A box-office hit in its native Australia, Red Dog is the tale of the legendary pooch who embodied the country's outback spirit ? and has a made a star of its canine lead, Koko

Australia's hottest movie star fixes me with his soulful brown eyes and greets me with a firm lick on the hand. Then, with a clack-clack of claws on the wooden floor of his airy home, Koko shows me through to the kitchen. For the next 20 minutes, the six-year-old star of Red Dog embarks on an impressive charm offensive, gazing up charismatically and fixing a gimlet eye on the bowl of cashew nuts placed before us.

Koko, a red cloud kelpie, has been the surprise breakout talent of 2011 in Australia. The underdog project to adapt Louis de Bernières's book about a real dog that breathed life into a desolate mining town, took $21.3m (£13.4m) at the Australian box office last year, putting Red Dog among the 10 highest grossing Australian films of all time alongside Moulin Rouge and Strictly Ballroom. As with Uggie, the Jack Russell star of The Artist, and the equine heroes of War Horse, the canine lead in Red Dog does not suffer the indignity of having his features contorted by CGI. Red Dog may not talk but he and his film make an eloquent statement about the power of stories.

"It is about this outback community that was brought together by a dog," says Nelson Woss, Red Dog's producer. "And we were this film crew in a remote location that was brought together by the same dog." In fact, Woss enjoyed working with his leading man so much that he adopted him. When not trotting down red carpets together, the pair now reside in Perth, Western Australia. Koko enjoys frequent walks in the park, where the only concession to his stardom is a special ramp that enables him to easily disembark from Woss's 4x4.

The against-the-odds making of Red Dog began when Woss read a review of de Bernières's book on a flight back from LA, where Woss produced films including Ned Kelly, the retelling of another popular Australian legend. Woss beat off interest from DreamWorks to get the film rights to Red Dog, with de Bernières apparently persuaded by the producer's vision of a local film shot in the Pilbara, the remote north-west corner of Australia where the real Red Dog lived.

Kriv Stenders, the director, describes it as "a story about stories, a folk tale celebrating that very Australian tradition of the yarn". Like Waltzing Matilda and other outback tales, Red Dog also features tragedy. As de Bernières's deceptively simple novella showed, Red Dog became a powerful founding story for the tough towns that grew up around the hardscrabble mines of the 1970s. Red Dog was simply a dog without a particular home who was adopted by the miners. He earned the nickname "the Pilbara wanderer" because he would hitch rides with truckers for hundreds of miles but always return to his favourite seat on the miners' bus. He became a member of local clubs and was even given his own bank account. Like many miners, the dog was gregarious but also self-sufficient and solitary. He appeared to be searching for something, although no one quite knew what.

The making of Red Dog was an unorthodox undertaking from the very beginning. Woss started with a dog, buying Koko from a breeder two and a half years before filming began, and getting him trained by Luke Hura, a protege of Karl Miller, the legendary Hollywood animal trainer who worked with the stars of Babe. The film's American lead, Josh Lucas, drove himself through the outback for five days to get to the shoot, where Woss, in "guerrilla fashion", managed to cadge several helicopters and a mile-long train from a mining company for a week. "That's a big toy to play with," smiles Woss, who is described by Stenders as the kind of producer who "could sell snow to the Eskimos and finds money under a rock".

And so a meagre budget was able to produce a film with the sweep and zest of Danny Boyle. There were still some hitches, however. After a year of expert training, it appeared that Koko had learned very little. It took three weeks for the dog to master a short scene in which Red Dog pushes a woman off "his" seat on the miners' bus. Luckily, the dog (and his two doggy-doubles) came good during the eight-week shoot. Another problem was Stenders being allergic to dogs: the director had to struggle through the shoot with a lot of antihistamines and a no-touching policy for his leading canine.

True to the spirit of the 70s, when the film is set, Stenders resisted CGI and instead shot real dogs doing real things (with one exception, when Red Dog meets his nemesis, Red Cat). "We wanted to go back to the old-fashioned dog movie ? Lassie and Benji," says Stenders. "Red Dog is just a dog. He doesn't do anything remarkable. The film is about people and the lives this dog changes. He's a very wise observer who sees the world in a very laconic way. He's a very Australian character." Stenders previously made grungy urban films such as Boxing Day, about a father who takes his family hostage. How did he direct a dog? "Just like you would an actor," he says. "They are personalities. They have their idiosyncrasies. You are dealing with a soul, a living, breathing thing."

