Meeting Daniel Radcliffe

Just recently, friends of mine introduced me to Daniel Radcliffe. Yes, the very man, of Harry Potter fame. "Please call me Dan, Mary" is the first thing that he said to me. "I will call you Dan", was my reply.

 Dan has a firm handshake and his sapphire-blue eyes are even more striking in real life, than they are on film. His current long-locks hairstyle is not his idea and not even his hair! He has had hair extensions for the part of Igor, the assistant to Dr. Frankenstein. Dan joked that his skin is naturally pale enough of the role, and that the make-up artists use a foundation on him called, 'rice-paper'.

The re-make of Mary Shelley's greatest work is being filmed in London at the moment. Mary Shelley, however never created the character of Igor. The hunchback helper of Dr Frankenstein makes no appearance in her horror story. Igor was the creation of film-makers and inserted into the script, as a companion to Dr Frankenstein, to make him seem a less lonely figure. But the deformed helper of Dr Frankenstein has evolved more and more to the point where in the current version, the story is told from the perspective of Igor.

I was quite impressed with Daniel Radcliffe, or 'Dan' as he prefers. People swarm around him all the time, and he remains unflappable, never reacts as though he's pestered and always is the thorough gentleman. I had kept hearing reports that Dan was polite and kind. And it was great to find out that this is true. One such fan is Raymond Arroyo. As a fellow actor, Raymond met up with Dan in June, and congratulated the young Brit on his stellar acting in The Cripple of Inishmaan. Raymond did his classical acting training under Stella Adler, and he esteems Daniel Radcliffe's considerable abilities.

Michael Fassbender succeeds in making The Counsellor a success: his performance paints a portrait of hubris

As soon as The Counsellor opened in London, a Spanish friend and I sprinted over to the Fulham cinema. My friend has fellow Spaniard Penélope Cruz’s interests at heart. And I’m from Munster, so naturally I cheer for Michael Fassbender. He plays the leading role, the nameless counsellor who is overwhelmed by his love for his girlfriend (Cruz) and asks her hand with a costly engagement ring. The counsellor will pay for it with a one-time drug deal.

Fassbender’s counsellor has a rich variety of personal traits. He’s a man-in-love, his eyes liquefy when he beholds his fiancée, and he has an enraptured tone of voice when he whispers poetic sweet-nothings to her (‘you are a glory…you are a glorious woman’). 

In interviews, Fassbender has been quick to identify that the counsellor’s chief mistake is that he thinks himself cleverer than he is. He’s a conceited man who may be book-smart, but has little savvy and has the job of giving advice but paradoxically goes advice to avoid drug lords. He is also ‘a smart-ass’, which is the term of disaffection used for him by Ruth, a prisoner client of his.  

It’s the scene where he visits Ruth in a gaol cell that Fassbender proves his acting acumen. Fassbender has taken off the smiling mask that the counsellor uses for his fiancée, and we see a very self-satisfied individual, who thinks he’s too good for the imprisoned mother. Every tiny detail of Fassbender’s performance creates a portrait of hubris. 

In the way he throws down the box of cigarettes that he’s brought for her, the wolfish grin, the glinting eyes and the way that he won’t sit opposite her but stands over her. The mother entreats him to help her son, who has just been gaoled and needs $400 bail. With an even bigger smirk, he agrees to do it, doing so proves his higher station. He can help her son, she cannot. In return, the mother offers him a sexual favour, to which he replies sniggeringly that even if she gave it to him; she would still over him $380. 

Fassbender smoothly delivers those sickly smirks or the laughing tones of contempt in which he speaks to Ruth. He suffuses his voice with a barely-restrained laugh. Ruth is a figure of fun to him. You might want to strangle Fassbender’s counsellor, but he leaves the same bad taste in the mouth that these ‘smart-ass’ types do in real life.

Ruth’s son is a drug runner for the Mexican cartel with whom he is doing a deal. While motorcycling across America with a drugs parcel, the son is beheaded, his parcel stolen, and the cartel are convinced that since the counsellor sprung the drug-runner from gaol, that he is behind the whole counter operation. 

They think the condign punishment for the counsellor is that his loved one be slaughtered. Ironically, the counsellor and Ruth will both be reduced to the same level, they will both be torn by loss and grief. She has lost her son, he his beloved.  

The film’s failing is that we never *understand* why the counsellor is so profoundly in love with his intended. Sure, she is sweet-tempered and beautiful. And over this past weekend, two male friends have at pains to stress how ‘hot’ she looked lying on the towel in the spa. But, ultimately our knowledge of her is skin deep. We never see the layers of her character, her good deeds (or lack of them), would she be a friend in a time of need.  In simple terms, we never get to know her. We see the counsellor mourn a beautiful woman who has been butchered, but we don’t grieve with him because our rapport with her is the same as with a fashion model that we admire on the cover of a magazine. 

