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Very Hot Topic (More than 25 Replies) Billy Elliott (beyond the movie) (Read 32,878 times)
cal-Q-L8
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Billy Elliott (beyond the movie)
24. Mar 2002 at 06:12
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If I was witty rather than pretty I'd create individual captions for the following scenes from Billy Elliott...

..anyone out there NOT seen this yet.  If so you are missing out on something special.


______________________________________________
sorry folks..  pics have expired..  but there are heaps of DVD caps from the movie in the Billy Elliott  gallery here:

« Last Edit: 06. Oct 2004 at 07:59 by cal-Q-L8 »  
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My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #1 - 24. Mar 2002 at 15:55
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You know, I really can't believe that I thought this dvd and left it sitting on a shelf for over a month before I watched it. You're right, Cal, it's one that everyone should see.

Thanks. Smiley

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My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #2 - 24. Mar 2002 at 17:52
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I loved it Smiley  Cute, wonderful, delightful.. I was amazed at Jamie Bell's looks and talent. 

First pic caption:  "I'm sure we'd all like to flirt with Billy, Mr. Caffrey, but I would prefer you pay attention.."

I was also much taken with 'Mr. Caffrey,'  Billy's cute gay buddy who so enjoyed sitting behind him in class Smiley Smiley
  
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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #3 - 21. Dec 2003 at 07:28
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latest sensational news from the london evening standard magazine.

jamie bell spotted partaking of medieval meat-feast at the (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) party to celebrate premiere of the lord of the rings.

the market transformed into Middle-earth, strewn with rocks and ivy to evoke the forest of lothlorien.

no picture, alas.

but it says that peaches and pixie geldof (who embraced jeremy sumpter at the peter pan premiere) were also there - presumably looking for fresh boy meat.

those two girls are dangerous predators!  Shocked Grin

recent pic - (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
  
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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #4 - 31. Dec 2003 at 04:55
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billy elliot director recevies honour.

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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #5 - 12. Jan 2004 at 04:06
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boys auditioning for the theatre production.

hope everyone can see pic - the times blocks some URLs from access outside uk.

Lads of the dance: Matthew Low, right, and Tyler Catt were among hundreds of hopefuls at the open auditions yesterday for the stage version of Billy Elliot. Photograph by Ben Gurr  

Boys jump for a chance of fame
By Laura Peek

These two lads a-leaping, Matthew Low (right) and Tyler Catt, are just two of the hundreds of young hopefuls who queued in London’s driving rain and hail yesterday to audition for a stage version of the hit film Billy Elliot.

Ten-year-old Matthew, a farmer’s son from Banchory, Aberdeenshire, said that he is teased and called names because he does ballet. “They call me ‘ballet boy’ and other names,” he said. “I try to ignore them but sometimes it gets to me. I liked the film Billy Elliot because it made it a bit easier for boys who do ballet.” He said he cannot imagine following his father into farming and wants to be a professional dancer instead.

Sir Elton John has written the score for the musical, which will be directed by Stephen Daldry, who directed the film and discovered its star, Jamie Bell.

Mr Daldry, who was on the audition panel, said: “They have to be able to sing and ideally they have to have a Northern accent. It is a very difficult combination. A child prodigy is basically what we are looking for.”
--------------------
'Billy' film mirrored Elton
By Luke Leitch

9 January 2004

As a boy being brought up in the suburbs, young Reginald Dwight's ambition to be a rock'n'roll star horrified his RAF officer father.

Stanley Dwight thought his son ought to devote himself to a safe number-crunching career as an accountant and tried to stifle his desire to attend the Royal Academy Of Music.

Today Reginald, who grew up to be Sir Elton John, told how his tempestuous relationship with his father inspired him to write the score for the multi-millionpound stage adaptation of the hit British film Billy Elliot.

He believes the story of Billy, who wins over his hostile father to follow his dreams to the Royal Ballet School, closely resembles his own struggle to pursue his dream.

So much so that, when Sir Elton saw the film in Cannes in 2000, he was overcome by emotion as Billy's tough father first rejects and then champions his talented son.

