Shadows in the Sun

Jean Simmons
Hannah

Long honoured as a true Hollywood film star, with two Academy Award nominations, Jean Simmons has been seen in more than a score of memorable motion pictures. Her screen portrayals have ranged from Shakespeare’s Ophelia to Damon Runyon’s singing Salvation Army Officer. She has completed sixteen British films, notably David Lean’s Great Expectations in the role of Estella and as Ophelia opposite Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet for which Simmons received her first Oscar-nomination.

Her American screen debut in Bernard Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion was followed by Young Bess in which she played Queen Elizabeth I with Stewart Granger and Charles Laughton. Subsequent vehicles and leading men include The Actress with Spencer Tracy, The Robe with Richard Burton, Desiree with Marlon Brando, Guys & Dolls with Brando and Frank Sinatra, Until They Sail with Paul Newman, The Big Country with Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston, This Earth is Mine with Rock Hudson and a tour de force role in Home Before Dark.

Her striking portrayal of an evangelist opposite Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry, directed by Richard Brooks, brought her screen career to a new high. This was quickly followed by Spartacus opposite Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier, The Grass is Greener with Cary Grant and Robert Mitchum, All the Way Home, Life at the Top with Laurence Harvey, Mister Buddwing with James Garner, Divorce American Style with Dick Van Dyke, Rough Night in Jericho with Dean Martin, Say Hello to Yesterday as well as a collaboration with Richard Brooks on The Happy Ending which brought her a second Oscar-nomination. In recent years, she has worked with Steven Spielberg on How To Make An American Quilt and provided her voice for Final Fantasy.

Miss Simmons TV drama credits include the Universal mini-series December Flower with Bryan Forbes, The Dawning with Hugh Grant; she played the role of Miss Havisham in Disney’s mini-series Great Expectations opposite Anthony Hopkins; the Miss Marple Christmas special They Do It With Mirrors, Daisies in December with Joss Ackland and Winter Solstice with Sinead Cusack, Geraldine Chaplin and Peter Ustinov. More recently Miss Simmons voiced the lead role of Old Sophie in Hayao Miyazakis’ animated feature Howl’s Moving Castle.

Her most memorable stage performances include Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music which toured the US before transferring to London’s Adelphi Theatre and Love Letters opposite Charlton Heston in Los Angeles.

In 2003 Miss Simmons received the OBE (Order of the British Empire) for her services to drama.

James Wilby
Robert

Born in Rangoon, Burma in 1958 James Wilby trained at RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art).

With a career that has spanned both stage and screen, Wilby’s most notable feature film credits include James Ivory’s Maurice for which he received the Best Actor accolade at the Venice Film Festival; Charles Sturridge’s A Handful of Dust, James Ivory’s Howard’s End, Regneration directed by Gillies MacKinnon, Tom’s Midnight Garden, Cotton Mary (again for James Ivory) and Robert Altman’s Gosford Park for which he received a joint Screen Actor’s Guild Award in 2002 for Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture. More recently he has starred in De Lovely for Irwin Winkler and Lady Godiva.

Major TV drama credits include Ken Russell’s Lady Chatterley, Tim Fywell’s The Woman in White, Crocodile Shoes, A Tale of Two Cities for Granada, Mother Love for the BBC, Adam Bede, Treasure Seekers, Trial & Retribution IV, Bertie & Elizabeth, Murder in Mind, Sparkling Cyanide, Island at War, Silent Witness, Foyle’s War, Miss Marple, Jericho, Little Devil, Lewis, The Last Days of the Raj, Futureshock: Comet and A Risk Worth Taking.

Stage roles have included Nick Hytner’s As You Like It and Chips With Everything, Simon Gray’s The Common Pursuit at the Phoenix, A Patriot For Me for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Don Juan at the Lyric Hammersmith.

Jamie Dornan
Joe

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1982, Jamie Dornan is the great-nephew of Hollywood actress Greer Garson. Dornan left Belfast for London at the age of twenty and started his career as a model for Calvin Klein and went on to become the face of the Dior Homme campaign.

His feature film debut came with Sofia Coppola’s award-winning Marie Antoinette.

Dornan still combines his acting career with modelling and music after forming his own band Thin Blue Flames with some friends from Belfast.

“This is only the second feature film I’ve done but being on this has been good fun. It’s not a bad start in the business – ‘Marie Antoinette’, then this – it’s a nice balance. ‘Marie Antoinette’ was my first audition and I got it and thought ‘this is so bloody easy!’ I soon realized it wasn’t quite like that!

“I am in a nice position, I got lucky very early on with the modelling, I’ve had some great breaks and modelling has provided money so I can try other things too. I get bored very easily so if I’m not really enjoying something, I won’t stick with it. I could never just do one thing - I could never just be an actor or just be a model. At least with acting you can ‘give’ a lot more than with modelling. I’m usually quite hyper-active, so it’s good to give more.

Ophelia Lovibond
Kate

Born in London in 1986, Ophelia Lovibond received a drama scholarship to attend the highly regarded Latymer School’s sixth form. She became a member of the Youngblood Theatre Company and in between her acting career she is now studying English at Sussex University.

Her screen career started with the recurring role of Poppy in the TV series The Wilsons in 2000, which led to roles in Loving You for Granada TV, Single, The Bill, Casualty, Nathan Barley, Heartbeat as well as Holby City in which she played Jade McGuire for nine episodes in 2006/7. Lovibond’s big screen break came with Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist in 2005.

More recently she has starred in Popcorn, Crusade in Jeans and the TV drama Messiah: The Rapture.

“My mother decided to send my brother along to drama classes on a Saturday morning because he was a bit of a tearaway and she wanted to find something to occupy him. I went along to watch him one day and really liked it so I joined up too. It was the Youngblood Theatre Company at the Riverside Studios in London’s Hammersmith, where I got the taste for acting after taking part in a series of workshops”.

“I don’t talk about the acting with my friends at university unless they ask me - I do try and keep it separate. They all think I’m lucky in the respect that I already know exactly what I want to do when I leave and lots of them don’t. Even if it’s difficult to make a success at least I’m attacking something I love”.

Toby Marlow
Sam

Twelve year-old Toby Marlow’s previous feature film credits include Senseless for director Simon Hynd and Mistress of Spices for Paul Mayeda. He has also appeared in director Ferdinand Fairfax’s BBC production Discovering Ancient Egypt, Silent Witness and Miss Marple – 4.50 From Paddington for LWT and director Diarmuid Lawrence.

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