September 24 2012

Rupert Grint was kind enough to call us up and answer a few questions. Read the transcript of our interview below – and catch the audio here:

Rupert: Hello?

RG.us: Hello!

Rupert: Oh, hi. Are you all right?

RG.us: Yeah, we’re fine. How are you?

Rupert: Yeah, good.

RG.us: Good. Thank you so much for doing this.

Rupert: No, no problem.

RG.us: How long do you have, do you know?

Rupert: I’m not sure… 10 minutes?

RG.us: 10 minutes, that’s fine. So, we’re really looking forward to hearing something about the new projects you have coming up. But first, when do you start something new, do you have anything planned or something?

Rupert: Erhm, I’m not sure. There’s a few things kind of potentially happening, but nothing… I suppose there is the film called “The Drummer”. Probably that’s the next definite thing.

RG.us: Is that still happening in the fall, or has that been pushed?

Rupert: I think so, yeah. Next year I think. Maybe early next year. But yeah, I’m looking forward to that.

RG.us: You’ve filmed in Norway, Sweden, Romania, America. Which country comes next?

Rupert: I don’t know, they all have their own charm really. Romania was quite fun, it was quite a crazy place. I didn’t really know what to expect when I went there, but it was like one of the most dangerous places I’d ever experienced. There was an earthquake, I was chased by a wild dog.

RG.us: Really?

Rupert: Yeah, it was quite fun.

RG.us: You don’t have a dream location?

Rupert: Sorry, say that again?

RG.us: You don’t have a dream location for a project, anywhere you’d like to shoot a film?

Rupert: Erhm, I don’t know really.

RG.us: It’s okay if you don’t.

Rupert: America was quite fun, it was quite fun filming in America. I worked with CBGB, that was the first time I’d done that. Yeah, that was cool.

RG.us: You mentioned Romania, can you tell us a bit about the character you play in “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman”? What kind of guy is he?

Rupert: Yeah, I think my character is kinda quite strange, and changed a lot while we were filming. I was originally going to be German, with a German accent and everything, but eventually we didn’t do that in the end, because with so many different accents in the movie it would’ve been really confusing. But basically I play a guy called Carl who’s been travelling in Romania with his friend Luke, who’s played by James Buckley. And Shia Labeouf moves into the same hostel as us and he shares a room with us for a while. We kind of get dragged into all his problems, he falls in love with a girl who’s linked with this really dangerous gangster, and we get taken hostage. And my character’s a very strange person who, without giving away too much, has quite a unique ambition in life and he gets into a bit of medical problems. Yeah, it was fun and it was very different, I think it’s gonna be quite a weird, surreal, quite twisted film. Should be cool.

RG.us: So if you had to describe the film in one word, what would that be?

Rupert: Probably quite memorable. Very surreal, trippy. I mean, there’s a lot of drugs in it, weird kind of hallucinations. I’ve always loved seeing hallucinations in films.

RG.us: So it’s sort of like Trainspotting?

Rupert: Yeah, it’s gonna be a weird one. But hopefully cool.

RG.us: What was it like to work with Shia?

Rupert: Yeah *laughs*, it was interesting actually. I’ve always liked his stuff and it was great to meet him, he was very focused. Yeah, he was great, a really nice guy. I had some quite interesting scenes with him, so yeah it was fun to meet him.

RG.us: Did you have any scenes with Mads Mikkelsen and Evan Rachel Wood?

Rupert: Erhm… I’m trying to think. Yeah, Mads, we briefly met Mads. He’s a lovely guy. He was really cool, I’m a really big fan of him. He’s terrifying in the film *laughs* and he’s just such a lovely guy, really cool man. And Evan, no I actually didn’t have any scenes with Evan, but obviously I met her a few times, and she was great. It’s gonna be a really cool film.

RG.us: Who would you say would be your dream costar? If you could you choose anyone in the world, anyone you particularly admire?

