Press release
Shooting has begun on 'The Heart Of Me', a story of passion and betrayal directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan, starring Helena Bonham Carter, Olivia Williams, and Paul Bettany. Produced by Martin Pope, the film will be shot in London and the Isle of Man.
1930s London. Two sisters - Madeleine (Olivia Williams) and Dinah (Helena Bonham Carter) - one pretty, the other clever. One marries Rickie (Paul Bettany), the other falls in love with him. And so begins an affair that is to have repercussions throughout their lives.
When the sisters meet again several years later, the memories come flooding back. For Dinah it starts with the first evening, when she knew that the affair was going to begin. Staying with her respectable married sister, she and a dull young man announce their engagement. Amidst the whoops of celebration she catches Rickie's eye, and they know. For Madeleine the memory begins at the moment when she discovers the affair. Throwing Rickie out of the house, she finds herself desperate for him to come back. From the moment he returns she fights to keep him.
Years later the sisters have to work out for themselves which one he loved and what it was they did to the man they both loved.
Helena Bonham Carter's numerous credits include Iain Softley's 'The Wings Of a Dove' for which she was Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA nominated and, for which she won the London and Los Angeles Film Critics Awards, Woody Allen's 'Mighty Aphrodite', Kenneth Branagh's 'Frankenstein', Franco Zeffirelli's 'Hamlet', Charles Sturridge's 'Where Angels Fear To Tread', and James Ivory's 'Howards End' and 'A Room with a View'. Most recently she has starred in Tim Burton's 'The Planet of the Apes'.
Olivia Williams came to the public's attention in Kevin Costner's 'The Postman', since when she has starred in M. Night Shyamalan's 'The Sixth Sense', Wes Anderson's 'Rushmore', Peter Cattaneo's 'Lucky Break', David Kane's 'Born Romantic' and most recently David N. Twohy's submarine drama 'Below'.
Paul Bettany's most recent appearance was as Geoffrey Chaucer in Brian Helgeland's 'A Knight's Tale'. For his role in Paul McGuigan's 'Gangster No. 1' he was nominated for a British Independent Film Award and the London Film Critics Award for Best Newcomer. He has recently re-teamed with McGuigan for 'The Reckoning' opposite Willem Dafoe and has just finished on Ron Howard's 'A Beautiful Mind' opposite Russell Crowe. Early next year he will start shooting 'Dogville', the new Lars von Trier film with Nicole Kidman.
Director Thaddeus O'Sullivan's most recent film 'Ordinary Decent Criminal', a humorous Irish gangster movie, starred Kevin Spacey and Linda Fiorentino. Other credits include 'Nothing Personal' starring Ian Hart and Michael Gambon which was nominated for the Golden Lion and won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival and 'December Bride' which won the Special Jury Prize at the European Film Awards.
The film is written by Lucinda Coxon, adapted from the novel The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann, lensed by Gyula Pados and designed by Michael Carlin. The project was developed by BBC Films and Martin Pope Productions, and is financed by BBC Films in association with Take 3/Baker Street Media Finance, Isle of Man Film Commission and Pandora, who will be handling international sales. The executive producers are David Thompson, Head of BBC Films; Tracey Scoffield, BBC Films; Keith Evans from Baker Street Media Finance; and Steve Christian from the Isle of Man Film Commission.
