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Drum: PROFILES
you?
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She’s hung out with Tupac, she’s kicked Vin Diesel’s arse, and she’s
read anthropology at Cambridge - meet Thandie Newton, actress,
mother, wife and friend of Oprah Winfrey. Richard Luck did.
I
f I never hear his name again, it won’t be a day
too soon.” It’s not the sort of thing you expect
to hear from Thandie Newton, mother, wife,
actress and English rose. But talk to the Mission:
Impossible II star about John Duigan who directed
Newton in her breakthrough movie Flirting, and you
get a barrage of invective. “I love Flirting,” she
continues, “and I feel that I gave a really good
performance, but I don’t have any time for him as a
person. And why I was good in that movie has
nothing to do with him.”
he was giving to his family and it was impossible
not to be touched by the way he was determined to
take care of everybody. He was like the godfather; he
wanted to know how cousins were going at college,
and whether friends had been able to pay off their
debts. I was in awe of someone that young taking
on so much responsibility.” And what of Tim Roth’s
claim that Shakur was more of an actor when he
was with his ‘boys’ than when he was on-set. “Oh,
I totally agree with that. What was odd was that, for
him, acting seemed a form of relaxation, it was a
release from the day to day pressures of being
‘Tupac’.”
are
“
an
How cle
Thandie Newton’s fallen out with a few people over
the course of her career; after she dropped out of
Charlie’s Angels, she was quick to say that her
replacement Lucy Liu was the cause of on-set unrest.
The occasional dust-up aside, the Zambian-born,
Cornish-raised actress has cultivated a remarkable
career that has seen her co-star with Oprah Winfrey,
Nick Nolte, Tom Cruise and Tupac Shakur.
“Oh Tupac,” she chortles at the mention of her
Gridlock’d co-star. “You had a real Jekyll and Hyde
situation there. He was sensitive, very, very funny,
and a beautiful actor, really intuitive. There was only
one occasion when I saw him angry, and when he
got enraged I didn’t recognise him. But he was such
a sweet guy. There was one day I’ll n ever forget. I
was hanging out in his trailer between set-ups and
he and his secretary were going over the allowances
Tupac isn’t the only volatile character Newton’s
shared screen time with. She was barely 23 and still
at Cambridge when she was cast opposite ursine
leading man and mobile pharmacy Nick Nolte in
Jefferson In Paris. Was Nolte a little frightening?
“No, not at all, he was fine. I was thinking about
him just recently. I was so upset to hear he’d been
arrested and was fighting his addictions again. Back
when we were making Jefferson In Paris, he was
inspiring; he was so committed to living clean.”
As a married mother of two, Newton’s life is sedate
in ways Nolte’s rarely is. Not that she hasn’t found
ways to let off steam. “I created my own stunts,”
she laughs while talking about The Chronicles Of
Riddick, the sci-fi blockbuster that gave her the »
Newton’s