First of all, it’s my 21st birthday today, so without sounding too pretentious, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! I can finally drink as much Guinness as Hugh can and get away with it! Okay, maybe not as much as him, but a little.

Another bit of exciting news: HDi has a new staff member who’s going to help me, my good friend Ann. Periodically, she’ll be posting her own updates, Hugh news, and uploading pictures. Just to take a little off my back. As a matter of fact, she’s in the stage door photos with me at the Belasco, and she’s a completely awesome chick. Anna and Ann, what more could you want?

I also added a Video to the Evening and Press Junkets tab. It’s an interview from Tribute.ca. You can also watch it on YouTube.

• 001 x OK Magazine US, July 16th, 2007
• 009 x The Jane Austen Book Club: Official Site / MySpace
• 199 x Evening: Tribute.ca Press Junket

Posted on July 12, 2007 by Anna
Filed In Evening • Gallery Updates • Movies • Site News • The Jane Austen Book Club
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CLAIM TO FAME
The 32-year-old stars in Evening, this fall’s The Jane Austen Book Club and was nice enough to get on the phone for some sexy talk with our writer.

Q: So, what are you wearing?

A: I am dressed very slobbishly in jeans and sneakers.

Q: Oh no, that’s not hot at all.

A: Oh, sorry. That’s right. I’m wearing a velvet dressing gown.

Q: That’s very British, Hugh. Is there something you don’t find sexy on a woman?

A: I suppose short skirts and high heels just to go shopping.

Q: What do you think of women’s style in Jane Austen’s day? Do you think corsets are hot?

A: Maybe, in the right moment. Not if you’re in a hurry!

Q: That reminds me, why do Brits call kissing “snogging”?

A: God, I don’t know. I’ve come to prefer the American phrase “making out.” It sounds more fun.

Q: In Evening, you’re a sad guy who loves a girl who doesn’t love him back. What was your first unrequited crush?

A: There have been so many.

Q: I doubt that.

A: No, trust me. I remember there was a girl in grammar school. This is true: I drew in chalk a picture of…I can’t believe I’m saying this…my wedding to her.

Q: Where is she now?

A: I don’t know, but not by my side.

Q: So how did you feel about our phone sex? I’m satisfied.

A: [Laughs.] Yeah, it worked for me.

Source: Glamour

Posted on July 6, 2007 by Anna
Filed In Evening • Movies • News • Savage Grace
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British actor Hugh Dancy is poised to make a U.S. breakthrough.

Hugh Dancy is not a household name in America. But that’s likely to change: The 32-year-old British-born actor has three movies coming out this year. Then there’s his burgeoning, tabloid-hounded relationship with Claire Danes, his co-star in the just-released Evening. And, as we all know, tabloid interest is the real gauge of arrival on the U.S. cultural landscape, right?

A native of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, Dancy studied acting at Oxford, which led to a string of stage and TV work in England throughout the ’90s and early ’00s. His performance in Tom Hooper’s 2005 HBO miniseries Elizabeth I finally introduced him to a wider audience, a breakthrough he used to land roles in recent films Basic Instinct 2 and Blood and Chocolate.

Now comes Lojas Koltai’s Evening, which finds Dancy starring alongside a murderer’s row of talented, big-named actresses: Glenn Close, Toni Collette, Danes, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson and Meryl Streep. Adapted by acclaimed author Michael Cunningham from Susan Minot’s Cunningham-esque novel, Evening tells the story of Ann Lord (Redgrave), a frail, bed-ridden woman in the twilight of her life whose deteriorating health triggers memories long suppressed — she keeps muttering about a mysterious weekend a half-century earlier.

The non-linear, era-hopping narrative then transports us to 1953 as a young Ann (Claire Danes) heads to the lush seaside home of an upscale New England family. Ann’s college buddy Lila Wittenborn (Streep’s daughter Mamie Gummer) is set to marry — despite her love for another, less “suitable” man — in order to carry on the family’s blue-blood pedigree.