He said: 'I was a mess when the film ended - I was falling out of my seat. I found it very similar to my background.

'It is well known that my father and I had difficulties, which we settled. But I was always trying to prove something.

'And I think the story with Billy's father, and the fact that he succeeded in the end in his story to win his father over, hit home very hard for me."

Sir Elton was born in Pinner and became fascinated by music at an early age. But Stanley, an RAF lieutenant, wanted his son to pursue a safer career.

When Stanley and Sir Elton's mother Sheila divorced, the rift deepened - but like Billy, his father eventually relented. Aged only 11, Elton won a scholarship to the Royal Academy Of Music.

He said: 'I won my father over in the end. But he didn't really want me to become a musician.

'I grew up in the Fifties and Sixties and things were different then. So it really struck a chord.'

David Furnish, Sir Elton's partner, is one of the musical's executive producers.

He said: 'Elton was a child prodigy who wanted to be a rock'n'roller, and his father wanted him to be an accountant.

'Elton had a very strained relationship with his father as a result.'

Now the search is on for talented young actors who can take the lead role in the £5 million musical, due to open in the West End at the end of this year.

Aspiring Billy Elliots will get their shot at the big time this Sunday at an open audition at the London School Of Musical Theatre in Borough Road. It starts at 9am.

Mr Furnish said: 'We need a pool of Billys. Children can only do a certain number of shows a week so we are working on finding this pool of especially talented kids and putting them through a special academy.'

Director Stephen Daldry is also looking for boys to play Michael, Billy's friend.

Sir Elton said: 'Finding one kid between the ages of 11 and 14 who can sing, dance and act is hard enough. But finding three or four of them...you've got to have charisma too.'

He added: 'When Stephen did the movie Jamie Bell was one of the last people he saw - so you can't give up.'

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« Last Edit: 12. Jan 2004 at 07:28 by josephk »  
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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #6 - 13. Jan 2004 at 05:27
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I really admire the guts of boys who 'dance', especially ones from the suburbs where such pursuits are condemned as being sissy and only aceptable for girls.

A stage play of Billy Elliott sounds great...  I hope they are able to choose a boy who is actually 10 or 11, the age of the character.
  
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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #7 - 17. Feb 2004 at 04:37
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from the daily express gossip column:

billy elliot star jamie bell's next film role will be as a gun-fixated pacifist in `dear wendy` penned by maverick director lars von trier.

but is the pressure of stardom all getting to jamie?

the award-winning 17-year-old was in somewhat negative mood at a reception on wednesday at the brazilian embassy, where he accompanied his mentor and billy elliot director stephen daldry.

asked whether he planned to work with daldry again, a scruffy jamie replied with the director in earshot :

"no, no, never.

"i'd never work with him again".

and what does he think of plans for a theatre adaptation of billy elliot?

"i have no involvement in it, no connection whatsoever and no interest" - declared jamie.

let's hope he's joking, eh?
  
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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #8 - 18. Feb 2004 at 10:00
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Gosh.. he sounds really jaded.

Maybe it has something to do with the obvious and possibly neverending comments by Jamie's real life contacts, ie, family, friends, school mates, etc who more than likely are still giving him a hard time with 'f*g**t' or 'poof' remarks.
  
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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #9 - 18. Feb 2004 at 13:25
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<i>Gosh.. he sounds really jaded.</i>

Yeah, he does.   Undecided

But, who knows?  Maybe he and Stephen Daldry got a big kick out of it later when they laughed about how gullible the reporter was to believe that.  Smiley

Or, maybe he was just having a bad day.  Kids do have bad days, and they don't hold back when they're letting people know it.

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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #10 - 18. Feb 2004 at 16:38
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Personally, I just find it cool that he hangs out with Stephen Daldry and that they refer to him as his "mentor". No, I'm not implying anything out of the ordinary about that relationship. Just that I think it's cool, that's all. Smiley (And I would hang out with Stephen Daldry, Jamie Bell or both anytime, if I had the chance.)
  
