{"id":613217,"date":"2026-09-11T21:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T21:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/613217\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T21:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T21:36:12","slug":"rhys-ifans-laura-linney-john-madden-talk-onwards-and-sideways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/613217\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhys Ifans, Laura Linney & John Madden Talk ‘Onwards and Sideways’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Rhys Ifans<\/a> and Laura Linney<\/a> boarded\u00a0Onwards and Sideways<\/a>, John Madden<\/a>\u2019s latest feature about two characters whose lives are turned upside down when they are diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease, the burden of responsibility was heavy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve never been so nervous in my life,\u201d Linney tells Deadline in advance of the film\u2019s premiere at the Toronto<\/a> International Film Festival this weekend. \u201cThere was the initial thrill of being asked to do it, and then there was the horrifying realization that I was going to have to do this in a way that didn\u2019t look ridiculous and wasn\u2019t insulting to everyone who had Parkinson\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIfans agrees. \u201cIt felt like a huge responsibility because you\u2019re literally representing a demographic that has to live with this disease for the rest of their lives,\u201d he says. \u201cI really felt the weight of that responsibility and the urgency to get it right at every single turn, and we had a lot of help to do that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat help came in part from the script\u2019s writer Paul Mayhew-Archer, who was diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s in 2011. The\u00a0Esio Trot\u00a0and\u00a0The Vicar of Dibley\u00a0scribe has co-hosted an award-winning podcast about the condition, dubbed\u00a0Movers and Shakers, and also stars in the film. The personal element to the script was a major driver for Ifans, Linney and Madden.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt opens you up through laughter, and then it devastates you,\u201d says Ifans, who has been attached to the project for a decade. \u201cI love watching that combination, and I love acting in that friction too. I find it very satisfying. Parkinson\u2019s is never really far away from the door. We all know someone or know of someone who is suffering from it \u2013 I do \u2013 and I wanted to learn more. I thought this was a wonderful vehicle to showcase a condition that affects so many millions of people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOnwards and Sideways, which plays as a TIFF<\/a> Gala Presentation on Sunday, sees Ifans play Tony, a deputy headteacher of a primary school in England, while Linney plays Emma, a musician and composer and single mother of two daughters. Neither knows the other until a startling encounter changes the course of their lives and, on the same morning, they are both confronted with a diagnosis of Parkinson\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film chronicles their friendship, which unfolds unexpectedly in what is a story of humor, courage, music, movement and the transformative power of human connections. Monica Dolan and Rory Kinnear also star.<\/p>\n

\n\tShakespeare in Love\u00a0and\u00a0The Best Exotic Marigold\u00a0filmmaker Madden directs and the producers are Hilary Bevan Jones at Hilltop Screen, John Gore via John Gore Studios and the BBC. Kaleidoscope Film Distribution is repping worldwide sales for the film, with CAA Media Finance co-repping North America. Icon Film Distribution is releasing the title theatrically in the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMadden saw a first draft of the script in 2018 but couldn\u2019t board the project at the time for a variety of reasons. Six years later, he had become much more aware of the Parkinson\u2019s world and its community as one of his family members had been diagnosed with the disease. When he was approached again with a new draft in 2024, he and Mayhew-Archer and Bevan Jones worked through the material and developed it further.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLaura Linney in \u2018Onwards and Sideways\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBBC\/Hilltop Screen<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s something very specific about Paul\u2019s writing,\u201d says Madden. \u201cHe just has a natural sense of wit that\u2019s not forced in any way. Paul had been diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s in 2011, so by the time I first read the script in 2018, he had lived with it for seven years or so, and this script is his natural response to what happened to him with the illness. It was sort of a defiance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLinney says that upon first read, she was surprised at how \u201crefreshing\u201d the script was. \u201cPaul is the most optimistic of people, and he\u2019s been living with Parkinson\u2019s for a long time,\u201d she says. \u201cGiven all that comes with Parkinson\u2019s and how easily one could just fall into a hole and never get out, it did the opposite for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOnwards and Sideways\u00a0was shot in six weeks in Norfolk, UK. While Mayhew-Archer was on set and, according to Madden, was \u201cat the center\u201d of the whole production, the team also worked with consulting group Neuro Heroes, an expert-led neuro physiotherapy and exercise class group for Parkinson\u2019s, MS and other neurological conditions. As revealed in the film, dancing is good for people with Parkinson\u2019s because it combines exercise, rhythm and social connection to help manage both motor and non-motor symptoms. What\u2019s also revealed is that symptoms differ in each person.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMost people know there is a tremor and that\u2019s about it,\u201d says Linney. \u201cBut there are about 40 different symptoms that are completely bespoke to each person. It\u2019s a very specific but multi-layered condition. So we had choices to make, but then we had to actually execute it. It\u2019s like a fingerprint \u2013 everyone is completely different.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat individuality is important because while Parkinson\u2019s is the context, it is not the entire story. At its heart,\u00a0Onwards and Sideways\u00a0is a film about two people finding each other at a moment when both are particularly vulnerable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs you follow the relationship of Tony and Emma over five years, you get to know each of them individually and what they do for each other,\u201d Linney says. \u201cSo there\u2019s the joy of connection and the depth of that connection. They see something in each other that they don\u2019t quite understand and that doesn\u2019t make sense but is so clearly there. They have an instant bond.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIfans puts it more starkly: \u201cThey are bonded through trauma in a way. They\u2019re welded together and suddenly have more in common with each other than most people do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Tony, who is a widow, the diagnosis becomes an unlikely route out of the isolation in which he has been living. \u201cThere is a paradox of receiving a life-changing, devastating diagnosis where you lose all independence that you ultimately become so dependent on other people,\u201d Ifans says. \u201cBut in Tony\u2019s case, he\u2019s very much a guy who is surviving in a bubble of grief and loneliness, but Parkinson\u2019s allows him to stop grieving and embrace the future. I think only someone like Paul, who is living with the condition, would be able to have those kind of searing insights into what it all means.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Madden, he says that the film has a real sense of authenticity, which is the central balancing act and he\u2019s hopeful it will illuminate Parkinson\u2019s and take audiences in \u201cdirections you hadn\u2019t imagined.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a strange combination between an anatomy of a disease and an emotional journey between these two people and how they come together and find their way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOnwards and Sideways\u00a0world premieres September 13 at TIFF.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Rhys Ifans and Laura Linney boarded\u00a0Onwards and Sideways, John Madden\u2019s latest feature about two characters whose lives…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46,277615,209584,277616,250205,646,647],"class_list":["post-613217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-john-madden","tag-laura-linney","tag-onwards-and-sideways","tag-rhys-ifans","tag-tiff","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}