We met Pierce Brosnan
Showing posts with label Bag of Bones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bag of Bones. Show all posts
Bag of Bones” reviews hit ahead of Sunday’s airing
Hollywoodnews.com: The A&E Network is getting ready to dig up “Stephen King’s Bag of Bones,” a four-hour epic miniseries based on The New York Times #1 bestselling novel, which features Pierce Brosnan’s return to television. The two-night event premieres on Sunday, December 11 and concludes on Monday, December 12, airing at 9PM ET/PT on both nights. The miniseries is directed by Mick Garris, who has previously adapted King’s work (“The Stand,” “The Shining”) for television.
Brosnan plays bestselling novelist Mike Noonan, who is unable to stop grieving after the tragic death of his wife Jo (Annabeth Gish). Suffering from writer’s block, a dream inspires Noonan to return to the couple’s lakeside retreat where he is plagued by nightmares and mysterious ghostly visitations from Sara Tidwell (Rose), a blues singer whose spirit lingers in the house.
Here are some early reviews of A&E’s miniseries, which describe Mick Garris’ adaptation as terrifying in all the wrong ways.
“The explanations, when they come, are violent, sordid and anticlimactic. Mr. King’s original, ambiguous ending is eliminated so that things can end on a more affirmative note.
The King veteran Mick Garris (‘Sleepwalkers,’ the TV version of ‘The Shining’), directing from a screenplay by Matt Venne, delivers some effective jolts of horror early on but seems to lose his touch as the story makes progressively less sense. The final ghostly appearance, which takes place in a bathtub, is more giggly than scary.” — Mike Hale, New York Times.
“Try as Brosnan does, he cannot overcome the dutifully chock full story (adapted by Mike Venne, directed by King regular Mick Garris), which quickly feels like a Stephen King theme park ride.
The original sin at the heart of ‘Bag of Bones’ is a powerful one, but by the time it is revealed, in a shamefully Scooby-Doo-like way, you’re more than ready to get off the ride.” — Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times.
“Barely intrigued viewers — including anyone who has ever seen half an episode of ‘Ghost Whisperer’ — will make quick work of ‘Bag of Bones’ on the first night. This leaves the question of who will come back for a second night of this drivel, especially given the terrifying number of commercial breaks. Perhaps there’s a King novella to be written about the nightmare of watching ‘Bag of Bones,’ in which a ghost who can’t reach the clicker must watch all those ads for Christmas sales. Her torment is eternal.” — Hank Stuever, The Washington Post.
“‘Bag of Bones,’ especially this adaptation of it, doesn’t have the benefit of the great start. It’s never clear what the story is really about, or how its many pieces fit together. It’s just a collection of creepy imagery, lots of screaming and the occasional musical number for Anika Noni Rose. Not that I mind getting to hear her sing; I’d just rather it was in the middle of a much more interesting story.” — Alan Sepinwall, HitFix
The two-night event premieres on Sunday, December 11 and concludes on Monday, December 12, airing at 9PM ET/PT.
Brosnan plays bestselling novelist Mike Noonan, who is unable to stop grieving after the tragic death of his wife Jo (Annabeth Gish). Suffering from writer’s block, a dream inspires Noonan to return to the couple’s lakeside retreat where he is plagued by nightmares and mysterious ghostly visitations from Sara Tidwell (Rose), a blues singer whose spirit lingers in the house.
Here are some early reviews of A&E’s miniseries, which describe Mick Garris’ adaptation as terrifying in all the wrong ways.
“The explanations, when they come, are violent, sordid and anticlimactic. Mr. King’s original, ambiguous ending is eliminated so that things can end on a more affirmative note.
The King veteran Mick Garris (‘Sleepwalkers,’ the TV version of ‘The Shining’), directing from a screenplay by Matt Venne, delivers some effective jolts of horror early on but seems to lose his touch as the story makes progressively less sense. The final ghostly appearance, which takes place in a bathtub, is more giggly than scary.” — Mike Hale, New York Times.
“Try as Brosnan does, he cannot overcome the dutifully chock full story (adapted by Mike Venne, directed by King regular Mick Garris), which quickly feels like a Stephen King theme park ride.
The original sin at the heart of ‘Bag of Bones’ is a powerful one, but by the time it is revealed, in a shamefully Scooby-Doo-like way, you’re more than ready to get off the ride.” — Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times.
“Barely intrigued viewers — including anyone who has ever seen half an episode of ‘Ghost Whisperer’ — will make quick work of ‘Bag of Bones’ on the first night. This leaves the question of who will come back for a second night of this drivel, especially given the terrifying number of commercial breaks. Perhaps there’s a King novella to be written about the nightmare of watching ‘Bag of Bones,’ in which a ghost who can’t reach the clicker must watch all those ads for Christmas sales. Her torment is eternal.” — Hank Stuever, The Washington Post.
“‘Bag of Bones,’ especially this adaptation of it, doesn’t have the benefit of the great start. It’s never clear what the story is really about, or how its many pieces fit together. It’s just a collection of creepy imagery, lots of screaming and the occasional musical number for Anika Noni Rose. Not that I mind getting to hear her sing; I’d just rather it was in the middle of a much more interesting story.” — Alan Sepinwall, HitFix
The two-night event premieres on Sunday, December 11 and concludes on Monday, December 12, airing at 9PM ET/PT.
Pierce Brosnan returns to TV in 'Bag of Bones'
December 10, 2011
(CNN) -- You most likely know Pierce Brosnan from his work as 007, but he's actually been quite busy since his Bond days.
Rom-com roles, quirky indie flicks here and there and spending time developing his own projects through his company Irish DreamTime gives you the sense that this is a guy who's dedicated to not only the craft of acting, but also to working instead of coasting on any prior associations. For his latest project, a TV mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's 1998 novel, "Bag of Bones," he portrays Mike Noonan, a writer who seems to be going slowly insane at a remote lake town after his wife's death. It's a typical King thriller, with a host of supernatural and psychological twists.
As "Remington Steel," Brosnan got his start on the small screen so there's no mystery as to whether he could pull it off -- but with the creativity found on television these days, the medium is ripe for a versatile workaholic like Brosnan.
The actor recently spoke with CNN about his return to TV, how he brought King's character to life and what he thinks of the Bond franchise now.
CNN: "Bag of Bones" is one of the first big returns for you to television since "Remington Steele."
Brosnan: I haven't done TV in a good number of years. But I've been saying to my agent, "Look, please do not rule out TV. I enjoy it, I started my career there, it's such fertile ground." So, I got "Bag of Bones." The timing was great, I love Stephen King ... I'd done one of his short stories a long time ago, called "The Lawnmower Man."
CNN: What's exciting about this medium to you these days?
Brosnan: It's a corporate world out there in the world of movie making. It's really hard to raise the finances, as a filmmaker myself. It's just really hard going.
I have two pieces with my own company, Irish DreamTime that are in development, that we just got the writers on and just got the heads-up from the studio. Two shows that I would be in from time to time. It's just interesting work out there. We've started writing the scripts ... I don't really want to talk about them right now, it's a little bit premature. The one that's going to be a half-hour show, it's very cool. Comes from the world of "Dexter," it has a sick attitude about it. TV is very exciting; it's get in, get out.
This particular piece, "Bag of Bones," happened so quickly. I had two weeks off before the last job I had, before moving into this. You can come away from a day's work absolutely exhausted, but exhilarated, because it's so fast.
CNN: What's critical to bringing a King story to screen? His world's are so rich as you're reading it, but for a visual medium, it's different.
Brosnan: (Director) Mick Garris is the one you have to tip your hat to. He's extremely prepared and passionate and knows the King world so well. King trusts Nick implicitly. Garris and I didn't talk too much about it. It was fairly self-evident what had to be done with the story. At first I thought it was overly written with stage directions and it kind of irked me where it was telling me how to act here. As the piece wore on, the weeks went by, I realized more and more of the stage direction.
CNN: There's not a lot of dialogue between you and other characters. It was more the inner-conflicts that we see play out. How does one approach a role like that?
Brosnan: The first three weeks it was just me in a house. It was like "Diary of a Madman." There was only one person on the call sheet and that was me. That was a unique way to work and I actually found it extremely pleasant; I didn't have to deal with any other actors (laughs). I could just have my own timing and my own emotional world, all to myself. That only goes so far. It's hard to articulate how I got there, but it's somewhat like "Diary of a Madman."
CNN: Portraying fear is a critical aspect of a King story. How difficult is that?
Brosnan: I didn't really have time to worry about that. How many ways can portray fear, things that go bump in the night, or how many expressions do you have up your sleeve? That's when you have to rely on the director, that he's going to be in the right place to get that look.
CNN: How did the book translate to screen?
Brosnan: It's pretty much there; I think it's better than the book. I found the book, at times, kind of slow and I thought the script had such a snap to it. You enjoy the sharp left turns that come at you.
CNN: Does Stephen King consult on something like this?
Brosnan: I think there was a great rapport between Garris and him. He didn't come down. I called him up before I went off to shoot it, just to say hello and get his blessing, so to speak. Stephen King is Stephen King. There's only one of him. He always has a point of view.