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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #11 - 17. Apr 2004 at 02:53
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Boys auditioning for the title role in Billy Elliot: The Musical.
------------
Think about it if you dare. You are looking for a boy from the North with wings on his feet and a voice to move the stars. A boy with energy, grit, hunger for opportunity. A boy apart. He has to be able to dance and sing and act with equal confidence - and he must be innately watchable. But he also needs a mysterious other quality. It's to do with what he is inside; whether he can make you care about what happens to him.

This boy will be 11 or 12 years old and he will have to hold a live audience of 1,500 in his hand. In one evening, his whole life will change. He will be the star of Billy Elliot: The Musical, a £5 million production by the team that created Billy Elliot the Oscar-nominated film - Stephen Daldry, director, Lee Hall, writer, Peter Darling, choreographer. Sir Elton John is writing the music.

To find the new Billy, you'll have travelled the country auditioning 2,500 eager lads, and then set up a school of excellence to train the final few. Yet the moment the lucky boy's voice breaks, he will be no good to you. He will be out of the show.

Disqualified because of a physical change no one can predict and no one can postpone. So you'll need another Billy Elliot waiting in the wings. And, because regulations prevent child actors from giving more than five performances a week, you'll need a third Billy Elliot: two to share the eight-show week.

The logistical nightmare doesn't end there. Billy, the miner's son who lives to dance, has a memorable best friend, Michael. So you must nurture three Michaels as well as three Billys. Because adolescent boys grow so fast and so unpredictably, every six months you'll have to recast. And that will mean tailoring the musical to the particular strengths of the new batch of boys. Supposing the show runs for three years, you'll have discovered, brought on and transformed the lives of 36 exceptional boys. To Stephen Daldry, the director, it has become almost vocational.

"I feel passionate about the show," he says. "But also about the role of the school outside the show, enabling and encouraging kids who might not otherwise have the opportunity to succeed.

Whether it's singing, gymnastics, or contemporary dance, when you see a kid get hold of something new and embrace it, it's heartrending, exciting. You see the total potential of the child. Of course, they need to have a stage personality and charm for the role, but they also need to have a level of tenacity to have persisted with dance; a passion that got them through. You're looking for a kid who can dance and sing and act but also for a kid with attitude. People still have a mixed reaction to boys who dance."

In casting Billy, the producers have mirrored the character's own journey from North-Eastern deprivation to West End glory. For most of these boys, there's the engulfing passion for the physical and emotional sensations of dance that Jamie Bell, the film's star, conveyed so well. There's the same hard graft, raw talent and determination to succeed. And behind a lot of them, there's the faith and commitment of a Julie Walters, Billy's dance teacher.

Despite the strong dance tradition in the North and even though the film made it "less pouffy" for boys to do ballet, there is still a stigma. "Some get support at home. Some have to go through something to dance," Daldry says. "It is incredibly moving. Every little kid has a background story. The story of any individual child is the story of the show."

Paul Mower, a pipe fitter from Hull, admits that he wasn't keen on his acrobatic son's fondness for dance, especially ballet. "I didn't want Liam to do ballet. I didn't think it was for boys. I wanted him to play rugby. But I've come round to the idea now."

Liam's dance teacher, Julie Lovewell, encouraged him to audition for the part of Billy. Now she's teaching the finalists tap.

During early auditions in Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, Nottingham, Sheffield and Birmingham, Daldry met gifted boys, natural performers, who had outgrown their local dance schools or amateur drama groups. He didn't want them to slip through the net. Partly to keep up a constant supply of new boys for the musical, but to nurture exceptional talent beyond it as well, he founded the Billy Elliot School in Leeds, the only multi-disciplinary school of its kind in the North.

Its home is the lofty, peeling edifice of Leeds Civic Theatre. In one vast room with dirty windows and an old piano, four potential Billys are doing street dancing, throwing themselves into the routines with even more enthusiasm than they put into their somersaults and Britney Spears impersonations during the lunch break.

You can feel how much they want this part. Over the weeks, they've become mates but they never stop being rivals, too. In the shabby basement, four potential Michaels are learning tap. "Scrub, tap! Scrub, tap!" Julie Lovewell yells above the din. "A bit heavy. I want it lighter! I want to hear one pair of tap shoes." Sparks fly from their steel-tipped heels. They don't want to stop. Not now, not ever.

