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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="12055604" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="alicia-vikander" source="Orion">Alicia Vikander</keyword> plays an actress cast in a limited series remake of the French classic "The Vampires."</li><li>Vikander's role is in <keyword id="14010460" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="olivier-assayas" source="Orion">Olivier Assayas</keyword>' new TV limited series, based on his 1990s film of the same name. </li></ul><p>In HBO's new limited series "Irma Vep," <a href="https://www.insider.com/alicia-vikander-filmed-sex-scenes-where-she-didnt-feel-protected-2022-4">Alicia Vikander</a> is Mira, a disillusioned American actor who absconds to France following a messy breakup to take on a role in an indie remake of "The Vampires," a beloved 20th-century silent French film.</p><p>The production, however, is a bit of a mess.</p><p>Mira is surrounded by a band of ludicrous cast and crew members, including neurotic director René Vidal (a fantastic <keyword id="14010461" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="vincent-macaigne" source="Orion">Vincent Macaigne</keyword>) and Gottfried (Lars Eidinger), her crack-smoking co-star. Through this, the actor tries to balance her passion for the project with the advice of her money-hungry agents who insist she return to America to star in a Marvel-like franchise superhero film. Soon, Mira struggles to separate reality from fiction. </p><p>The show is based on a 1996 film of the same name by the French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, who has returned to write and direct the TV adaptation. The series spans an often hilarious eight hours, with each episode written and directed by Assayas, a feat which he told Insider was "very demanding and exhausting." </p><p>"I had no idea I was getting myself into directing eight episodes, and I didn't know I had to do it that fast," he said.</p><h2>'I don't think much good of what Hollywood has become to be completely honest'</h2><div type="image" title="An image of Vincent Macaigne, Director Olivier Assayas and Alicia Vikander." height="3064" width="4288" msid="91751290" hostid="261"></div><p>The circumstances through which I met Assayas aren't too dissimilar to what you might see in "Irma Vep." It's a smoldering hot Saturday afternoon, and I entered the grand reception of an imposing five-star hotel at the heart of the Croisette — the glamorous street the festival occupies — where I approached a concierge for directions to our meeting room.</p><p>"Je ne sais pas!" the concierge screeched in French before switching back to English to complain that everyone keeps asking him about "this Irma Vep thing."</p><p>I sidestepped away towards a bell boy, who directed me to the floor HBO has designated for press interviews. Here I found elegant corridors fitted with solid gold trimmings and lined with agents and producers who are outflanked only by journalists, identifiable by their distinct black and orange festival badges. </p><p>I reached the meeting room and I'm told Assayas isn't there. He's doing his interviews by the beach. I'm whisked away to a private beach where I find Assayas sitting quietly next to the sea in a fitted Paul Smith shirt and slacks. He's joined by French actor Vincent Macaigne, who is dressed in a formal shirt and loafers. The unconventional setup has been orchestrated by Assayas.</p><p>"I'm trying to keep it all out here," he said, "I can't do the hotel rooms." </p><p>This is the sort of pull Assayas now enjoys on both sides of the Atlantic, which is why I have always wondered why he's never worked in Hollywood. So I asked him the question. </p><p>"I don't think much good of what Hollywood has become to be completely honest," he said. "'Irma Vep' is about the chaos of contemporary cinema. We are in a period of redefinition of what cinema can be and should be."</p><p>"Everything seems to be in flux right now," Assayas added. "And you can't escape the fact that what's driving the crisis is the crisis of Hollywood filmmaking."</p><h2>Despite creating a reboot of his own, Assayas told Insider they bore him 'to death'</h2><div type="image" title="An image of Olivier Assayas and Alicia Vikander." height="3269" width="4903" msid="91751294" hostid="261"></div><p>The problems in Hollywood, Assayas added, aren't intrinsic to mainstream or big-budget filmmaking, which he said he has historically loved. The problem is instead the financial structures that dictate how films are produced in the current business model restraints.</p><p>"It's just like the Marvel movies, and all that kind of stuff, and those sequels. It's all about franchises. It's all about sequels, reboots, and so on. It bores me to death," he said.</p><p>"It's the first time that it completely alienates me. It had never alienated me before," Assayas continued, before conceding that he still manages to find some satisfaction in Hollywood, noting that he thinks Christopher Nolan is a "very good filmmaker." </p><h2>'She has something both very strong and very childlike,' Assayas said of Vikander</h2><div type="image" title="An image of Alicia Vikander at the Cannes film festival." height="1932" width="3000" msid="91751295" hostid="261"></div><p>Assayas' disdain for contemporary Hollywood can be felt throughout "Irma Vep." Vikander's Mira flees to France to escape a cycle of repetitious, CGI-heavy blockbusters, and while she's in Europe, she is constantly trying to fend off the opinions of her greedy agents back in Hollywood.</p><p>For anyone who is familiar with the original "Irma Vep" film, Vikander's casting will likely seem odd. Her body of work, which ranges from everything from small indies like<a href="https://www.insider.com/ex-machina-juvet-hotel-2016-9"> "Ex Machina"</a> to popcorn fare like "The Man from U.N.C.L.E," is impressive.</p><p>But Vikander's acting style is somewhat muted. Even in <a href="https://www.insider.com/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-is-a-visual-masterpiece-but-boring-2018-9">2018's blockbuster "Tomb Raider,</a>" the Swedish actor rarely raises her voice. This is in direct contrast to the dominant style and elegance Hong Kong-British actor Maggie Cheung brought to her central performance in the original film — a change that Assayas told me he had been seeking. </p><p>"She has something both very strong and very childlike," Assayas said of Vikander. "She has this innocence and strength. She's a brilliant actress, but also, she's someone who has this kind of magical gift. You meet some actors and they are just more than actors. They are people who live and breathe cinema. You recognize them instantly when you yourself are haunted by a devotion to cinema."</p><p>Vikander's subdued performance leaves a lot of space open for her co-star Macaigne to explore the extreme emotional highs and lows of his neurotic character. Macaigne is a hugely acclaimed writer, director, and actor on both the screen and stage in France. And here, he steals the show in a role that he told me provided a full-circle moment.   </p><p>"Every project Olivier asks me to do, I will do it, but this one grabbed me because when I was a teenager I watched 'Irma Vep' and it was a movie that made me love French cinema and showed me what French cinema can be," he said. </p><p>A few moments later, I was told that my time with Assayas and Macaigne was over and I was nudged out as quickly as I was shuffled in. Before I leave, Assayas told me that he's rushing back to finish editing a final cut of the show.</p><p>"I'm almost done with episode seven and I'm in the middle of editing eight," he said. "It's kind of the light at the end of the tunnel."</p><p><em>"Irma Vep" debuts June 6 on HBO. </em></p>

