Once Juno Temple hits the big screen, it’s hard to take your eyes off her. To experience what we mean, spend the rest of your day watching Killer Joe, Little Birds, Dirty Girl or Kaboom. In each one, she exhibits the same exact qualities that seem to keep independent film directors clamoring for her to be in their movie: vulnerability, magnetism, and fearlessness, yet in the most delicate way possible. It’s as if she’s got her own brand of confidence that’s simply impossible not to get sucked into.

And she’s adding to that list this weekend with her latest indie flick, Ramaa Mosley’s The Brass Teapot, in which she and co-star Michael Angarano play a financially inept married couple who steal a magic teapot that fills with money whenever they inflict pain on anyone, including themselves. High off their good fortune, the couple inevitably begin abusing their power, turning the dark comedy into a cautionary tale the dangers of losing sight of the difference between what you want and what you need.

We got a chance to speak to the L.A.-based English actress about her latest project, what makes her so bold on screen, and what it’s like to be a 23-year-old girl trying to earn respect in Hollywood.

What initially drew you to The Brass Teapot?
I am such a strong believer in the idea of magic in the wild. I find that really invigorating. Also, I was intrigued by how different these two incredibly ordinary people react to this object that comes into their life after witnessing bad luck. My character is very vulnerable and gets manipulated by it, while Michael [Angarano]‘s character is very afraid of it and ends up being the one who stands up to it. That was a really great dynamic.

The movie puts into question the idea greed as part of human nature.
Yeah, I think so too. And I think that was something that I was excited about—to put a movie out there where the audience questions which one they’d be.

(more…)

This post will be a round up with Juno’s red carpet interviews during the EE BAFTA arrivals.

The London Evening Standard published a new interview and photoshoot of Juno earlier this week. You can read the interview in our press archive and we added the photoshoot in our gallery.

The daughter of UK film industry players, raised in bucolic bohemian splendour, she is determined to take on Hollywood all by herself. Tim Walker meets the star of Sundance.

Juno Temple has lived in LA for four years but still doesn’t drive a car. Given that it’s near-impossible to navigate the Southern California sprawl without one, I’d venture that makes her either abnormally wilful, or successful enough to take cabs everywhere. Possibly both. She’s determined, certainly: she left her family in England for Hollywood aged 19. Her parents were upset to see her go, she says, ‘But I’m a stubborn f***. I wanted to do it, so I did.’
Read full interview

Gallery links:
Photoshoots & Portraits > Session 057

One of the many films to premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was writer-director Jill Soloway’s Afternoon Delight. Starring Kathryn Hahn, Juno Temple, Josh Radnor and Jane Lynch, the film’s about a L.A. housewife that “puts her idyllic hipster life in jeopardy when she tries to rescue a stripper by taking her in as a live-in nanny.” Featuring great performances from the entire cast, the film was well received by audiences and critics and Soloway won the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award during the closing night festivities.

The day after the premiere, I landed an extended interview with Juno Temple. We talked about how she got involved in Afternoon Delight, how much changed during production, how 2012 was an extraordinary year as she played a normal girl from the 70s, a schizophrenic, a stripper/prostitute, and a fairy, and more. In addition, we also talked about making Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, Alexandre Aja’s Horns (which stars Daniel Radcliffe), and Robert Rodriguez’ Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

In Magic Magic, Juno Temple and Emily Browning play best friends whose rendezvous in the Chilean countryside with some boys takes a turn for the worse when Temple’s Alicia is plagued by insomnia. Chilean writer-director Sebastián Silva has teased that it’s a disturbing psychological thriller that is meant to confuse the audience, so it’s a perfect movie for the Park City at Midnight slate at the Sundance Film, Festival, which begins today.

For Temple, who has three films at this year’s festival, playing unbalanced, unpredictable women is becoming something of a hobby. Her father, Julien, is an accomplished director who filmed the Sex Pistols, and some of that wild punk DNA seemingly was passed on to Juno. She got her first big role in Notes on a Scandal, playing Cate Blanchett’s rebellious daughter, and she’s never flinched from the unflinching, starring in films like last year’s NC-17 rated Killer Joe, opposite Matthew McConaughey. Her choices are bold and she never seems to take the same role twice. Magic Magic promises to keep both of those trends going.

You co-star with Michael Cera in Magic Magic, but it doesn’t seem like the sequel to Year One I was expecting.
No, we actually had a lot of fun with that. We were like, “Ummmm, no, definitely not a sequel to Year One.”

So what’s it about?
My character visits her best friend, who is dating a Chilean boy, and the Chilean boy has a friend who’s a diplomat’s son, who’s living in Chile and speaks Spanish. My character comes in from the outside of the group and she feels kind of threatened by it from the get go, but she’s got her best friend there, so… Ultimately what happens is they end up going to this house in the countryside in Chile and my character unravels. She’s struggling a little mentally. And what I find so exciting about the movie itself is that sometimes you’re very frustrated by my character and just want her to shut up and get on with it, and sometimes you really hate the other characters around her who are doing the things that are absolutely destroying her. So it’s cool because it keeps toying with that. It’s upsetting because you can’t just leave the theater afterwards and walk away and be like, “Anyone hungry? You wanna go get some grub?” It’s definitely a movie that makes you think after you’ve watched and you feel so shaken. But I like that. It’s definitely not a romantic comedy.

(more…)

This post is a round up of Juno’s interviews during the BAFTA EE Rising Star nomination announcement earlier this week. And don’t forget to vote for Juno!

Juno is featured in the Fall edition of Bullet Magazine (with Elizabeth Olsen, Pharrell or Aaron Taylor-Johnson on the cover). The magazine released her editorial and interview. We added the shoot in our gallery, and you can read the interview below/in our press archive.

How did good-time girl Juno Temple, a chain-smoking, tiara-wearing beauty from london, turn into one of Hollywood’s most beloved young actors? She fought for it (and then some freak shit happened). Styling by Masayo Kishi

In an hour, Juno Temple will fly home to Los Feliz, Los Angeles, where she lives alone, un-starlike, in a modest apartment. But first, the 22-year-old Brit, who’s perched on a bench in the lobby of Williamsburg’s Wythe Hotel, needs two things: a cigarette and a Bloody Mary. “This is real good,” she says of the cocktail in her favorite deep Southern drawl. “It could use a few more olives, but I’m enjoying it a lot.”
Read full interview

Gallery links:
Photoshoots & Portraits > Session 050

We added the magazine scans of Juno’s ASOS Magazine cover in our gallery including the interview so be sure to read it as well. We also added 3 additional outtakes from her photo shoot for the magazine.

Gallery links:
Scans from 2012 > Oct | ASOS Magazine
Photoshoots & Portraits > Session 049