult to fit the three people in, particularly if one of them’s Nick Frost. Then, we thought, ‘Where are you going to put the cameraman and the soundman?’ So we took away a little wall, but it was still fantastically crowded.” Curtis knew the traditional style of shooting wouldn’t work well on a boat with narrow passageways. He and DP Cohen agreed that they should “have two guys with cameras on their shoulders wandering around, picking different positions so that anyone who sees the film will see Radio Rock is intended to be very informal, very chaotic. There is no question of holding the line that people are looking down, no wide shot or close shot. The camera just moves around wherever it can.” For the cast, it was (despite occasional tight quarters) quite refreshing to leave sound stages and closed sets to film out on the open seas. Curtis ensured rock and roll permeated the production, and sounds of the 60s were played on the journeys to and from the port. For some members of the cast and crew, there was even a bit of time for fishing during breaks in the day.
  • 11. The Boat That Rocked 11 The Kinks to The Who: Music of the Film Long-time Working Title Films and Richard Curtis collaborator, music supervisor NICK ANGEL worked hand in hand with Curtis to bring some of the best sounds from the 1960s to the big screen in The Boat That Rocked. “Richard has worn his heart on his sleeve for this film, and the music is an integral part of it” says Angel. “Quite simply, it’s music that Richard loves, and my job was to make sure that we got the songs he wanted in the film.” The process started some two years ago when Curtis first mentioned to Angel that he was writing a film based around the world of pirate radio set in 1966 and 1967. Angel, who had worked closely with the director before on Notting Hill and Love Actually, began to gather songs he felt might be used in creating the film. He recounts, “I made Richard some CDs featuring tracks I liked and ones I thought were interesting from that period - things that he could listen to while he was writing. Richard loves music, so he obviously had his own ideas. But with some tracks, I wanted to jog his memory.” At this stage, the two men began to collect a catalogue of some 200 songs that were potential contenders to make it into the film. To help his castmembers brush up on their Chris Farlowe, Troggs, Supremes and Turtles, Curtis gave the burgeoning deejays iPods crammed with his and Angel’s choice selection of tracks from the 60s. “We wanted to give the actors a flavor of the music that their characters would have been into,” Angel relates. “We can’t assume that a 23-year-old is going to be that familiar with 1966 and 1967. And even if they were, everybody has gaps in their music knowledge. As the start of principal photography approached, the song list was whittled down to around 70 that were still in contention. After the footage was shot and the editing process began, Curtis and music editor STEVE PRICE put together the musical jigsaw and married select songs to fit specific scenes and moods. In all, 54 songs feature in the finished film. “That’s quite a lot,” states the music supervisor. “But then, the story is set on board a pirate radio station, so there is music virtually all of the time. We’ve got a great blend. There are tracks that are very well known and loved, and there are others that are less well known.” The result is a feast of vintage 60s music featuring The Rolling Stones (“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Let’s Spend The Night Together”), The Kinks (“All Day and All of the Night”), The Who (“My Generation,” “I Can See For Miles,” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again”), Small Faces (“Lazy Sunday Afternoon”), Jimi Hendrix (“The Wind Cries Mary”), Leonard Cohen (“So Long, Marianne”), The Supremes (“The Happening”), Otis Redding (“These Arms of Mine”), The Hollies (“I’m Alive”), Smokey Robinson and The Miracles (“Ooo Baby Baby”), as well as Sandie Shaw (“Girl Don’t Come”) and many more. The soundtrack album is slated to feature 40 of the songs used in The
  • 12. The Boat That Rocked 12 Boat That Rocked. Triple Brit award-winning singer Duffy has recorded a version of “Stay With Me Baby” for the film. Additionally, Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer scored original music for a key section of the comedy. “We got almost everything we wanted for the film,” Angel proudly states. “There were one or two tracks that, for various reasons, we couldn’t have, but there were always alternatives. We’re delighted with the result.” Production wrapped, cast finally dry and Curtis and editor Emma Hickox hard at work in the editing bay, the team reflected on working on The Boat That Rocked and why Richard Curtis films seem to inspire a dose of levity. “Richard has this gift of attracting people who don’t regularly go to the movies,” sums producer Fellner. “What that is, I’m not quite sure, but there seems to be a magical element to his movies that persuades people it would be good to go to the cinema - as they know that they’re going to enjoy the two hours that they spend under his spell.” Of making a film that combines his love of music, comedy and romance, Curtis concludes: “This was a fantastic era of music, and it’s exciting to make a movie where you’ve got an excuse to put music over every single scene. I hope it’s going to be one of those films where, when you watch it, you immediately feel how