Alicia Vikander makes fun of Marvel-style films in HBO's 'Irma Vep.' The director told Insider it's because reboots bore him 'to death'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>"<keyword id="11948235" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="spencer" source="Orion">Spencer</keyword>," starring <keyword id="11948237" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="kristen-stewart" source="Orion">Kristen Stewart</keyword> follows the late <keyword id="11948236" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="princess-diana" source="Orion">Princess Diana</keyword> over three days.</li><li>The events almost break her spirit but ultimately inspire her to take back control of her life. </li><li>"Spencer" also sheds light on the cruelty of the British royal institution.</li></ul><p>At the beginning of the new Princess Diana biopic "Spencer," a disclaimer pops up onscreen. "This is a fable from a true tragedy," it reads.</p><p>The events depicted onscreen, led by Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín, are inspired but not wholly faithful to the winter of 1991 at Sandringham House - one of Queen Elizabeth II's private residences in Norfolk, England.</p><p>Princess Diana is familiar with Sandringham. Long before she was a royal, she was born and raised at Park House, a property located very close to the Queen's private residence within the estate.</p><p>And at the beginning of "Spencer," Diana, now the subject of the world's fascination, returns to the estate to spend the Christmas break with the British <keyword id="11893529" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="royals" source="Orion">royals</keyword>. It's here, legend claims, that Diana made the decision to end her marriage to Prince Charles ("Poldark" actor Jack Farthing).</p><p>Over the course of three days - Christmas eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day - we follow Diana closely and witness the events that almost break her spirit but ultimately inspire her to take back control of her life. </p><div type="image" title="Kristen Stewart in &quot;Spencer.&quot;" height="1139" width="2000" msid="85901574" hostid="261"></div><h2>'Spencer' emphasizes the British royal family's cruelty toward Princess Diana</h2><p>There's a lot of time spent in Larraín's film establishing the cruelty of the British royal institution.</p><p>Upon Diana's arrival at Sandringham, for example, a scale is set up for her to be weighed. One of the Queen's courtiers claims that this is part of an archaic tradition that cannot be missed, but he also seems to take pride in the discomfort it brings Diana, who at the time had an eating disorder - something that is regularly jabbed at by members of the royal family.</p><p>During breakfast one morning, Prince Charles crudely turns to an excited Diana and asks her if she can try not to "regurgitate her breakfast into the lavatory bowl" before the afternoon. </p><p>The film also carefully depicts the amount of labor required by cooks, cleaners, and dressers to keep royal life going. We see the opening of boxes, food preparation, the express transport of clothing.</p><p>This methodical plotting quickly establishes the absurdity of the world Diana inhabited and why it was so incompatible with her.  </p><div type="image" title="princess diana" height="2876" width="4145" msid="85901578" hostid="261"></div><h2>What's Hot: <strong>Stewart is an engrossing and passionate Diana, whose loneliness screams out on the screen</strong></h2><p>Diana's onscreen alienation is heightened by a piercing score by British musician Johnny Greenwood. The score also provides the perfect soundtrack to the deteriorating mind of Stewart's Diana, who we watch fall deeper into a haze over the three-day trip.</p><p>When we first meet Diana she's lost after ditching her driver and security detail to drive up to the estate on her own. When she gets to the estate, however, we see that she's also struggling to decide which direction her life should be going in.