This week I’d like to take a look at a stunning new talent cropping up seemingly everywhere you look in the film arena right now, who also happens to have a killer pedigree and a chameleon-like ability to completely transform with each and every role. One presumes that the latter is why the amazing Juno Temple does seem to have her name attached to a slew of great projects, although the former most certainly had a hand in getting her delicate foot in the door.

Juno is the daughter of acclaimed director Julian Temple and producer Amanda Temple, and the star of ‘The Brass Teapot’ (showing on Rialto this week) as well as appearing in two other great flicks on the Rialto horizon, ‘Small Apartments’ and ‘Magic Magic’. She reportedly decided at age 4 that she wanted to be an actor after her father showed her ‘Belle et la Bête’ by Jean Cocteau, which seems dreadfully precocious to me but may well be true!

This week I’d like to take a look at a stunning new talent cropping up seemingly everywhere you look in the film arena right now, who also happens to have a killer pedigree and a chameleon-like ability to completely transform with each and every role. One presumes that the latter is why the amazing Juno Temple does seem to have her name attached to a slew of great projects, although the former most certainly had a hand in getting her delicate foot in the door.

Juno is the daughter of acclaimed director Julian Temple and producer Amanda Temple, and the star of ‘The Brass Teapot’ (showing on Rialto this week) as well as appearing in two other great flicks on the Rialto horizon, ‘Small Apartments’ and ‘Magic Magic’. She reportedly decided at age 4 that she wanted to be an actor after her father showed her ‘Belle et la Bête’ by Jean Cocteau, which seems dreadfully precocious to me but may well be true!

Whilst still in primary school her father cast her in his film ‘Vigo: A Passion for Life’, but her role ended up on the cutting room floor - brutal, but true. Two years later, age 11, he cast her in another of his films, ‘Pandaemonium’, and at age 15 she attended an open audition for ‘Notes on a Scandal’ and won the coveted role of Cate Blanchett's daughter. This was her big break and led to a role in another high profile film, ‘Atonement’, for which she dyed her hair red to play Lola and began morphing into the acting chameleon she is today. The ‘St. Trinian’s’ series of films and ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ followed, but many see her breakout role as being in the dark thriller ‘Killer Joe’, in which she played the vulnerable Dottie opposite a bloody terrifying Matthew McConaughey. Temple likes the idea of being a chameleon and has often said that she has deliberately sought roles that would test her range. In just one year she played a schizophrenic, a prostitute, a fairy and a dead girl whose story was told in flashbacks, which is no mean feat for an actor at any age, let alone one still barely into her twenties.

She appeared briefly in mega blockbuster ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ as Jen, the pickpocket flatmate of Selina Kyle, and while she grew up in England, her home is now in Los Angeles for the purpose of following her path in the business. “It’s the town for making movies,” she says, “I went out for a film and ended up staying”. And working hard, as history has shown the native Brit could definitely lay claim to the title of hardest-working young woman currently making independent films.

Which brings me on to the subject of ‘The Brass Teapot’, which is a 2012 independent American film directed by Ramaa Mosley. Temple and Michael Angarano star as a couple who discover that a seemingly innocuous - albeit rather mysterious - brass teapot makes them money whenever they hurt themselves, and follows as they come to terms with how far they are willing to go to get more dosh. The film began life as a comic book series and is often billed as a modern fable that comments on the twenty first century incarnation of the great American dream, and most definitely serves as a reminder in the age of giant lottery wins to “be careful what you wish for”. Most definitely to be filed under the category of “quirky comedy”, it leaves a few issues unresolved but is definitely an enjoyable watch and Temple is pure delight.

Screening Times:
10/09/2014 8:30pm 

14/09/2014 9:25pm