How Felicity Jones Found the Heart in CG-Heavy ‘A Monster Calls’
TheWrap Oscar magazine: “I remember being in tears after I finished reading it,” actress says of the story of a young boy visited by a...
[...] generic as to be meaningless, the description didn’t give Felicity Jones much to work with when she thought about coming on board director J.A. Bayona’s “A Monster Calls,” the film adaptation of Patrick Ness’ novel about a young boy who receives late-night visits from a mysterious tree-like creature while trying to care for his dying mother.
The result is a relative rarity: A film that manages to tug at the heartstrings despite the fact that it features a giant CG creature (voiced by Liam Neeson) as one of its main characters.
Bayona, the Spanish director whose previous films include “The Orphanage”and “The Impossible,” turns the stuff of fantasy and horror flicks into an exploration of childhood pain and loss, with the help of terrific performances by Lewis MacDougall as a boy whose life is collapsing, and Jones as a young mother dying of cancer.
All they’re trying to do is be strong, because they do not want their illness to define them.
[...] yes, she got tips about portraying a progressive disease from starring alongside Eddie Redmayne in “The Theory of Everything,” where he won an Oscar for playing Stephen Hawking.
[...] I just want to keep telling stories about interesting female characters.