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Posted on July 4, 2007 by Anna
Filed In Evening • Movies • News
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A witty, old-school leading man à la David Niven and Leslie Howard, Hugh Dancy has pranced into our lives just when I need him. The scarily handsome actor who’s soignéed up projects from Ella Enchanted to Elizabeth I, he now brings on the angst as Buddy—a troubled guy most often described by reviewers as “a drunken closet case”—in Evening, the all-star regret-fest based on the Susan Minot book. (If Knocked Up seems like a John Cassavetes movie as done by the Farrelly Brothers, Evening is Jackie Collins via Merchant-Ivory.)

But about that description of Buddy: “I think that’s far too narrow,” said Dancy, leaning forward on his Regency suite’s couch, his white shirt unbuttoned at the sleeves. “He’s definitely drunk, but a closet case? No! I have no idea what his real sexual orientation is. He has no sense of his identity. All he knows is what he doesn’t want to be, which is everything his background represents, and he knows what he wishes he could be, as embodied by the Patrick Wilson character. He’s so drawn to these people not because he wants to sleep with them, but because he wants to be them.” “Oh,” I chirped, “that must be why I kiss so many guys. Because I want to be them.” “It’s an easy way of explaining away anything,” agreed Dancy, laughing so adorably.

As for his own bad self, Dancy said that recent gossip making him bisexual—which sounded suspiciously like the movie itself—”was not even truth imitating art, it was fiction imitating art.” I told him about the “Gay or European?” song in Legally Blonde and said Dancy’s probably just European. Again, he politely giggled as I prayed I was wrong.

“It still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” he said, looking at the Evening poster on the wall with names like Danes (his lady love), Redgrave, and Streep. “It seems a little unlikely—my name in there. I feel like it could be blotted right out!” And how does he feel when he looks at the poster for the immortal Basic Instinct II? “Resigned,” he said, half wincing.

More triumphantly, Dancy just wrapped up the Broadway revival of Journey’s End, in which he was pretty much another drunk with a secret. The show was dark in every way. “It was delightful not being able to see the audience,” admitted Dancy. “There’s a story about an old Irish actor who was finally convinced he should try contact lenses and stop bumping into the furniture. He came offstage and said, ‘This is horrific. I can see them!’ ”

But I can still see Dancy as the new Niven. Is he? Dancy begged off, saying he leaves comparisons to others, but “eventually, you’re the ‘new’ so many different people you don’t even get to be yourself—and then before you get to do so, somebody else is the new you. It’s a very small sliver of opportunity to actually be yourself before somebody else takes over the role.” Well, it’s nice to be around to watch Hugh be Hugh for you and me.

Source: Village Voice

Posted on July 3, 2007 by Anna
Filed In Evening • Movies • News
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Hugh Dancy talks about his new movie, ‘Evening,’ his new girlfriend, Claire Danes, and the byways and oddities of the mother tongue.

Is Hugh Dancy the next Hugh Grant? The 32-year-old British actor has been pegged as the next big thing in Hollywood. He just completed a successful run on Broadway in “Journey’s End,” as the lead, Capt. Stanhope (a role that Laurence Olivier originated). He has four movies out this year, including “The Jane Austen Book Club,” based on the recent book. In his latest drama, “Evening,” Dancy plays Buddy Wittenborn, a rich New Englander who is dating the film’s heroine, Ann. In real life, Dancy is now dating the actress who played Ann, Claire Danes. He spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Ramin Setoodeh.

NEWSWEEK: I liked the movie. But I don’t understand why the critics have been so terrible to it.
Hugh Dancy: You make an intelligent, thought-provoking movie, and you’re going to get a range of responses. All I’m aware of is the people I’ve personally watched it with, and I’ve enjoyed that.

Have you read the book?
I read the book sometime after I read the script. I read it really with the view to see if there were any pointers for my character and I discovered my character didn’t exist in the novel. There’s a character by my name. But he’s literally mentioned in passing. His role in the story was [scriptwriter] Michael Cunningham’s biggest contribution to the story.

So how did you create the character?
It was in the writing. It was all down to Michael’s dialogue. The way I feel about it, is that it’s really rare to read dialogue that’s heightened and intelligent and funny and witty–in other words, literary–but really sounds like it can come out of someone’s mouth. You don’t feel like you have to make a line believable when speaking Michael’s lines, but you do have to live up to it. That’s what you want as an actor.

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Posted on July 3, 2007 by Anna
Filed In Claire Danes • Evening • Movies • News
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