Rupert: I don’ know really… hmm… I like, um, urgh… I can’t remember the name. I like Bill Murray, he’s cool, yeah I’ll say him.

RG.us: If you could guest star, for one episode or more, on any TV-show, British or American, which one would it be?

Rupert: I really like, there’s a TV-show in England called Alan Partridge. Yeah, I really like that one, I’d like to be on that.

RG.us: We have to make that happen then.

Rupert: *laughs* Yeah!

RG.us: Okay, CBGB, we’ve been following that for quite a bit, and everyone’s really, really looking forward to it.

Rupert: Oh, cool!

RG.us: Who did you enjoy working with aside from Alan Rickman?

Rupert: Yeah, it was great to see Alan again and working with him in a different kind of environment was strange, but it was great. He’s always been someone that I’ve really admired and one of my favourites actually from Harry Potter. It was great, he was actually quite fatherly on the film, because obviously he’s known me since I was quite young. He was really nice and it was just really a great experience because I’ve always wanted to be in a band, and to pretend was fun.

RG.us: Do you think you would ever consider getting into music like Samantha?

Rupert: Maybe. I mean, my sister’s really going down that road at the moment. She’s performing quite a few gigs this year and done a lot of festivals. She’s really great, she’s got a band now. It does look quite fun, but I need to learn an instrument first.

RG.us: But you are starting to develop sort of a musical reputation with Postman Pat, you also sing in Into the White and CBGB sort of.

Rupert: Yeah, that’s true.

RG.us: So what’s next? Are you going on stage? *laughs*

Rupert: *laughs* Maybe. I would never rule it out if the right think came along. It is something that scares me slightly and it would have to be the right thing, just ‘cause it seems like such a different thing. Scary.

RG.us: What about Postman Pat? You sing in that one, right?

Rupert: I do, yeah.

RG.us: Was it a song specifically written for the film, or did you do a cover?

Rupert: I actually haven’t done the singing bit yet. I think it’s going to be a cover, but it might be something written for it, but I don’t know yet. Just hoping they’ve got good auto-tuning *laughs*.

RG.us: We only know that you play a boyband member. Can you tell us a bit more?

Rupert: Yeah, Postman Pat was basically a huge part of my childhood. It was one of my favourite shows, and I was definitely going to do it ‘cause I love Postman Pat. Basically, Postman Pat enters a talent show kind of thing, like X-Factor or Pop Idol that kind of thing. He learns that he’s actually got a really good singing voice. I’m kind of like his rival in the competition and I have this evil manager who’s always trying to sabotage Pat’s chance by doing all of these crazy things. Yeah, it’s fun, I think it’s good and very loyal to the Postman Pat I knew as well, so hopefully it’s going to be good fun.

RG.us: Sounds good! So, about Enemy of Man – can you tell us a bit about it, what’s your character like and which accent?

Rupert: Yeah, it’s something that’s gonna be quite cool. It’s still in its early stages, I think. I’m not sure there’s a date for when we start filming. It’s basically MacBeth, which is one of my favourite of the Shakespeare stories and I think it’s going to really cool. It’s going to be a kind of gory, a quite true take on the story. A lot of horse riding and a Scottish accent *laughs* Just trying Shakespeare, I think it’s going to be quite a challenge, and I’m quite looking forward to that.

RG.us: If you could list 5 albums that should be on every shelf?

Rupert: 5 albums that should be on… every?

RG.us: On every shelf.

Rupert: Oh, on every shelf. Oh my god, I don’t know. There’s a band called the Longpigs *laughs* which is a really good album. I think it’s called *laughs*… yeah, that’s a good one. I’m trying to think of what else.

RG.us: Well, Dead Boys obviously?

Rupert: Yeah, actually that’s a really good album. I think it’s called Young, Loud and Snotty. Yeah, I’ve been listening to that quite a lot while I was filming. That’s a good one.

RG.us: So, seeing as this is over the phone and we’d like to give the fans a visual – can you tell us what you’re wearing?