CNN: Have you been following the "Bond" franchise?
Brosnan: (Daniel Craig) is one great Bond. Certainly does a magnificent job.
CNN: He's a tough one. A tough dude.
Brosnan: He's a tough dude. They have to. Big competition with "Bourne Identity" and one thing or another. He'll be right as rain.
"Bag of Bones" is a two-part mini-series that airs Sunday December 11 and Monday December 12 on A&E.
(CNN) -- You most likely know Pierce Brosnan from his work as 007, but he's actually been quite busy since his Bond days.
Rom-com roles, quirky indie flicks here and there and spending time developing his own projects through his company Irish DreamTime gives you the sense that this is a guy who's dedicated to not only the craft of acting, but also to working instead of coasting on any prior associations. For his latest project, a TV mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's 1998 novel, "Bag of Bones," he portrays Mike Noonan, a writer who seems to be going slowly insane at a remote lake town after his wife's death. It's a typical King thriller, with a host of supernatural and psychological twists.
As "Remington Steel," Brosnan got his start on the small screen so there's no mystery as to whether he could pull it off -- but with the creativity found on television these days, the medium is ripe for a versatile workaholic like Brosnan.
The actor recently spoke with CNN about his return to TV, how he brought King's character to life and what he thinks of the Bond franchise now.
CNN: "Bag of Bones" is one of the first big returns for you to television since "Remington Steele."
Brosnan: I haven't done TV in a good number of years. But I've been saying to my agent, "Look, please do not rule out TV. I enjoy it, I started my career there, it's such fertile ground." So, I got "Bag of Bones." The timing was great, I love Stephen King ... I'd done one of his short stories a long time ago, called "The Lawnmower Man."
CNN: What's exciting about this medium to you these days?
Brosnan: It's a corporate world out there in the world of movie making. It's really hard to raise the finances, as a filmmaker myself. It's just really hard going.
I have two pieces with my own company, Irish DreamTime that are in development, that we just got the writers on and just got the heads-up from the studio. Two shows that I would be in from time to time. It's just interesting work out there. We've started writing the scripts ... I don't really want to talk about them right now, it's a little bit premature. The one that's going to be a half-hour show, it's very cool. Comes from the world of "Dexter," it has a sick attitude about it. TV is very exciting; it's get in, get out.
This particular piece, "Bag of Bones," happened so quickly. I had two weeks off before the last job I had, before moving into this. You can come away from a day's work absolutely exhausted, but exhilarated, because it's so fast.
CNN: What's critical to bringing a King story to screen? His world's are so rich as you're reading it, but for a visual medium, it's different.
Brosnan: (Director) Mick Garris is the one you have to tip your hat to. He's extremely prepared and passionate and knows the King world so well. King trusts Nick implicitly. Garris and I didn't talk too much about it. It was fairly self-evident what had to be done with the story. At first I thought it was overly written with stage directions and it kind of irked me where it was telling me how to act here. As the piece wore on, the weeks went by, I realized more and more of the stage direction.
CNN: There's not a lot of dialogue between you and other characters. It was more the inner-conflicts that we see play out. How does one approach a role like that?
Brosnan: The first three weeks it was just me in a house. It was like "Diary of a Madman." There was only one person on the call sheet and that was me. That was a unique way to work and I actually found it extremely pleasant; I didn't have to deal with any other actors (laughs). I could just have my own timing and my own emotional world, all to myself. That only goes so far. It's hard to articulate how I got there, but it's somewhat like "Diary of a Madman."
CNN: Portraying fear is a critical aspect of a King story. How difficult is that?
Brosnan: I didn't really have time to worry about that. How many ways can portray fear, things that go bump in the night, or how many expressions do you have up your sleeve? That's when you have to rely on the director, that he's going to be in the right place to get that look.
CNN: How did the book translate to screen?
Brosnan: It's pretty much there; I think it's better than the book. I found the book, at times, kind of slow and I thought the script had such a snap to it. You enjoy the sharp left turns that come at you.
CNN: Does Stephen King consult on something like this?
Brosnan: I think there was a great rapport between Garris and him. He didn't come down. I called him up before I went off to shoot it, just to say hello and get his blessing, so to speak. Stephen King is Stephen King. There's only one of him. He always has a point of view.
CNN: Have you been following the "Bond" franchise?
Brosnan: (Daniel Craig) is one great Bond. Certainly does a magnificent job.
CNN: He's a tough one. A tough dude.
Brosnan: He's a tough dude. They have to. Big competition with "Bourne Identity" and one thing or another. He'll be right as rain.
"Bag of Bones" is a two-part mini-series that airs Sunday December 11 and Monday December 12 on A&E.
Pierce Brosnan appears on NBC's
pierce brosnan appears on nbc's 'the ellen degeneres show' where he talks about how he and his wife have been spending christmas in hawaii for the past 10 years. brosnan promotes his new mini series 'bag of bones' and receives speedos as a christmas
Pierce Brosnan appears on NBC's 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show' where he talks about how he and his wife have been spending Christmas in Hawaii for the past 10 years. Brosnan promotes his new mini series 'Bag of Bones' and receives Speedos as a Christmas gift from DeGeneres Where: USA.
Pierce Brosnan appears on NBC's 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show' where he talks about how he and his wife have been spending Christmas in Hawaii for the past 10 years. Brosnan promotes his new mini series 'Bag of Bones' and receives Speedos as a Christmas gift from DeGeneres Where: USA.
Pierce Brosnan and Craig
Dec 9th 2011
With Pierce Brosnan on 'The Late Late Show' (Weeknights, 12:37AM ET on CBS), the conversation inevitably turned to James Bond, which he portrayed from 1995 to 2002.
Despite saying that he virtually jumped from television series 'Remington Steele' to Bond -- when apparently Geoff fell in love with him -- it was an eight-year gap during which he starred in several films.
But it always comes back to Bond. Craig Ferguson noted that current Bond Daniel Craig has no body hair, and wondered how that works for the secret agent. "I don't know where you keep your secret documents and stuff if you don't have at least some hair," he said. "Sean Connery was covered in hair."
With Pierce Brosnan on 'The Late Late Show' (Weeknights, 12:37AM ET on CBS), the conversation inevitably turned to James Bond, which he portrayed from 1995 to 2002.
Despite saying that he virtually jumped from television series 'Remington Steele' to Bond -- when apparently Geoff fell in love with him -- it was an eight-year gap during which he starred in several films.
But it always comes back to Bond. Craig Ferguson noted that current Bond Daniel Craig has no body hair, and wondered how that works for the secret agent. "I don't know where you keep your secret documents and stuff if you don't have at least some hair," he said. "Sean Connery was covered in hair."
Pierce Brosnan attend the premiere
Actors Caitlin Carmichael (L) and Pierce Brosnan attend the premiere party for A&E's original miniseries "Bag Of Bones" at Fig & Olive Melrose Place on December 8, 2011 in West Hollywood, California.
Pierce Brosnan - Thursday, December 8, 2011
The dashing PIERCE BROSNAN is here! He's starring in the thrilling new Stephen King miniseries, "Bag of Bones," and he's here to tell Ellen all about it!
And one of Ellen's closest friends, BETHENNY FRANKEL is returning to our stage with more of her hilarious and insightful brand of recipes, fashion tips and advice!
Plus, it's Day 6 of Ellen's 12 Days of Giveaways! You won't want to miss what the audience is going home with today!Ellen talked to Pierce Brosnan about his new Stephen King miniseries, Bag of Bones. Then she spoke with her friend Bethenny Frankel about her many endeavors in cooking and fashion, as well as anything else she's willing to give advice on!
Remember, anyone can enter Ellen DeGeneres' 12 Days of Giveaways. Enter here on The Ellen Show website!
And one of Ellen's closest friends, BETHENNY FRANKEL is returning to our stage with more of her hilarious and insightful brand of recipes, fashion tips and advice!
Plus, it's Day 6 of Ellen's 12 Days of Giveaways! You won't want to miss what the audience is going home with today!Ellen talked to Pierce Brosnan about his new Stephen King miniseries, Bag of Bones. Then she spoke with her friend Bethenny Frankel about her many endeavors in cooking and fashion, as well as anything else she's willing to give advice on!
Remember, anyone can enter Ellen DeGeneres' 12 Days of Giveaways. Enter here on The Ellen Show website!
Pierce Brosnan's Ghostly Return to TV
Pierce Brosnan plays a writer grappling with grief in the Stephen King's Bag of Bones, airing Sunday and Monday on A&E, and the veteran star exclusively tells ET of the gripping ghost story, "This is a beast of a piece."
Marking the former Remington Steele star's long-awaited return to television, Pierce is also a producer on the four-hour miniseries and says with a grin, "You want the audience to just go, 'Wow, what's gonna happen next?'"