Stenders was relieved they stuck with the decision to make it a period piece, complete with an excellent 70s soundtrack. "You can't fuck with the legend. There is an innocence about the 70s that is very evocative and unique." Woss likens Red Dog to feel-good Australian classics such as Muriel's Wedding and both he and Stenders were inspired by Wake in Fright, a cult and very unnerving film about the outback. Red Dog is rather more comforting in its nostalgic portrayal of the beginnings of the modern mining boom, the rarely seen industry upon which Australia's current economic success is based. With its dry wit, the film casts these vital but enormously destructive industries in an appealingly human light. Stenders admits it is a "celebration" of the birth of that industry. "When you are up there you realise that this is the heartbeat of Australia. It's very sobering to see the infrastructure and scale of it," he says. The film also showcases the lunar-like landscape of the Pilbara ? usually completely overlooked by tourists ? with its red rock and enormous cargo ships sitting in crystal clear turquoise water. "It's so starkly beautiful it's overwhelming," says Stenders. "You couldn't come up with anything as graphic as that with CGI. You can't help but make it look beautiful because it's stunning. You see man-made industry dwarfed by this amazing landscape."

Australians have good cause to celebrate the miners who have made them rich but another reason Red Dog has attained such mythical status is the dog's egalitarian qualities. Back in the 70s, there was a proposal to erect a statue of William Dampier, the English explorer who landed in north-west Australia in 1699. Dampier swiftly disappeared again after sniffily concluding there were "too many flies" and, as the film relays, the miners argue that Red Dog should be honoured instead. "We should have somebody who understands this place, who lives and breathes this vastness, this desolation. Somebody who has red dust up their nostrils. And their arsehole," says one of the miners in the film. Australians approve of Red Dog: "It doesn't matter where you are from in the world or what echelons of society you were born into, Red Dog got on with you the same," explains Woss, when we take Koko for a walk.

Woss sees a lot of Red Dog in Koko. "Love the one you're with, that's Koko, and to some extent that was the same with Red Dog too," he says. "He's a very smart, independent dog and he has a mind of his own." Dogs are supposed to be on leads in the park "but Koko doesn't like leads", waves Woss airily, as his leading man trots along, breaking into a desultory dash to see off a couple of crows.

Later that night, I meet Koko again at a screening of Red Dog in Perth. He looks perfectly relaxed when he is recognised in the street and yet, like the biggest Hollywood stars, there is a sheen of distance about him ? he is perfectly polite, but floats above the fawning of those around him. Like a middle-aged heartthrob, Koko has a graceful grey grizzle around the mouth now, and Woss says his leading man will not take on any more films. "He quite likes his retirement," says Woss. "When he does promotional events, people want him to do tricks and that so isn't cool."

Red Dog is released on 24 February.

Hailed by John Hurt as the 'best of the bunch', Oldman is a working-class hero acclaimed for his acting and directing

Gary Oldman returns to London this weekend in the role of prodigal son, the wayward talent brought in from the cold. He arrives from California to find a landscape very different from the one he left in the early 1990s.

The fiery social-realist BBC teleplays that provided an early calling card have bitten the dust. The cult of the raw-boned working-class British performer has been largely replaced by a roll call of Etonians and Harrovians: a rash of Redmaynes, Hiddlestons and Cumberbatches. And so, at the age of 53, Oldman touches down like some disreputable Rip Van Winkle, a reminder of times gone by. All of which makes him more striking ? and arguably more necessary ? than he was before.

If they handed out awards for nuance and subtlety, shade and stealth, Oldman would be a shoo-in for the best actor Bafta on Sunday, as well as the crowning Oscar two weeks after that. As it is, he may have to be content with his nominations at both events: a partial reward for his acclaimed turn as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Tomas Alfredson's pungent, prowling adaptation of the John le Carré novel was the third most successful UK independent film at the domestic box office last year (behind The King's Speech and The Inbetweeners Movie). It's a picture that turns the clock back to a straitened 1970s London of Wimpy bars and smoke-filled offices; a treacherous cold war terrain where Santa wears a Lenin mask and our deep-cover agents look a lot like theirs.

