The British director lifts the lid on an impressive career. <\/p>
To bastardise the old saying beloved of film and telly folk: never work with children, animals or actor-producer workaholics with infamously punishing fitness regimes and daily schedules.<\/p>\n
But on a pair of back-to-back American movies, British director Simon Cellan Jones has done exactly that.<\/p>\n
After an illustrious career mostly spent making quality UK and US television drama, from Our Friends in the North and Cracker to David Simon\u2019s Generation Kill and Russell T Davies<\/a>\u2018s Years and Years, the 60-year-old has spent much of the past three years in bed \u2013 in strictly professional terms \u2013 with Mark Wahlberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n The first fruits of his partnership with the Hollywood superstar is Apple TV+ comedy-action flick The Family Plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n Wahlberg plays a suburban dad forced to take his unwitting family on a \u201cfun\u201d road trip to Las Vegas after his past life as a government assassin comes back to bite him (with extreme prejudice).<\/p> The second is Arthur the King, to be released in cinemas on 22nd March, in which Wahlberg is an ageing iron man who buddies up with a wounded stray dog during a 435-mile endurance race through South American jungle.<\/p>\n The latter, explains Cellan Jones from his home in Somerset, was shot before The Family Plan, and was his first film gig in two decades following his TV projects.<\/p>\n \u201cSuddenly, I was in the right place at the right time. But then, with The Family Plan, which is a slightly bigger movie, I think \u2013 I hope \u2013 I was the first choice for it.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a new world for me,\u201d he acknowledges. \u201cYou\u2019ve got more time, you\u2019ve got a bit more money. But it\u2019s really exciting when you say you want to do a chase sequence, 20 stunt men and a week to do it. And if you can work it out with your [filmmaking] partners, we can make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Presumably, the seal of approval after the first film from the extremely rigorous Wahlberg \u2013 the father of four gets up in the middle of the night to work out and pray \u2013 helped the Englishman land The Family Plan gig?<\/p>\n \u201cBig time. He\u2019s a producer on The Family Plan, so he\u2019s basically my boss. He\u2019s one of those few people who just gets stuff done with one phone call.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople spend ages trying to put a movie together, and suddenly Mark lands and, because of his acting prowess, but also because of his clout as a producer, stuff just happens like you wouldn\u2019t believe. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n