Based on King's bestselling supernatural thriller, Pierce plays Michael Noonan, a bestselling novelist who is unable to stop grieving after the sudden death of his wife (played by Annabeth Gish). Suffering from writer's block, he takes refuge at their lakeside retreat in western Maine, only to be plagued by ever-escalating nightmares, ghostly visitations from a blues singer (Anika Noni Rose) and past secrets coming to light.
"My life is backed into this chaotic, apocalyptic turmoil of the heart and the psyche," explains the former 007 of his character's incredible loss. "In going back to this lake house he begins to unravel the mystery of his own life."
Marking the former Remington Steele star's long-awaited return to television, Pierce is also a producer on the four-hour miniseries and says with a grin, "You want the audience to just go, 'Wow, what's gonna happen next?'"
Based on King's bestselling supernatural thriller, Pierce plays Michael Noonan, a bestselling novelist who is unable to stop grieving after the sudden death of his wife (played by Annabeth Gish). Suffering from writer's block, he takes refuge at their lakeside retreat in western Maine, only to be plagued by ever-escalating nightmares, ghostly visitations from a blues singer (Anika Noni Rose) and past secrets coming to light.
"My life is backed into this chaotic, apocalyptic turmoil of the heart and the psyche," explains the former 007 of his character's incredible loss. "In going back to this lake house he begins to unravel the mystery of his own life."
Pierce Brosnan to star in Stephen King’s
December 8, 2011
Fans of Pierce Brosnan and horror novelist Stephen King can tune into the A&E network on Sunday, December 11 to watch the screen adaptation of King’s Bag of Bones.
It’s been quite some time since Brosnan has starred in a project specially made for television – his popular Remington Steele series is the last show we can think of. But he’s back to star in the four-hour TV version of King’s best-selling novel, playing the main character, writer and recent widower Mike Noonan. Something very strange is going on at Mike’s summer home in Maine, and his beloved wife is apparently haunting it.
The movie will air over two nights, Sunday and Monday, for four hours in total. Brosnan says he’s lucky he got through the shoot, considering that horror flicks “scare the bejesus” out of him.
“Part of me kept thinking the same thing -- just leave the f**king house!” he says of his character’s devotion to the spread in Maine he shared with his wife.“However, the quest for my character was to find out what was going on. It was balls to the wall, for character and for actor.”
Brosnan recalls the classic seventies horror film, Carrie, and the effect it had on him.
“I remember going home to my little apartment in North London mildly freaked. Part of the issue was (the film’s star) Sissy Spacek. She was beautiful and I fell in love with her,” he said.
Brosnan, a fine 58, says he’ll be fully buttoned up during Bag of Bones, disappointing his legions of female fans for sure.
“Within the context of this piece, I thought it was unnecessary to go around without my shirt,” he said.
“I thought, there’s Stephen King, and then there’s running around without my shirt. They are two separate worlds.”
Meanwhile, as production gears up on the next James Bond movie, Skyfall, with Daniel Craig as 007, a perch Bond occupied for four of the films, his former co-star Judi Dench gave him a nice shout-out.
"Daniel’s an incredible talent and I love working with him but I still miss Pierce," Dench recently said.
"He was a very warm man and always a lot of fun, always laughing and joking. Pierce was great to have around the set. We became close friends. I did four Bonds with him so I missed him after he finished with the role."
Here, watch the preview for Brosnan's upcoming 'Bag of Bones':
Fans of Pierce Brosnan and horror novelist Stephen King can tune into the A&E network on Sunday, December 11 to watch the screen adaptation of King’s Bag of Bones.
It’s been quite some time since Brosnan has starred in a project specially made for television – his popular Remington Steele series is the last show we can think of. But he’s back to star in the four-hour TV version of King’s best-selling novel, playing the main character, writer and recent widower Mike Noonan. Something very strange is going on at Mike’s summer home in Maine, and his beloved wife is apparently haunting it.
The movie will air over two nights, Sunday and Monday, for four hours in total. Brosnan says he’s lucky he got through the shoot, considering that horror flicks “scare the bejesus” out of him.
“Part of me kept thinking the same thing -- just leave the f**king house!” he says of his character’s devotion to the spread in Maine he shared with his wife.“However, the quest for my character was to find out what was going on. It was balls to the wall, for character and for actor.”
Brosnan recalls the classic seventies horror film, Carrie, and the effect it had on him.
“I remember going home to my little apartment in North London mildly freaked. Part of the issue was (the film’s star) Sissy Spacek. She was beautiful and I fell in love with her,” he said.
Brosnan, a fine 58, says he’ll be fully buttoned up during Bag of Bones, disappointing his legions of female fans for sure.
“Within the context of this piece, I thought it was unnecessary to go around without my shirt,” he said.
“I thought, there’s Stephen King, and then there’s running around without my shirt. They are two separate worlds.”
Meanwhile, as production gears up on the next James Bond movie, Skyfall, with Daniel Craig as 007, a perch Bond occupied for four of the films, his former co-star Judi Dench gave him a nice shout-out.
"Daniel’s an incredible talent and I love working with him but I still miss Pierce," Dench recently said.
"He was a very warm man and always a lot of fun, always laughing and joking. Pierce was great to have around the set. We became close friends. I did four Bonds with him so I missed him after he finished with the role."
Here, watch the preview for Brosnan's upcoming 'Bag of Bones':
Pierce Brosnan for Bag of Bones
Pierce Brosnan is back on the small screen in the upcoming miniseries "Stephen King's Bag of Bones".
Brosnan in TV mini-series
Viewers tuning into the A&E television network's adaptation of Stephen King's novel Bag of Bones this weekend will see Bathurst native Gary Levert acting alongside the man who played 007 in four hit movies.
Gary Levert, shown here in character for a movie called 'The Disappeared' that is scheduled for theatrical release next year, plays a deputy sheriff in A&E's adaptation of Stephen King's novel 'Bag of Bones'.
Levert plays deputy sheriff George Footman in the two-part mini-series, which begins Sunday Dec. 11 at 10 p.m. and concludes Monday Dec. 12 at the same time. His character has numerous run-ins with novelist Mike Noonan, played by Irish actor Pierce Brosnan who is best known for his role as secret agent James Bond in GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day.
"I'm a paid-off cop and I'm not a nice guy, so the encounters I have with Pierce are sort of violent. This George guy is a very bad man," said Levert in a phone interview earlier this fall.
A horror/drama, the story focuses around Brosnan's character who has writer's block after the death of his wife and moves into a haunted house.
While set in Maine, Bag of Bones was actually shot in the area of Halifax, N.S. in August and September, where Levert now resides. (Seeing how Halifax is only a three-hour drive from Moncton, this would explain the appearance of Brosnan in the crowd at a concert given by the Irish superstar rock group U2 in Moncton on July 30.)
Levert said he relished the chance to act alongside Brosnan, who first gained fame in the 1980s television action series Remington Steele and went on to star in such movies as The Thomas Crown Affair, The Matador and Mama Mia.
"I am a huge fan of his and have been for years, especially after I watched him do The Matador. He is one of the best as far as acting opposite of him. We had a lot of scenes, just the two of us together, and he's really into the craft," he said.
"He's just a real gentleman, very patient, very nice. Usually, when you work with actors, they're nice to you but then you hear stories about how they interact with local people, how they're interacting with the crew ... Everything that I got from my own personal experience was fantastic, from an artistic point of view and from a personal point of view," said Levert, noting Brosnan even accompanied him for a few drinks after work hours.
Bag of Bones, produced by Sony Pictures, also features Annabeth Gish in the cast, most recently seen in several episodes of the popular television series CSI, and who co-starred in the last couple of seasons of The X Files.
A 1978 graduate of Bathurst High School, Levert is the son of Jackie and the late Ed Levert. His acting credits include the Kevin Spacey/Julianne Moore film, The Shipping News; Trailer Park Boys: The Movie; and the TV mini-series Canada-Russia '72.
Gary Levert, shown here in character for a movie called 'The Disappeared' that is scheduled for theatrical release next year, plays a deputy sheriff in A&E's adaptation of Stephen King's novel 'Bag of Bones'.
Levert plays deputy sheriff George Footman in the two-part mini-series, which begins Sunday Dec. 11 at 10 p.m. and concludes Monday Dec. 12 at the same time. His character has numerous run-ins with novelist Mike Noonan, played by Irish actor Pierce Brosnan who is best known for his role as secret agent James Bond in GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day.
"I'm a paid-off cop and I'm not a nice guy, so the encounters I have with Pierce are sort of violent. This George guy is a very bad man," said Levert in a phone interview earlier this fall.
A horror/drama, the story focuses around Brosnan's character who has writer's block after the death of his wife and moves into a haunted house.
While set in Maine, Bag of Bones was actually shot in the area of Halifax, N.S. in August and September, where Levert now resides. (Seeing how Halifax is only a three-hour drive from Moncton, this would explain the appearance of Brosnan in the crowd at a concert given by the Irish superstar rock group U2 in Moncton on July 30.)
Levert said he relished the chance to act alongside Brosnan, who first gained fame in the 1980s television action series Remington Steele and went on to star in such movies as The Thomas Crown Affair, The Matador and Mama Mia.
