UNITED KINGDOM: Emilio Estevez brings nearly finished 'Bobby' to London Film Festival, saying he is still working on the end credits

Having done a round of film festivals with his 'work in progress' Bobby Kennedy assassination movie 'Bobby', director and actor Emilio Estevez on Thursday (October 26, 2006) was finally bringing the finalised version to the London Film Festival. Or so the festival-goers thought. "We're so close. It's not quite the final final, there's no end credits yet. There's some end credits, but they are not finished yet," Estevez said as he attended the Leicester Square premiere of the film. And with a cast that reads like 'Who's who in Hollywood', it is no wonder it's taking Estevez a while to get his credits done. 'Bobby' follows the stories of 22 fictional characters who find themselves in the Ambassador Hotel on the day Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. Making an appearance in the film are Hollywood heavyweights Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Sharon Stone and Demi Moore, while some of the younger Hollywood stars include Lindsay Lohan, Freddy Rodriguez, Elijah Wood and Ashton Kutcher. But Estevez said he was not worried about the famous faces stealing the show. "Well, nobody in this movie is more famous than Bobby Kennedy. And that's what I felt. I felt that this was a type of picture that could support the biggest movie-stars in the world because Bobby Kennedy was ultimately the star of the film and his spirit is the star of the movie and that would never be eclipsed by any name. So it was a matter of... I mean, these are extraordinary actors and I think as an actor, I just got the hell out of their way. You know, I let them do what they do, and they do it brilliantly," he said. 'Bobby' offers a slice of American life during the political turmoil of the late 1960s. Real news footage of Kennedy at rallies, mass protests against the war in Vietnam and grim images from the conflict are woven into the narrative, and audiences today are bound to draw parallels with the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lohan plays an idealistic woman who marries an old friend to save him from the Vietnam front, while Moore portrays an alcoholic singer bitterly aware of her advancing years. Hopkins is the old hotel manager, while Moore's real-life husband Ashton Kutcher plays a hippie who encourages two of Kennedy's campaign workers to take LSD for the first time, with hilarious consequences. "The movie is sadly probably more relevant now than when I first wrote it. We find ourselves in the middle of two conflicts, and us meaning the United States, and it's an impossible situation and young men and women are dying by the scores and I think this movie speaks to our rediscovery of our humanity. I think we need to stop killing one another, I think we need to start treating each other with decency and respect," Estevez explained. Freddy Rodriguez, who plays a Mexican busboy in the film, said making the film was an eye-opener. "You know, I took home a history lesson. I really didn't know much about Robert Kennedy before I did the film and just learned about him and about what he meant to the people," he said. Meanwhile, Rodriguez's co-star Joy Bryant said she could not help feeling star-struck on set with her larger than life cast-mates. "I've been in the business for about five years and I don't care, I get pretty star-struck when I'm at like all these big chi-chi-bubu-la-la events. So to be on the set and associated with a movie with all these people I was just like, I almost got, whiplash, I'm like, you know. And just to be in the food line with Sharon Stone like two people away from me, I was like, 'what, this is insane. She uses a fork. This is great," she said. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, brother of assassinated U.S. president John F. Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles at 12.15 am on June 5, 1968 after it was declared he had won the California Primary in his bid for presidency. 'Bobby' Kennedy, seen by many as the only one capable of uniting a divided, war-torn country, died at the hospital of the shot wounds in the early hours of June 6, 2006. 'Bobby' will be released in the United States in mid-November - that is, if Estevez manages to finish his end credits on time. No UK release date has yet been announced.

ITN Source | November 2, 2006

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