The other Truman show
By James Christopher – Published: 19 Oct 2006 >
Toby Jones is this year's second Truman Capote but he's not outdone
How many Truman Capotes does it take to nail the myth? If you thought this question became utterly academic when Philip Seymour Hoffman picked up his Oscar in March, you will have to think again. A little–known British actor called Toby Jones is about to defy the odds at The Times BFI London Film Festival with another extraordinary impersonation of the insufferable New York author. I didn't think anyone could possibly hold a candle to Hoffman's wintry performance in Capote. You adore the effortless sleaze the star brings to the title role, and you gasp at the way the director, Bennett Miller, wraps him in the scenery as if he's trapped in a vintage photo.
Douglas McGrath's decision to release his own Capote story, Infamous, just months after the Oscars seems like a wilful act of insanity. His plot is so heart–sinkingly identical to Miller's nimble vehicle that you begin to despair about the point. The American public seems to agree. When the film opened in America last weekend it earned a meagre $435,000 (£232,000) — more than Capote did when it opened in January, but then Infamous was shown in far more cinemas nationwide.
Both Capotes wear the same sophisticated mask. They both decide to turn a grisly news cutting about the murder of a Kansas family into a 20th–century masterpiece. Both become infatuated with one of the killers. The six–year marathon to write In Cold Blood turns them into monsters. And they never write a book worth reading again.
The subtle magic of Infamous is the gradual realisation that this Capote is warped by an entirely different set of demons. It's then that you discover what a sensational piece of casting Toby Jones is. The pint–sized actor wields his charm as lightly as a razor. Like Hoffman's clammy hero he is obsessed with the tabloid reasons why two aimless drifters should wander into a sleepy town and slaughter a middle–class family for a fistful of dollars.
Crucially, Jones is crippled by a conscience that is quite missing in Hoffman's calculated performance. He adds a dimension of tragic obsession to Capote that transforms Infamous into something far more emotionally rewarding. His jail cell visits and impulsive kisses with Daniel Craig's frightened Perry are electric. It helps that Craig tends to fondle his menace like Marlon Brando. The unexpected result is that this chunk of Capote's life yields far deeper insights than Miller's film — or Hoffman's performance — will allow.
To secure this major lead in an American movie is an enormous leap for the 39–year–old British actor, who has spent most of his chequered career playing quirks on stage and screen. "I'm still trying to get over the fact that I'm not Steve McQueen," Jones admits. I doubt anyone in the Soho Hotel restaurant this lunchtime would be inclined to disagree. Jones arrives at our interview dressed like a middle–aged schoolboy in a black suit, stringy tie and white shirt. The scrubby red hair is clinging on for dear life, his blue eyes sink at the corners, there are wrinkles that would puzzle a geologist, and he's growing a ginger beard for a role in a Peter Greenaway film about Rembrandt.
Jones might not be Heat magazine's Torso of the Week, but the talent is no fluke. He trained in Paris with the theatre coach Jacques Lecoq, and his physical skills have won him enviable parts, notably in Kenneth Branagh's West End/Broadway smash hit , with Hamish McColl and Sean Foley. His skill at impersonating the guest celebrities — Ralph Fiennes, Sting, John McEnroe, Glenn Close and Bob Geldof — was the improvised highlight of the show and earned him an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2002.
Jones's stage performances turned enough powerful heads in Hollywood to secure a screen test and the lead role as Capote. For the first time in his life he was carrying a film surrounded by a glittering cast on premiership wages. Sigourney Weaver, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sandra Bullock, Isabella Rossellini and Jeff Daniels are the kind of extras most film directors can only dream about.
The stakes were sky–high. Jones reveals there was a genuine concern that Infamous might not get released after the rave reviews that greeted Capote in February. But the dizzy reception for McGrath's movie at the Venice Film Festival last month took even the most hard–bitten cynics by surprise.
The differences between the two films are as instructive as their startling similarities. Both present a gripping case as to why Capote suffered a spectacular decline after publishing his non– fiction masterpiece. "There's some speculation that he had sex with Perry Smith [one of the condemned killers]," Jones says. "Clearly something about the relationship wounded him so much that he never recovered his will to write. In Capote, I believe Truman strikes a Faustian bargain. In Infamous, he pays with his heart."
The pressure of matching Hoffman's performance as Truman was arguably the least of Jones's worries. "The really terrifying thing about the shoot was the sheer paranoia," Jones says. "The producers knew they were taking a risk by casting a relative unknown. Every night I'd go to my hotel room and just panic. But the fact that there were so many big stars attached who didn't question my fitness for the role was profoundly reassuring.
"I've yet to see Philip's performance in Capote, but I imagine if we ever meet our main conversation will be how do you humanise a character who is so utterly extreme. I've watched hours of television chat shows where audiences squirm at his high–pitched voice, and wonder whether this man could possibly be for real. He comes across as such a freak: the mannerisms, the silly clothes and the compulsive name–dropping of jet–set friends like Princess Margaret, Humphrey Bogart and Noël Coward. The hardest challenge was creating a character that people might actually want to care about."