"I am a huge fan of his and have been for years, especially after I watched him do The Matador. He is one of the best as far as acting opposite of him. We had a lot of scenes, just the two of us together, and he's really into the craft," he said.
"He's just a real gentleman, very patient, very nice. Usually, when you work with actors, they're nice to you but then you hear stories about how they interact with local people, how they're interacting with the crew ... Everything that I got from my own personal experience was fantastic, from an artistic point of view and from a personal point of view," said Levert, noting Brosnan even accompanied him for a few drinks after work hours.
Bag of Bones, produced by Sony Pictures, also features Annabeth Gish in the cast, most recently seen in several episodes of the popular television series CSI, and who co-starred in the last couple of seasons of The X Files.
A 1978 graduate of Bathurst High School, Levert is the son of Jackie and the late Ed Levert. His acting credits include the Kevin Spacey/Julianne Moore film, The Shipping News; Trailer Park Boys: The Movie; and the TV mini-series Canada-Russia '72.
New 'Bag of Bones'
New 'Bag of Bones' Promo Teases the Dark Truth
Another "Bag of Bones" promo has been shared with more vivid clues of the story. While the scenes see Pierce Brosnan's Mike Noonan being haunted by a ghost and some men digging or burying something in the woods, a man is heard in a voiceover admitting that he and some others may do something wrong in the past.
Based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, the upcoming miniseries centers on Mike, a novelist who is unable to stop grieving after the sudden death of his wife. Suffering from writer's block, he retreats to his Maine lakeside home.
When his ability to write suddenly returns, Mike is plagued by ever-escalating nightmares and mysterious ghostly visitations from Sara Tidwell, a blues singer whose spirit lingers in the house. As he is haunted by the many secrets at the lake, Mike comes to realize that his late wife still has something to tell him.
"Bag of Bones" will air over two nights starting Sunday, December 11 at 9/8c on A&E. In another promotional effort, the network has launched an online prequel site which features images and audio interviews to provide viewers with a backstory on the upcoming miniseries.
Another "Bag of Bones" promo has been shared with more vivid clues of the story. While the scenes see Pierce Brosnan's Mike Noonan being haunted by a ghost and some men digging or burying something in the woods, a man is heard in a voiceover admitting that he and some others may do something wrong in the past.
Based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, the upcoming miniseries centers on Mike, a novelist who is unable to stop grieving after the sudden death of his wife. Suffering from writer's block, he retreats to his Maine lakeside home.
When his ability to write suddenly returns, Mike is plagued by ever-escalating nightmares and mysterious ghostly visitations from Sara Tidwell, a blues singer whose spirit lingers in the house. As he is haunted by the many secrets at the lake, Mike comes to realize that his late wife still has something to tell him.
"Bag of Bones" will air over two nights starting Sunday, December 11 at 9/8c on A&E. In another promotional effort, the network has launched an online prequel site which features images and audio interviews to provide viewers with a backstory on the upcoming miniseries.
Director Mick Garris talks
Garris is back directing another King work, Bag of Bones, which will air Dec. 11 and 12 on A&E. It stars Pierce Brosnan as Mike Noonan, an author grieving over the sudden death of his wife, Jo (Annabeth Gish). He takes refuge at his summer house on Dark Score Lake, where he gets drawn into the struggles of a young mother, Mattie (Melissa George), and the vengeful spirit of jazz singer Sara Tidwell (Anika Noni Rose).
In Part 1 of our two-part interview, Garris talks with me about the miniseries, and how he was willing to wait out Bruce Willis to get it made:
Obviously this isn’t your first Stephen King rodeo. What made you or the powers that be decide that Bag of Bones would be a good adaptation?
Mick Garris: Not the first, no. (Laughs) It’s been one of my favorite King books for a long time. Years ago, right after it was published Bruce Willis had bought the rights to produce and maybe star in it, and so I thought, “Damn!” So after that lapsed — I had always really connected with it because it’s really kind of a grown-up ghost story, and [it has] the best of Stephen King with all the emotional depth and melancholy that is often not a part of the movie adaptations of his work. So when it became available, my producing partner Mark Sennett and I talked to King about it, and he was happy for us to give it a go. We tried making it as a movie first, it’s been about five years trying to get it going. It had a temporary home at ABC, [but] nothing happened there, and then we hooked up with A&E. Once that deal was done it was full speed ahead.
You’ve said that what attracts you to Stephen King stories is his great characters and great stories. How does Bag of Bones demonstrate these traits?
MG: Well, Bag of Bones is really a lot about sorrow and about loss. Very early on in the story the lead character is deprived of his spouse in a very shocking and unexpected way, to him and the audience. I have suffered more than my share of loss, having lost a parent and two brothers and a mother-in-law, and … when horror movies are all about death, it’s usually kind of spitting in the eye of death, or whistling through the graveyard. But King’s stuff is so much more interesting, because it’s about mortality and the real face-to-face with death, and not just a playful tone, or teenagers hooting their immortality. So that’s what really appealed to me about this one; it’s all about sorrow and mourning and loss versus retribution, told in a really I think smart, sophisticated ghost story. It’s really passionate. I’ll usually pick a key word to communicate in shorthand with the crew and the cast what we’re going through. When we did The Shining miniseries that word was “dread.” On Bag of Bones, it’ was “passion.” It’s the thing we wanted to keep reminding ourselves of, because that’s what that book to me was about.
At the time Bag of Bones was released it signified Stephen King’s departure from Viking to Scribner, and he also seemed to enter a phase where he began being perceived more seriously by the literary crowd. Do you think this story signifies a shift for King at all?
MG: I would agree with that. I think he’s always taken his work seriously, but it was a turning point. This and Lisey’s Story, which followed in a very similar vein. I think that is a turn that probably enabled him to get the National Book Award [Lifetime Achievement in 2003] and get the attention he really had been denied because he was so damn popular. It’s hard to win over the intelligentsia if the hoi polloi embrace you. That was probably the case. I imagine Charles Dickens was too popular for the snobbery in his day. There are definite correlations there. I wouldn’t disagree with you at all.
What’s the relationship like with you and King when you’re working on projects of his? Was he as involved this time out, since he didn’t write the screenplay as he had for the others?
MG: He wasn’t really involved in this other than as friends and as people who have worked together a lot in the past. I would always run ideas past him. He had casting approval for a couple of the lead roles, and obviously he had director and writer approval and all that. But he’s pretty good about knowing the difference between a book and a movie, and he’s very encouraging to do whatever it takes to make it as a movie the best it can be. Mostly it would be in discussions early on about who we were thinking about casting and locations and things like that, but it was pretty much at arm’s length on this one. He’s not a producer, and as you said, he didn’t write the script.
I have a superficial question here, about Pierce Brosnan and Melissa George’s accents. Are they still playing Americans?
MG: Melissa has an American accent [in the film]. Most of the time she works with an American accent. A lot of people don’t even realize that she’s Australian. We first met almost 10 years ago when I shot a pilot [Lost in Oz] in Australia that she starred in, but as an American. But Pierce is using his natural accent, and we just don’t even point at it. If you look closely on his wall you’ll see that there’s his degree from Trinity College in Dublin, just a hint that he’s gone to school across the pond.
Just as well. Nobody wants to hear Pierce Brosnan with an American accent anyway, right?
MG: I don’t think I would. (Laughs)
You said this was considered as a movie at one point, but do you think miniseries is the more proper format?
MG: I think a lot of the Stephen King’s stories, the books, the novels, are best done as miniseries. I mean, The Stand, we could never have done as a movie, although there’s talk of doing it as a couple movies now. Or were. Bag of Bones is a pretty dense story. Our original script was for a two-hour feature film and it really felt like it was missing stuff, so when we had the opportunity to turn it into a four-hour miniseries — which is really a three-hour movie, minus the commercial breaks and promos and things — it really needed that breath. It needed a little more room to build up the tension and the mystery and the whole curse of Dark Score Lake and what all of that was about. In this case I think it’s just the right length. A three-hour movie over two nights works really well for this. King’s books are awfully dense, but they’re often very internal, and so movies are an external format. Books are internal, prose is internal, so it’s kind of a challenge that people don’t think that much about in adapting Stephen King because his books are very cinematic, but they’re also a lot about what’s going on inside.
Your other television projects with Stephen King have been on broadcast networks. Did you notice any difference, as far as what content you could include, in going to A&E?
MG: Yes, as a matter of fact. (Laugh) All the other King stuff I’ve done has been for ABC, and after the success of The Stand, we were able to go pretty far with The Shining. The last hour of The Shining I think probably would have gotten an R rating at that time if it were a theatrical film. But this one we have a very disturbing rape and murder sequence in here. There are things that — it’s not a gore ride at all, but it does have some intensity that I think would have been much more difficult to reach on broadcast, because they have to appeal to the widest possible audience. With basic cable at least, people know that it’s not on the airwaves and so it’s more controllable. But A&E is a little more conservative in that regard than, say, FX. But we just heard from broadcast standards yesterday that we got through without making any changes. It’s intense, but it’s not a gorefest by any means. It has its horrific elements, but it’s more about the tension and the mystery and the ghost story.