We may not understand why he loves her, but we believe he loves her. Why else would he grieve her so intensely? But we are dependent on Fassbender’s depiction of grief ripping through his body, causing his face to fracture in agony, for the film to make sense.

The film has more sparkle than substance. Yet it achieves its central objective: to be a morality tale about the hazard of hubris, and the mighty counsellor falls from a height of his own making. It’s Fassbender’s depiction of two opposing states of existence that make the film work; the glutted-with-hubris ‘smart-ass’ who risks everything for easy money, and then the grief-ridden and guilt-frenzied shaking wreck that he becomes.

The key to his success: Fassbender succeeds in authenticating these flawed characters, because he enters fully into the persona, body-language, tone of voice, without letting cares about how the real-life Michael Fassbender might be judged when cinema go-ers watch him act.

Interviewers and journalists always ask Fassbender if he is similar in any way to the characters that he plays. It always strikes me a rather silly line of questioning. The only way for him to go into role as these complicated personalities is to put his instinctive reactions to one side, and submerge himself in the character's mind and adopt their reflexes.
 

Aspects of how Fassbender prepares for a role are common knowledge, such as the way he may read a script 300 times. But were I to interview Fassbender, top of the list would be how he practises every detail of body language and tone of voice so as to ‘become’ a character. 

Oh, such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you...

Lou Reed's Perfect Day. 

                       

The Vatican led a tribute to Lou Reed when Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi tweeted lyrics from Perfect Day. The first tweet was, 'Oh, it's such a perfect day I'm glad I spend it with you Oh, such a perfect day You just keep me hanging on (Lou Reed)'.   This tweet was RT'd  969 times.

Taking lines from Lou Reed's classic song was a way for Cardinal Ravasi to segue into then tweeting the Bible verse, 'Be under no illusion: God will not be fooled. You're going to reap just what you sow (Galatians 6,7 and Lou Reed in Perfect Day)'.  This tweet was RT'd  54 times. 

I am a practising Catholic, but was not given Bible lessons as a child. The first time that I heard the verse, 'you're going to reap just what you sow', was when I heard the song, Perfect Day at age 11.

It's quite possible that had Perfect Day never been written, then I would not have heard the line from Galatians about reaping good crops if you do good works, and bad crops if you do bad works, until I was much older. 

Theresa Milstein guest blogs: How I met my husband

For the record, we were not high school sweethearts.

            Physical Education (PE) was never my favorite class. In my senior year, I found it that much more unbearable because it took place when my friends ate lunch. I skipped the class one or two more times more than I should have. The teacher made me make up the whole semester the spring before graduation.

            When I attended my first “Early Morning Gym,” another PE delinquent stood outside the door with a cup of coffee. I’d never seen him before, which wasn’t unusual since it was a large school. He looked kind of… mean in his t-shirt, flannel, and jeans. He reminded me of Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club. I avoided staring at him while we waited for the PE teacher to show up.

            Later that week, a friend in my art class introduced me to PE guy, Stu. Turns out he wasn’t as mean as he looked. We began hanging out during Early Morning Gym. During the weight unit, he and I talked until the teacher came by, and then we’d half-heartedly do a few reps. During the tennis unit, we smoked cigarettes on the court (this was a long time ago). He made me laugh and in no time, we’d begun hanging out during our free periods and even after school.

            Although Stu wasn’t my type, I found myself sort of liking him. I tried to flirt, which may have been more annoying than alluring. But he seemed to like my best friend more than me. For prom weekend, the three of us held our own anti-prom at a hotel in the Hamptons. I’d hoped he’d ask me out then, but he didn’t.

            Just as we graduated, a boy who was a year older, and more my type (a musician), asked me out. That summer, I worked at a local traveling carnival with my PE friend while I dated my boyfriend.

            At the end of the summer, my boyfriend started his new college in New Orleans. Stu and I attended local colleges. We were both trying to be better students than we’d been in high school. Most of our friends had gone away to college, and we wound up relying on one another more. He set up a second desk in his bedroom so I could study with him. I kept dating the boyfriend long distance, but I found myself more connected with PE friend than my boyfriend.

            When my boyfriend transferred to his third school and wound up living near me, I realized he wasn’t The One. He drank too much and was tight with money except when it came to transferring colleges and purchasing music equipment. One time, my boyfriend surprised me by visiting the music store where I worked. Stu was already there. I told my boyfriend that nothing was going on between Stu and me, which was true. But I was lying to him and myself about how my feelings were changing. While my boyfriend made me frustrated and brought out the worst in me, Stu made me laugh and brought out the best in me.

