NAOMIE HARRIS NEWS, INTERVIEWS & UPDATES



News for 3/13/2007


Harnett and Harris Make Plans for August

Source: The Hollywood Reporter


Josh Hartnett and Naomie Harris are set to star in August, an indie feature being directed by Austin Chick (XX/XY). Chick also co-wrote the screenplay with Howard Rodman.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story revolves around two brothers who try to keep their startup financial company afloat on Wall Street a month before the Sept. 11 attacks. Hartnett will play one of the brothers. Harris will be the female lead.

The feature is scheduled to go into production in April in New York. Hartnett is producing along with Charlie Corwin (Half Nelson).

Hartnett stars in the upcoming Resurrecting the Champ and 30 Days of Night. Harris reprises her role as the mysterious Tia Dalma in the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.



News for 12/10/2006


The following article appeared in the October 2006 issue of Ebony Magazine





The following article appeared in the August 2006 issue of Interview Magazine





The following news item appeared in the July 17, 2006 issue of People Magazine





News for 11/15/2006


The following article appeared in the June 30/July 7, 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly Magazine





News for 9/18/2006


The following article appeared in the August 2006 issue of InStyle Magazine





News for 8/21/2006


The following article appeared in the July 2006 issue of Vanity Fair Magazine





News for 7/13/2006


A 'Pirates' Life for Naomie

By Hanh Nguyen


LOS ANGELES -- Naomie Harris almost didn't land a part in director Gore Verbinski's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" because of her looks.

"Gore didn't actually want me for the part because he said that I was actually too pretty and he didn't want anybody pretty," she reveals. "He wanted an older actress. The casting director, Denise Chamian ... persuaded Gore to audition me. When I walked into the room, he said, 'You're going to have to do this like three maybe four times so okay, let's just have a go.' And so I read it once and then he went, 'How would you like to come to the Bahamas?' It was great."

Verbinski didn't have to worry about Harris' good looks though, once she transformed into the character Tia Dalma, a mysterious Caribbean soothsayer from Captain Jack Sparrow's (Johnny Depp) past. The actress collaborated with the costumers and hair and makeup artists to create her character's unique image.

"They were all open to suggestion and we actually spent two days just trying on different looks and variations," she recalls. "We all ended up on a look that we loved ... [and] I got all in the costume and everything and went to see Gore and he said, 'that's way too much. Wipe it all off. And just bring everything down. Like bedraggle her.' And that's what we did and that's the image we ended up with."

Tia's wild look consists of ragbag clothes, unruly hair, haphazard makeup and a garish blackened smile, which required Harris to wear fake teeth.

"It was hugely uncomfortable, actually," she says. "It's like having your teeth kind of pressed and your gums pressed constantly, so it wasn't too nice, but bearable."

Harris previously put on false teeth and a Jamaican accent for the BBC's adaptation of Zadie Smith's "White Teeth." Her most well known role to date, however, is the short-haired, tough zombie hunter Selena in Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later." These transformations have allowed the actress to delve into her characters without being recognized on the street.

"[Tia Dalma] allowed me to introduce physicality ... and allowed me to be larger than life, which I hadn't been allowed to do in other characters," says Harris. "She also didn't have to worry about being beautiful ... but I think she's a hugely attractive character but just not like in a conventional way, and I found that really liberating."

Captain Jack Sparrow visits Tia Dalma as a last resort for help in his quest to escape the wrath of Davy Jones, the legendary pirate who terrorizes the Seven Seas in the Flying Dutchman. She accepts his payment of an undead monkey and gives him an odd tool to keep himself safe. Although her character only appears in a few, albeit meaty, scenes, Harris assures us that there's much more to come in the third installment in the "Pirates" franchise.

"There is a huge back story [for Tia Dalma] but it's all revealed in 'P3,'" she says. "You know she has her own reasons for doing what she's doing in 'P2.' 'P2' is just an introduction for the character and in 'P3' then she's throughout, she actually goes on a journey with all the different characters."

Despite the hardships of filming such a journey, Harris is proud to have avoided both injuries and mal de mer.

"I don't end up getting sort of thrown overboard or anything like that, which is nice," she recalls. "It's so weird because I signed up to do 'Pirates' but I didn't think about whether I got seasick, and I'd never been on a ship before. And so there were all these people ... throwing up and having to leave the ship and thankfully I don't get seasick I discovered, but it would have been awful if I did.

