“The last time I cast a nine-year old boy,” said director Simon Curtis this week, “it was Daniel Radcliffe.” This time, for his new movie Goodbye Christopher Robin, about the making of the Winnie the Pooh books, Curtis was referring to the impossibly adorable dimpled Will Tilston who plays author A. A. Milne’s son. At the premiere this week at The New York Public Library, after screenings at last week’s Hamptons International Film Festival, Will, who never acted before and who has never been to New York before was feted along with Domhnall Gleeson who plays his father Alan, and Margot Robbie, his mother Daphne. Forget the grim and lonely childhood Christopher Robin suffered with these self-involved parents. Festooned with giant Pooh bears, the library’s first floor had the majesty and magic of The Hundred Acre Wood, but best of all, at center was a vitrine with the original stuffed animals, including the beloved Eeyore, Tanga, Piglet, and Tigger, part of the NYPL collection.
Margot Robbie is having a big year too, also starring as Tonya Harding in I, Tonya. She’s started producing as well, and said of her ambition, “Well, I was always impatient.”
Carter Burwell, the composer on this film, one of three movies, along with the hugely entertaining Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, rushed out to do a Q&A for an academy screening of Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck at MoMA. Because the film was filmed in black & white, and silent as in an old fashioned movie, his music plays a huge role.
Simon Curtis is married to Elizabeth McGovern, Lady Cora on Downton Abbey, and a star of J. B. Priestley’s play Time and the Conways on Broadway, just opened this week, so her family enjoyed multiple celebrations.
Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura
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