"I enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud," Oldman once explained, although surely none of his roles have been quite as charged and restrained as little George Smiley, the MI6 veteran who sits in the wings like some watchful grey lizard.

"The thing about Gary Oldman is that he trusts you as a grown-up spectator," says Alfredson. "He knows he doesn't have to paint with all the colours, all the time. He has the courage of the experienced actor to give you fragments, bits and pieces for you to put together for yourself. I'm particularly impressed by his minimalistic body language. Just watch the man acting with his neck towards the camera."

In his early years, by contrast, Oldman gave us fireworks, thunderstorms, the complete spectrum. He was born in south London, the son of a welder father who drank to excess, and according to Oldman, swung his fists with impunity, then promptly bailed out when his son turned seven.

Inspired by the actor Malcolm McDowell, Oldman abandoned his early training as a musician to try his hand at acting. He cut his teeth on stage and then later on TV, where he rustled up indelible performances as a jittery skinhead in Mike Leigh's Meantime and as Clive "Bex" Bissell, the white-collar football hooligan at the heart of Alan Clarke's The Firm. He made his feature debut playing doomed, destructive Sid Vicious in 1986's Sid and Nancy, Alex Cox's turbulent biopic of the Sex Pistols' bass player, and then starred as ill-fated Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears.

Reign of misrule

By the decade's end, Oldman's reign of misrule had established him as the unofficial front-man of the "Brit Pack", a fraternity of driven young performers that included Tim Roth and Daniel Day-Lewis. Along the way, he cornered the market in the doomed and the damned, the wild and reckless.

"He's always been an extraordinarily dynamic, exciting actor," says Nick James, editor of the film magazine Sight and Sound. "And I suppose it comes back to that tremendous first flush, that extraordinary early trilogy in the UK: Meantime, Sid and Nancy, and Prick Up Your Ears.

"Right from the start, he had a screen presence that made him different from other British actors. Less schooled; more primitive. And that's probably a tribute to how daring the BBC was in those days. They were prepared to take these unproven working-class performers and give them big opportunities early on. Oldman took that and ran with it, like Jack the Lad."

Past evidence, however, suggests that the very qualities that made Oldman so compelling on screen have been hard to quarantine. Away from the cameras, he earned a reputation for volatility: a cocksure performer who drank too much and let success go to his head.

After completing work on his breakthrough performance in Sid and Nancy, for instance, he claimed that the shoot had been "depressing" and that he felt impelled to step in and devise some of the dialogue himself. More than 25 years on, the charge still rankles with the film's creator.

"Gary has been a uniquely selfish and self-involved actor, even by actor standards," Cox says. "One doesn't expect anything so quaint as gratitude or loyalty, but nor does a writer-director like it when an actor pretends that he wrote the script, as Gary did in the case of Sid and Nancy, or when he disses the director of his first film. And that is all I have to say about him!"

Oldman's personal issues dogged him on his move to the United States, where he initially revelled in the life of the young buck abroad, before eventually checking into Alcoholics Anonymous in the mid-1990s. He left his first wife, Lesley Manville, to rattle through relationships with Uma Thurman, Isabella Rossellini and Donya Fiorentino.

More scandalously still, he ditched domestic cinema to carouse with Hollywood, rearing up as furtive, feral Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK, and slurping blood off a cut-throat razor as the chuckling count in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Subsequent roles in the likes of Leon, True Romance and Air Force One risked typecasting him as US cinema's psycho-villain of choice, guaranteed to raise the rafters but altogether too dangerous to be entrusted with top billing.

Perhaps significantly, Oldman's best film of the decade found him behind the camera. In 1997 he made a brief return to his native soil to write and direct Nil by Mouth, the savage, bristling portrait of an abusive, alcoholic father in south London that Oldman swore was not autobiographical ? at least not entirely.

