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Timothy Spall’s movie heroes

Timothy Spall worked with his "heroes" on ‘The Party’.
The 60-year-old actor was "delighted" to be asked by writer-and-director Sally Potter to star in the black comedy, and had a great experience working alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, Emily Mortimer, Cillian Murphy, Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, and Cherry Jones on the film.
He told BANG Showbiz: "I’ve worked with Sally before and loved the experience and when she sent me the script and asked me to come and talk to her about it, I was delighted, absolutely delighted, I adore her she’s a fantastic and inclusive artist.
"Then when she started taking about the cast that she wanted, I thought my goodness this is a great bunch of people. Often they say don’t work with people who are you heroes but it was a great experience."
The movie was filmed in just two weeks and Timothy found that only heightened the experience.
He said: "We shot it very quickly and it had to be because Sally had worked very hard writing it, but we had two weeks to film.
"The concentration was much focused and there was a high level of electricity in the room."
And the veteran actor was very impressed by the quality of the writing on the movie.
He said: "When you get great writing, where the comedy and tragic are all part of the same thing. When things are real and bad they can be blackly funny, and this film is in the centre of that. "
Like Timothy, Sally relished the minimal setting and fast shoot.
She said: "It was technically a very interesting creative challenge.
"To do it in such a minimal barebones way, one setting all in real time with just a few rooms and a lot of complicated movements and to bring these subjects to life in that way in that form was actually was really enjoyable."