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Crowe, at his best (and his many collaborations with Scott have ranged from terrific to mediocre), is an actor of rare electricity. His trademark brooding menace leavened with just a bit of eye-twinkling wit feels exactly right for the outlaw of English legend; not quite as gleefully dashing as Errol Flynn, but his own simmering take on the role. And when he shares a screen with Cate Blanchett — which, remarkably, these two have never done before — the sparks not only fly, but you fear the celluloid might sear. As the widowed Lady Marian (Blanchett, too, is older than the customary screen Marians, and her story has been correspondingly tweaked), she's low-voiced and burning with quiet fire. Watch the two of them in a conversation in which she mistakenly hears "good night" for "good knight"; it's practically a movie in itself. Never mind the swashbuckling; just use this movie as a perfect example of that elusive thing called screen chemistry.

Addy’s bee-line for Friar Tuck
10:51am Thursday 13th May 2010
Actor Mark Addy talks to Steve Pratt about becoming the fighting churchman of Sherwood Forest in the latest Robin Hood.

MARK Addy is happy to report that he wasn’t cast in Ridley Scott’s new version of Robin Hood through his acclaimed appearance as a stripping steelworker in The Full Monty.

Apparently the North-East born director was watching the TV drama Red Riding – in which Addy played a solicitor defending a man accused of child abduction – when he went “That’s the bloke I want for Friar Tuck”.

“It’s nice to know people are watching the smaller things not just the big movies,” he says of being spotted in Red Riding.

So York-born Addy found himself starring alongside Russell Crowe, who plays the outlaw hero, and Cate Blanchett in one of the year’s biggest movies, Robin Hood.

But he wasn’t in Cannes yesterday when the movie was the gala opening film at this year’s festival, but on stage at London’s National Theatre, playing a country squire in the comedy London Assurance. All very different to Friar Tuck, the bee-keeping and mead-making jovial friar who joins Robin’s band of forest-dwelling merry men.

Filming took him not to Sherwood Forest but Surrey, where old Nottingham was built for the cameras, and Pembrokeshire for the battle scenes when French invaders are repelled by the British.

“That was difficult because of the tides and having 800 or 900 extras and 150 horses all charging along the beach. It was stirring to watch offcamera,”

he says.

Addy, who spent four seasons starring in a US sitcom Still Standing after the international success in The Full Monty, also got to do a bit of fighting. “Tuck isn’t afraid of swinging his stick when he needs to. Those stunt guys will let you hit them over and over.”

No Lincoln Green tights for Tuck, just friar’s robes – but with accessories. “The one thing I did quite like was the fact that he puts in his bag all these little tokens and souvenirs from shrines he’s visited. He collects them like a Canadian backpacker,” says Addy. He did research about what friars got up to in 13th Century times. “They’d travel around the country, they weren’t based in one place.

They were on the road preaching,” he says.

“Tuck takes his bees with him. They create life so he’s a symbol of life and hope in the middle of a period of huge civil unrest and men away at the crusades. Towns and cities were vulnerable. The strong men were away, leaving the ones who were too young or too old or crippled to go to fight.”

Despite Tuck being a beekeeper, he didn’t have to worry about bees and being stung as they were put on the film digitally afterwards.

“They’re a lot easier to work with that way,” he says. So was star Russell Crowe, despite his reputation as a hard man. “He was on very good form,” says Addy. “I’d never met him before, he was terrific. I got to do some work with the merry men who’d worked with Russell in various incarnations.”

Addy gets to namecheck his home city during a scene in which a village’s grain is “stolen” by the king’s men and taken to York. Mention is also made of Nether Poppleton, just outside York – where Crowe’s singer wife Danielle Spencer has relatives.

Robin Hood is the biggest movie on which Addy has worked. “It was colossal, I’ve never seen anything like it,”

he says of the Nottingham village built in Surrey for the film in the same area when Scott directed Crowe in the hit movie Gladiator.

“The set itself was down in a little valley. They built this entire medieval village with bridges and working watermills. It was literally like stepping back in time. At the top of the hill was this small town of caravans, huge tents and armoury for the production team.”

