Thandie in London 17th December 2009

Tach jewelry store on Thursday (December 10) in London, England.

Thandie Newton and her husband, director Ol Parker, attend a champagne party at Tach jewelry store on Thursday (December 10) in London, England.

The evening’s events were hosted by Russian owner of Tach, Tatiana Anatoly, as well as fashion guru Lulu Kennedy.

Huge

Huge, the directorial debut from British comedian Ben Miller, has started shooting in London.

The screenplay is based on an original play co-written by Jez Butterworth, Ben Miller and Simon Godley.

Miller, who started out in the film industry as an actor, said: “I’ve dreamt for years of directing a film and now I am directing the film of my dreams. I am literally pinching myself with pliers to be helming such a charabanc of talent on such a rollicking ride.”

Noel Clarke, Johnny Harris, Thandie Newton, Russell Tovey and Michelle Ryan star in the story about two friends who are trying to break onto the comedy circuit.

The film is produced by Rebecca Farhall and Colin Jones. Executive producers are Nigel Thomas and Charlotte Walls of Matador Pictures.

It is a Toff Media production in association with Matador Pictures and is backed by Cinema Three.

Premiere of the Letter 20th November 2009

Phoebe Philo, Saffron Aldridge, Tom Dixon, Matthew Williamson, Francesca Versace, and a clutch of other London VIPs descended on the private members’ club Home House on Friday night to see the premiere of Letter, a short promotional film produced by jeweler Solange Azagury-Patridge starring her pal Thandie Newton. “I have lunch with Solange about once a week,” said the actress. “She always has these secret things going on that I have to try to extract out of her. When she finally told me she was planning this and wanted me to be in it, well, I jumped.”

Who wouldn’t love the chance to wear one of Azagury-Partridge’s baubles? Newton paired her iridescent lavender Vivienne Westwood gown with the star piece from her friend’s new Stoned collection. It’s the same one she wears in the movie, in which she plays a femme fatale preparing to leave her hapless husband for her lover—but not without her jewels. “The film is my letter, in a way, to all the fabulous women out there,” said Azagury-Partridge. “We really are all fab, aren’t we? And sometimes, it’s nice, but not quite enough to put a ring on it.”

To be sure, the filmvert left many in the crowd wanting to buy a bauble rather urgently. But, sadly, we’ll have to wait until next month for the gems to come out. “December, grrr,” said Versace. “Forget it. I want it now—excuse me while I schmooze Solange.”

2012 still

2012 interview

Thandie Newton had to get serious on the set of new disaster movie 2012
By John Hiscock on Nov 13, 09 05:00 AM in Interviews

Film prankster Thandie Newton is known for her practical jokes on movie sets. While shooting Run Fatboy Run, she switched Simon Pegg's water bottle for vodka and sewed up the neck and sleeves of his T-shirts. However, Thandie had to put aside the joking on the set of her latest movie, the disaster blockbuster 2012, because she was just too tired.

"This movie required a lot of stamina," says the 37-year-old, London-born actress. "There were huge sets, lots of cameras and it was kind of exhausting. Also, because there were so many people involved, there was less of a family feel to it.

"When I was working on Run Fatboy Run, it was really a tiny crew. We were all hanging out together and much more in each other's pockets. On 2012, when I'd finished a scene I'd go back to my trailer and just collapse."

The new $200m extravaganza from director Roland Emmerich uses spectacular computer-generated special effects to depict a global cataclysm that brings the world to an end. Cities crumble and millions die in a series of eye-popping natural disasters while a few survivors struggle to stay alive.

Thandie plays the US President's daughter who begins a relationship with a geologist, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, while they are fighting for survival.

"Some of the cast are in the thick of the action, like John Cusack and Amanda Peet who are fighting for their lives," says Thandie.

"But because I play the president's daughter I'm kept very safe throughout the movie.

"The only really big action scenes I was involved in were two water sequences - one where I'm in a corridor and this huge tidal wave comes bursting down towards us. It was amazing but I forgot to act because gallons of water were rushing down from floor to ceiling towards me. The director had to shout "cut" and all the water went down. I don't even know where it drained to. Then 10 minutes later we did it again and the water comes rushing round the corner, blasting down the set."

As we chat, Thandie looks cool and relaxed in her white minidress in a beachfront suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Cancun, Mexico, where many of the 2012 cast had been flown for a party and promotional interviews.

Married for 10 years to English writer-director Oliver Parker, they have two children - nine-year-old Ripley, named after Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien, and Nico, four, named after the Velvet Underground singer.

Despite her success in films - including Mission Impossible: 2, The Pursuit Of Happyness and W - Thandie maintains she never had any special ambitions to be an actress.