"He's a hero for me simply because of that film," says James. "Put aside all his acting achievements, and he's still the person who has made the most authentic working-class Cockney movie ever. I had a violent father myself, so it especially resonated with me. It's just a shame that he then turned his back on directing again. I'd loved to have seen him do more."

In recent years, Oldman has found a new fan base thanks to regular gigs in two of Hollywood's biggest franchises. These days the blockbuster crowd probably know him best as the resolute cop James Gordon in the rebooted Batman outings or as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies. Flitting in and out of the action as Harry's imperilled mentor, Oldman gives a deft performance that contrasts nicely with the pantomime showboating of his other adult co-stars.

"Well, that's the thing about the Harry Potters: they're good fun for party tricks," admits John Hurt. "They offer a chance for British characters to show off, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you want real cinema ? and real cinematic acting ? then obviously you look to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. And I think Gary is tremendous in it."

'Best of the bunch'

Hurt's own role as the wandmaker kept him apart from Oldman on the set of Harry Potter and it was not until Tinker Tailor (where he co-stars as Control) that they were finally able to work together. Hurt can't think why it took so long, because he has admired Oldman's work for decades; loved him as Joe Orton; adored him in The Firm; always regarded him as "the best of the bunch". Hurt mulls it over. "So I don't know why I had to wait so long. I suppose because he went to America."

All of which makes Tinker Tailor a homecoming of sorts. It finds the renegade actor ushered back into the fold ? older and wiser, clean and sober ? to make the kind of film he would presumably have made many more of had he not opted to take the studio shilling instead. It also, inevitably, makes you wonder what British cinema has been missing all these years.

Hurt, for his part, has largely resisted the lure of American cinema. He has worked there on occasion, on invitation, but has never been part of a franchise and never put down roots. "Everyone handles their career in different ways and cuts their cloth accordingly," he says. "I'm interested in small films. I'm not particularly interested in big money. But I'm not going to sit in judgment on other people. Gary did move to the US and he did go down that route, so he clearly felt it was the right thing for him."

Instead, Hurt prefers to see Oldman as another link in the chain, part of a tradition of great British actors ? such as Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant and Richard Burton ? who lit out for Hollywood: all of them connected, all of them unique. The departure of these performers, he suggests, is not so much a loss for the domestic film industry as a gain for the world at large. So we shouldn't get too proprietorial.

"In any case, British cinema doesn't depend on actors. It depends on the education and nurturing of intelligent directors and an intelligent audience. British cinema will always have actors and the actors will come and go." Hurt chuckles. "Thankfully," he adds, "they can always come home again."

Naomi Watts takes leading role in Caught In Flight, the first serious feature biopic about the princess

There have been many films about 9/11, but surprisingly few about 8/31, Britain's own day of trauma ? when Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed.

The announcement of a new film, Caught in Flight, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (who made Downfall) and starring Naomi Watts in the leading role, is the first serious feature biopic about the princess. It reportedly focuses on the last two years of her life.

Cinema has not been entirely silent on this subject. Stephen Frears' The Queen (2006) was all about the media-constitutional crisis in that frantic week between the princess's death and the funeral, but the focus was not on Diana: it was on Helen Mirren's shrewd yet troubled monarch and Michael Sheen's callow prime minister Tony Blair, the heroic survivors of this trauma.

The sucrose French romance Amélie (2001) made a motif of Lady Di, the lonely heroine who died in a Paris underpass.

And last year a conspiracy-theory documentary called Unlawful Killing surfaced at the Cannes film festival, directed by Keith Allen and written by Victor Lewis-Smith, which appeared to take the line promoted by its backer Mohamed Al Fayed, questioning the official version of events.

But really, it is notable how little there has been on screen about our troubled "queen of hearts". It's strange, given that she had such a movie star presence. She was our Sloaney Monroe; in the 80s, when Diana was the jewel of a thousand photo-ops, Camille Paglia said she was the last great silent-movie star.

It's hard to say why Diana's story has been relatively untouched by Hollywood. Royal themes go in and out of fashion: the success of The King's Speech has brought this mode back, and everyone in the US appeared to love the recent royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on TV.