"No, apart from getting tied up, there's not much [physical stuff] at all. I seem to get tied up in every movie I do," she says, adding that unlike her co-star Depp, she probably won't be returning for "Pirates 4." "I don't think so. [Tia Dalma] has quite a dramatic departure in '3.'"

"Pirates" opens nationwide on Friday, July 7.



News for 7/5/2006


Naomie Harris on Pirates & Miami Vice

Source: Heather Newgen


You may or may not remember Naomie Harris from such films as 28 Days Later and After the Sunset, but this summer the British beauty is bound to leave a lasting impact as she stars in two of the summer's hottest upcoming films, Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Universal Pictures' big screen adaptation of Miami Vice.

She makes a dazzling impression as Tia Dalma, the mystical and flamboyant fortune teller who lives in a shambled shack deep in the swamps that you may recognize from the infamous Disneyland ride, but admits she almost didn't get the role because of her striking appearance.

"I didn't know that Gore didn't actually want me for the part. Because, he said that I was actually too pretty and he didn't want anybody pretty. He wanted like an older actress and I didn't know that when I walked into the audition room but I learned that later. So, the casting director, Denise Chamian, who cast me in…well she actually tried to cast me in something else but it didn't work out. And she really wanted me for the part so she persuaded Gore to audition me, she told ComingSoon.net

"He said to me, when I walked into the room, he said, 'ok, you're going to have to do this like 3 maybe 4 times so…ok, let's just have a go.' And so I read it once and then he went, 'how would you like to come to the Bahamas?' It was great!"

Her character is introduced when Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has a debt to settle with the renowned Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), Ruler of the Oceans Depths and his swaggering crew that man the ghostly Flying Dutchman. Sparrow swindles Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) into helping him repay that debt in return for helping Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightly), who is being help captive by the callous pirate hunter Lord Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company.

The Captain has been plagued with the black spot so he turns to Tia for spells and remedies to rid him of the mark. Harris plays the part brilliantly and looks like a real voodoo priestess in the film, so look closely or you may not realize it's her.

"We actually spent two days just trying on different looks and variations. And me saying I like this and they would say bring in pictures and I brought in pictures and they said, 'yeah, that's a really good idea, we'll incorporate it.' It was fantastic! And then what ended up happening was that we all ended up on a look that we loved, we brought it to Gore [Verbinski] and he said, 'no, that's way too much.'

Having family in Jamaica helped her nail the accent of her enigmatic character and even gave her some daunting insight to Voodoism.

"I used to go back to Jamaica once every year when I was growing up, and actually lived in Jamaica for six months and went to school there for a while. So I know a lot about voodoo and it's very alive and well in Jamaica and in the Caribbean in general. We do believe in it a lot so I wouldn't go exploring in those realms unless I really had to."

While we don't know that much about her character in "Dead Man's Chest," Harris says not to worry because it will all become clear in the third "Pirates."

"There is a huge back-story but it's all revealed in P3. You know she has her own reasons for doing what she's doing in P2. P2 is just an introduction for the character and in P3 then she's throughout, she actually goes on a journey with all the different characters... I had to do 2 without knowing what was happening in 3. But Gore did brief me, which was a little hard because there is so much that happens with her in P3."

Harris may play a very colorful character in "Pirates," but it's rather different from the undercover agent she plays in Miami Vice.

"I play someone from the Bronx, actually. I have a Bronx accent from that… I was flying backwards and forwards, I was filming in Miami and then flying to the Bahamas to film P3. It was kind of filmed simultaneously. It was just a really different atmosphere onset. Because there was Michael Mann with 'Miami Vice' so it's much more intense experience. And 'Pirates' in Bahamas was much more fun and a much bigger kind of deal. Because even though 'Miami Vice' is a big production, Michael Mann likes to keep it intimate and very much about the actors and it's not about green set or green scenes or what-have-you, and all those kind of technical things."

Harris also cleared up the rumors on budget overruns on Miami Vice.

"I think people judge the movie on its own merit so that's really good. And I think actually, although it's not nice hearing negative things in the press about the movie, it just adds to the buzz of the whole thing and makes people anticipate it more so I don't really worry about it. The only thing is that I actually myself bought into some of those rumors and ended up writing a letter to Michael Mann and saying, 'is everything ok on filming because I've heard such awful things?' And he wrote me a letter back saying don't worry about it. It's all rubbish."