lovely it would be to be amongst that bunch of people on that boat. One of the charms of Four Weddings was that you really felt you were amongst that group of friends. I hope this film will be like going for a very pleasant weekend with all the people in the world you most love when they are on really good form.” Universal Pictures presents - In association with StudioCanal - A Working Title Production: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost and Kenneth Branagh in The Boat That Rocked. The film’s casting director is Fiona Weir. The comedy’s costume designer is Joanna Johnston; the editor is Emma Hickox. The production designer is Mark Tildesley; the film’s director of photography is Danny Cohen. The Boat That Rocked’s associate producer is Emma Freud; the co-producer is Ronaldo Vasconsellos. The executive producers are Richard Curtis, Debra Hayward and Liza Chasin. The film is produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Hilary Bevan Jones. The Boat That Rocked is written and directed by Richard Curtis. © 2008 Universal Studios www.theboatthatrocked.com ABOUT THE CAST PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN (The Count) was seen in the recently released films Doubt, written and directed by John Patrick Shanley and co- starring Meryl Streep, and Synecdoche, New York, written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. Hoffman also starred in the independent feature The Savages, for which he won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead; Mike Nichols’ Charlie Wilson’s War, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best
  • 13. The Boat That Rocked 13 Supporting Actor; and Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Prior to that, Hoffman starred in Capote, which he executive produced through his company, Cooper’s Town Productions. In addition to winning the Academy Award for Best Actor, Hoffman earned a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for his performance. Additional film credits include Mission: Impossible III, Along Came Polly, Cold Mountain, The Party’s Over, Owning Mahowny, 25th Hour, Red Dragon, Punch-Drunk Love, Love Liza, Almost Famous, State and Main, The Talented Mr Ripley, Magnolia, Flawless, Patch Adams, Happiness, The Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights, Twister, Nobody’s Fool, Scent of a Woman and HBO’s Empire Falls. Hoffman joined the LAByrinth Theatre Company in 1995 and became its co-artistic director in 2001. As an actor, his theatre credits include LAByrinth Theatre Company’s Jack Goes Boating (The Public Theatre), Long Day’s Journey into Night (Broadway), The Seagull (The Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival), True West (Broadway), Defying Gravity (The American Place Theatre), The Merchant of Venice (directed by Peter Sellars), Shopping and F*cking (New York Theatre Workshop) and The Author’s Voice (The Drama Department). His LAByrinth directing credits include the world premieres of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Our Lady of 121st Street, Jesus Hopped the “A” Train and In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings, each by Stephen Adly Guirgis. Hoffman’s celebrated New York production of Jesus Hopped the “A” Train was presented at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won the 2001 Fringe First Award, and London’s Donmar Warehouse, where it was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2002. It then moved on to London’s West End for an extended run at The Arts Theatre. Similarly, his acclaimed production of Our Lady of 121st Street transferred off-Broadway to the Union Square Theatre, where it ran for nearly six months. Additionally, Hoffman directed Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living at MCC Theater in 2001. He traveled to Australia to direct Andrew Upton’s play Riflemind at the famed Sydney Theatre Company and also mounted the play in London last fall. Prior to that, he directed the Stephen Adly Guirgis play, The Little Flower of East Orange, for LAByrinth. BILL NIGHY (Quentin) is one of Britain’s most distinguished and best- loved actors, and has won awards throughout his career for many of his numerous performances on both stage and screen. His latest film projects include the Tom Cruise-produced Valkyrie, directed by Bryan Singer; Patrick Tatopoulos’ Underworld: Rise of the Lycans; and Hoyt Yeatman’s upcoming animated movie G-Force, alongside Nicolas Cage. Nighy’s film credits also include Flushed Away; Still Crazy, which earned him the Evening Standard Peter Sellers Award for Comedy; Lucky Break; Love Actually, which earned him an Evening Standard Peter Sellers Award for Comedy, a BAFTA Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and a London Critics’ Circle Film Award and Los Angeles Film Critics