Her parents, a Zambian nurse mother and a laboratory technician father, lived in the African country, but Thandie was born during a trip back to England. The family then returned to Zambia, but moved to Penzance in Cornwall when she was three years old.

"There were very few black people in the town and we were almost a novelty," Thandie recalls. "I always saw being black as a mysterious element I could use to enrich my personality. Then I went into the arts where difference is celebrated so I've never really experienced racial hassle."

In between her film commitments, the actress has returned to Africa on several occasions and she taught at Oprah Winfrey's school in South Africa for 10 days in July. But for now she has high hopes that filmgoers will appreciate the ingenuity that has gone into making 2012.

"It's just extraordinary to be able to create an illusion that takes you on a journey like this," Thandie smiles. "To have been able to push the boundaries like this is a real achievement."

2012 is out today.

InStyle scans

Thandie Newton WOWS on new InStyle cover shoot

Thandie Newton reveals her secret to keeping trim at 37... yoga and working out hard in the gym
By Lizzie Smith

Posing provocatively in an open fronted white blazer, Thandie Newton looks the picture of unachievable Hollywood perfection.
But the 37-year-old mother-of-two claims there's no secret to her amazing figure.
It's simply down to good genetics, hard work at the gym and yoga.
No flirt: Thandie Newton says she doesn't use her sexuality in her relationships with other men, and has never dated an actor
(she lived in LA with Jude Law..and went out with Brad Pitt...Quinn)

'I’m a Jivamukti yoga freak – it’s food for my soul,' she says. 'When I’m not working, I’ll drop Rip off at school and Nico at nursery, then I go to yoga.

'I also have an amazing personal trainer who I see whenever I can. His name is Liston Wingate-Denys.'
Jivamukti yoga involves physically stimulating routines, along with meditation, Sanskrit chanting, Yogic philosophical teachings and deep relaxation.

Thandie, the daughter of a Zimbabwean Princess of the Shona tribe and an English father, is the mother of Ripley, nine, and Nico, five.
Despite forging a career as an A-list actress with roles in films such as Crash, W and 2012, Thandie has managed to avoid becoming tabloid fodder.
The Cambridge graduate, who grew up in Cornwall, has been happily married to writer Ol Parker for 11 years.
In her latest interview with InStyle magazine she says she doesn't flirt with men.
'I’ve never dated an actor, just had the odd fling,' she said. 'Isn’t that weird?
'I don’t flirt with people – a long time ago, I stopped using my sexuality to have a relationship with people.

'I don’t think you really get a sense of me, sexually, and that’s why I have really great relationships with straight men.'
And she says he is supportive of her work - even when it involves intimate sex scenes.
'He heard it from my point of view, which is that love scenes are unnatural and not something that I leap out of bed in the morning to rush off to do,' she said.








Introducing InStyle’s new cover girl: Thandie Newton

Thandie Newton had every InStyler wishing they were her at the recent cover shoot for the December issue.

Not only is she intelligent (she studied Anthropology at Cambridge) and a Bafta-winner (Crash), she’s also open and down to earth (yes, that was the f-word that slipped out a couple of times!).

The RocknRolla actress was impossibly stunning for the shoot, working heavenly Chanel and fashion-forward Louis Vuitton to weep-worthy effect.

And how does the mum of two girls keep a body a 20-year-old would wish for at 37? ‘That’s genetic!’ she laughs, ‘and I’m a Jivamukti yoga freak – it’s food for my soul.

‘When I’m not working, I’ll drop Rip off at school and Nico at nursery, then I go to yoga. I also have an amazing personal trainer who I see whenever I can.’

And it certainly pays off!

For the full Thandie interview, where she opens up about love, life, fashion and being friends with Oprah, grab the December issue of InStyle – out

2012 Premiere Los Angeles

other magazine finds

Vibe magazine

Thandie Newton on Guy Ritchie, racism in Hollywood and why Oliver Stone is 'crazy'

Thandie Newton on Guy Ritchie, racism in Hollywood and why Oliver Stone is 'crazy'
By Martyn Palmer
Last updated at 9:00 PM on 31st October 2009

She's the Cambridge graduate who studied for her finals during the Cannes Film Festival, believes she was exploited on her first film and has no time for Gordon Ramsay
'I've experienced racism in Hollywood but not as conflict or in a threatening way, just the ignorance of people,' said Thandie Newton
Thandie Newton is small boned, beautiful and looks as fragile as a bird of paradise but she's certainly no pushover. For her role in disaster blockbuster 2012 - whose central premise is that the end of the world starts on December 21 2012, as predicted by the ancient Mayan civilisation - she had to spend days submerged in a water tank 'the size of a swimming pool', filming scenes of floods that follow devastating earthquakes when the planet's tectonic plates shift.
She grew up in Penzance, the daughter of a Zimbabwean mother and an English father, and started acting at 16, keeping her career on track while attending Downing College, Cambridge, where she graduated with a 2.1 in anthropology. She won a Bafta for best supporting actress in Crash and has also starred in Mission: Impossible II, The Pursuit of Happyness and RocknRolla. She has two daughters, Ripley, nine, and Nico, five, is married to director Ol Parker and turns 37 on Friday.