Jones poured himself into the role. He spent months tuning his tonsils and hours in a library forging Truman's handwriting style. Apparently it was so difficult snapping back into character between camera takes that he simply didn't bother to switch off. For the best part of two months Jones was Truman Capote. McGrath said he had never seen an actor work so hard to create a physical life for a character.
So much has been read into his spooky resemblance to the New York socialite that the two men's lives seem to have become temporarily blurred. Jones is bemused by some of the bizarre questions he's had to field since his sudden surge up the fame chart. For the record, he has a partner and two daughters, and resides in Stockwell, South London. His brief homosexual clinch with the next James Bond (Craig) was as sexually fulfilling as a Marmite sandwich. And he has no intention of slitting his wrists because Hoffman lifted the Oscar.
Jones still regards the real–life Capote as a total stranger. "There are things Capote did, particularly in his later life, that I find impossible to understand. The great comfort of a script as good as Infamous is that almost every word is brand new. There are precious few borrowed quotes, and every single situation is imagined. No one knows exactly what happened between Capote and Perry Smith in the prison cell during their meetings. That's really the whole point."
I wonder idly if Jones's tour de force might drag him down in the way that In Cold Blood shackled Capote. "I don't have that much time to look backwards," he replies. "I've just finished shooting a Somerset Maugham story, The Painted Veil, in China with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton. I play the Duke of Clarence in Michael Apted's Amazing Grace. I'm the lead in my brother Rupert's short film The Sickie, and I'm Robert Cecil in a production of Elizabeth I, starring Helen Mirren . . ."
As Truman might say, no rest, then, for the wicked.
The Times
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Actor Toby Jones finds voice in Capote film
By Stuart Kemp – Published: 26 Sep 2006 >
LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) – Funny voices are a good thing in the world of film. And the ability to deliver them is even better.
Take actor Toby Jones, for example. An award–winning stage actor and experienced
film and television character actor, Jones stars in "Infamous," Douglas McGrath's
vision of writer Truman Capote's life, loves and meetings with murderers. The
movie opens October 6 in North America via Warner Independent Pictures.
Jones has a lead role on celluloid for the first time after perfecting Capote's legendary and idiosyncratic vocal delivery. "It took me an hour and half each morning before shooting scenes to warm up Truman's voice," Jones says. "It's actually a very physical place where his voice comes from."
His delivery and leading role opposite Sandra Bullock in the film –– which premiered at the Venice Film Festival at the end of August to international critical acclaim –– is attracting plaudits across the globe and has put Jones on an ever–lengthening Hollywood wish list.
Even though Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Oscar this year for playing the same role in "Capote," Jones' performance could also generate an Academy campaign. In which case, he will be telling his agents to be wary of scheduling. He is currently filming the role of Gerard Dou in Peter Greenaway's "Nightwatching," which takes a look at the life, loves and lifestyle of Dutch master painter Rembrandt.
Jones will next be seen in John Curran's "The Painted Veil," alongside Naomi Watts and Edward Norton. He has also just shot a short film for his brother and director Rupert Jones and his filmmaking partner Neil Hunter titled "The Sickie," with a view to taking the lead in the filmmaking duo's project "Cossacks." Jones says making the short film "was a good screen test" for "Cossacks," a movie about a guy who can't get a girlfriend.
"My career is very chaotic. What I love is the diversity of it all," Jones says. His myriad previous roles on film include playing Dobby the House Elf in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," which followed a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for best actor in a supporting role in 2001 for his performance in the smash hit comedy "The Play What I Wrote." It ended up on Broadway with Jones.
"You've got to be a little crazy to do that play," Jones says, not in a funny voice.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
Film Studies: You thought it was too soon for another Capote? Think again...
By David Thomson – Published: 25 June 2006 >
The best new film I've seen this year is about the writer Truman Capote. It shows what happened to him when went to Holcomb, Kansas, to research the inexplicable murder of the members of the Clutter family. It's not the prettiest or most cheerful portrait of the writing life you're ever going to see. For instance – and I know, this comes just in time – it's a good deal more unsettling than the version on show in last year's film, Capote, for which Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar.
Now, I like Hoffman and I thought he gave a brilliant impersonation last year as Capote. I don't mean to knock him or that film, but what I want to tell you is that I have just seen a new picture – it will not open until the autumn – that is called Infamous, in which an English actor, Toby Jones, is Capote without the least hint of impersonation. He looks and sounds not only more like the real Truman Capote, he is the man.
The people behind this new film know that you are going to say, "Seen that, done that..." They admit that their film covers exactly the same events as the Hoffman Capote. They know that coming second is coming in last. They have seemingly settled on a title, Infamous, that could describe 50 films you can't remember. So, please believe me, they know that their film needs every bit of help it can get. And since I've seen it, and I think it's remarkable, I'm sounding off early in this way. No, this is not a review. This is an impression. (And I have no reason to attack Capote, or diminish it. I thought it was a good picture. But this is better.)