  • 14. The Boat That Rocked 14 Association Award for Best Supporting Actor; I Capture the Castle; Lawless Heart; Underworld and the sequel Underworld: Evolution; Shaun of the Dead; Enduring Love; The Constant Gardener, which earned him a nomination for a British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End; Stormbreaker; and Notes on a Scandal, for which he earned a nomination from the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards for British Supporting Actor of the Year. Television credits include leading roles in The Men’s Room; Longitude; State of Play, which earned him a BAFTA Award for Best Actor; Play for Today; Absolute Hell; The Lost Prince; The Girl in the Café, which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or Movie Made for Television; and Stephen Poliakoff’s Gideon’s Daughter, for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Miniseries or Movie Made for Television. His work in the theatre includes, most recently, creating the role of Oliver Lucas in David Hare’s The Vertical Hour on Broadway, for which he gained a Theatre World Award nomination for Outstanding Debut Performance. He also starred in the original casts of A Map of the World and Skylight, both by David Hare; Pravada, by Howard Brenton and David Hare; Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, A Kind of Alaska, Landscape and Silence; Mean Tears, by Peter Gill; Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard; The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov and directed by John Caird; and Blue/Orange, by Joe Penhall, for which he was nominated for the Laurence Oliver Award for Best Actor. RHYS IFANS (Gavin) is one of Britain’s finest contemporary actors. He was born and raised in Wales, attending youth acting schools at Theatre Clwyd, Mold, and appeared in many Welsh-language television programs before embarking on his film career. His breakout performance came in 1999, in Roger Michell’s Notting Hill, opposite Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, for which he received a BAFTA Film Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. Prior to that, Ifans starred in Charles McDougall’s Heart, Kevin Allen’s Twin Town (alongside his brother Llyr Ifans), Anthony Hopkins’ August and Karl Francis’ Streetlife. Since 1999, he has appeared in more than 20 films, including Andy Hurst’s You’re Dead; Clare Kilner’s Janice Beard 45 wpm; Edward Thomas’ Rancid Aluminium; Dominic Anciano’s Love, Honor and Obey; Ed Bye’s Kevin & Perry Go Large; Howard Deutch’s The Replacements; Steven Brill’s Little Nicky; Michel Gondry’s Human Nature; Ronny Yu’s Formula 51; Mike Figgis’ Hotel; Lasse Hallström’s The Shipping News; and Shane Meadows’ Once Upon a Time in the Midlands. More recently, Ifans completed filming Gregor Jordan’s Informers and Jaco van Dormael’s Mr Nobody. He recently starred in Jeff Balsmeyer’s Danny Deckchair; Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair; Roger Michell’s Enduring Love, for which he was nominated for a Best British Actor Award by Empire magazine; Martha
  • 15. The Boat That Rocked 15 Fiennes’ Chromophobia; Francesca Joseph’s Four Last Songs; Peter Webber’s Hannibal Rising; and Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age. On television, most recently, he played the role of Peter Cook in Terry Johnson’s Not Only But Always, for which he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor. He also appeared in Shakespeare Shorts (BBC); Trial & Retribution (YTV); The Two Franks (S4C); Judas and the Gimp (BBC); Nightshift; Spatz (S4C); Burning Love (S4C); and Review (S4C). In 2005, Ifans made a guest appearance for the rock band Oasis in the video for their single “The Importance of Being Idle,” for which he accepted their award for Video of the Year at the 2005/2006 NME Awards. In the theatre, he has appeared at the Donmar Warehouse in Robert Delamere’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Patrick Marber’s Don Juan in Soho and Michael Sheen’s Bad Finger; at the National Theatre in Matthew Warchus’ Volpone and Roger Michell’s Under Milk Wood; at the Duke of York Theatre in Hettie MacDonald’s Beautiful Thing; at the Royal Court Theatre in James MacDonald’s Thyestes; and at the Royal Exchange in Braham Murray’s Smoke and Ronald Harwood’s Poison Pen. NICK FROST (Dave) first came to prominence as the character of roly- poly gun-mad Mike Watt in Channel 4’s Spaced. Since then, Frost has become one of the UK.’s most sought-after comedy actors. He earned a nomination for Best Newcomer by the British Independent Film Awards for his role in the cult zombie movie Shaun of the Dead, starring opposite Simon Pegg. Frost starred again with Pegg in the hugely successful comedy hit Hot Fuzz, and was recently cast alongside Pegg in the upcoming Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson Tintin project. Frost and Pegg will follow Tintin with Paul, which they wrote and which Greg Mottola (Superbad) will direct. Frost’s other film credits include Kinky Boots, Penelope and most recently, Wild Child. He has appeared in the Channel 4 sitcom Black Books, with Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey; hosted the Channel 5 series Danger! 50,000 Volts! and Danger! Incoming Attack!; was the lead role in Hyperdrive, a sci-fi comedy series for BBC2, which is now into its second season; and starred in two seasons of Man Stroke Woman. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, KENNETH BRANAGH (Dormandy) made his West End acting debut in Another Country, for which he won the Society of West End Theatres Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Numerous stage appearances followed, including the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Henry V, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Hamlet. In 1985, he founded the Renaissance Theatre Company. Productions which Branagh either wrote, starred in or directed include Public Enemy, Twelfth Night, The Life of Napoleon, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Hamlet, Look Back in Anger, Uncle Vanya, King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Coriolanus.
