Davis respectively – con artists who run a dodgy hotel.
opening a shop with his marvellous creations in the town square, lest it interfere with the chocolate monopoly the dastardly trio control. Peep Show star Joseph, 59, says Slugworth and his cronies are “just unremittingly evil with no side of humanity – and it’s a joy!” “There’s a sort of unbridled pleasure that you can have with that, like nothing can really be too big when you’re playing a villain in a film with a kind of heightened comic tone like this,” adds Baynton, 43, also known for Horrible Histories and Ghosts. Chalamet, too, certainly found a freedom in letting go and having fun while filming Wonka, with all of its delightful characters, songs and dance routines, though he says this was a tricky adjustment at first. “It was learning to let go – the tone of this movie was so generous, it was almost like, the first couple days, feeling like,‘OK, we can have fun?’,” he says.“Paul is a rare director. These movies are so generous and heart-warming, but they’re also of a really high technical level.” As for his favourite message from the heart-warming film, Chalamet can’t pick just one. “‘Every good thing in this world started with a dream’,” he suggests.“I also like, in the song Pure Imagination, ‘Want to change the world? There’s nothing to it’. “This optimistic, positive attitude the youngWilly has, where he won’t take no for an answer and refuses to give up on his dreams.”
“I love playing a baddie! I do really enjoy it,” says Academy Award-winning The Favourite star Olivia Colman, 49.
“Paul King, I wanted to work with, I love him, and I loved the first two Paddingtons.And I love Wonka – the Gene Wilder Wonka was the Wonka of my childhood. “And I love Timothee Chalamet, along with the rest of the world. I think it’s a stroke of genius having him as Wonka because he is magical and childlike.” Along the way, Willy makes some lovely friends – including little Noodle, played by Calah Lane, a young girl who’s also been taken advantage of by Mrs Scrubbit and Bleacher – and he even crosses paths with an Oompa-Loompa, played by Hugh Grant, who isn’t quite friend or foe, more a thorn in his side. “I definitely thought the key was to keep the sort of negativity and anger, the curmudgeonly old bastard element of the Oompa-Loompa – this is my speciality!” says Love Actually and Paddington 2 star Grant, 63. “The Oompa-Loompa in this film is propelled by those things, but also by a sort of sadness and a kind of loneliness. He’s been ostracised, chucked out of his homeland and his home tribe for letting them down. He’s on a mission to try and win back their favours,” Grant adds, which he aims to achieve by getting his hands on some of Wonka’s wonderful chocolates. However, Wonka also makes an enemy of the so-called chocolate cartel, which includes prominent chocolatiers Slugworth, Prodnose and Fickelgruber, played by Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas and Mathew Baynton. These are truly horrible men who want to stop Wonka at all costs from
Wonka comes to UK cinemas on Friday December 8.
Photo: Olivia Colman as Mrs Scrubbit
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