But Madonna's awful film W.E. about the Duchess of Windsor shows that the flummery of British blue-bloods can look stiff and brittle on screen. Incidentally, W.E. featured an actor sympathetically playing Al Fayed.

It could be that Hollywood has been nervous of all the conspiracy stuff that pours out of anyone's computer if they type her name into Google. Or perhaps producers are unsure of what sort of film it should be. Also, the horror of 9/11 overwhelmed the Diana death and the extravagant international display of grief about one woman may continue to embarrass people. This was simply a mightily unhappy ending: a woman who did not fit into a Hollywood template, having met her end while in the company of a playboy who was not obviously sympathetic. Dodi Fayed was a kind of Aristotle Onassis to her Jackie Kennedy ? rich, charming, supportive, but not exactly the handsome storybook prince that Hollywood prefers. And Diana's private life was messy and unhappy.

Well, enough time has gone by to give the Diana death a historical flavour. Hirschbiegel's Downfall concentrated on the final days of Hitler. Perhaps he will now bring that flair for claustrophobic unhappiness and Götterdämmerung to a more vulnerable, sympathetic subject.

Was lifelong Muppets fan Jason Segel starstruck ? and did anyone manage to out-diva Miss Piggy?

LL Cool J told people "don't call it a comeback" (1). However, a lot of people have described your upcoming film as a "comeback" for the Muppets. Are you more favourably disposed to that word than LL Cool J?

I'm with LL Cool J on this. (He and I go way back. In fact, as a frog, I was hip to hop before it was hip-hop.) For me, it's not really a comeback because we didn't go anywhere. The Muppets have been up to lots of stuff on television, in books and even on the internet. We just haven't been in a movie in a few years, but when we heard they were making a movie titled The Muppets and they were looking for a few good frogs, pigs, bears and whatevers, we knew it was time to get back up on the big screen.

How was it being working with Jason Segel? He has said that working with you was a lifelong dream come true, so did you have to put him at ease? He must have been very star-struck.

Jason is so talented and funny, a great comic actor who reminds me a lot of Fozzie Bear. Once he got over the fact that he was working with us, he relaxed and had a great time. Of course, Miss Piggy insisted he call her "your majesty", but she does that to all of us.

You've worked with more celebrities than you'd find in an entire year's worth of People magazine. Who has been your favourite and why?

I would never pick one celebrity over another, except in the case of Miss Piggy, who is always my favourite, especially when she's sitting in the next room listening to us do this interview. But I did really like Amy Adams. She's beautiful, talented, and if Miss Piggy had let me, would probably have been fun to talk with.

Was it hard acting opposite Michael Caine in that ludicrous nightgown and bedcap that he wore in The Muppet Christmas Carol and not laugh?

Michael Caine can do anything (2) ... and look great doing it (3). I thought he was brilliant in The Muppet Christmas Carol. Heck, I thought he was great in Jaws 4 (4). As for the ludicrous nightgown and cap, I liked it. Personally, I sleep naked (come to think of it, I do most everything naked; it's a frog thing), but the nightgown-bed cap look is coming back.

There have been stories that The Muppet Show is returning to TV. Is this true, fingers crossed?

I have my flippers crossed. But I really can't say anything about this, not only because I'm sworn to secrecy, but also because they don't usually tell me about it until five minutes before we're supposed to go on the air.

That show seemed to cause you an enormous amount of stress.

There's good stress and bad stress. Good stress is working hard to pull together entertainment. Bad stress is working hard to avoid marrying a pig. My most stressful moments came when I had to go up to Miss Piggy's dressing room to tell her we cut her number. Yeesh!

Who were the biggest divas on that show? I bet it was Waldorf and Statler.

Statler and Waldorf aren't really divas. They are curmudgeons, critics, and hecklers, but they come to every show, so I'm not complaining. They keep us honest. No, if you want a diva, I'd have to say Miss Piggy. And she admits it. In fact, she's president of the Hollywood Diva Association, as well as winner of their Irrational Tantrum Award three years running.

There are lots of celebrity couples but you and Miss Piggy really are the cream of the crop. Do you have any advice to the others on how to handle their relationship in the public eye?

