Filed in A Gentleman in Moscow Gallery Updates Interviews

Mary Photographed for The New York Times

With A Gentleman in Moscow streaming on Paramount+, a brand new photoshoot Mary did with The New York Times has been released. The shoot was done when Mary and Ewan were in NYC earlier this month on March 11. Be sure to head to the gallery to check out the new pics! If anymore get added, I will update this post. Below, I’ve also posted some excerpts from the interview, but you can read the interview in full by clicking the link above.

How did you get involved with “A Gentleman in Moscow”?
MARY ELIZABETH WINSTEAD:
You [Ewan] had hinted, cheekily, that there was a great female character in there. Reading the book, I just thought, ‘Oh my God, what a great, juicy opportunity that would be to play her.’ But I was very tentative because the last thing I wanted was to try to win a role and then have somebody think I was trying to get something out of being married to you. I just wanted to quietly say, “I think it’s a great role if you think I’m right for it.”

What about Anna? Is she a good actress?

WINSTEAD Anna believes that she is. I do think she takes it very seriously. It’s something positive in her life that gives her a sense of purpose. She does hang in there, even if she’s not always a star. That has to count for something.

They have a superb meet-cute, when the count tames Anna’s Russian wolfhounds. What’s their initial attraction?

WINSTEAD I instantly find him very intriguing. The way that he handles my dogs, it sparks a little something. Our repartee makes me further intrigued. Then hearing about him and knowing that he’s imprisoned in this hotel, the mystery is interesting to me as a woman who gets bored very easily by most men that I’m around. Over time, that leads to much, much more.

It’s so lovely how much time it takes. It’s many years into their relationship before they realize they’re in love. There’s something beautiful about that slow progression. Especially for Anna. She resists that feeling. But it hits her like a wave.

Mary, earlier you alluded to a downside of working together, in that people might think you were offered a role for reasons other than your talent.

WINSTEAD Of course, there’s always going to be one person on the internet who makes that comment, but I’m secure enough to not worry about that because I know the truth, which is that people want to work with me. When we were first together, I was up for a role in something that he was in. They were worried we would bring some sort of drama to the set, which we thought was very funny because we’re not very dramatic people. But you have to let time deal with that. Now it’s clear that we’re a pretty levelheaded couple, that we’re not going around smashing vases. Other than that, it’s really been just upsides, which is that people who know us and like our work are happy and excited to put us together occasionally, which is a really lucky thing for us.

MCGREGOR There’s no downside in terms of actually doing it. It’s only great to go to work together, get to work together, come home together. It’s as good as it could be, really.

Share
Filed in A Gentleman in Moscow Gallery Updates Interviews

New interviews and Character Poster

In 24 hours, Mary’s new limited series ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ will begin streaming on Paramount+ and with the premiere just hours away, a couple more interviews are still being released. The first one is a new video interview with The Toronto Sun:

Next, Mary did an interview with Yahoo! where she spoke about what drew her to the character of Anna.

“She’s a real hustler, a real survivor, and those are the kinds of people that I love to play, because they’re so interesting, and they’re so active, and they’re never really just sitting back and letting life happen to them. They’re always trying to think about how they can kind of advance. When I signed on to the show, I think I only had the first couple episodes to read, … and how Anna was going to be presented in the show, … I thought, … ‘This is so much fun,'” Winstead said. “To get to be this brash, brazen woman who’s fully in her diva confidence, it’s not really the way that we get to behave in real life. So it’s really liberating to step into someone’s shoes like that.”

“I certainly could see myself in her, in terms of her being an artist that has to navigate an industry that’s not always about the art, there’s so many other things at play. There were things about her I could relate to, and then other things that I could just really empathize with, and made me really love her.”

You can read her full interview here.

Mary and Ewan also did a video interview where they talked about working together and talked about what their son is currently into. It’s so cute! So happy for them. Their portion of the interview begins around the 6:05 mark.