  • 16. The Boat That Rocked 16 Branagh directed the hit stage comedy The Play What I Wrote, which transferred from London’s West End to Broadway, where it received a Tony nomination. He returned to the stage in Richard III at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield to great acclaim, and to the London stage with David Mamet’s Edmond at the National Theatre. His first venture into film met instant success. His 1989 production of Henry V won a score of international awards and received Academy Award nominations for Best Actor and Best Director. Branagh was subsequently invited to Hollywood to direct and star in Dead Again, which was a huge international hit. He next directed the ensemble film Peter’s Friends, which won the Evening Standard British Film Awards’ Peter Sellers Award for Comedy. His second Shakespearean film success was Much Ado About Nothing and, in the same year, his short film of the Chekhov play Swan Song received an Academy Award nomination. He went on to direct Robert De Niro in the financially successful Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. His black and white film In the Bleak Midwinter (A Midwinter’s Tale) opened the 1996 Sundance Film Festival and won the prestigious Osella d’Oro at the Venice International Film Festival. His critically acclaimed full-length version of Hamlet, in 70mm, received four Academy Award nominations. Branagh’s fourth Shakespeare film adaptation was a 1930’s musical version of Love’s Labour’s Lost. More recently, Branagh directed HBO Films’ As You Like It, a film of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, and Sleuth, written by Harold Pinter and starring Jude Law and Michael Caine. Branagh’s other film work includes acting roles in Pat O’Connor’s A Month in the Country; Oliver Parker’s Othello; Robert Altman’s The Gingerbread Man; Woody Allen’s Celebrity; Danny Boyle’s Alien Love Triangle; Paul Greengrass’ The Theory of Flight; Barry Sonnenfeld’s Wild Wild West; Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit- Proof Fence; and the second Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Branagh starred as Gilderoy Lockhart, Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, with a richly comic performance. Branagh appeared in three outstanding television dramas: Shackleton for Channel 4 Television Corporation and A&E; Conspiracy, for which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie and received a Golden Globe Award nomination; and Warm Springs, in which he played Franklin D Roosevelt and was nominated for an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award. In 2008, he returned to London’s West End to five-star reviews in the title role in Chekhov’s Ivanov. He also stars in a major new BBC crime series, Wallander, as Detective Kurt Wallander, from Henning Mankell’s best-selling thrillers. This year, he will direct a film of the comic hero Thor for Marvel Enterprises and Paramount Pictures. TOM STURRIDGE’s (Carl) film credits include Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair,
  • 17. The Boat That Rocked 17 opposite Reese Witherspoon and Jonathan Rhys Meyers; István Szabó’s Being Julia, opposite Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon; Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s Brothers of the Head; and Gregory J Read’s psychological thriller Like Minds, alongside Toni Collette. He recently finished filming James Keach’s Waiting for Forever, leading a cast that includes Rachel Bilson, Richard Jenkins and Blythe Danner. On television, Sturridge appeared in William Boyd’s A Waste of Shame: The Mystery of Shakespeare and His Sonnets. CHRIS O’DOWD (Simon) trained at London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art. He is perhaps best known for his role in the Channel 4 Television comedy series The IT Crowd, directed by Graham Lineham, which is in its second season on British television. In 2005, O’Dowd received the Best Actor in a Scottish Film Award from the Scottish BAFTA Awards, for his performance as the stand-up comedian Tommy O’Dwyer in Festival. His other film credits include John Deery’s Conspiracy of Silence; Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake; Sonja Heiss’ Hotel Very Welcome; Gareth Carrivick’s Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel; and, most recently, O’Dowd completed filming Beeban Kidron’s Hippie Hippie Shake, starring opposite Cillian Murphy and Sienna Miller. O’Dowd’s television credits includes Gareth Carrivick’s Roman’s Empire, Ben Bolt’s Doc Martin, Justin Chadwick’s Red Cap and the award-winning docu- drama The Year London Blew Up: 1974. He is also well known on Irish television, having starred in the popular RTÉ drama The Clinic and the drama Showbands II, alongside Kerry Katona. RHYS DARBY (Angus) is the genre-breaking, boundary-leaping comic genius from New Zealand. By combining stand-up story telling with physical theatre, Darby has