Sam Riley on Radioactive and Ben Wheatley's Rebecca Remake at Netflix
80When you think about what visionary Polish physicist and chemist Marie Curie accomplished during her extraordinary life, it’s impossible not to be impressed. Not only did she (with her husband Pierre) discover the elements Radium and Polonium, coin the term “radioactivity” to describe the emission of uranic rays, and become the first woman to ever win a Nobel Prize and hold a professorship at the Sorbonne, she did it well over a hundred years ago when it was even harder for a woman to enter the field of science. In addition, her work in the field of x-rays led to a second Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911 and helped saved numerous lives during World War I thanks to ambulances with x-ray equipment.
With all the she accomplished, it makes sense that her life has been portrayed on TV and the movies many times. In director Marjane Satrapi’s Radioactive, which is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Rosamund Pike stars as Curie and the film does a great job highlighting the key moments in her life and showing how hard Marie and Pierre Curie (Sam Riley) had to work to change the face of science forever. Radioactive also stars Aneurin Barnard, Simon Russell Beale, Katherine Parkinson, Sian Brooke, and Anya Taylor-Joy. The screenplay is by Jack Thorne and based on the book by Lauren Redniss.
Earlier this year, before the pandemic struck the planet, I sat down with Sam Riley in Paris to talk about the film. He talked about some of the incredible things he learned while preparing for the project, what he’ll always remember about filming in Budapest, what kind of scene he always hopes to do on the first day of filming, and more. In addition, he talked about his reaction seeing Control at a recent screening, what it was like making Free Fire with Ben Wheatley, how Wheatley has put his unique spin on his remake of Rebecca, and the crazy true story of Way Down directed by Jaume Balagueró.
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