I was studying for my finals at Cambridge during the Cannes Film Festival.
I went to a party on the beach for the film I was in, Jefferson In Paris, but I didn't get drunk because I knew I had to revise. I wasn't going to the college bar and having fun, so I probably ended up working more than most people. I carried on making films while I was at Cambridge. I don't regret it because if I hadn't, maybe I wouldn't be an actress.

They paid me just $5,000 for my first film, Flirting.
It should have been a lot more, but how was I to know? It was major exploitation. These days you get a first-class ticket if you are working on a movie but I flew economy all the way to Australia and back. I was hanging out after doing my GCSEs and it came totally out of the blue. After it finished I went back to school.

Thandie in a scene from disaster blockbuster 2012
The Mayan calendar finishes its 13th cycle in 2012 and after that there's nothing.
I was a bit nervous when I heard about the Mayan prophecies for my new film. And then someone reassured me that it's all been disproved. I think 2012 is about appreciating the moment and the simple things, the value of relationships and the value of the people that we love. It's also a great adventure.

Guy Ritchie is an acquired taste.
But I like him. He is a no-messing-about kind of director (she worked with him on RocknRolla). I love how straight-talking he is and sometimes it's confrontational, but what he does say is on the money every time.

I am terrible for swearing.
There's always a lot of swearing on film sets and I'm so bad that my kids say 'Stop it Mummy!' They're always telling me off. I love hanging out with the boys on a set - it's almost more relaxing than hanging out with the girls.

I've experienced racism in Hollywood but not as conflict or in a threatening way, just the ignorance of people.
There was one time I went for a meeting for this big movie and I was up for a character who wasn't written as black. The character was a college graduate and the studio head, a woman, said, 'How can we make this role more black if we are going to have you in the film?' And I said, 'Well, I think as it's written it's fine...' And she said, 'Yeah, I know, but she is a graduate, she has been to university.' So I said, 'I've been to university.' And then it was, 'Yeah, but you're different.' I wasn't offended. It's just nonsense. But no, I didn't do the film.

'Guy Ritchie is an acquired taste': Thandie on her RocknRolla director
My attitude towards Hollywood can be summed up as 'smash and grab'.
I go into a meeting with a director as an equal, thinking that what I have to offer is of great value. It also makes me appreciate how much I have changed. Twenty years ago I wasn't so well-equipped to deal with Hollywood.

I thought Oliver Stone was crazy when he told me he wanted me to play Condoleezza Rice.
I remember preparing for the film (W) and the make-up artist saying, 'We're going for feel-alike rather than lookalike.' But I wanted to look like her. So I had false teeth and a completely different hairstyle. I hear she's joined my agency, William Morris, so maybe I'll run into her in the corridor - that would be funny.

I was shocked when two BNP candidates were elected to the European parliament.
We need an Obama in Britain. You want someone to rise up from somewhere and take everyone by surprise. I think the BNP picking up votes stems from disenchantment.

I was the only black girl and only non-Catholic at St Mary's Roman Catholic School in Penzance.Whenever they were all at prayers I had free time. I got into a lot of trouble - they made me sit on a baby chair. It was supposed to shame you, but it didn't break me. There was a footballing nun who used to play on the pitch with the boys. She'd even wear a wimple.

I hate it when Gordon Ramsay abuses people on TV.
Those people come from goodness knows where to be in the kitchen with him and he's swearing at them, shaming them, mocking them, abusing them, and they just take it. That's got nothing to do with being a chef.

'I thought Oliver Stone was crazy when he told me he wanted me to play Condoleezza Rice,' said Thandie of her role in the film W
I can't stand reality TV.
Apparently, some people even watch Big Brother when all of the contestants are asleep in the house. Can you believe that?

You go into newsagents now and the top shelf is all the way down to the bottom.
My kids are getting comics next to the cover of a men's mag with a girl who's topless. The boundaries have gone.




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1223590/Thandie-Newton-Guy-Ritchie-racism-Hollywood-Oliver-Stone-crazy.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0VZx06vNT

Thandie and girls at the Times BFI Film Festival in London

They are so cuteeeee!

The Rainforest Foundation Photography Exhibition in London, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009.

Fashion Week Comes to a Star-Studded Close in NYC