Well, it's true that Miss Piggy and I have been a couple for a long time. In fact, we're the longest-running interspecies couple in Hollywood. But even if you date within your own species (which I recommend, though I don't have a choice), the best thing you can do when you're trying to have a celebrity relationship is this: never ever agree to do a reality show. Reality and celebrity don't mix. Fun to watch, but not pretty to live through.

It is, as you know, quite the trend for celebrity couples to have a cute name: Brangelina, Bennifer, etc. How should we refer to you and Miss Piggy?

We did try to trademark the names "Permit" and "Kiggy" but they never really caught on.

How are you two getting on? You've had your ups and downs.

I know Piggy would like there to be more to our relationship, but like a lot of frogs, I'm just not ready to commit yet. As for Piggy, she's OK with that. She's an independent pig who can handle herself, and anyone else who gets in her way.

Has it gotten any easier being green in this post-racial Obama era?

Green is what I want to be, which is a good thing, because being a frog is not like being a chameleon: you don't get a lot of choices in terms of colouring.

What are your thoughts on the 2012 election?

I don't get too involved in politics, but I am an amphibitarian. I'm in favour of wetlands, green jobs (that's jobs for anyone who is green) and I'm opposed to interspecies marriage between pigs and frogs.

The Muppets still engender the same affection as they did 30 years ago. Why?

I don't know how we do it. We're just us (5). And I guess it's that honesty, the fact that we're not perfect, that helps people see themselves in the Muppets. Everyone has friends who are just like us ? an overwhelmed frog, an overbearing pig, a joke-telling bear, a crazy drummer and all the rest. When you laugh at the Muppets, I think you're laughing at life.

None of you seem to have aged in the past 30 years. What moisturiser do you use?

I don't know about the rest of the gang, but personally I soak up to my neck in pond scum one hour every day.

Where, exactly, is the Rainbow Connection? I've been looking for years

It's inside you. You have to listen for it, then follow that voice, that dream. Pretty soon you meet other people who hear it, too. And the more people you share your dreams with, the better it gets.

Footnotes

1 In his seminal hip-hop song, Mama Said Knock You Out, which has yet ? to our knowledge ? to be covered by the Muppets. 2 Not necessarily true, as anyone who has seen Jaws 4 can testify. 3 Again, not really true. He did not look so good battling killer bees in The Swarm. 4 Proof, were proof needed, that the Muppets are kinder than Guardian journalists. 5 It helps that they appear not to have aged in 30 years, which Kermit puts down to his daily regime of sitting in pond scum for an hour.

Video: The director and star explain how Freud and Jung's work went some way to forming our modern mindset

The expat British star of The Woman in Black talks about gothic horror, awards season madness and cross-dressing with Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs

When Janet McTeer gets homesick in New York, she does as many expats do: she reaches for the Downton. "It's fantastic," she says, over boiled eggs and soldiers on the Upper West Side. "I am completely addicted. Did you see that scene when Maggie Smith almost falls out of the chair? I pressed rewind on that so many times. It made me laugh until I peed myself. And that hadn't happened in a very long time."

Like Downton Abbey, McTeer is proving a durable UK export. She is currently scaring up a storm in The Woman in Black, a moody gothic adaptation of the novel by Susan Hill, which serves as a vehicle for Daniel Radcliffe's emergence into a post-Potter world. McTeer plays a grieving mother whom viewers quickly twig is completely deranged. Her approach is game, rompy. She sinks her Rada-honed fangs into the scenery with abandon, but her character is never cartoonish, always sympathetic. "I tried to be extremely real and normal for the first minute," she says, "and then in the second minute I go bonkers."

The Woman in Black is the high-profile, high-grossing, high-camp title in what's shaping up to be a year of McTeer. The high acclaim is Albert Nobbs, for which both she and Glenn Close have earned Oscar nominations for their roles as women who live as men in 19th-century Dublin ? in McTeer's case, complete with wife. Though McTeer's gruff-voiced house painter won't fool audiences for long (after about half an hour, a show-stopping flash confirms things), it's a great fit. Aged 50, classically trained McTeer is as limber at this kind of leap as she is at ease with The Woman in Black's nouveau Hammer horror.

