Melissa George’s Pick for Samantha: Chloe Moretz
“Chloe Moretz would be great as Samantha. She played my daughter in The Amityville Horror when she was 6 years old. She’s a beautiful little thing.”

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The rights to Matchbox Pictues’ miniseries The Slap have been acquired by the Sundance Channel.

The channel, which is owned by AMC Networks in the U.S, will show the eight-part series in Eastern Europe, Spain, Portgual, Greece, Turkey and Asia.

The sale was made by international distributor DCD Rights at MIPCOM last week, with the agreement between Sundance and DCD stating that the show must be shown in the specified territories within a period of three years.

Based on the controversial novel by Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap follows the repercussions of a man slapping another parent’s child at a suburban barbecue in Melbourne. It stars Melissa George, Alex Dimitriades and Sophie Okonedo.

The first episode aired last Thursday on the ABC. With 946,000 viewers, it ranked as the fifth most watched program across the free-to-air networks. The ABC has confirmed that delayed screenings and regional viewings have brought that figure up the 1.3 million.

The BBC acquired the UK rights to the series in August, and will air the show from October 27 – just three weeks after its Australian premiere.

Producer Helen Bowden met with the British broadcaster recently and told IF she was surprised at the anticipation surrounding the series.

“It became clear how excited they are, which is very,” she says. “By the end of the year, the book will have sold a half a million copies in the UK. For a relatively unknown Australian writer, that’s really huge.”

DCD Rights also handled new Matchbox Pictures series The Straits at MIPCOM. The ten-part crime drama, which follows the fortunes of a family of smugglers in the Torres Strait Islands, wrapped shooting last month. According to Bowden, deals with buyers will be finalised within the next two to three weeks.

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The book had everyone talking – now “The Slap” is set to appear on our TV screens. Rachel Hills talks to Melissa George, Sophie Okonedo and Essie Davis about making the sure-to-be-controversial series.

It begins in the most quintessentially Australian of settings: the backyard barbecue. But while this one might look something like the barbecues you’ve attended recently, chances are it won’t look much like anything you’ve seen before on the small screen.

The first difference? Not everyone is white, straight or living in a 1950s-style nuclear family – although don’t be fooled, this is no multicultural love-in. There are no quirkily loveable bogans, either. Based on the internationally best-selling novel by Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap (screening on ABC1 from Thursday) may be set in the same middle-Melbourne suburbia as Neighbours and Kath & Kim, but it feels worlds away from Ramsay Street or Fountain Lakes. This is modern middle-class Australia as we live and breathe it: complicated, unpredictable and sometimes controversial.

The action kicks off on the 40th birthday of Hector (Jonathan LaPaglia), a second-generation Greek-Australian and public servant on the brink of a midlife crisis. He and his straight-laced veterinarian wife, Aisha (Sophie Okonedo), invite a select group of friends and family to their house to celebrate.

There is earth mother Rosie (Melissa George), who buries her troubled marriage to Gary (Anthony Hayes) in her devotion to her four-year-old son, Hugo. Chic television writer Anouk’s (Essie Davis) see-through blouse and 20-something soap-star boyfriend are more suited to an inner-city bar than a suburban backyard.

Hector’s cousin Harry (Alex Dimitriades) is a self-made mechanic with a waterfront mansion, while Hector’s parents, Manolis (Lex Marinos) and Koula (Toula Yianni), are trying to figure out where their traditional values fit in a changed world. Connie (Sophie Lowe), Aisha’s receptionist and Hector’s 17-year-old lust interest, and her best friend, Richie – a self-described “art fag” – round out the party.

The scene is ripe with unresolved conflict. Aisha feels undermined by Koula and frustrated by Hector, while Hector takes out his own frustrations on his son, Adam. Wealthy Harry and working-class Gary battle it out over the public- versus private-school debate, and Gary tells Anouk’s boyfriend his show is crap. Everyone exchanges disapproving glances whenever Rosie brings preschool-aged Hugo to her breast for feeding.

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Perth actor Melissa George has revealed her secretive trip home this week was to retrace her family footsteps for an episode of the series Who Do You Think You Are.

The blonde beauty was spotted on Rottnest Island and in country WA filming for the popular series, which follows some of the biggest stars in America as they discover more about their ancestors. George also used her trip home to reveal she wants to start a family and can’t wait to be a mother but would not confirm if it would be with her current squeeze, US hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.