So it sounds like the movie’s all put to bed and ready to go?
MG: Not put to bed yet. I literally finished shooting it three weeks ago and yet we’re locking picture hopefully today. It’s been very fast because of when it has to air. We have to deliver it in early November with everything finished. But it’s working out great. We’ve got two editors that I’ve worked with before working at the same time, and that has made it possible. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible it all. I’ve never worked with two editors on a project in my entire career. But it’s actually been great and made this a really great experience because now we’ve got three people thinking about how it all fits together rather than just two.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where Garris talks about casting the actors, and what his thoughts are on those rumored remakes of “The Stand.”
Mick Garris: It actually went really well. It’s a very complex movie. It was shot for 39 days in Nova Scotia. You’ve read the book so you know that the Mike Noonan character is in virtually every scene, and a lot of them by himself. Normally an actor doesn’t run from Day 1 to Day 39 straight through and always there, but other than one day Pierce did the whole thing and a lot of it alone. And because you don’t shoot in order, it’s always interesting. There are three leading ladies in this movie with him, so it was like making three different movies, because you shoot for one actor’s schedule and for locations and that sort of thing rather than in story order just to make the production possible. The difference in each of those stories was stylistically and just where we were geographically with each one. It was really, really complicated and fascinating. It just felt like, “Whoa, three weeks ago we were where?” And probably the most interesting and fun challenge was recreating Dark Score Lake in 1939 with the jazz singer Sara Tidwell, who Anika Noni Rose plays. That was so much fun, all the period extras and carnival rides and the hayloft, and Sara Tidwell and her Slick Six, her touring band, performing these great jazz-era classic songs. It was really, really fun and exciting.
It was neat to hear you had gotten Anika Noni Rose for Sara Tidwell. That just seems like perfect casting.
MG: Amazing. You know, I was not that familiar with her work, and they were originally encouraging us to cast a popstar for that part. Finally, when Anika came up, I cannot imagine anyone on the planet being better for this part. She’s so good, she’s so beautiful, such a great voice and a fantastic actress, it was eye-opening. She’s going to really impress a lot of people not just with the musical performances, which are phenomenal, but the intense sequences with her are really quite remarkable. She really went for it. It’s kind of been the best cast experience I’ve ever had. I mean, Pierce does things I’ve never seen before, goes to some real emotional depth. He’s a fantastic actor, but he’s never really done a genre movie like this. He takes it out of the genre movie gutter that often we live in. Really, the material is different from your standard genre material, but then Pierce doing it really lifts it up. It’s a pretty incredible performance.
Yeah, the first perception you have of Pierce Brosnan is the suave, debonair type. You don’t always associate him with dark and disturbing material.
MG: It couldn’t have been better. I could not be happier with him and the rest of the cast. It’s really exciting. Working with actors is one of my favorite parts of this job, and sometimes it can be complicated and all, but everybody was on the same page and everybody genuinely enjoyed working with one another. I’d worked with Melissa and with Annabeth Gish before, so that was great. We already had a shorthand and a relationship going. But Pierce, from the very beginning once he settled into everything he just knocked it out of the park. He would try things, he would just go for it. A great actor is defined by an actor who is not limited by the potential of being embarrassed, who’s not afraid to go out on a limb, and when you see The Matador and him walking through a hotel lobby in his underpants and … boots you know this is a fearless actor. He really was a delight to work with. I don’t want to sound like a press agent.
I noticed Jason Priestley in the cast list. What’s his role?
MG: He plays Mike’s agent, Marty. It was a cameo, really. He does a show called Call Me Fitz that shoots by there, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and so we were looking for somebody who would be interesting to play the part and really bring something to the party. Again, I had not met him before and it was just great. At one point, he and Matt Frewer and Pierce were together in a scene together in a graveyard and started joking about being the kings of ’80s network TV. Brandon Walsh, Max Headroom and Remington Steele were all grouped together. (Laughs) It was really a riot.
The Bag of Bones promos sure are heavy on the spooky kids aspect. Is that a fair representation of the movie as a whole?
MG: Yeah, they do sell that. But it’s very much a part of it. It is a huge part of it, and the curse of Dark Score Lake is kind of the MacGuffin behind all this, so I would not want to downplay the horrific and frightening aspects, but I think what makes this kind of unique is the depth of the emotion that it goes to. It is a very passionate love story as well as a horrific Stephen King book.
When you’re casting a Stephen King project, is it important to you — or to him — that the actor not necessarily be a fan of King’s work, but at least have a good understanding of it?
MG: In a way, you don’t want them to think of it as a Stephen King thing, because some people have misconceptions about what that means. It’s like a “different rung on the ladder” if you’re doing a horror movie than from doing a drama. I think what’s special about Stephen King is that it plays in a very real world. It may take you to places that are not real, but you accept them because of the reality of the bed they sleep in. So understanding Stephen King is a great thing, if somebody comes in like Steven Weber, who is already a great Stephen King fan before you start and understands what he’s about, that’s fantastic. But I just want the best actor for the part, whether or not he’s thinking of being in a genre movie or however that’s handled. I’m looking for the best actor however he approaches it, however we get there.
I’m sure the answer is no here, but back when you worked together on Sleepwalkers, did you get the sense you and Stephen King would have such a long partnership?
MG: Absolutely not, especially because I never met Steve until the day he shot his cameo in Sleepwalkers. We had talked on the phone and faxed pages back and forth, back in the days of faxes in 1992. But we didn’t really meet until that cameo and that was only for two hours. But then when he asked me to do The Stand, that was a very different relationship because he was there for a good half of the show off and on. That was a long five-month shoot, so we really got to see how we work and work together, and got to know each other and became friends during that course of time. That’s really when that relationship developed. Then on through The Shining, where he was around even more. When I was doing Sleepwalkers, the answer’s no, but as things continued, you know, nothing makes me happier than to be able to work with him.
You had referenced earlier how there are new versions of The Stand being talked about. Got any particular feelings on that?
MG: Well, you know, it was great to do it as eight hours, which was really six hours, because it was a huge story. But it would be nice to see it where people had the funds to do everything you need. We actually shot The Stand on 16mm film because it saved us money, and the special effects were in their infancy, and we were using the bargain-basement version of the infancy of CGI. In a way, though, it’s like looking at King and his books. You can’t screw up a writer’s book by making a bad movie of it because the book is still on the shelf. Some of my favorite genre films — The Thing and The Fly — are remakes. And they’re, I think, better than the original, which may be blasphemy to some people. But it’d be interesting to see what somebody does with The Stand. It would be weird to see if I would feel competitive about it. “Ah, mine’s better than that!” There’s so many people involved in making a movie that it would be fascinating to watch. I had done Psycho IV, so I was kind of rooting for Gus Van Sant when he remade Psycho, but I don’t think it turned out that anybody was really thrilled with the results of his little experiment there. But it’d be interesting to see what they’d do, and they’d have a lot more money than I did, that’s for sure.
In Part 1 of our two-part interview, Garris talks with me about the miniseries, and how he was willing to wait out Bruce Willis to get it made:
Obviously this isn’t your first Stephen King rodeo. What made you or the powers that be decide that Bag of Bones would be a good adaptation?
Mick Garris: Not the first, no. (Laughs) It’s been one of my favorite King books for a long time. Years ago, right after it was published Bruce Willis had bought the rights to produce and maybe star in it, and so I thought, “Damn!” So after that lapsed — I had always really connected with it because it’s really kind of a grown-up ghost story, and [it has] the best of Stephen King with all the emotional depth and melancholy that is often not a part of the movie adaptations of his work. So when it became available, my producing partner Mark Sennett and I talked to King about it, and he was happy for us to give it a go. We tried making it as a movie first, it’s been about five years trying to get it going. It had a temporary home at ABC, [but] nothing happened there, and then we hooked up with A&E. Once that deal was done it was full speed ahead.
You’ve said that what attracts you to Stephen King stories is his great characters and great stories. How does Bag of Bones demonstrate these traits?
MG: Well, Bag of Bones is really a lot about sorrow and about loss. Very early on in the story the lead character is deprived of his spouse in a very shocking and unexpected way, to him and the audience. I have suffered more than my share of loss, having lost a parent and two brothers and a mother-in-law, and … when horror movies are all about death, it’s usually kind of spitting in the eye of death, or whistling through the graveyard. But King’s stuff is so much more interesting, because it’s about mortality and the real face-to-face with death, and not just a playful tone, or teenagers hooting their immortality. So that’s what really appealed to me about this one; it’s all about sorrow and mourning and loss versus retribution, told in a really I think smart, sophisticated ghost story. It’s really passionate. I’ll usually pick a key word to communicate in shorthand with the crew and the cast what we’re going through. When we did The Shining miniseries that word was “dread.” On Bag of Bones, it’ was “passion.” It’s the thing we wanted to keep reminding ourselves of, because that’s what that book to me was about.
At the time Bag of Bones was released it signified Stephen King’s departure from Viking to Scribner, and he also seemed to enter a phase where he began being perceived more seriously by the literary crowd. Do you think this story signifies a shift for King at all?