He’s appearing at the National Theatre until the end of June, when he begins filming a new fantasy series for US broadcaster HBO, Games Of Thrones, based on books by US author George R R Martin. Addy plays a king in the ten-part series, which also stars Sean Bean and Lena Headey.

“It’s hard to describe. It’s a little bit like the West Wing set in Middle Earth, it’s about families fighting for power,”

he says. The fantasy element includes dragons, which means he’ll be filming against a green screen with backgrounds added later digitally.

In the meantime, of course, he’ll continue to be seen on the small screen inbetween programmes in a series of advertisements for a wellknown supermarket chain.

B.O. Preview: 'Robin' Looks to Rob From 'Iron Man'
Universal's mega-budgeted period adventure tracking to hit as much as $40M this weekend

By Daniel Frankel
Published: May 13, 2010

He robs from the rich and gives to the poor.

In other words -- so Universal hopes -- he takes market share from “Iron Man 2.”

The studio will open its PG-13-rated period-adventure “Robin Hood” in 3,503 theaters in the U.S. and Canada Friday – and more than 10,000 locations globally – with studio officials optimistic about a domestic opening in the $35 million-$40 million range.

Indeed, tracking is solid for the Brian Grazer-produced, Ridley Scott-directed film, which stars Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett -- even though reviews (and chatter from its Cannes premiere) have been mixed.

With the film opening day-and-date abroad, Universal officials expect to see a global first-weekend gross of $95 million-$100 million.

However, success for the film is hardly guaranteed, given the film's $200 million price tag after tax breaks.

Notably, the weekend will be fairly competitive.

Summit Entertainment will premiere youth drama “Letters to Juliet,” targeting the younger female demo with the same emerging star, Amanda Seyfried, who led Sony’s “Dear John” to sleeper-hit status ($94.1 million worldwide) in February.

Opening in 2,968 theaters, the moderately budgeted “Juliet” is projected to take in between $16-$18 million its first weekend out.

"We feel like we have a rising star in Amanda," said Summit distribution chief Richie Fay. (See TheWrap's "Will 'Juliet' Make Seyfried the New Julia Roberts?")

Also opening wide this weekend at 1,831 theaters, Fox Searchlight’s “Just Wright” starring Queen Latifah and rapper Common is looking to score an opening of just under $10 million.

The real question, however, will be how much Marvel hit “Iron Man 2” drops from its $128.1 million opening in its second weekend.

Even if it declines as much many anticipate it will -- the projected drop is in the 55 percent range -- the Paramount-distributed sequel will still win the weekend with more than $55 million in domestic gross.

“Whatever ‘Robin Hood’ does will come out of (Paramount’s) pockets, and vice-versa,” said one rival-studio official. “There’s a lot of overlap between these two movies.”

This executive noted that the 55 percent decline projection might be high for “Iron Man 2,” given that the film scored an impressive “A” grade from movie word-of-mouth tracker CinemaScore.

For Universal, “Iron Man’s” competitiveness isn’t the only source of anxiety, with "Robin Hood's" high budget figure rendering profitability a tough bull’s-eye to hit.

And even with the mixed reviews, the tracking isn't bad, with its “unaided awareness” quotient scoring highly (that means moviegoers know about the movie, even if they haven’t seen any trailers or TV commercials for it).

“Their unaided awareness is in the 20s, which is good, but let’s face it -- it’s ‘Robin Hood,’ not ‘Max Hood’ or ‘Paul Hood,’ ” a rival-studio executive added. “People know what this story is all about.”

For comparable models, a Universal official suggested Sony’s 2006 remake of James Bond franchise hit “Casino Royale,” which opened to $40.8 million domestically on the way to a $594.2 million global performance.

Also mentioned was Sony’s 2009 “Da Vinci Code” follow-up “Angels and Demons,” which started out at $46.2 million domestically on the way to 485.9 million globally.

Released 10 years ago, director Scott and star Crowe's seminal collaboration, "Gladiator," has been brought up for comparison, too.

Not brought up, however, was their last film together, Warner’s “Body of Lies,” which floundered out the gate to a $12.8 million opening and topped out at $115.1 million worldwide.