"I love tap", says Josh Andrews, 13, from Burton upon Trent."It's the only dance that makes a sound and that's exciting."

Brad Kavanagh, a gutsy 11-year-old with black curly hair, red cheeks and specs, has done something to his back, skateboarding. He's really an actor and has hardly had any dance instruction, but he's becoming a king of tap. Julie urges him to sit this one out. She might as well order water to run uphill.

For seven hours, they work like fury at the different disciplines - ballet, tap, singing, contemporary dance, street dance, funky dance - while Peter Darling observes things about them they would never suspect were interesting.

"It's not about whether you have done 95,000 ballet classes", he says. "I am interested in boys who've got natural movement, natural grace, not perfect feet. It's an internal thing."

Today, he's paying particular attention to a tall, good-looking boy of 13, Jonathon Cordin, from Nottingham, who joined the audition process late. Everyone loves the way he moves but, by the time the show opens later this year he may look too mature to be a plausible 11-year-old Billy.

Jonathon knows the score. They all do. "We are honest with them," says the children's casting director, Jessica Ronane. "We tell them this is an experience they must take away for life, whether or not they get the part."

Her message has been so successful that all the boys I spoke to said they were in it mainly for the experience - and so did their proud parents. They would be disappointed not to get the part, but not gutted.

They'd done brilliantly, blindingly, to get this far. They'd been "real gobsmacked" to meet some "pretty big people", like Stephen Daldry, Peter Darling and Jamie Bell. They'd worked with teachers who were the best at what they did.

Some of them, back home, are vastly outnumbered in their dance classes by girls. They've been teased as "ballet boys" at school. Here, they were really, really pleased to be with boys who liked the same thing as they did. It had been an adventure already. They'd had a lot of fun.

Sharon Boston, the mother of 12-year-old Kieron Boston (a potential Michael), from Sunderland, says: "You have to encourage them and keep them grounded at the same time. We try to keep things low key and say there's always a next time. Kieron has had disappointments in the past. He knows the gravity of where this might lead - or not."

The musical will be more demanding, physically and emotionally than the film, says Daldry. One boy must hold the show. "You can't blink. You can't slip. The success of the whole show rests on your shoulders."

Working Title and Old Vic Productions will be staging the Billy Elliot musical in Newcastle later this year and in the West End early in 2005.

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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #12 - 17. Apr 2004 at 05:35
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Shocked Cheesy Wonder Wonder Smiley WinkI love read news; Thank to Apple Wink Cheesy
  
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Re: My fav Billy Elliott pics
Reply #13 - 17. Apr 2004 at 12:37
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<i>They'd done brilliantly, blindingly, to get this far. They'd been "real gobsmacked" to meet some "pretty big people", like Stephen Daldry, Peter Darling and Jamie Bell. They'd worked with teachers who were the best at what they did.

Some of them, back home, are vastly outnumbered in their dance classes by girls. They've been teased as "ballet boys" at school. Here, they were really, really pleased to be with boys who liked the same thing as they did. It had been an adventure already. They'd had a lot of fun.</i>


Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a job like Stephen Daldry's or Peter Darling's, and have a chance to work with and bring positive life experiences to so many talented 11-13 year-olds?   Grin   I guess my career counselor in high school didn't know there were going to be jobs like that for me to think about preparing for.   Undecided

I'm glad to hear that the boys who aren't eventually chosen are having such a positive experience, too.  There are going to be a lot of talented boys available for other productions in the UK now, and it might be good for some other producer to start thinking about tapping into that talent with musical versions of 'Harry Potter', etc.  I'd especially like to see a musical version of 'For a Lost Soldier'.  Roll Eyes

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Billy Elliott auditions
Reply #14 - 21. Apr 2004 at 15:40
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Nearly 100 lads have queued up in rain-soaked London for the chance to play Billy Elliot in a West End musical.

CBBC Newsround Online chatted to some of the hopefuls as they went through their paces...

[pix at link]

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