Darkest Hour, the World War II thriller about Winston Churchill and the fate of Europe, reunited producer Eric Fellner with several old friends. First came the script from Anthony McCarten, who also wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for 2014’s The Theory of Everything. Then along came director Joe Wright, who directed the best picture nominee Atonement. But the biggest catch was Gary Oldman, who hadn’t just helped Fellner’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to its three Oscar nominations in 2011 but had also been there for Fellner’s first film, Sid & Nancy, three and a half decades ago. Oldman was transformed into Winston Churchill for Darkest Hour, which Fellner said was “high risk” at first since Oldman looks nothing like Churchill (a feat that required luring makeup designer Kazuhiro Tsuji out of retirement). Fellner, 58, has received his sixth best picture Oscar nomination for Darkest Hour. He sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about what it was like to shoot the movie. Fellner said that he had been wanting to make a film about Churchill for a long time but they didn’t want to make a straight biopic. He says this film is different because it plays out like a thriller, instead of a historical piece.
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