Kelly Reilly - Movie

Kelly Reilly - Movie

By Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist

Kelly Reilly

Delivers A Soul Searching Performance In “Flight”

Photos Per Paramount Pictures 

Kelly Reilly

     She is a rising British actress and is not well known on this side of the pond but in due time this will definitely change. Kelly Reilly stars in the new Paramount Pictures movie “Fight,” opposite Denzel Washington.

   She plays Nicole Maggen, a down-on-her-luck photographer struggling with heroin addition. She O.D.’s  and ends up in the hospital where she meets airline pilot Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) one night in the stairwell. He is a patient there too as a result of a plane crash where he made a miraculous crash landing that few pilots could do. 

Denzell Washington

Whitaker was lauded by the press as a hero because he saved 96 of the 102 lives on board an otherwise death-doomed plane. Unfortunately, Whitaker is a coke snorting alcoholic and this comes into play with the plane crash. In the meantime, their hospital meeting turns into a romantic relationship at a low point in both of their lives.

     Even though Reilly has an impressive acting resume along with her share of acting honors in the U. K., she may best be know in the U.S. as Mary Morstan and Mary Watson in “Sherlock Holmes” and its sequel “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” opposite Robert Downey, Jr. and June Law. For “Flight” she was prepped for her role as a drug addict by an Atlanta street artist who was real life former heroin addict. He coached her on the techniques and physical sensations inherent to shooting up heroin and familiarized Reilly with drug paraphernalia such as syringes, spoons etc. and was on set to monitor the action during filming. 

Nicole (Reilly) packs and leaves Whip

      Reilly explains, “He helped me understand the life of a heroin addict as much as one can to that extent. And he really, really did open up his story to me. He taught me how to inject heroin without me actually doing it of course. I wanted to honor the truth of that situation.”

   Reilly does bring a total since of reality to this role and on top of it she is paired with an incredible script, an Oscar® winning director (Robert Zemeckis, “Forrest Gump”) and an a Two time Oscar® winning actor (Washington). How did she handle the butterflies for this high stakes situation? Reilly muses, “This is the first film I’ve made in America. I’m knocked out to work with Denzel and Robert; it’s beyond privilege.

Washington and Reilly

 Working with Denzel was like being a boxer in a ring with a heavyweight champion. He’s so intense, brilliant and heartbreaking. In nearly every scene he moved me tremendously with the truth of where he goes with his character. It’s really humbling to watch somebody be that truthful to a character going on quite an ugly kind of journey.”

     While taking an In-debt look at her character Reilly describes Nicole as alone and broken before she meets Whip. She adds, “This story is also about the people you sometimes need at certain times in your life and how they can change you. Whip saves her in a way. He takes her out of the world that she’s in a gives her a place where she can try to heal herself. And then she also becomes very much part of AA, a program that helps people recover once they’re ready to ask for some help. But she wouldn’t have done that on her own” The idea here is that once Nicole survives her O.D., she realizes how beautiful life is and she doesn’t want to be a slave to this drug.

     In terms of her wanting to do this role especially with the caliber of people involved, Reilly says it was a no brainer. She actually was on vacation when she heard about the part. She made a tape of herself and sent it to the film’s casting director. They liked it along with the director and producers and the rest as they say is history.

**** Excellent! (Ride Up Front, First Class)!

© 2012 Rych McCain Media/Syndication

(You DID Hear It From Me!) 

 E-Mail: feedbackrych@sbcglobal.net