At 53, he is 18 years her senior and worth an estimated $340 million. The actor, who has appeared in US series’ Charmed, Grey’s Anatomy and Friends recently split from her husband of 11 years, Chilean film director Claudio Dabed. “No one needs to know,” she said yesterday of the reasons behind the split. “I just know that every decision I’m making right now is the right one.”

Giving her only interview in Perth, the 35-year-old told The Sunday Times she still plans to start a family. “I deserve that balance,” she said. “I’ve worked really hard.”

Meanwhile, George said her performance in TV thriller Nemesis, by X Files executive producer Frank Spotnitz, was the “role of a lifetime”. It will require the New York-based actor to move to London for six months of the year. But whether she is in New York, London or Perth, George says home is “inside” her.

“Wherever I go, I feel at ease,” she said.

But Perth remains a favourite and a city where “everything fits”. “It’s like the last piece of the puzzle for me. Everything is complete when I come to Perth,” she said.

In West Perth yesterday, George caused quite a stir. A parking inspector asked for an autograph, while a star-struck barber was all smiles when she asked for a coffee-shop recommendation.

George, who sprung to fame after appearing in Home and Away, makes a returns to Australian TV in the eight-part drama The Slap, starting Thursday at 8.30pm on ABC1.

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I just updated the main site with the latest news of Melissa and I just updated the gallery with all the latest events she attended lately. Enjoy!

Gallery Links
Public Appearances > Events from 2011 > Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week – Tommy Hilfiger Womens – Front Row
Public Appearances > Events from 2011 > Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week – Tommy Hilfiger Womens – Backstage
Public Appearances > Events from 2011 > “I Don’t Know How She Does It” Weinstein Company’s Premiere
Public Appearances > Events from 2011 > GOODNESS Pop-Up Restaurant Launch
Public Appearances > Events from 2011 > Tory Burch Madison Avenue Flagship Opening
Public Appearances > Events from 2011 > The Cinema Society Screening of “Restless” – Arrivals
Public Appearances > Events from 2011 > The Cinema Society Screening of “Restless” – After Party
Public Appearances > Events from 2011 > J.Mendel Spring 2012 Fashion Show

EXPOSED to the camera, Melissa George projects a startling magnetism.

Some may suggest she has that rare, hard-to-define “it” factor – a seemingly effortless ability to light up the screen.

It’s a theory, though, that underestimates George’s commitment to her work.

She is able to get under the skin of characters because she tackles roles through vigorous preparation and implicit faith in her instincts. But she is so unpretentious in her willingness to bare her soul you forget she’s acting.

In the acclaimed Foxtel series In Treatment, there were no stunts or special effects. All the “action” took place in a therapist’s (Gabriel Byrne) room. George, as conflicted patient Laura, could be seductive one minute, but dissolve into a mascara-streaked mess the next.

In Treatment was a TV production of such rare creative synergy it was hard to imagine George being handed another opportunity to dig so deeply into her bag of acting tricks.

That opportunity has come in the form of the eight-part ABC drama The Slap – the screen adaptation of the much-debated novel by Christos Tsiolkas.

The Slap traces the shattering repercussions on a group of family and friends of a single event that takes place at a backyard barbecue.

Harry (Alex Dimitriades) assaults a misbehaving child, Hugo (Julian Mineo), who is not his son. The boy’s parents (George, and Anthony Hayes) are so outraged they call police and legal action results. Friends and family are forced to take sides in this examination of parenting, the rights of children, race, class, sexuality and the perspectives of men and women.

George, who plays mum Rosie, says filming the slap scene had a profound effect.

“It’s my (character’s) little boy who gets slapped. We’re all in the backyard and it’s all very messy. It was surprisingly emotional. The director was crying, the cameramen were wiping away tears,” she says.

George, whose co-stars include Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda), Jonathan LaPaglia, Essie Davis and Sophie Lowe, says her emotions were frazzled.

“When Harry (Dimitriades) comes and bloody smacks and bashes her son across the face, Rosie does what any mother would do,” she says.

“If you hit my kid in front of me, I’d do the same thing – when they called ‘action’ for the slap scene I forgot who I was. I drew blood from Alex Dimitriades. It was primal. You touch my kid, I’ll rip your face off. I went totally nuts. I scratched his neck, it wasn’t part of the script. I couldn’t tell the difference between reality and filming.

“One minute Rosie is bohemian, the next she is violent, the next she is breast-feeding her four-year-old.”

George expects some viewers will recoil at the sight of the breast-feeding.