What does it have that's different? Well, first of all, it is written and directed by Douglas McGrath. He wrote Bullets Over Broadway with Woody Allen; and he wrote and directed Emma and Nicholas Nickleby. His film has a gallery of Truman Capote's Manhattan friends, people who adored him without ever quite trusting him: I'm thinking of Babe Paley (Sigourney Weaver), the clothes horse wife of Bill Paley, who controlled CBS; Diana Vreeland (Juliet Stevenson), the fashion magazine editor; Slim Keith (Hope Davis), the woman who was married to Howard Hawks and Leland Hayward; Bennett Cerf (Peter Bogdanovich), the publisher. These cameos give a tone–perfect sense of Capote's life before In Cold Blood. He is placed as the phenomenon of culture, celebrity and outrage that he was.
And here's another thing that Infamous has. In the opening scene of the film, Truman and Babe Paley are at the El Morocco night club in 1959, listening to a singer, Kitty Dean (Gwyneth Paltrow). She leaps into her number and then falters. She breaks down, slowly recovers, and finishes the song. It is the best thing I have ever seen Paltrow do – and it is for us to judge how far the incident is a model for Infamous.
But none of this is the big thing. In Capote, the achievement of the film – and it delivers – is to show that Capote was a shit, a devious glory–seeker and a fine writer who got his own way all the time. That film says he was ruined by his success, but you don't feel it, because Hoffman's Capote is too tough and too self–centred to be brought down by his own moral failure.
In Infamous you feel the tragedy. Yes, Truman goes to Kansas with Harper Lee (this time it's Sandra Bullock, and she's superb). He slowly wins the confidence of law and order there. He becomes a famous dinner guest in Holcomb. He meets the killers – Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. And as he starts to write the book, he falls in love with Perry Smith. That was hinted at as a possibility in Capote, though its Truman is hardly capable of love. The ultimate triumph of Infamous is that he is weak enough to need, and that's what ruins him.
Truman Capote is played here by Toby Jones, an English actor. I realised that I had seen him before. He played Ernie Wise in The Play What I Wrote, which I couldn't stand. He has done other things, but this is a staggering advance in which Capote the social shit and Truman the crushed soul are equally apparent. The way things are in the world, I suspect he'll get politely praised; but believe me, this is a better performance than Philip Seymour Hoffman's.
That is not all. Perry Smith is played by Daniel Craig. I noticed him first as the nasty guy in Road to Perdition. He starred opposite Gwyneth Paltrow in Sylvia. He was in Steven Spielberg's Munich, as the hard guy in the group. He is – as I'm sure you know – the new James Bond, shortly to star in Casino Royale. He is also due to appear with Nicole Kidman in The Visiting.
And in a year's time, I suspect, it will be taken for granted that he is one of the best screen actors anywhere – and a great part of that will be because of Infamous, where he is as frightening as any killer, as abject as a person without education, and yet as touching as the man Capote was oddly graced by meeting.
So get ready for Infamous – unless someone has the wit to find a new title. Understand in advance that the leading arbiters of culture will tell you it's the same thing warmed up, a story you know, a curiosity even.
It's none of those. We do not write off this year's Hamlet because we enjoyed
last year's. We might listen to Mahler's Ninth tonight and in a few months' time.
You do not really know this story in advance, for a very good reason: you have
not been moved by it yet. You have been intrigued, entertained – all good things.
In Infamous, among other things, you have Gwyneth Paltrow's breakdown and the
fact that one of the killers took 30 minutes to die after he had been hanged.
People collapse slowly. You will be surprised.
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Venice Orizzonti to open with McGrath's Infamous
By Melanie Rodier in Rome 27 June 2006
The 63rd Venice Film Festival has announced that new Truman Capote drama
Infamous will open the Orizzonti competition section. Infamous stars Toby Jones
as Capote alongside Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig, Peter Bogdanovich, Jeff Daniels
and Gwyneth Paltrow. It is directed by actor writer–director Douglas McGrath,
whose credits as a director include Emma (1996) and Nicholas Nickleby (2002)
and as a screenwriter, Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway. Warner Independent
Pictures' Infamous is based on George Plimpton's book Truman Capote: In Which
Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent
Career.
Infamous focuses on the same period of his life as the Oscar–winning Capote,
during which the writer developed a close relationship with convicted murderers
Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. Produced by Jocelyn Hayes, Anne Walker–McBay
and Christine Vachon, Infamous will have its world premiere on August 31 in
the Orizzonti (Horizons) section which is dedicated to cutting–edge films.
Meanwhile, Venice has also announced that directors Guillermo Del Toro and
Mohsen Makhmalbaf as well as Italian actress Stefania Rocca will join the Lion
of the Future jury, which awards a prize to the best first film. As previously
announced, the jury will be headed by producer Paula Wagner. Traditionally,
Venice makes few announcements ahead of its official press conference. But
this year the festival is gearing up for competition from the new Rome Film
Festival, which kicks off on October 13 and will reveal some details of its
programme today. Venice artistic director Marco Mueller will unveil Venice's
full line–up in Rome on July 27.
This year the festival, which runs Aug 30–Sept 9, is expected to award a Lifetime
achievement award to David Lynch, who should present his new film Inland Empire.