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest opens on July 7th and Miami Vice will be in theaters July 28th.



News for 5/1/2005


Naomie Harris Boards Miami Vice

Source: Variety


Naomie Harris (After the Sunset) has signed to star in Universal Pictures' Miami Vice, which Michael Mann is writing, directing and producing.

Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell are toplining as detectives Ricardo Tubbs and Sonny Crockett, respectively; Harris will play Gina Calabrese, Tubbs' love interest.

In the movie, Tubbs and Crockett face a transnational criminal enterprise whose leader and chief financial officer is of Chinese/Cuban origin (Gong Li).

Harris is currently filming Disney's back-to-back "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels and just wrapped Michael Winterbottom's A Cock and Bull Story.



News for 3/16/2005


The following article appeared in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Movieline's Hollywood Life Magazine





Sharon and Aimee Osbourne, Jenny Éclair and Naomie Harris Set for London Monologues

By James Inverne
Playbill.com


The Vagina Monologues will return to the West End in April when it opens at the Wyndhams Theatre. And, in keeping with this play’s tradition, a starry cast has been confirmed.

The show, scheduled to begin previews April 5 with an April 7 opening, will run for six weeks. The cast will include Sharon Osbourne and her daughter Aimee, Jenny Éclair and Naomie Harris.

Sharon Osbourne, husband of the rock star Ozzy and a record producer and artist manager in her own right, found wider fame through the reality TV series “The Osbournes.” Most recently, she further boosted her profile in the U.K. by appearing as a judge in another reality TV series, “The X-Factor.” Aimee, unlike Sharon and the rest of her immediate family, refused to appear in “The Osbournes.” She did go in front of the cameras, though, for an MTV production of “Wuthering Heights.” At the time, she reportedly told an interviewer, “I don’t have huge ambitions to be some big actress. I was casually asked. It was a great experience and I’m glad I did it.”

Comedienne Jenny Éclair is a past winner of the Edinburgh Festival’s ultra prestigious Perrier Award for comedy. Her stage appearances have included Steaming and The Andy Warhol Syndrome.

Naomie Harris is best known in Britain for her leading role in the TV drama “White Teeth.” Her profile is expected to be further boosted with the upcoming movies “Tristram Shandy” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel.

The Vagina Monologues will follow The Witches (starring Ruby Wax, herself a Vagina Monologues veteran) into the Wyndhams. For more information, call (0)870 060 6633.



News for 1/30/2005


Naomie Harris Boards Pirates Sequels

Source: The Hollywood Reporter


Naomie Harris (After the Sunset, 28 Days Later) has joined the previously announced Stellan Skarsgård as new cast members of Walt Disney Pictures' back-to-back sequels to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, says The Hollywood Reporter.

The sequels reunite the main players in the 2003 blockbuster: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley star, Gore Verbinski directs, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio write and Jerry Bruckheimer produces.

Harris will play a gypsy queen in the new films. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 starts shooting in early March in Los Angeles and the Caribbean for a summer 2006 release.



News for 12/5/2004


The following article appears in the December 2004 issue of Essence Magazine





News for 11/30/2004


The following article appeared in the November 22, 2004 issue of People Magazine





News for 10/26/2004


The following article appears in the November 2004 issue of Premiere Magazine





News for 11/5/2003


The following article appears in the November 2003 issue of Elle Magazine





News for 10/13/2003


British Actress Harris Sailing Into 'Sunset'

By Chris Gardner


LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Naomie Harris, the female lead in the zombie thriller "28 Days Later," has landed a role in "After the Sunset" for director Brett Ratner.

Shooting on the New Line project starts this month.

The project marks Harris' first major American project following the success of Danny Boyle's "28 Days."

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek and Woody Harrelson, "Sunset" centers on a master thief (Brosnan) who sails to an island paradise after his last score. When his lifelong nemesis (Harrelson) shows up to make sure the thief is really retired, a new cat-and-mouse game of friendship, suspicion and thievery begins.

Harris will play Sophie, an island cop who teams with Harrelson's character to help catch Brosnan. Hayek plays Lola, Brosnan's wife and possible accomplice.

"Naomie Harris is an extraordinary talent," Ratner said. "I really look forward to working with her. She is going to make a brilliant contribution to this movie."

Harris next stars in "Trauma" opposite Colin Firth, followed by a cameo in the feature version of cult British kids TV show "Thunderbirds."