“Rosie is from nature. In Chile, you’ll see a mother and the kid is walking along playing with a ball and opens her blouse and has a drink and walks off. I see nothing nothing wrong with it.”

George, meanwhile, couldn’t be happier with life away from work. She’s in a relationship with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, 53.

George, who has just filmed Bag of Bones alongside Pierce Brosnan in Nova Scotia, was first linked to Simmons, who has estimated worth of $340 million, in July.

“It’s just, you know, fun … so much fun,” she says of Simmons. “I can’t stop smiling. It’s absolutely lovely.

“To be around such an inspiring person is just great. I’m not going to get gushy and talk about it too much, but it’s out there. I think I have great taste,” she adds with a laugh.

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‘Grown up’ Melissa George opens up after marriage break-up

MELISSA George likes what she sees in the mirror. There’s a smile staring back at her; a wide, youthful grin that speaks of newfound love and happiness.

It’s an expression George says she’s only recently mastered, admitting that the past year – specifically the end of her 11-year marriage – has proved emotionally arduous.

“I don’t know where to start, really,” George says from her New York apartment, reflecting on the end of her relationship with director Claudio Dabed.

“The lights went out. And you know how in love I’ve been. I’m not going to say what happened but I think it’s pretty obvious and I just couldn’t continue.”

News of the couple’s split came in July when 35-year-old George was spotted locking lips with multi-millionaire hip hop mogul and current beau Russell Simmons.

“You know what, I’m a really good person to be around the last month and very, very happy,” she says.

“I’ve grown up a lot, I’ve got a voice and an opinion, I know what I want a little more, not for others, but for me.

“I’m a very happy person and I won’t talk about ‘you know who’, but it’s just wonderful. I think I’ve got great taste. I have eclectic taste, sure, but I’ve got good taste and I think I’ve made myself proud.”

She has a similar sense of pride about the role that returns her to the small screen in Australia in the ABC’s much-anticipated adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’ award-winning novel The Slap.

“After I was offered the role I went out looking for the book (in New York) and it was sold out, so I was, like: ‘Oh my God, what is this book?’” she says.

The Slap centres on a collection of friends and family who witness an assault on a mischievous three-year-old child. As Rosie, George plays the mother of Hugo, the little boy who is slapped.

“To be honest, there were a lot of things (in playing Rosie) that I was scared about – the nudity, the breastfeeding, the sadness, the fact that she was so sexual and then so violent and then so angry,” she says.

“And feeding her baby in front of all those people, you know, there was a lot that I had to overcome. But what’s lovely about acting is, anytime I felt insecure I’d hide behind Rosie because Rosie can do whatever she wants.”

So, too, can George.

After leaving Home and Away in the late ’90s, the Western Australian wandered into a US film and television career that boasts time with David Lynch (Mulholland Drive), a wealth of popular horror and thriller flicks (The Amityville Horror, 30 Days Of Night) and small screen appearances including Alias, Grey’s Anatomy, Friends and her Golden Globe-nominated work in In Treatment.

Typecast she is not.

“It’s funny, but sometimes I want to be typecast, because then you get a following,” she says. “My problem is, the people who watch In Treatment don’t know about my thrillers and horrors, and then my horror fans really didn’t watch In Treatment.”

Despite all George does – she has just snared a London-based “dream role” in TV thriller Nemesis, it is her tenure in Summer Bay for which she will always be fondly remembered.

As Angel Parish, George, along with on-screen husband Shane (Dieter Brummer) was the local small screen’s hottest couple. So what does she make of it today?

“When Shane died on that rock and Angel was by his side, you know that was some of my best acting. I’m being serious, watch it back, look at how young I was and look at my commitment at the death of my husband. They were real tears. I was so method in so many ways,” George says.

“But I also encourage people to live in the present and the recent past. Because it’s very hard to remind people around me what they were doing 20 years ago. I wouldn’t say: ‘God, do you remember when you had that dodgy job in the bar and look at you now’. I would never remind people of that. But at the same time I also appreciate how lucky I am to have a fan base that has been going 20 years.”

For now George is simply excited about a well-earned break in Perth ahead of her six-month London stint.

“I love going home. Mum and Dad really need to see me as they’ve been worried (about me) and they’re going to see me jumping around like a 12-year-old – that will surprise them,” she says candidly.

“They are desperate to see my happy face. I look different, I do look different, I look in the mirror and I’m, like, ‘YEAH’, because it changes your face when you are happy, it really does.