Rupert: What I’m wearing now?

RG.us: Yeah.

Rupert: *Laughs* I’m wearing black jeans, a grey jumper with an overweight pirate on the front. Erhm… what else? That’s about it really. A wristband from a festival my sister was singing at and black Adidas trainers.

RG.us: Sounds good! If you could tell us one thing about yourself that no one would expect about you, what would that be?

Rupert: Erhm… no one would expect. Hmm… erhm, there IS something. I don’t know. *laughs*

RG.us: That was a hard one…

Rupert: I don’t know, I can’t think of anything *laughs*. I have a birth mark in the shape of Australia.

RG.us: Really? Not the size, just the shape, right?

Rupert: Just the shape, the outline of the country, yeah. On my side *laughs*. I’ve never told anyone that.

RG.us: I don’t think we’ve read that anywhere. So now we have an exclusive, that’s pretty cool.

Rupert: Yeah *laughs*.

RG.us: Thanks so much, Rupert.

Rupert: Great. No thank you. Good to talk to you.

RG.us: Yeah, you too. Bye!

Rupert: Speak to you soon. Bye!

Alan Rickman plays club owner Hilly Kristal

Relics from New York City’s bygone CBGB club – including “Smithsonian-quality pieces” like its bar, the phone booth, chunks of the walls and those stained toilets, all pulled from storage – will reunite on the big screen next year in CBGB, which indie filmmakers confirmed they finished shooting in August.

Forty years after CBGB opened its doors on the city’s Lower East Side, writer Jody Savin and director Randall Miller of Unclaimed Freight Productions tell Rolling Stone they are now editing the 100-minute feature. It tells the story of how the late Hilly Kristal offered his club’s cramped stage to bands playing original songs, which attracted groups like the Ramones, the Patti Smith Group and Talking Heads. In 1974 Television became the first act to play CBGB, and the band gigged there every Sunday for years before recording their album Marquee Moon. The club closed in 2006.

Though tax credits afforded filmmakers a suitable shooting location in Savannah, Georgia, this summer, initial production wrapped last month following a week’s worth of filming in Manhattan and on Kristal’s New Jersey farm.

CBGB will star both fresh faces and recognizable talent who look and sound the part of New York’s punk scene, including Malin Akerman, who bears a striking resemblance to Blondie’s Debbie Harry; Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who dieted to fill the role of Iggy Pop; and Alan Rickman, who plays Kristal.

“That’s always a tough creative decision,” Savin said of recruiting actors who embody the spirit of the musicians over relying on straight impersonations. “It was tricky,” Miller added, explaining the filmmakers’ year-long search for actors who not only looked the part, but alsoplayed the instruments that corresponded to their characters. “It’s all about just finding the authentic people.”

Things immediately clicked between actor Rupert Grint of Harry Potter fame and guitarist Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys, whom the young actor portrays. Though Grint’s English accent initially worried him, Chrome, who has a seven-year-old son and has seen every Harry Potter movie, says his only advice to Grint was to mumble a lot.

“The first day I saw him on-set, he hit it dead-on,” Chrome told Rolling Stone. “He had me down. I’m really glad he’s doing me.” Chrome himself wasn’t left out of the film: he has a cameo as a cranky cab driver who hates punk music.

To maintain authenticity throughout the film, Savin and Miller exhaustively researched other CBGB regulars, and consulted frequently with Television’s Tom Verlaine, the Voidoids’ Richard Hell and Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz.

“It is a story of Hilly and how he basically was the catalyst for this gigantic, sea-changing music. And he didn’t set out to do that initially, but he became sort of the godfather of punk and underground rock,” said Miller, adding that the film also traces Punk magazine’s role in breaking news from the CBGB scene.

“Places that opened their arms to music, art, poetry – anything – were the places we went to. And Hilly definitely had that,” Savin said. “I believe it was a salon on the Bowery.”

Produced for less than $10 million, CBGB will feature more than 40 songs of the period, though Savin admits “the music decisions are not done yet,” because “some bands are more cooperative than others.”

