ABOUT ANDY …still shot
IN a couple of days I will go to the Sun Valley Film Festival where the short film we shot last year About Andy is going to be shown. This short is on two subjects much in the public eye now, Artificial Intelligence and loneliness. The British Prime Minister, pronounced that loneliness is now an official disease and one that need to be addressed. Artificial Intelligence is here to stay and the big question is how much will it take over our lives, our humanity. How will we deal with it as humans as it creeps more and more into our lives. Computers are already isolating us and that in its own way creates an isolation and disassociation from human society. We see children buried in the phones, people go out to a restaurant and immediately the phone comes out…. Professor Stephen Hawking pronounced Artificial Intelligence as the greatest threat to humanity. Seems he was right as we get more and more marginalised. Have we created the ultimate Frankenstein’s monster? This is a lot of what our short film is about and in due course, it will be on this site for you to watch.
Jane with Bill Travers in “Lorna Doone”
I have had such an amazing career, right from when I started playing Lorna Doone on the BBC, I feel very lucky and with the advent of the Internet so much of my old work has had a revival and created a new audience…which is wonderful. After I sold the family business and was released from running it, I was able to return to my only great
Jane working with the great Patrick McGoohan in THE PRISONER
career love – acting. But this is an unforgiving business and if you turn your back on it, for what ever reason, you are quickly forgotten. So getting new offers of work was/is difficult. So carry on and create your own, which has been a terrific experience and given me parts I am unlikely to have played, if I had waited around for the phone to ring.
My Manager recently submitted me for a new production of Driving Miss Daisy – wonderful part, wonderful play. Now the Producers have now decided they want a woman of mixed race to play the part. (in the play she is an old Jewish white woman). This is another instance of political correctness gone mad….it defeats the story, the whole purpose of the play and it is unlikely that such a relationship would have existed in that period in the deep South of America. Actors have always been colour, religion, race blind so we never think about actors of a different culture playing parts and I think actors of all colours, races, cultures should play all sorts of parts, but let’s keep it real and true to the writer’s original intention… this is twisting and distorting a writers original story and denying them their voice. I once worked with the wonderful Paul Winfield on The Horror at 37, 000 Feet….a television film- (slightly unlikely story, but entertaining and full of ‘names’.) We had a long conversation about race and agreed that the whole thing was sad and stupid, as I said actors are colour blind.
Green Book
The Best Picture Oscar winner Green Book, which I just watched again, wonderfully demonstrates the point.
More later!