</p><p>Her marriage to Prince Charles is shot, and the attention she's attracting from the press and a world of adoring fans has made her enemy No. 1 to the crown or, as <a href="https://www.insider.com/who-are-the-firm-the-royal-institution-the-royal-family">Meghan and Harry described it, The Firm</a>. And its head honcho - Queen Elizabeth II - wants rid as quickly as possible.</p><p>Here Larraín starts to playfully indulge conspiracy about Diana's future and The Firm's plans for it.</p><p>"Do you think they'll kill me?" Diana says at one point.</p><div type="image" title="Diana Spencer" height="2492" width="3742" msid="85901581" hostid="261"></div><h2>In the film, Diana is haunted by Anne Boleyn, a wife in the royal family who was beheaded for treason</h2><p>There's also the running theme of Anne Boleyn - the second wife of King Henry VIII who was beheaded for supposed treason. A book about Boleyn's life and death is left on Diana's bed before she arrives at Sandringham. She suspects the Queen mother's new hawkish henchman placed it there as a warning and at the film's end, we discover that she was on to something. </p><p>At one point, one of the Queen's valets is even informed that Diana had journeyed into her old, boarded home on the Sandringham estate. The house has been sealed off because it has dangerous rotten floors. In response, the valet tells the guards to "let her be." </p><p>As Diana's mental deterioration deepens, Boleyn appears to her in visions and offers her advice. "Go! run!" Boleyn pleads with Diana. These sightings become more frequent as Diana falls deeper, suffocated by the Firm and its goons, and the history of those who've dared to challenge it.</p><p>On Christmas Day, she's close to taking her own life when clarity hits and she decides that she must leave this family behind. It's clear that she's always known this, but after some powerful words of encouragement from her dresser, played brilliantly by the great Sally Hawkins, she knows she now has the power and strength to do so. </p><p>All of this is masterfully depicted by Stewart, who's a perfect Diana. Yes, as many suspected from the film's trailer, her British accent is pinpoint. Stewart is also highly adept at the upper-class pout for which Diana was famous.</p><p>Although she does lay it on thick. (I'm British but I was born the month after Diana died, so I didn't grow up with her image.) Did she really move her neck like that? Nevertheless, Stewart is not only convincing but engrossing. </p><div type="image" title="Princess Diana wearing a tiara" height="2643" width="4022" msid="85901585" hostid="261"></div><h2>Bottom line: 'Spencer' is Stewart's golden ticket </h2><p>In recent years, Stewart has become a stalwart of arthouse and European cinema. She's currently the only American actor to take home an award from the French Oscars (Cesar awards), which she picked up for a supporting role in French director Olivier Assayas's 2014 film "Clouds of Sils Maria."</p><p>Despite her A-list superstardom, Stewart has yet to have her big, leading Hollywood moment. All of the recent Stewart star vehicles - both studio and independent - have unfortunately been duds.</p><p>"Charlie's Angels," in 2019 for example, was a flashy but weak adaptation. The biopic "Seberg," in which Stewart played the legendary actress and civil rights campaigner, Jean Seberg, was cheap and ill-conceived.</p><p>With "Spencer," Stewart has finally struck gold. </p><h2>Grade A+</h2>

Kristen Stewart's Princess Diana biopic 'Spencer' details the British royal family's cruel ways

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Alicia Vikander makes fun of Marvel-style films in HBO's 'Irma Vep.' The director told Insider it's because reboots bore him 'to death'

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Kristen Stewart's Princess Diana biopic 'Spencer' details the British royal family's cruel ways

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