This evening saw the Empire Awards take place at the Camden Roundhouse to honour the passing of a great year in film. Sir Patrick Stewart was quite rightly inducted in the Hall of Legends with I, Daniel Blake, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them taking home a few awards each.
Among those attending the ceremony were The VVitch duo Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Ineson, Eddie the Eagle maestro Dexter Fletcher, Free Fire’s handler Ben Wheatley , Lewis McDougall, Rogue One’s Gareth Edwards, Sherlock’s Louise Brealey, literary magician Neil Gaiman, Sennia Nanua (from Girl with all the Gifts), Hayley Squires, Hayley Atwell, Luc Besson, Sir Patrick Stewart (there to receive the Empire Legend Award), Tom Hiddleston and many more. You can see all of our interviews just below.
Gareth Edwards is a man whose relief at the success of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is palpable in all of his subsequent interviews. He told us of the first, and only truly important, review of the film. One he received just before the film was released.
The biggest review I got was from George Lucas a week before it came out. He was able to see it and spoke to me and the relief of him liking it was like ‘I don’t mind what happens now…’ – ‘I’d have been inconsolable.”
He also talked a little about seeing Kong: Skull Island and the future connection to the Godzilla sequel, the film which follows his 2014 monster movie.
There are spoilers for Kong: Skull Island so skip to the rest of the interviews if you want to avoid it.
Edwards says that the Godzilla Vs. Kong face off was always, on the cards, but the post-credits sequence which followed Kong: Skull Island was a surprise to the director.
‘It was always hinted at..
I went to the premiere of Kong and I didn’t know there would be a thing at the end…’
Just goes to show that even those very close to the production know about the bigger picture. Check out the full interview, and the rest of our red carpet haul below. Scott Davis and Colin Hart were there for us – here’s how they got on…
Empire Awards Red Carpet Interviews
Gareth Edwards
Anya Taylor-Joy
Neil Gaiman
Dexter Fletcher
Ben Wheatley
Hayley Squires
Lewis MacDougall
Sennia Nanua
Ralph Ineson
Daniel Mays
Louise Brealey