"There are some roles that are a no-brainer. You just have a sure, instinctive 'Yes!' I could have looked at Albert Nobbs and been all logical about it. But there just wasn't a choice. You look at it and go: 'Of course!'" Her gut proved right. She's fresh back from yet another awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Well, fresh-ish. "It was a crap flight. I'm too tall. You can't lie down." (She's 6ft 1in.) Generally, though, she's having a blast. "You either dread it [the awards season] or decide it is going to be fun."

McTeer is notably unpretentious uncompany. Born in Newcastle, raised in York, she took a job aged 16 serving coffee in the York theatre. She could meet boys and see shows for free. "I remember thinking: 'Wow. This is where I belong.'" But her relaxed attitude to celebrity also stems from the fact that this is her second bite of the cherry. In 1999, McTeer won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination as a strung-out single mother in the Sundance hit Tumbleweeds, a part she landed off the back of the Tony she picked up for a Broadway transfer of The Doll's House.

She had her ride on the Tinseltown roundabout, then hopped off and went back to Blighty for eclectic TV work (Marple, Psychoville), niche cinema (Terry Gilliam's Tideland, Kenneth Branagh's As You Like It) and heavy-duty stage roles such as Mary, Queen of Scots in Schiller's Mary Stuart, a part she reprised on Broadway three years ago, since when she has been a US resident (she is married to a native New Yorker). "I used to feel I wasn't really English until I came here," she smiles. "Now I feel like I am really English."

These days ? between the awards dos and press calls ? she's shooting the fourth series of TV show Damages; again alongside Close, whose praises she sings. "I have always been drawn to strong and interesting women. People who have navigated that world before you and maintained their integrity and sense of self."

McTeer herself has survived through talent and tenacity. She doesn't like to be pigeon-holed. Her heroines were never her own peers, always older women who continued to work well. "I always imagine myself keeping working along their lines," she says.She clearly has a dream role in mind. "Maybe I will get Maggie Smith's role in the remake of Downton Abbey in 20 years' time."

? The Woman in Black is released in the UK on Friday 10 February 2012. Albert Nobbs will be out later in the year.

John Michael McDonagh's acerbic black comedy beat the competition and became the award's first non-British winner

John Michael McDonagh sounds delighted to win the Guardian first film award. "I'm really chuffed," he says, via telephone from Australia, where he's on holiday. "It's terrific. I read over the longlist and thought there were a lot of very strong films there. Snowtown is one of my favourite films of the year, Attack the Block is probably the best British film of the year ? so to come out on top, I'm pretty surprised and very pleased."

McDonagh's black comedy The Guard, which pairs Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle in an acerbically funny film about a wily Irish copper and a straight-arrow FBI agent taking on drug smugglers, defeated all comers, including Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur, Richard Ayoade's Submarine, and David Michôd's Animal Kingdom ? becoming, in the process, the first non-British winner of the award. (Previous winners include Unrelated, Sleep Furiously and, last year, The Arbor.)

But McDonagh is wary of being a poster-boy for Irish cinema. "I was born in Elephant & Castle, and I live in Camberwell. Because my name is Irish, and I'm identified with a Irish movie, people assume things ? apart from summers in Ireland I've barely set foot outside London for 45 years. It's a strange one."

The way he tells it, his decision to relocate, cinematically, across the Irish Sea was born of practicality, if not desperation. "I never got backing from the British film industry; the backing I got was from Ireland. I've been writing screenplays since I was 24, and I've been trooping in and out of film company offices in London for 20 years ? and got nowhere. These guys give you advice on how to improve your script, while they make the same crappy movies they've always made. It was frustrating.

"To be honest, most producers in Britain are liars, thieves or morons. It makes me sound bitter, but you take your encouragement from where you get it, and I got mine from Ireland."

Mentioning the "M" word ? his brother, In Bruges director Martin ? is less of a sore point than you might think. "The whole foundation of The Guard was because I was friendly with a lot of Irish actors through my brother's theatre work. I had a feeling that if I could get the money, it would all fall into place quickly ? which it did. When you walk on to a set and you know most of the people, it's still nerve-racking, but it feels a bit easier. As it turned out, the shoot was a breeze."