MG: I would agree with that. I think he’s always taken his work seriously, but it was a turning point. This and Lisey’s Story, which followed in a very similar vein. I think that is a turn that probably enabled him to get the National Book Award [Lifetime Achievement in 2003] and get the attention he really had been denied because he was so damn popular. It’s hard to win over the intelligentsia if the hoi polloi embrace you. That was probably the case. I imagine Charles Dickens was too popular for the snobbery in his day. There are definite correlations there. I wouldn’t disagree with you at all.
What’s the relationship like with you and King when you’re working on projects of his? Was he as involved this time out, since he didn’t write the screenplay as he had for the others?
MG: He wasn’t really involved in this other than as friends and as people who have worked together a lot in the past. I would always run ideas past him. He had casting approval for a couple of the lead roles, and obviously he had director and writer approval and all that. But he’s pretty good about knowing the difference between a book and a movie, and he’s very encouraging to do whatever it takes to make it as a movie the best it can be. Mostly it would be in discussions early on about who we were thinking about casting and locations and things like that, but it was pretty much at arm’s length on this one. He’s not a producer, and as you said, he didn’t write the script.
I have a superficial question here, about Pierce Brosnan and Melissa George’s accents. Are they still playing Americans?
MG: Melissa has an American accent [in the film]. Most of the time she works with an American accent. A lot of people don’t even realize that she’s Australian. We first met almost 10 years ago when I shot a pilot [Lost in Oz] in Australia that she starred in, but as an American. But Pierce is using his natural accent, and we just don’t even point at it. If you look closely on his wall you’ll see that there’s his degree from Trinity College in Dublin, just a hint that he’s gone to school across the pond.
Just as well. Nobody wants to hear Pierce Brosnan with an American accent anyway, right?
MG: I don’t think I would. (Laughs)
You said this was considered as a movie at one point, but do you think miniseries is the more proper format?
MG: I think a lot of the Stephen King’s stories, the books, the novels, are best done as miniseries. I mean, The Stand, we could never have done as a movie, although there’s talk of doing it as a couple movies now. Or were. Bag of Bones is a pretty dense story. Our original script was for a two-hour feature film and it really felt like it was missing stuff, so when we had the opportunity to turn it into a four-hour miniseries — which is really a three-hour movie, minus the commercial breaks and promos and things — it really needed that breath. It needed a little more room to build up the tension and the mystery and the whole curse of Dark Score Lake and what all of that was about. In this case I think it’s just the right length. A three-hour movie over two nights works really well for this. King’s books are awfully dense, but they’re often very internal, and so movies are an external format. Books are internal, prose is internal, so it’s kind of a challenge that people don’t think that much about in adapting Stephen King because his books are very cinematic, but they’re also a lot about what’s going on inside.
Your other television projects with Stephen King have been on broadcast networks. Did you notice any difference, as far as what content you could include, in going to A&E?
MG: Yes, as a matter of fact. (Laugh) All the other King stuff I’ve done has been for ABC, and after the success of The Stand, we were able to go pretty far with The Shining. The last hour of The Shining I think probably would have gotten an R rating at that time if it were a theatrical film. But this one we have a very disturbing rape and murder sequence in here. There are things that — it’s not a gore ride at all, but it does have some intensity that I think would have been much more difficult to reach on broadcast, because they have to appeal to the widest possible audience. With basic cable at least, people know that it’s not on the airwaves and so it’s more controllable. But A&E is a little more conservative in that regard than, say, FX. But we just heard from broadcast standards yesterday that we got through without making any changes. It’s intense, but it’s not a gorefest by any means. It has its horrific elements, but it’s more about the tension and the mystery and the ghost story.
So it sounds like the movie’s all put to bed and ready to go?
MG: Not put to bed yet. I literally finished shooting it three weeks ago and yet we’re locking picture hopefully today. It’s been very fast because of when it has to air. We have to deliver it in early November with everything finished. But it’s working out great. We’ve got two editors that I’ve worked with before working at the same time, and that has made it possible. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible it all. I’ve never worked with two editors on a project in my entire career. But it’s actually been great and made this a really great experience because now we’ve got three people thinking about how it all fits together rather than just two.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where Garris talks about casting the actors, and what his thoughts are on those rumored remakes of “The Stand.”
Mick Garris: It actually went really well. It’s a very complex movie. It was shot for 39 days in Nova Scotia. You’ve read the book so you know that the Mike Noonan character is in virtually every scene, and a lot of them by himself. Normally an actor doesn’t run from Day 1 to Day 39 straight through and always there, but other than one day Pierce did the whole thing and a lot of it alone. And because you don’t shoot in order, it’s always interesting. There are three leading ladies in this movie with him, so it was like making three different movies, because you shoot for one actor’s schedule and for locations and that sort of thing rather than in story order just to make the production possible. The difference in each of those stories was stylistically and just where we were geographically with each one. It was really, really complicated and fascinating. It just felt like, “Whoa, three weeks ago we were where?” And probably the most interesting and fun challenge was recreating Dark Score Lake in 1939 with the jazz singer Sara Tidwell, who Anika Noni Rose plays. That was so much fun, all the period extras and carnival rides and the hayloft, and Sara Tidwell and her Slick Six, her touring band, performing these great jazz-era classic songs. It was really, really fun and exciting.
It was neat to hear you had gotten Anika Noni Rose for Sara Tidwell. That just seems like perfect casting.
MG: Amazing. You know, I was not that familiar with her work, and they were originally encouraging us to cast a popstar for that part. Finally, when Anika came up, I cannot imagine anyone on the planet being better for this part. She’s so good, she’s so beautiful, such a great voice and a fantastic actress, it was eye-opening. She’s going to really impress a lot of people not just with the musical performances, which are phenomenal, but the intense sequences with her are really quite remarkable. She really went for it. It’s kind of been the best cast experience I’ve ever had. I mean, Pierce does things I’ve never seen before, goes to some real emotional depth. He’s a fantastic actor, but he’s never really done a genre movie like this. He takes it out of the genre movie gutter that often we live in. Really, the material is different from your standard genre material, but then Pierce doing it really lifts it up. It’s a pretty incredible performance.
Yeah, the first perception you have of Pierce Brosnan is the suave, debonair type. You don’t always associate him with dark and disturbing material.
MG: It couldn’t have been better. I could not be happier with him and the rest of the cast. It’s really exciting. Working with actors is one of my favorite parts of this job, and sometimes it can be complicated and all, but everybody was on the same page and everybody genuinely enjoyed working with one another. I’d worked with Melissa and with Annabeth Gish before, so that was great. We already had a shorthand and a relationship going. But Pierce, from the very beginning once he settled into everything he just knocked it out of the park. He would try things, he would just go for it. A great actor is defined by an actor who is not limited by the potential of being embarrassed, who’s not afraid to go out on a limb, and when you see The Matador and him walking through a hotel lobby in his underpants and … boots you know this is a fearless actor. He really was a delight to work with. I don’t want to sound like a press agent.
I noticed Jason Priestley in the cast list. What’s his role?
MG: He plays Mike’s agent, Marty. It was a cameo, really. He does a show called Call Me Fitz that shoots by there, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and so we were looking for somebody who would be interesting to play the part and really bring something to the party. Again, I had not met him before and it was just great. At one point, he and Matt Frewer and Pierce were together in a scene together in a graveyard and started joking about being the kings of ’80s network TV. Brandon Walsh, Max Headroom and Remington Steele were all grouped together. (Laughs) It was really a riot.
The Bag of Bones promos sure are heavy on the spooky kids aspect. Is that a fair representation of the movie as a whole?
MG: Yeah, they do sell that. But it’s very much a part of it. It is a huge part of it, and the curse of Dark Score Lake is kind of the MacGuffin behind all this, so I would not want to downplay the horrific and frightening aspects, but I think what makes this kind of unique is the depth of the emotion that it goes to. It is a very passionate love story as well as a horrific Stephen King book.
When you’re casting a Stephen King project, is it important to you — or to him — that the actor not necessarily be a fan of King’s work, but at least have a good understanding of it?
MG: In a way, you don’t want them to think of it as a Stephen King thing, because some people have misconceptions about what that means. It’s like a “different rung on the ladder” if you’re doing a horror movie than from doing a drama. I think what’s special about Stephen King is that it plays in a very real world. It may take you to places that are not real, but you accept them because of the reality of the bed they sleep in. So understanding Stephen King is a great thing, if somebody comes in like Steven Weber, who is already a great Stephen King fan before you start and understands what he’s about, that’s fantastic. But I just want the best actor for the part, whether or not he’s thinking of being in a genre movie or however that’s handled. I’m looking for the best actor however he approaches it, however we get there.
I’m sure the answer is no here, but back when you worked together on Sleepwalkers, did you get the sense you and Stephen King would have such a long partnership?
