The Phone Call, a short film by Mat Kirkby, with Sally Hawkins

Showing all posts tagged: Sally Hawkins

The Phone Call, a short film by Mat Kirkby, with Sally Hawkins

5 March 2025

Aside from a co-worker, possibly a boyfriend, and the voice of veteran actor Jim Broadbent, British actor Sally Hawkins is about the only person visible in the twenty-minute short feature The Phone Call, trailer, made in 2013, by Mat Kirkby.

In Kirby’s collaboration with James Lucas, who wrote the screenplay, Hawkins portrays Heather, a reserved, bookish, crisis help-line worker. Heather’s shift has barely started, when she takes a call from a distressed elderly man, calling himself Stan (Broadbent). Heather desperately want to help, but Stan is unyielding, and time is running out. Suspense hangs heavily in the air.

The Phone Call, which won the short film (live action) award in the 2015 Oscars, can be viewed in full here. You won’t be disappointed. I can’t think of single dud Hawkins has starred in.

The Lost King, a film about finding Richard III, by Stephen Frears

10 December 2022

The Lost King, trailer, tells the story — in its own way — of British writer Philippa Langley, and her relentless work to find the body of English King, Richard III, who died at the Battle of Bosworth Field, in the English county of Leicestershire, in 1485.

There’s some serious British talent involved here. Veteran filmmaker Stephen Frears — whose previous work includes My Beautiful Laundrette, The Queen, Tamara Drewe (where I saw him speak at a screening thereof in Sydney in 2011), and Philomena — directs.

Steve Coogan, who also co-wrote the screenplay, portrays Langley’s husband, John, while Langley herself is played by Sally Hawkins. Hawkins has to be one of the most prolific actors around. Her career started in 1999 with a role as an extra in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, and since then she has been in Cassandra’s Dream, An Education, Never Let Me Go, Made in Dagenham, Submarine, Blue Jasmine, The Shape of Water, and Spencer. To name but a few.

The Lost King opens in Australian cinemas on Monday 26 December 2022.