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Harry Potter star Rupert Grint talks to Metro about the Olympics, faking playing the guitar for CBGB and having his own ice-cream van.

How did you end up being an Olympic torch-bearer?
It was through Lloyds. They nominated me. I’ve always loved the Olympics and it’s exciting it’s in London. It was a complete surprise but a great honour. I’ve kept the torch. I might put it on display. I’ll find a use for it. I’m not the most athletic person so it’s probably the only time I’m going to run this year. I’ve got tickets for the swimming and some athletics – I can’t remember what the events are.

Some people say spending £15billion on it is a waste of money – have you got any thoughts?
It’s a lot of money, isn’t it? But I’m a big supporter. It’s worth it.

What do you get up to in your forthcoming film CBGB?
It’s about the New York club CBGB and the punk scene of the time. I play a guitarist called Cheetah Chrome who was in a band called The Dead Boys. I had to be a rock star. It was refreshing.
He’s a snotty-nosed punk rebelling against everything and quite morose – he’s the complete opposite of Ron. I’m still finding it strange breaking out of the whole Harry Potter thing because it was such a huge part of my life.

You’ve also recently worked with Shia LaBeouf – what was that like?
That was the film before CBGB – The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman. That’s quite a strange one. Shia LaBeouf plays a character who travels around the world. It’s quite a drug-fuelled journey and he meets various crazy characters along the way.
I play a character he meets in a youth hostel. I can’t give away what he does but it was quite a transition for me.

Have you been actively looking for stuff that’s dissimilar to Ron?
The roles have just come up but it’s always quite an attractive thing to move away from things connected to the wizard world.
They’re quite low-budget films, which I enjoy. It’s a very different process to the huge machines of the Potter films. They’re more rough and ready and I feel part of the team. They don’t have the same weird hierarchy, which I found uncomfortable.

What sort of hierarchy?
Just getting a chair with your name on and having a trailer. Stuff like that. On smaller films, you’re all in it together. It’s weird how actors are put on a pedestal – we’re part of the crew like anyone else and everyone has their job to do on a film set.

What was playing a real person like for CBGB?
Cheetah Chrome was actually on set. It’s the first time I’ve played a real person and there’s a pressure to get it right. I also have to play the guitar, which I can’t do – I was faking it. I learned the chords and rough shapes but you won’t see my hands too much in the film. It’s amazing he’s still alive, given the amount of drugs he did. He’s got a young son who was a big Harry Potter fan, so it was nice to meet him.
Cheetah had some advice about my performance and I had to get his voice right – he had quite a distinctive drug-affected mumbling voice and I had to do an American accent. We’re both ginger so look similar. Hopefully people will buy it.

Do you miss Harry Potter or is it a relief its over?
I go through different feelings. It was ten years of my life and it could get a bit suffocating – everything was Harry Potter. It’s nice to step away but part of me will always miss it because it was great fun and I miss working with the same crew.

Do you watch your own performances?
Yes but not out of choice. I’ll watch things once. I only ever watched the Potter films at the premieres. I’ll watch short bits if they’re on TV. When I see clips from the first one I think I look ridiculously small. It doesn’t feel that long ago in some ways. I’m proud to be part of it but watching it is a different story.

Who have you learnt the most from working with?
Harry Potter was like going to film school. We worked with a different director for each film so got to learn their different approaches. The cast was amazing, too – Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman, Julie Walters – they’re all great people. You learn just from watching them work.

Did they give you any specific advice?
I had a problem with laughing during serious scenes. For some reason, I found Dumbledore’s death absolutely hilarious. Alan taught me if you completely relax your face, it’s difficult to laugh so that was good tip.

You’ve got some unusual pets – which are your favourites?
The miniature donkeys are quite cool – Shakespeare and Pandora. You can’t ride them, they’re too small but they make a cool noise.