developed a truly unique style of comedy performance. He has enjoyed success as one of the most sought after live acts in the country. More than simply a stand-up, Darby is also a prolific comedy playwright. He has written and performed in six plays since 2000, four of which were solo productions in which he took on all the roles. In 2002, he performed his first solo show in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the following year, he moved to London to set himself up on the British comedy scene. He quickly became a cult figure on the circuit and a much talked about act amongst the critics and other comics alike. He was soon signed up for work at the prestigious clubs including The Comedy Store and Jongleurs, and because his material had such a universal appeal, he has been scooped up and requested for performances in many other countries including Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Iceland, The Falklands and, more recently, the Middle East, to name a few. Darby can be heard playing the character of Brian Nesbitt in the cult BBC Radio 2 series The Flight of the Conchords. Darby can also be seen on the new CBBC flagship children’s show Mighty Truck of Stuff on Saturday mornings.
  • 18. The Boat That Rocked 18 Recently, Darby moved to New York to star in the new HBO sitcom The Flight of the Conchords, playing the role of Murray Hewitt, the Conchords’ manager in the 12-part series. Also in the works is the sitcom Based on Actual Events, which is being developed for a New Zealand audience. Darby is also working on a new live show, based on his ranger character Bill Napier. KATHERINE PARKINSON (Felicity) studied classics at Oxford University before training at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art. She is best known to British audiences for playing Jen in the Channel 4 Television comedy The IT Crowd (opposite Chris O’Dowd), and for her portrayal of Pauline in ITV’s Doc Martin. Other television credits include guest roles in Ahead of the Class (starring Julie Walters), Christmas at the Riviera and regular sketch character contributions to Katy Brand’s Big Ass Show for ITV2, having been friends with Brand since Oxford. Stage credits include Masha in The Seagull at the Royal Court Theatre, opposite Kristin Scott Thomas; The Lightning Play at the Almeida Theatre; Other Hands at the Soho Theatre; The Unthinkable at the Sheffield Crucible Theatre; Cigarettes and Chocolate at the Kings Head Theatre; Flush at the Soho Theatre; The Riot Act and The Increased Difficulty of Concentration at the Gate Theatre; and The Age of Consent at the Edinburgh International Festival and Bush Theatre, to name a few. Before filming The Boat that Rocked, she filmed a lead role (opposite Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, Jessica Biel and Ben Barnes) in a remake of Noel Coward’s Easy Virtue, directed by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) and due for release in 2009. TALULAH RILEY (Marianne) is one of the most diverse young actresses to come out of Great Britain in recent years. Her roles in St Trinian’s and Pride & Prejudice could not be more different, yet Riley has the ability to truly transform herself in each performance, gaining her a growing reputation as a bright young star. Riley played the part of Annabelle Fritton, alongside Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Stephen Fry, Gemma Arterton and Mischa Barton, in the remake of the classic Ealing Studios film St Trinian’s. The film tells the tale of a school for young ladies filled with a spirited group of girls who band together to save their school from bankruptcy. Riley has also starred as Lila, an awkward teenager with a mentally ill mother, in the television drama Nearly Famous, a show about a group of performing arts students. In 2006, Riley made a name for herself starring as Mary Bennet in Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice. The film was nominated for four Oscars and six BAFTA Awards, boasting an all-star cast including Keira Knightley, Donald Sutherland and Matthew Macfadyen. The year 2005 saw Riley’s stage debut in The Philadelphia Story at The Old Vic, quickly followed by her performance in Tennessee Williams’ Summer