MG: Absolutely not, especially because I never met Steve until the day he shot his cameo in Sleepwalkers. We had talked on the phone and faxed pages back and forth, back in the days of faxes in 1992. But we didn’t really meet until that cameo and that was only for two hours. But then when he asked me to do The Stand, that was a very different relationship because he was there for a good half of the show off and on. That was a long five-month shoot, so we really got to see how we work and work together, and got to know each other and became friends during that course of time. That’s really when that relationship developed. Then on through The Shining, where he was around even more. When I was doing Sleepwalkers, the answer’s no, but as things continued, you know, nothing makes me happier than to be able to work with him.
You had referenced earlier how there are new versions of The Stand being talked about. Got any particular feelings on that?
MG: Well, you know, it was great to do it as eight hours, which was really six hours, because it was a huge story. But it would be nice to see it where people had the funds to do everything you need. We actually shot The Stand on 16mm film because it saved us money, and the special effects were in their infancy, and we were using the bargain-basement version of the infancy of CGI. In a way, though, it’s like looking at King and his books. You can’t screw up a writer’s book by making a bad movie of it because the book is still on the shelf. Some of my favorite genre films — The Thing and The Fly — are remakes. And they’re, I think, better than the original, which may be blasphemy to some people. But it’d be interesting to see what somebody does with The Stand. It would be weird to see if I would feel competitive about it. “Ah, mine’s better than that!” There’s so many people involved in making a movie that it would be fascinating to watch. I had done Psycho IV, so I was kind of rooting for Gus Van Sant when he remade Psycho, but I don’t think it turned out that anybody was really thrilled with the results of his little experiment there. But it’d be interesting to see what they’d do, and they’d have a lot more money than I did, that’s for sure.
Bag of Bones premiere
The four hour miniseries will premiere on A&E on December 11, 2011
A&E has announced that its four hour miniseries Bag of Bones will premiere on the cable network on Sunday December 11, 2011 and conclude on Monday December 12, 2011.
Based on the Stephen King Novel of the same name, Bag of Bones is a supernatural thriller which was penned by Matt Venne and features an all star cast. The miniseries stars Pierce Brosnan as Mike Noonan, Annabeth Gish as Jo Noonan, Melissa George as Mattie, Anika Noni Rose as Sara Tidwell, William Schallert as Max Devore and Caitlin Carmichael as Kyra Devore. Bag of Bones was directed by Mick Garris and produced by Sony Pictures Television, Sennet Entertainment, Nice Guy Productions and Headline Pictures, with Mark Sennet, Mick Garris, and Stewart McKinnon serving as executive producers.
In their press release, A&E described Bag of Bones as being about “bestselling novelist Mike Noonan, who is unable to stop grieving after the sudden death of his wife Jo. Suffering from writer’s block, a dream inspires him to return to the couple's lakeside retreat in western Maine. While there, Mike befriends an attractive young widow, Mattie and her daughter Kyra, and becomes involved in a custody battle with the child's enormously wealthy grandfather, Max. Though his ability to write suddenly returns, Mike is plagued by ever-escalating nightmares and mysterious ghostly visitations from Sara Tidwell, a blues singer whose spirit lingers in the house. As he is haunted by the many secrets at the lake, Mike comes to realize that his late wife still has something to tell him.”
A&E has announced that its four hour miniseries Bag of Bones will premiere on the cable network on Sunday December 11, 2011 and conclude on Monday December 12, 2011.
Based on the Stephen King Novel of the same name, Bag of Bones is a supernatural thriller which was penned by Matt Venne and features an all star cast. The miniseries stars Pierce Brosnan as Mike Noonan, Annabeth Gish as Jo Noonan, Melissa George as Mattie, Anika Noni Rose as Sara Tidwell, William Schallert as Max Devore and Caitlin Carmichael as Kyra Devore. Bag of Bones was directed by Mick Garris and produced by Sony Pictures Television, Sennet Entertainment, Nice Guy Productions and Headline Pictures, with Mark Sennet, Mick Garris, and Stewart McKinnon serving as executive producers.
In their press release, A&E described Bag of Bones as being about “bestselling novelist Mike Noonan, who is unable to stop grieving after the sudden death of his wife Jo. Suffering from writer’s block, a dream inspires him to return to the couple's lakeside retreat in western Maine. While there, Mike befriends an attractive young widow, Mattie and her daughter Kyra, and becomes involved in a custody battle with the child's enormously wealthy grandfather, Max. Though his ability to write suddenly returns, Mike is plagued by ever-escalating nightmares and mysterious ghostly visitations from Sara Tidwell, a blues singer whose spirit lingers in the house. As he is haunted by the many secrets at the lake, Mike comes to realize that his late wife still has something to tell him.”
The set of Bag of Bones
Eventually Mike and Maria gathered us all together to go over the scene. Mega-author Mike Noonan (Pierce Brosnan) is making a special appearance at bookstore in New York City to sign copies of his latest best-seller. By the time I rushed out there I found myself towards the back of the lineup. The down side was that I'd be too far away from the table to watch Pierce signing autographs. The upshot was that I met two fantastic people. I got to know them pretty well since, for the sake of continuity, we were asked to stick pretty close together.
They'd even gone through the trouble of coming up with a plot synopsis, inside flap notes, author's bio, and a photo of Pierce as Mike on the back cover. Brilliant!
The guest of honor himself soon arrived. Pierce Brosnan came on set and walked all the way down the line, bidding us all an individual 'Good Morning' as he went. As he passed by me, I held up the back cover of the prop book with his picture and said:
"Good morning! Great book by the way!"
He paused for a second, cocked an eyebrow and said in his best deadpan manner:
"Yes! It's just as good as King's!"
We had a good chuckle as Pierce made his way to the back of the lineup and said 'Hello' to the other extras who were placed strategically all around the story as casual patrons. He then proceeded to putter around for a little bit, examining the odd book before drifting back to the table where the "signing" would take place.
A rehearsal of the action then followed. A few people at the head of the lineup got to "meet" Mike, had their book's signed and then turned to leave, miming excited conversation as they went. Then the "Superfan" showed up, bearing a massive stack of first editions in his arms which he then dropped in front of Mike with a tremendous crash. Although I couldn't see the exchange from where I was standing, I could certainly hear it.
"Hello, Mr. Noonan," the Superfan said, his voice sounding monotone, yet assertive. "I'm your biggest fan."
This cracked me up, since it was clearly an homage to that other King-spun tale of obsessive fandom gone horribly awry: Misery.
"So...," Mike/Pierce replied, "I suppose you want me to sign...all...of these?"
"Yes, all of them," came the insistent reply.
"Right, then," Mike heaved a sigh as he resigned himself to a bout of carpel tunnel syndrome. "And how should I make these out to you?"
"To my BEST FRIEND," the Superfan replied.
"Best...best friend, huh?"
"BEST friend, yes."
I could also detect Pierce Brosnan's blatant wince of pain as the stack of books got plunked down in front of him as well as his look of stark amazement as the fan made his series of nutty requests. I'm was also delighted to watch Annabeth look on with bemused surprise as the avalanche of books came slamming down onto the table.
In addition, the staff of the store and some of the real-life customers were becoming star-struck, even attempting to take a photograph of Pierce at one point in time. Adam the A.D. had to step in at one point and put the kibosh on that.
*Whoof!* We're almost there! How long have we been waiting in this lineup, anyway? Three, four weeks?"
"Man, if I don't get Pierce Brosnan's autograph today, I'm gonna hunt you down and murder you in your sleep!"
"Have any of you guys actually read They All Fall Down yet? It actually kinda sucks."
"What are the odds that the ten people standing in front of us in the lineup will suddenly get hit by lightning? Wouldn't that be great?"
"He signed it! Pierce Brosnan signed your book! Why did he...how did you do that!?!?"
"Hold on now, just wait a minute!" I protested. "We don't know if that's his signature. I can barely read it, fer Crissakes!"
"I'm pretty sure it says 'Pierce'," Shannon jumped in, gleefully pouring kerosene on the fire.
"How...how did you get his autograph?!" Ashley demanded, practically grabbing me by the lapels, which, in retrospect, would have been really bad 'cuz I wasn't wearing any lapels.
"I...I didn't," I sputtered back, now totally flummoxed. "I was just standing over there and that intense-looking German dude just asked me if I wanted to have my book signed so I just gave it to him!"
My fellow extra moved in closer. I backed away, fearing that I had only seconds to live before I was beaten to death with a woefully un-customized stunt-book.
"I came here with one goal and one goal only: get Pierce Brosnan's autograph. You're gonna give me that book when your done."
"What?!" I shouted, holding the hardcover to my chest. "No way! They're just gonna make me give it back anyway!"
"Why?" she persisted. "Why would that guy go through the bother of getting the damned thing signed if you weren't supposed to keep it?"
I had to admit that it really didn't make much sense. After all, we were still standing mid-way in the lineup and the next scene would most certainly be Pierce running towards the door, leaving the rest of us forever waiting for his "autograph". Our reaction to the ruckus outside was filmed again a few more times. Then the steady-cam operator reversed his original angle by running backwards down the aisle, first capturing our quizzical reactions to the imaginary noise and then halting as a horror-stricken Pierce got up and ran towards the front of the store. Several variations of this scene were shot, including a request by director Mick Garris to have us break out of the line up and run after Pierce as he flew past us.