What’s been your most extravagant purchase?
An ice cream van. I’ve had it for a while now. It’s pretty special. It’s a 1970s one and I did it up – a new paint job and it’s got all the ice cream stuff in it.
I can’t park it anywhere because people start queuing up so I keep it at home in the garage.

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Savannah muggles beware this summer — Ron Weasley is joining Professor Snape for a Hostess City Hogwarts reunion.

Actor Rupert Grint, who plays Harry Potter’s best friend in the blockbuster adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s wizardly novels, has signed on to the cast of rock flick-in-the-making “CBGB,” its producers confirmed Tuesday morning. Alan Rickman, who played the mysterious Snape in the Potter films, already was slated to star as CBGB founder Hilly Kristal.

“We love Rupert and, of course, we adore Alan,” said Nadine Jolson, director of publicity for Unclaimed Freight Productions, which was here last year for the movie “Savannah” starring Jim Caviezel.

Filming of “CBGB” will begin June 25 — “that’s official,” Jolson said. “We’re just in pre-production, so right now a lot of details are falling into place as we speak.”

All of the movie’s interior shots will be done at Meddin Studios, which will be transformed to look like the iconic New York club, said director Randall Miller.

“We’re going to build the interior of the club on the stages here,” Miller said. “Then the plan is we’ll do some shooting on the streets of downtown Savannah — and finally a few days in New York.

“We’re using both Georgia and New York for New York,” he joked.

Jolson said locations for the Savannah exteriors had been selected, but she
couldn’t reveal them — yet. The same goes for surprise cast members — “there will be a whole lot more, some fun ones” — and celebrity cameos with “famous musicians playing roles or (playing) other famous musicians,” she noted.

Jolson did confirm that Swedish-Canadian actress Malin Akerman, whose recent films include “Watchmen” and “Rock of Ages,” has signed on to play Debbie Harry of rock band Blondie. Stana Katic of ABC detective series “Castle” also has joined the “CBGB” cast.

“I think this has the potential to be a great project,” said Jay Self, the city’s director of Film Services. “It looks to have pretty broad appeal, and we’re very excited about it.”

Self is encouraged by the quick turnaround from Unclaimed Freight’s work last year to its plans for this summer.

“These guys did ‘Savannah’ here, and they obviously had a great experience,” he said. “That says something about our community, about how welcoming, open and cooperative we are.”

“Savannah has a kind of downtown area that could really work for so many cities,” Miller said. “That translates pretty well in what we’re doing.”

But it also was his personal experience with Meddin Studios that brought him back.

“I formed a great friendship with Nick Gant,” Meddin’s creative director, Miller said. “I really like these guys.”

For Gant, the feeling is mutual.

“It’s a project we’ve been working on for probably 10 months now,” he said. “We’ve been involved with this since before the script was ever written.

“They’re doing the entire production here,” Gant said. “This will basically be the headquarters for ‘CBGB.’”

And a lot of Harry Potter fans, too.

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When Savannah stands in for skid row New York later this month, it will get some help in terms of authenticity.

The actual bar — and toilets — of iconic club CBGB will be shipped here and installed on the set of the rock movie that’s borrowing its name, “CBGB” producers said Thursday. It’s part of a meticulous process that’s already transforming the interior of local Meddin Studios into an exact replica of the hallowed birthplace of punk rock.

“We’re bringing in the original bar and the toilets — those famous toilets,” producer and co-writer Jody Savin explained. “Graffiti and all.”

Click here to read about a “Twilight” star joining the cast of “CBGB.”

“The shell should be ready by Monday for us to start moving things in,” added Nick Gant, Meddin’s creative director, pointing out locations for the stage, mixing area and notorious bathroom on set.

There’s also a lowered area where producers will shoot false exteriors of the Bowery, with virtual New York looking north across Louisville Road, west of downtown Savannah.

“People keep asking, ‘Why Georgia instead of New York?’” Gant said. “New York is so expensive, so there’s a real incentive here.”