  • 19. The Boat That Rocked 19 and Smoke at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in London. She has also appeared in two television dramas: Agatha Christie: Poirot, alongside David Suchet, and the television movie Marple: The Moving Finger. ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS RICHARD CURTIS (Directed by/Written by/Executive Producer) was born in New Zealand in 1956 and raised in the Philippines, Sweden and the UK. He has now lived in London, off and on, for more than 20 years. He began writing comedy after leaving Oxford University in 1978. While at Oxford, Curtis worked with Rowan Atkinson, and continues to do so. His first job on television was writing for BBC’s four seasons of Not the Nine O’Clock News. He then went on to write the Blackadder series, a situation comedy set in four different eras of British history, always starring Rowan Atkinson in a different amusing haircut. The last three seasons were co-written with Ben Elton. During these years, Curtis, Atkinson and Elton staged two comedy revues in London’s West End and Curtis wrote his first film, The Tall Guy, directed by Mel Smith and starring Jeff Goldblum, Emma Thompson (in her film debut) and Rowan Atkinson as a cruel, heartless comedian starring in a West End show. The film was not autobiographical and was produced by Working Title, the production company with whom Curtis has always worked since. Back on television, Curtis and Atkinson then began work on Mr Bean, and continued for some years to make intermittent programs starring the man in the tie who says very little. In 1991, Curtis wrote Bernard and the Genie, a wholesome Christmas fantasy starring Lenny Henry and Alan Cumming. In December 1993, Curtis was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writers Guild of Great Britain. His second film, Four Weddings and a Funeral, starring Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, was directed by Mike Newell, produced by Duncan Kenworthy and released in March 1994. The film won a French César, an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Foreign Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Film. At the Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film. In 1994, Curtis was made a MBE and started writing The Vicar of Dibley, a situation comedy for the BBC, starring Dawn French as a female vicar in a small village suspiciously full of eccentric characters. The movie Bean, co-written with Robin Driscoll, directed by Mel Smith and starring Rowan Atkinson, opened in Britain at the end of August 1997. His next film, Notting Hill, starred Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant and was released in May 1999 - and for a while, was the highest earning British film ever. In 2001, Curtis was co-writer of the award-winning screenplay Bridget Jones’s Diary, starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. In 2003, he wrote and directed Love Actually, a story about lots of different
  • 20. The Boat That Rocked 20 kinds of love, set at Christmas and featuring 22 leading characters. He was also co-writer of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. In 2005, he wrote The Girl in the Café, a television drama based around the G8 summit, which received three Emmy Awards in 2006. Curtis is co-founder and vice chairman of Comic Relief, the organization that runs Red Nose Day and Sport Relief in Britain. He began the charity after a trip to Ethiopia during the famine of 1985. He has co-produced the 10 live nights of Comic Relief for the BBC since 1987. Comic Relief has made approximately 500 million pounds for charity projects in Africa and the UK. Curtis was a founding member of the Make Poverty History coalition and throughout 2004 and 2005 worked on the campaign and Live 8, which concentrated on trade justice, more and better aid and debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries. In April 2007, Curtis was executive producer of Idol Gives Back for the FOX show American Idol. The shows raised more than $75 million for projects helping the poorest children and young people in the US.A. and Africa. Idol Gives Back received the Governor’s Emmy Award in 2007. In 2000, he was made a CBE and was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship in 2007. Working Title Films, co-chaired by TIM BEVAN and ERIC FELLNER (Produced by) since 1992, is one of the world’s leading film production companies. DEBRA HAYWARD (Executive Producer) serves as head of film and is creatively responsible for the company’s slate of motion pictures, in conjunction with her US counterpart, LIZA CHASIN (Executive Producer). Founded in 1983, Working Title has made more than 90 films that have grossed more than $4.5 billion worldwide. Its films have won six Academy Awards and 26 BAFTA Awards. Bevan and Fellner have received the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema at the Orange British Academy Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) and both have been honoured with CBEs (commanders of the Order of the British Empire). Working Title’s extensive and diverse list of credits include: Seven films with Joel and Ethan Coen: Burn After Reading; Fargo; The Hudsucker Proxy; The Big Lebowski; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; The Man Who Wasn’t There; and, currently in postproduction, A Serious Man. In collaboration with writer Richard Curtis: Mr Bean, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually (which Curtis also directed). Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, directed by Joe Wright. United 93 and The Green Zone, directed by Paul Greengrass.