McDonagh admits to being a tad cheesed off at the way his brother beat him to a feature film debut, but is happy that "the positives outweigh the negatives". "It's understandable that critics compare us, especially as we've only made one film each. It'll only be after we've made our second and third films that there'll hopefully be a clearer differentiation."

As far as that goes, McDonagh says he's planning to go "arthouse" for his next film, a clerical child abuse drama called Calvary ? again starring Gleeson. "I had an unexpected success with The Guard, so now I want to go out on a limb a bit," he says. "People can smell a fake a mile off. I'm in the business of making big movies, that can be accepted anywhere. You're trying to tell a sincere story, and if that offends, so be it."

Big black streaks, bulging muscles and no Matt Damon. What can this poster for The Bourne Legacy starring Jeremy Renner be telling us?

1 High-stakes smudging

Glance and you'd be forgiven for thinking it's just an iffy printout. What's with the big black streaks? The weird smear on "Legacy"? After a second, you twig: it's intentional ? a moody, on-trend redacted design concept. Still, your first thought may be of paper jams.

2 Fridge magnet tagline

The message comes over loud and clear: yeah, so Matt Damon went and quit the franchise, but whatever! Plenty more fish in the sea. Yet this layout lends itself to the cheap shuffle ("Was there just one? Never!) as well as being a gift for those who like graffiting posters in Tube stations. The mind boggles at the prospect of what will be filled into the blanks.

3 His own man

I think we can all agree that Jeremy Renner looks absolutely nothing like his predecessor. The tight grey T-shirt. Those bulging biceps. The knotted brow and the short back and sides (hair colour apparently tbc). The vaguely puggy features. It wouldn't at all be the case that were you to move that black band currently over his nose up a bit you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

4 Diminutive antagonist

Renner is aiming very low. Is is foe sitting down? Could it be a child? A kitten? A lovely puppy? Could the new Bourne even be about to blast apart a new-born? Gritty is one thing; that's just grim.

Video: In the third of a nine-part series leading up to the Oscars, Catherine Shoard explains why Woody Allen deserves the picture prize, even if Midnight in Paris is only his 27th best film

'Horribly funny' Irish movie debut by John Michael McDonagh beats Submarine and Attack the Block

A debut film that became the most successful independently funded Irish movie ever has won the Guardian First Film Award. The Guard, directed by John Michael McDonagh, is a black comedy about a cynical, boozy policeman played by Brendan Gleeson, who takes on three drug dealers. Gleeson was nominated for a Golden Globe for the role.

Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw, one of the judges, said it was a work of "originality and wit ? horribly funny, deliciously incorrect, with an unexpectedly stirring, old-fashioned friendship between two lawmen."

In a strong year for film debuts, The Guard beat the Tyrannosaur, Submarine, and Attack the Block to win the prize. McDonagh, who was born in London but made his film in Ireland, described his win as terrific. "I read over the long list and thought there were a lot of very strong films there, so to come out on top, I'm pretty surprised and very pleased." He is working on a more "arthouse" film, Calvary, about clerical child abuse, with Gleeson in the lead role.

The Guardian First Album Award was taken by Glass Swords, a "maximalist" dance record by Rustie. It combines a dizzying patchwork of influences from 1980s power ballads to hip-hop into what one critic described as "the sound of uninhibited, unironic hands-in-the-air joy". Glass Swords was created by Russell Whyte, 29, who said his album aimed to create on record the "sense of euphoria" he got from going out in Glasgow's club scene.

Stephen Christian, head of A&R at Rustie's label Warp Records, said the record has "an inherent energy you don't find in a lot of electronic music. He's creating music out of these scraps of pop past."

Rustie beat albums by artists including Anna Calvi, James Blake, the Vaccines and Wu-Lyf. He said: "It feels great and surreal to win the first album award from the Guardian, one of the few decent newspapers out there."

The First Album Award judges included Guardian music critics Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers, and last year's winner, Gold Panda.

Now in their fourth year, the Guardian First Film and First Album awards aim to throw a spotlight on emerging talent that may not have received the recognition it deserves.