SLIDESHOW: Click here to view photos of movies filmed in Savannah

The film, which stars acclaimed English actor Alan Rickman as club owner Hilly Kristal, will begin shooting June 25, Savin said, and “last about five weeks — toward the end of July.”

That will be preceded by an open call for extras Tuesday, when producers harvest Savannah for its best of the 1970s. But the cast already includes plenty of local talent.

“We found amazing talent out of SCAD,” Savin said. “I’d say half the cast is going to be local.”

To double-check that claim, she counted a grid of 50 actors’ faces, led by Rickman, on a secluded studio wall. Joining him were Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins and John Galecki of CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory,” who both came aboard earlier this week; then a host of other notables including Malin Akerman, Stana Katic, Joel David Moore, Julian Acosta — and Rupert Grint, who Savin and director Randall Miller had in mind from the beginning.

“When we were writing the script, we wanted Rupert to play Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys,” Savin said. “He just looks so much like him. And we’re excited to see Rupert in a dog collar, with a scowl.”

The wall of faces still had some blanks — including one for the role of the Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed — but those would be filled in soon, Savin said.

“We’re going to have some more real life rock-and-rollers,” she promised.

CBGB opened in 1973 and hosted breakout shows by the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Patti Smith and virtually every major hard-edged rocker since, even serving as the setting for Joey Ramone’s wake. The club finally closed in 2006 after Kristal lost a battle to continue his lease. He died of lung cancer a year later.

“It was a [expletive] hole of a bar, attracting the flotsam of humanity,” Savin said. “But Hilly was a human being, he accepted all of them.

“It created a kind of energy and revolutionized music,” she added. “To us, that’s heroic. Hilly was a hero because it’s heroic to give young artists a voice.”

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In 2012 the famous New York CBGB & OMFUG rock club will be reborn in two very different arenas, and will have its past honored and its future set into motion as the months unfold. In venues all across New York, the CBGB name will rise again as a SXSW-style music festival showcases nearly 300 rock bands, old and new, all across the city. The result of a licensing sale and the vision of the new owners of the CBGB estate, the festival will run in July… about the time the rock club will be resurrected far away from New York, in the quiet, historical city of Savannah, GA.

At first glance the riverside city of Savannah, with its plentiful monuments for the earliest of American wars both Civil and Revolutionary, would seem quite the polar opposite of the 70s-era, punk rock surroundings of CBGBs. To assume so would be to discount the subtle influence a flourishing music scene and the massive art school inhabiting Savannah have had, but more importantly we’re talking about a town increasingly home to the film industry, which means it’s a town that can be all things to all people willing to come, build them, and shoot on them. Meddin Studios, the facility that will house the majority of production on CBGB, has had a particularly strong affect on the town’s ability to handle Hollywood style filmmaking.

So it is in Savannah that CBGB will literally be rebuilt from the ground up- not to host the next cutting-edge rock band, but to catalogue the cutting-edge rock bands that lit up the stage decades ago… Blondie, Sonic Youth, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, The Shirts, The Dictators, Iggy Pop, The Cramps, The Police, The Dead Boys, and, most famously, The Ramones.

The recreation will be the set for director Randall Miller’s CBGB which, with a screenplay penned by Jody Savin and Miller himself, will attempt to capture the story of the famous club, the bands it harbored, and the genre of musc it launched. To do so, it will more specifically tell the story of one man… Hilly Kristal.

Set to be played by Alan Rickman, the man with most delightfully droning voice in the movies, Kristal’s story revolves around his efforts to build a club where musicians could flourish, Top 40 hits and cover songs would never be heard, and the sounds coming from the stage would be the freshest in the world (even if the air and the bathrooms weren’t).

While the man had a storied history that included a stint in the Marines and a musical education that began when he was a small child, the film will likely focus on the flash-in-the-pan few years in the early 70s when Kristal managed to curate the most dense collection of up-and-coming punk rockers that would ever play under one roof, and all before the term “punk rock” even meant anything.