While at the Toronto premiere earlier this week, Mary was also asked why she thought viewers might sympathize with Ewan’s character and enjoy watching the show:

“It’s about the connection of people in the smallest of ways where you really go into the microcosm on what these people go through in their day-to-day lives. I do think that people are searching for connection right now. There is a feeling of isolation for a lot of people, and I think that the show does speak to that. We’re in a world where we’ve come out of a pandemic, and we’re watching a man who is isolated in his own way, who has to learn to find connection again with humanity and closeness. I hope that people come away feeling hopeful and that it makes them feel a certain warmth towards their loved ones, neighbours, and people who are within their direct orbit.”

In another interview with The Canadian Press, the two stars talked about why they each loved working with one another:

And finally, a character poster of Mary as her character film actress Anna Urbanova has been released. I have added it to the gallery. Anyone else super excited for the show to finally begin? 🙂

Share
Filed in A Gentleman in Moscow Interviews TV News

New ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ Review and Interview

With A Gentleman in Moscow premiering this Friday, a brand new interview and review has been released. The first is a quick clip of Mary in a new interview asking her and Ewan why they each picked this new series to be the third project they decided to work together on.

In other news, a new review of the limited series has come out via THR and they praise both Ewan & Mary’s acting in the show:

He and real-life spouse Winstead have a chemistry that starts out amusing and becomes rather sweet and well-earned, and Winstead’s take on an actress going from budding ingénue to of-a-certain-age in the blink of an eye is a poignant parallel to the show’s empire rise-and-fall backdrop.

Share
Filed in A Gentleman in Moscow Gallery Updates Interviews TV News

New ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ Interviews

With premiere week now in full swing for the limited series ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’, a couple of new interviews with Mary and with her husband Ewan have been put online which I have added below. In addition to the interviews, it has been announced that a brand new cover for Amor Towles’ novel of the same name which the show is based on, will be coming to Amazon April 9th. Pre-order links can be found here.

Share
Filed in A Gentleman in Moscow Gallery Updates Interviews

New Interview with Mary and AGIM Photo

We are less than a week away from seeing Mary on our TV screens again in the upcoming Paramount+ series, ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ & as such, a brand new interview has come out! Below are some highlights Mary did with Airmail.

I have also added a brand new still of Mary and Ewan as their characters into the gallery.

Mary on what it was like filming scenes with her on screen co-star (& real-life husband) Ewan McGregor:

“The fact that we are so in love with one another, and we do kind of burst with feeling for each other all the time, made it really, really easy to bring all those layers to the relationship and to really see the relationship between the count and Anna develop,” Winstead says. “There were certain scenes where we’d go, O.K., we don’t actually have to cry in this scene—let’s pull it together! It was always so moving for us every day.” (Despite their relationship, the producers followed protocol and assigned the couple an intimacy coach to help choreograph their sex scenes.)

Mary on the type of research she did to play the role of film actress Anna Urbanova:

Winstead found herself researching and learning from the lives of real-life Russian actresses who might have been contemporaries of Urbanova’s. “I really focused on Alla Nazimova, who was a huge Russian star in the 1920s and had ups and downs throughout her career that reminded me of Anna,” she says.

“She had many marriages and affairs, with both men and women, and was very bravely open and comfortable with her womanhood and sexuality. She also had a very difficult childhood and was abused by her father, so she left home at a young age to escape that. In our story, Anna’s backstory is kept quite mysterious because that’s how she likes it, but there is a heavy history there that can be felt.”

Mary on Ewan’s commitment to the role of Count Rostov:

“I think that Ewan really captures that so well in his performance, and I think that sort of has a trickle effect throughout the show. A lot of characters have that sense of strength in adversity. Life carries on, and you find humor and laughter and hope in the darkest of places. ”

McGregor has already begun praising his wife’s performance to reporters, and Winstead needs no prompting to return the favor. “I feel like I could talk for hours about how amazing he is, even when I was just home with him as his partner and seeing his commitment to it and the way that he embodied this person like nobody else could,” she says about McGregor’s preparation. He worked with a movement coach to nail the mannerisms and bearing of the leisured class, and maintained his character’s thick, nobleman’s mustache for nearly a year.