“If you want to be beautiful, or try and be beautiful, be happy, because it doesn’t matter what you put on your face, it’s what you feel inside and going after what you want.”

The Slap will air on ABC1 on October 6 at 8.30pm

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Melissa George has been tapped as the lead in the BBC-Cinemax spy thriller series Nemesis aka Morton, which was created by former X-Files executive producer Frank Spotnitz. BBC One commissioned eight episodes of the project back in January, with Cinemax recently coming on board. Cinemax will co-produce Nemesis with BBC and the UK’s Shine-owned production company Kudos Film and Television, in association with Big Light. In the vein of Bourne Identity, Nemesis is a suspense thriller set in the world of international espionage. It centers on a highly skilled operative (George) for an elite private intelligence firm who survives an attempt on her life that might have been orchestrated by members of her own team. Once she returns to the firm, she must perform her secretive duties without knowing who to trust and who wants her dead. In addition to writing, Spotnitz is executive producing Nemesis with Kudos’ Stephen Garrett, Jane Featherstone and Alison Jackson. S.J. Clarkson will direct the first two episodes of the series, which will start production this fall in Europe and North Africa.

A show about a butt-kicking female spy is a familiar territory for George, who co-starred on ABC’s Alias. She recently wrapped A&E’s upcoming miniseries Bag of Bones, based on Stephen King’s book, in which she co-stars opposite Pierce Brosnan. George, repped by ICM, UK agent Vic Murray and 3 Arts, also co-starred on the drama series In Treatment, which aired on Cinemax’s sister network HBO and earned her a Golden Globe nomination. Nemesis is Spotnitz’s second Cinemax series. He also co-wrote with British TV writer Richard Zadjlic the action drama Strike Back, Cinemax’s first original primetime series, which launched last month.

I love European cinema because of its silences. Often you have an entire scene where it’s just a close-up on a face with no dialogue and the beauty of that scene is in its silence.

There are a lot fewer sharp cuts than in American cinema and European films aren’t edited purely to get the story moving along. European cinema feels more relaxed, it makes you listen and observe life. The films allow audiences to witness moments they might usually skip over.

As an actress, it’s also a more pleasurable experience when you’re working on a shot that’s being filmed in full, rather than having to do short takes.

Often in French movies they show a classically beautiful woman in a situation where she doesn’t belong. In Belle de Jour [1967] the director [Luis Buñuel] pushed the boundaries of immorality by making it look beautiful. Catherine Deneuve is an example of the all time classically beautiful French actress and in Belle de Jour her character chooses to become a prostitute. It seems almost a normal thing to do because she looks so perfect.

I draw on a lot of Spanish and Italian cinema in my work. I’m very influenced by Fellini films and I marvel at the freedom in the way he portrayed his actresses. With European films it’s not the editing that gets the performance. The actors have to sustain the entire movie with their characterisation. Right now I’m obsessed with the Spanish film Sex and Lucía [2001] and I know Julian Schnabel is American but I also love his film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is French. The way everything was shot through the man’s eyelashes as if we were seeing it from his own eyes is something I’ll never forget.

In European cinema it’s all about the wide, anamorphic lens which represents how life actually is. There’s never a crane shot which zooms in just for the sake of it. European cinema is more realistic. It’s as if the films are shot as life evolves.

A Lonely Place to Die is out in cinemas now.

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Melissa George was distracted by the “stunning” Scottish landscape while filming her new movie.

The Australian actress is appearing in upcoming thriller A Lonely Place to Die, which was filmed in the Scottish Highlands.

The film is about a group of climbers who find a girl buried alive in the ice. They decide to rescue her without realising she is the kidnapped daughter of a Serbian warlord who is prepared to do whatever it takes to get her back.

Melissa did the majority of her own stunts in the high-octane action thriller, but says the Scottish landscape was sometimes quite distracting.

“I did most [of the stunts] apart from the bit when I fall through the trees and into the water!” she laughed.

“Scotland is the star of the film for sure. I’d be hanging off the edge of the mountain thinking, ‘This is stunning.’”

Melissa braved the elements to shoot the thriller.

The 35-year-old beauty has recalled one moment during filming where she was left to fend for herself when the weather took a turn for the worst.

“There was hail at one point and I couldn’t get off the mountain,” she explained. “They put a cover over me and I waited it out for over an hour.”

Melissa is currently shooting a horror movie with British actor Pierce Brosnan. The blonde beauty was impressed by her co-star.

“He’s divine,” she told BBC Breakfast.

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