Happy (late) Birthday Rupert Friend!

A (belated) Happy Birthday to Rupert Friend (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images North America) best known as Mr. Wickham of Pride & Prejudice (as well as Keira Knightley's boyfriend of 5 years!) and Prince Albert of The Young Victoria. Rupert just turned 29 years old this month (seven days ago), October 1st!

Here's RF's upcoming film projects for 2010/2011 (via IMDB):

• Lullaby for Pi (post-production) (2011) ... Sam 
• 5 Days in August (completed) (2011) ... Thomas Anders
• The Kid (2010) ... Kevin Lewis
• The Continuing and Lamentable Saga of the Suicide Brothers (short) (2010) ... Bourbon (co-writer/co-producer) - available to download on iTunes now!

Also, a new short film, in which Keira Knightley joins Colin Firth in 'Steve' directed by Rupert Friend. Steve has its world premiere in the short cuts and animation section of the London Film Festival on October 21st.

Related Rupert Friend sites:

• Rupert Friend Fan
• Heavenly Rupert Friend
  
• IMDB Listing for Rupert Friend
• Rupert Friend Fansite

 Also, check out and read a few recent Rupert Friend related interviews/articles below...


The Rise Of Rupert Friend (FemaleFirst.co.uk)

Rupert Friend may currently be best know as being the boyfriend of actress Keira Knightely but over the last couple of years he has been establishing himself as one of the country's best young actors.

He broke through in 2004 in The Libertine and since then has mixed an matched his roles as he has slowly built a career for himself. The Libertine saw him star alongside Johnny Depp as Billy Downs, a friend and lover of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester.

But it was his role as Mr Wickham in Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice that shot the young actor to fame, as well as introducing him to a certain Miss Knightley.

The film was a critical and commercial success boosting the careers of all the young cast including Rosamund Pike, Friend and Knightley herself who was trying to shake off her Pirates of the Caribbean tag.

Friend stayed in the British film industry moving on to Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont alongside Joan Plowright.

Based on the novel by Elizabeth Taylor the film followed Mrs Palfrey who, after being all but abandoned by her family, strikes up a friendship with writer Ludovic Meyer.

He next appeared in sword and sandal drama The Last Legion before going on to star alongside Sean Bean and Danny Dyer in Outlaw, both receiving mixed reviews.

After this varying degrees of success 2009 brought the most success for the twenty eight year old and he mixed and matched his role, kicking off with The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas when he took on the role of Lt Kotler.

He followed this up with The Young Victoria, in which he starred alongside Emily Blunt, taking on the role of Prince Albert to Blunt's Queen Victoria. The movie was well received by the critics, and Blunt went on to earn a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Read full article...

Rupert Friend on his new film The Kid (Telegraph.co.uk)

In recent years – roughly the five years since he met Knightley on the set of Pride and Prejudice and they started to date – he’s been reminded of that feeling of pursuit and entrapment. ‘You see it in paparazzi chases,’ he says. ‘As soon as there’s a group, suddenly it becomes a competition: who can push the limit of what you can do?’

In the past he’s talked about fantasising about hitting the photographers who doorstep him, but his general bent is towards pacifism. He tries to avoid trouble by steering clear of ‘London, fashion-y’ events.

Emily Blunt, his co-star in The Young Victoria, describes Friend as the ‘definition of a real man’. His interests are indeed both gentle and manly. ‘Wood is weirdly a big passion of mine,’ he says. ‘I really love it, all the way from trees to a finished table. The fact that it was alive and that each piece is different.’ He loves to cook, but in a dashing, devil-may-care way: ‘I’ve never got on with recipes. Free yourself, throw them out!’
Read full article here...

Film festival's giving Keira the long and the short of it (Daily Mail - Baz Bamigboye)

Keira Knightley does double duty at the London Film Festival. On Wednesday, she shares the screen with Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield in Never Let Me Go, which festival chief Sandra Hebron has chosen to launch the two-week celebration of cinema.

The following week, Keira and Tom Mison play a couple who live in the flat upstairs from Colin Firth  -  who is Steve, the title character in Rupert Friend's 16-minute short film about the unpredictable shenanigans involving the lonely singleton.

Rachel Kennedy, who produced the short with Jess Cole and Rupert, told me the production, shot on location in Hackney, East London, went smoothly.

'Everyone chipped in and helped. No one behaved like a star,' she added. Steve has its world premiere in the short cuts and animation section of the festival on October 21.

It's being shown as part of a series of films with the collective title Close Friends And Family Only, at the National Film Theatre on the South Bank, with a second screening the next day.

Keira, Rupert and Tom Mison feature in a second short called The Continuing And Lamentable Saga Of The Suicide Brothers, directed by Arran and Corran Brownlee, based on a screenplay by Rupert and Tom. That picture's on sale on iTunes.

Read more Rupert Friend/Keira Knightley related articles below...

• Interview: Rupert Friend, actor‎
• Friend's fighting fears‎
• Rupert Friend 'burned by school bullies'‎
• 'The Continuing and Lamentable' Keira Knightly and Rupert Friend