They'd even gone through the trouble of coming up with a plot synopsis, inside flap notes, author's bio, and a photo of Pierce as Mike on the back cover. Brilliant!
The guest of honor himself soon arrived. Pierce Brosnan came on set and walked all the way down the line, bidding us all an individual 'Good Morning' as he went. As he passed by me, I held up the back cover of the prop book with his picture and said:
"Good morning! Great book by the way!"
He paused for a second, cocked an eyebrow and said in his best deadpan manner:
"Yes! It's just as good as King's!"
We had a good chuckle as Pierce made his way to the back of the lineup and said 'Hello' to the other extras who were placed strategically all around the story as casual patrons. He then proceeded to putter around for a little bit, examining the odd book before drifting back to the table where the "signing" would take place.
A rehearsal of the action then followed. A few people at the head of the lineup got to "meet" Mike, had their book's signed and then turned to leave, miming excited conversation as they went. Then the "Superfan" showed up, bearing a massive stack of first editions in his arms which he then dropped in front of Mike with a tremendous crash. Although I couldn't see the exchange from where I was standing, I could certainly hear it.
"Hello, Mr. Noonan," the Superfan said, his voice sounding monotone, yet assertive. "I'm your biggest fan."
This cracked me up, since it was clearly an homage to that other King-spun tale of obsessive fandom gone horribly awry: Misery.
"So...," Mike/Pierce replied, "I suppose you want me to sign...all...of these?"
"Yes, all of them," came the insistent reply.
"Right, then," Mike heaved a sigh as he resigned himself to a bout of carpel tunnel syndrome. "And how should I make these out to you?"
"To my BEST FRIEND," the Superfan replied.
"Best...best friend, huh?"
"BEST friend, yes."
I could also detect Pierce Brosnan's blatant wince of pain as the stack of books got plunked down in front of him as well as his look of stark amazement as the fan made his series of nutty requests. I'm was also delighted to watch Annabeth look on with bemused surprise as the avalanche of books came slamming down onto the table.
In addition, the staff of the store and some of the real-life customers were becoming star-struck, even attempting to take a photograph of Pierce at one point in time. Adam the A.D. had to step in at one point and put the kibosh on that.
*Whoof!* We're almost there! How long have we been waiting in this lineup, anyway? Three, four weeks?"
"Man, if I don't get Pierce Brosnan's autograph today, I'm gonna hunt you down and murder you in your sleep!"
"Have any of you guys actually read They All Fall Down yet? It actually kinda sucks."
"What are the odds that the ten people standing in front of us in the lineup will suddenly get hit by lightning? Wouldn't that be great?"
"He signed it! Pierce Brosnan signed your book! Why did he...how did you do that!?!?"
"Hold on now, just wait a minute!" I protested. "We don't know if that's his signature. I can barely read it, fer Crissakes!"
"I'm pretty sure it says 'Pierce'," Shannon jumped in, gleefully pouring kerosene on the fire.
"How...how did you get his autograph?!" Ashley demanded, practically grabbing me by the lapels, which, in retrospect, would have been really bad 'cuz I wasn't wearing any lapels.
"I...I didn't," I sputtered back, now totally flummoxed. "I was just standing over there and that intense-looking German dude just asked me if I wanted to have my book signed so I just gave it to him!"
My fellow extra moved in closer. I backed away, fearing that I had only seconds to live before I was beaten to death with a woefully un-customized stunt-book.
"I came here with one goal and one goal only: get Pierce Brosnan's autograph. You're gonna give me that book when your done."
"What?!" I shouted, holding the hardcover to my chest. "No way! They're just gonna make me give it back anyway!"
"Why?" she persisted. "Why would that guy go through the bother of getting the damned thing signed if you weren't supposed to keep it?"
I had to admit that it really didn't make much sense. After all, we were still standing mid-way in the lineup and the next scene would most certainly be Pierce running towards the door, leaving the rest of us forever waiting for his "autograph". Our reaction to the ruckus outside was filmed again a few more times. Then the steady-cam operator reversed his original angle by running backwards down the aisle, first capturing our quizzical reactions to the imaginary noise and then halting as a horror-stricken Pierce got up and ran towards the front of the store. Several variations of this scene were shot, including a request by director Mick Garris to have us break out of the line up and run after Pierce as he flew past us.
Pierce Brosnan in Stephen King's "Bag of Bones"
October 13th, 2011
Stephen King is returning to the small screen, and this time he's bringing James Bond with him. Pierce Brosnan stars in Bag of Bones, the author's latest novel-turned-TV movie. The first promo for the film has debuted, and it's filled with terrifying goodies—just in time for Halloween!
Bag of Bones centers on a widower named Mike Noonan who's overcome by grief following the death of his wife. After having a strange dream, he's inspired to visit their lakeside retreat in western Maine. Little does he know that the pain and sorrow he's trying to escape are about to get much worse.
Mike realizes that the small town isn't as innocent or peaceful as it seems. He's pulled into a custody case and murder mystery, which Brosnan describes as a "beast of a piece." A&E has released a behind-the-scenes look at Bag of Bones that reveals plenty of horrifying moments, including walking corpses.
Today we have a look at the first footage from the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's "Bag of Bones," starring Pierce Brosnan, Melissa George, Jason Priestley, Annabeth Gish, Anika Noni Rose and Matt Frewe. Check it out below.Plot: Bestselling novelist Mike Noonan (Brosnan) is unable to stop grieving after the sudden death of his wife Jo. A dream inspires him to return to the couple's lakeside retreat in western Maine where he becomes involved in a custody battle between the daughter of an attractive young widow and the child's enormously wealthy grandfather, the mysterious ghostly visitations, the ever-escalating nightmares and the realization that his late wife still has something to tell him.
Directed by Mick Garris, "Bag of Bones" is a two-part mini-series that will air on Sunday, December 11th and Monday, December 12th.Stephen King's "Bag of Bones" is coming to the screen -- the television screen, that is. The adaptation of King's novel will air on A&E for two nights in December.
Pierce Brosnan stars as Mike Noonan, a novelist suffering writer's block after the death of his wife. He retreats to a lake house, where things get creepy. In the video above, Annabeth Gish, getting made up as a rotting corpse, explains she's spent two hours in the chair."Bag of Bones" was published in 1998; 13 years seems like an awfully long time to wait for a screen adaptation. But at least it's happening -- earlier this year, the much-anticipated adaptation of King's "The Dark Tower" series was killed by a new studio administration. The A-list project, adapted by screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, would have starred Javier Bardem and been directed by Ron Howard.
Want to see a little more of "Bag of Bones"? Deadline Hollywood has a spooky new trailer.
Stephen King is returning to the small screen, and this time he's bringing James Bond with him. Pierce Brosnan stars in Bag of Bones, the author's latest novel-turned-TV movie. The first promo for the film has debuted, and it's filled with terrifying goodies—just in time for Halloween!
Bag of Bones centers on a widower named Mike Noonan who's overcome by grief following the death of his wife. After having a strange dream, he's inspired to visit their lakeside retreat in western Maine. Little does he know that the pain and sorrow he's trying to escape are about to get much worse.
Mike realizes that the small town isn't as innocent or peaceful as it seems. He's pulled into a custody case and murder mystery, which Brosnan describes as a "beast of a piece." A&E has released a behind-the-scenes look at Bag of Bones that reveals plenty of horrifying moments, including walking corpses.
Today we have a look at the first footage from the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's "Bag of Bones," starring Pierce Brosnan, Melissa George, Jason Priestley, Annabeth Gish, Anika Noni Rose and Matt Frewe. Check it out below.Plot: Bestselling novelist Mike Noonan (Brosnan) is unable to stop grieving after the sudden death of his wife Jo. A dream inspires him to return to the couple's lakeside retreat in western Maine where he becomes involved in a custody battle between the daughter of an attractive young widow and the child's enormously wealthy grandfather, the mysterious ghostly visitations, the ever-escalating nightmares and the realization that his late wife still has something to tell him.
Directed by Mick Garris, "Bag of Bones" is a two-part mini-series that will air on Sunday, December 11th and Monday, December 12th.Stephen King's "Bag of Bones" is coming to the screen -- the television screen, that is. The adaptation of King's novel will air on A&E for two nights in December.
Pierce Brosnan stars as Mike Noonan, a novelist suffering writer's block after the death of his wife. He retreats to a lake house, where things get creepy. In the video above, Annabeth Gish, getting made up as a rotting corpse, explains she's spent two hours in the chair."Bag of Bones" was published in 1998; 13 years seems like an awfully long time to wait for a screen adaptation. But at least it's happening -- earlier this year, the much-anticipated adaptation of King's "The Dark Tower" series was killed by a new studio administration. The A-list project, adapted by screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, would have starred Javier Bardem and been directed by Ron Howard.
Want to see a little more of "Bag of Bones"? Deadline Hollywood has a spooky new trailer.
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