            Just about a year after the relationship started, I broke up with my boyfriend. I’d hoped Stu liked me too, so I looked for signs. His ex-girlfriend asked him out. He said no. Good sign. But if he was looking for good signs from me, I kept blowing them. He brought me a teddy bear from the carnival with a heart. I blurted that I didn’t like stuffed animals with hearts. Stupid me. We got tickets to see a concert. I left the bag with the tickets at home. Stupider me.

            A week later on a perfect July night, we took a walk in the park while a band played music in the background. Stu told me he liked me as more than a friend. I told him I felt the same way. He kissed me. The band stop playing and the audience applauded.

            Stu became my boyfriend.

            The next morning, flowers arrived at my house. I went from elation to disappointment. The flowers were from my ex. When he called, I had to tell him that six weeks after we’d broken up, I’d already moved on with the guy he’d been threatened by all that time. A couple of years later, the three of us wound up at the same university. Ex and I attended the same history class. No hard feelings.

            Stu and I did well in school. He majored in Biology and then earned

his PhD in Biology. Thanks to him, I was able to pass Calculus. Even though he’s my husband, we kept our friendship. He still makes me laugh. 25 years after we met, I feel lucky to wake up next to him every morning, and share a home and two children with him.

Sometimes we bring up that first year. Stu admits to not being that interested in me in the beginning, but he won’t say when his feelings changed. I can’t pinpoint a specific time either. But at some point it happened for both of us.

            And I’m glad it did.

 

Stu and Theresa Milstein

Thank you so much, Theresa for a beautifully written account of how you met Stu.

Keep up to date with all Theresa's writing adventures, by reading her blog, Theresa's Tales of Teaching Tribulation and Typing Teen Texts.

A fine poem on Autumn by John Clare: "the ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread...and the rivers we're eyeing burn to gold as they run"

Richard Burton recites John Clare's celebration of Autumn. Best to watch this video on full screen, as the lyrics are too small to be read on the smaller screen.

A is for Alcoholic. I just cut the A word from the book to reduce the word count...

I might even have to use the word ‘alcoholic’; a word that is hated by us Irish. Instead we have culturally honoured euphemisms; such as ‘he likes to get merry’.

You'll have to read the book, Love for Beginners to see which character speaks-to-herself in the sentence above...

 The character in Love for Beginners who says that Irish people are reluctant to use the word, 'alcoholic', might have a point, but  the word 'alcoholic' has extremely serious connotations and ought not to be used justly as opposed to lightly.  But maybe one character in Love for Beginners was rightly given the diagnosis of alcoholism.

Three drafts of Love for Beginners...

In total and at this time of writing, there has been five drafts. This month, I am working on the sixth draft, and this morning, I was ready to claw my eyes out when I saw that I had repeated the verb, 'clarifies' twice in one section of dialogue!  It was Dara, Anna's best friend who was doing the clarifying, and attempting to drive home the point that her old boyfriend is not duty-bound to love her, "Don is not obliged to love you, Anna". But I described it as 'Dara clarifies', once too often!  I mean, this is the sixth draft, you'd think that I'd have noticed the two clarifies in previous drafts. I have decided that there will be a final 7th draft. Please God, the 6th will be the last one, the one where I look for tiny errors, and will hand it to a trusty newspaper editor to proof the final copy, that will rid it - forensically - of punctuation and spelling mistakes.

This photo might just ruin a marketing campaign. Readers will think, 'oh gosh, that book seems too long! And if that Mary O'Regan is any good at writing, why did she have to write draft after draft?'  But I post this photo for all the novelists and writers who have piles of manuscripts - of the same book - in their office and who are watching and willing their book to evolve - one draft at a time. F Scott Fitzgerald did work on seventeen versions of Tender Is The Night. Compared to that, what's six or seven drafts?  Only a minimum combined word count of 678 K/ words/678 thousand words. 

I might get up the courage to post this photo on Facebook or Twitter one day.  This could get a reaction. If you'd like to see the responses, you can do so by looking up,  @luv4beginners

First Draft: 128 K words  Second Draft: 107 K words Third Draft: 105 words

Your opinion needed - which photo do you prefer?

To me, the two photos look dire and self-besotted.

< This photo has become my face on the internet - for Facebook, Google, Blogger & Twitter. A friend took it on a night out - when we were enjoying a joke about my preference for 'sheep-hair' men who have curls so thick that it's hard to imagine putting your hand in and getting it out easily. I'm smiling, and suppressing a giggle! It's a good 'un for social networking because it looks gleeful, and as though I'm inviting people to share in the fun.

< Or, this one which was taken during my birthday, in a softly lit Yorkshire pub. You can't see the wrinkles around my eyes like in the crisper one above. But it does have the look of a 1970's photo because of the photo quality. Were I to use this as my profile pic, someone might think I was a 60-something woman trying to pretend that she was in her twenties! But maybe its hazy, romantic quality is appropriate for a blog-about-a-novel that is entitled  

Love for Beginners.