Share
Filed in A Gentleman in Moscow Gallery Updates Interviews

Empire Magazine Scans+New Video Interview

I have added a new interview/magazine scans of Mary and Ewan in the latest issue of Empire Magazine. In the interview, Mary and Ewan talk about what it was like working with one another and filming scenes together as well as discuss their takes on their characters. Head to the gallery to read the interview in full!

In related news, Mary and Ewan also did an interview together on Sirius XM where they talked about their son Laurie meeting baby Grogu for the first time, working together, and Mary getting Ewan into horror films! The entire interview itself is so good! I loved how Ewan said he was impressed with Mary as an actress and she gave it her all in the 2012 film, ‘Smashed’!

Share
Filed in A Gentleman in Moscow Interviews

New Interviews with Mary

With ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ premiering in 2 weeks, Mary and Ewan are beginning their promotional duties for the upcoming limited series. As such, I have added some new interview videos of them discussing the show and how horribly wrong it went when their toddler son finally met Baby Grogu! ?

Ewan was also on Late Night with Seth Meyers where he talked about working with Mary at the 5:20 mark:

Share
Filed in A Gentleman in Moscow Gallery Updates Interviews

Mary and Ewan Appear on the Tonight Show!

Mary and Ewan made a joint appearance last night on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in New York City! During the interview, the married couple talked about both being in the Star Wars universe and what it was like for their son Laurie to meet Grogu in real life! Ewan also talked about how it felt having that huge mustache for over a year due to last year’s SAG/writers’ strike and what it was like working together on set. Be sure to check out their hilarious interview below and watch ’til the end to see the first clip from the show!
I will be sure to make tons of screencaps from their appearance later this week!

It’s so beautiful to finally see them doing an interview together. I can’t wait to get more as the promotional press for AGIM picks up. 🙂

Share
Filed in A Gentleman in Moscow Gallery Updates Interviews TV News

New ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ Still and Interview

A brand new still of Mary and Ewan in their upcoming series ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ has been released via Empire.  Set in 1922, Count Alexander Rostov (played by Ewan McGregor) is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. If he ventures beyond the hotel’s walls, he’ll be shot and killed—and so inside he stays, dining and grooming and sleeping and chatting away with anyone and everyone in his vicinity. Mary will play Anna Urbanova, a glamorous, independent and self-made film actress, at the height of her fame. She uses her wit and beauty to dazzle Count Alexander Rostov. She’s an enigmatic character who keeps her cards very close to her chest. Reluctant to reveal her true self.

Speaking to Empire, this is what Mary and Ewan had to say about working with one another:

“In-between takes we were just bawling our eyes out,” Winstead chuckles, looking back on a particularly tender sequence. “It was so beautiful to get to play the scene and make that moment feel so real. But it was really, really hard for us as well.” With a backdrop of world-changing politics, there are plenty of forces that threaten to keep the Count and Anna apart. “It’s about the making of the Russia that we know now,” states McGregor of the series. “It starts in 1921 after the Revolution, and everybody’s in turmoil. There’s a lot of discussion about belief in something – people who believe in the Communist movement and people who don’t, and what it does to their lives.”

A Gentleman in Moscow will begin streaming on Paramount+ March 29th.

Share
Filed in A Gentleman in Moscow Interviews TV News

Mary and Ewan to Appear on Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

Just as the headline indicates, both Mary Elizabeth and Ewan will be appearing together on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon next Monday, March 11 to begin promoting their upcoming series, ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’. The show will air at 11:35/10:35c on NBC.

The series, an adaptation of Amor Towles’ novel of the same name, follows Count Alexander Rostov (Ewan McGregor), who, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, finds that his gilded past has placed him on the wrong side of history. Spared immediate execution, he is banished by a Soviet tribunal to an attic room in the opulent Hotel Metropol and threatened with death if he ever sets foot outside again.

As the years pass and some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold outside the hotel’s doors, Rostov’s reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. As he builds a new life within the walls of the hotel, he discovers the true value of friendship, family and love.

The series also stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as glamorous, self-made film actress Anna Urbanova; Alexa Goodall as the Count’s unlikely young friend Nina; Johnny Harris as conflicted secret police officer Osip; and Fehinti Balogun as Mishka, the Count’s best friend from university.

Share