  • 21. The Boat That Rocked 21 Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, directed by Edgar Wright. About a Boy, directed by Paul Weitz. The Interpreter, directed by Sydney Pollack. Dead Man Walking, directed by Tim Robbins. Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, directed by Shekhar Kapur. Frost/Nixon, directed by Ron Howard. Nanny McPhee, directed by Kirk Jones, with Nanny McPhee II, directed by Susanna White, shortly to go into production. Billy Elliot, directed by Stephen Daldry. The success of the film has continued on the London, Sydney and Broadway stages with a stage-musical version directed by Daldry - with songs composed by Sir Elton John. Currently in postproduction are Beeban Kidron’s Hippie Hippie Shake, starring Cillian Murphy, Sienna Miller, Emma Booth and Max Minghella; Kevin Macdonald’s State of Play, starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Robin Wright Penn and Helen Mirren; Joe Wright’s The Soloist, starring Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr, and Catherine Keener; and Paul Greengrass’ The Green Zone, starring Matt Damon. HILARY BEVAN JONES’ (Produced by) credits as a producer include the television dramas Red Dwarf, Cracker, Far From the Madding Crowd, Butterfly Collectors, The Secret World of Michael Fry and the multi-award-winning conspiracy thriller State of Play. In 2004, along with writer and long-time collaborator Paul Abbott, she started the production company Tightrope Pictures. In that year, Women in Film and Television honored her with the Contribution to the Medium Award. For Tightrope Pictures, she has produced the dramas All in the Game and Dad and was executive producer of To the Ends of the Earth, The Innocence Project and, most recently, the ITV drama Instinct. As part of the Make Poverty History campaign, she produced the The Girl in the Café for HBO and the BBC. Scripted by Richard Curtis and starring Bill Nighy and Kelly Macdonald, the film won a number of awards, including two prime-time Emmy Awards: one for Macdonald as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie and one for Outstanding Made for Television Movie. It also went on to receive a Humanitas Prize in recognition of its humanitarian message. In 2006, she was made chairperson of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the first woman ever to hold this position. DANNY COHEN’s (Director of Photography) long list of credits includes photographing the feature films Dead Babies, Only Human, Creep, Festival, The Last Hangman and Shane Meadows’ features Dead Man’s Shoes and This Is England.
  • 22. The Boat That Rocked 22 His other credits include Warp Films’ first production, My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117, which won the Kodak Award for Best Cinematography as well as the BAFTA Award for Best Short Film in 2003. Cohen has shot music videos for such bands as Blur, Mull Historical Society, New Order and, in another collaboration with Warp Films, for Arctic Monkeys. His work for television includes the series Nathan Barley, The Book Group, Murder in Suburbia and the dramas Longford and London. MARK TILDESLEY (Production Designer) co-founded the Catch 22 Theatre Company and directed, designed and performed in its productions. He continued designing for the theatre, working on numerous productions for the New Vic Theatre (under the direction of Michael Bogdanov) and at the Royal Opera House. His feature film credits as production designer encompass notable collaborations with several directors. His most recent is working with Mike Leigh on Happy-Go-Lucky. He won a British Independent Film Award (BIFA) for Sunshine, his third film with Danny Boyle, following 28 Days Later... and Millions. His films for Michael Winterbottom include I Want You, With or Without You, Wonderland, The Claim, 24 Hour Party People and Code 46. The latter two films earned Tildesley British Independent Film Award (BIFA) nominations. His other films as production designer include Fernando Meirelles’ The Constant Gardener, Roger Michell’s The Mother and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later. EMMA E HICKOX ACE (Editor) has accumulated a body of work across a range of feature films, from A Walk to Remember, directed by Adam Shankman in 2002, to Blue Crush, for Universal Pictures. Other credits include working with John Maybury on The Jacket and, recently, on The Edge of Love, and with Julian Jarrold on Kinky Boots and Becoming Jane. JOANNA JOHNSTON (Costume Designer) most recently finished designing the United Artists thriller Valkyrie, directed by Bryan Singer and starring Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh, and Mark Waters’ The Spiderwick Chronicles. Johnston earned a Costume Designers Guild Award nomination for her work on the Universal Pictures comedy-drama About a Boy. She has collaborated on several films with Steven Spielberg, including Munich, War of the Worlds, Saving Private Ryan and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Johnston also worked with director Robert Zemeckis on The Polar Express, Cast Away, Contact, Forrest Gump, Death Becomes Her, Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III. Johnston started her career designing the costumes for Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Her creations for the film included Jessica Rabbit’s trademark form-fitting evening gown. Johnston’s other film credits include Ron Howard’s romantic epic Far and Away, Lawrence Kasdan’s French Kiss, M Night
  • 23. The Boat That Rocked 23 Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, and Richard Curtis’ Love Actually.