Obviously some musicians with big personalities will figure into Kristal’s story, and it’s here that the film will be a playground of cameos. Word is that actors and rockstars alike are tripping over themselves to nab roles as famous rock pioneers, and I can say with certainty that some big names are right on the edge of being announced. Already we know Rupert Grint (another Harry Potter alumni, along with Rickman) will play Cheetah Chrome, who served as a guitarist for The Dead Boys at the beginning of his own long career in punk and rock music. Malin Ackerman (Watchmen) will play Deborah Harry, frontwoman of Blondie, while Julian Acosta takes his turn as Johnny Ramone. Even icons like Lou Reed will be buzzing around in a film about place that attracted musicians who wanted to watch as well as play. Many more names are surely on their way.

One hopes this won’t just be a parade of cameos or a Rock Of Ages-style celebration of a period aesthetic though, as there’s a genuine story to tell with more than enough drama and bad behavior to give it some teeth. In a way the film could be like a superhero origin story, if the club itself were the hero and its superpowers were that of cacophonic rock and “fuck you” stage performance. As musician and CBGB patron Richard Hell described in a NY Times obituary for the venue, CBGB was “like a big playhouse, site of conspiracies, orgies, delirium, refuge, boredom, meanness, jealousy, kindness, but most of all youth. Things felt and done the first time are more vivid. CBGB’s is where many things were felt with that vividness.”

Like the punk genre itself, there is tragedy written into the club that incubated it. After years of struggling with landlords over rent increases and code violations, the club closed its doors in 2006. A year later, Kristal died before he could follow through with his vision of re-opening the club as a museum and performance space in Las Vegas. It was with this in mind he had the club stripped down and each counter-top, chair, and urinal catalogued and put into storage. Perhaps those pieces will one day be reassembled and the club will live again, but until that day, it will be up to a group of filmmakers to capture the CBGB spirit, such as it was.

Director Randall Miller is best known for his film Bottle Shock, which starred Chris Pine and Alan Rickman in a 70s story about the entry of California into the worldwide wine palette. It’s a charming period film, but here Miller is tackling some serious shit. There’s no more famous rock club in all of the world than CBGB, and the grimy, nasty walls of that joint and the people who filled them mean something to the legacy of America’s musical landscape. I’m interested to see what’s done with the rich, grungy backdrop in which Hilly Kristal forged something simultaneously innocent and debauched- a kind of place that will likely never be recreated in a culture where people show up to concerts to point cellphone cameras at the stage, and who never let a unique moment pass without uploading it to Instagram.

We’ve lost something very fundamental to the careless and energetic attitude that drove CBGB, and I hope the film captures some small portion of that. CBGB continue to mean something more to people than just a B&W logo that means “rock.” My fingers are crossed that we get as disgustingly beautiful a film as any punk fan could ask for, that I’ll get just the tiniest idea of what is was like to be there at that most excellent time. As someone who has lived in an auto-tuned world since he was old enough to pay attention to music, that sounds very special.

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Joins ‘CBGB’ and ‘The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman’

“Harry Potter” star Rupert Grint seems ready to transition into more adult roles, landing parts in “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman” and “CBGB.”
“Countryman” stars Shia LaBeouf as a normal guy who falls for a woman who’s been claimed by a violent crime boss. Evan Rachel Wood co-stars, with Fredrik Bond helming from a script by Matt Drake.

“CBGB” stars Alan Rickman as CBGB owner Hilly Kristal and the New York City club’s impact on the underground music scene, highlighting artists like the Talking Heads, the Ramones and Blondie. Grint will play Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys, who played a prominent role during the club’s rise.

Randall Miller will direct from a script he co-wrote with Jody Savin.

This marks yet another actor from the “Potter” franchise who has chosen to take on smaller prestige films. Emma Watson is filming Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring” and Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy in the series (and was in “The Rise of the Planet of the Apes”) recently landed one of the lead roles in Liddell Entertainment’s “Therese Raquin.”

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