Don't let the negative threads on this board spoil this film!
So you've just watched Leap Year, enjoyed it and think that Matthew Goode is a bit of alright. Then you look it up on this IMDB board to find out more and you are faced with some really nasty threads about him. You'd be forgiven for thinking - what a shame he is a bit of a *beep* in real life - I did at first. However, I had some time on my hands and investigated further.
During the time he was promoting Leap Year there was an article in the Telegraph that suggested that he had trashed his own movie. A couple of on-line bloggers also jumped on the bandwagon with vitriol and many contributors to this board were really quick to judge and laid into him - hence the really horrible thread titles. It has to be said that many contributors leapt to his defence - but still the nasty stuff remains on this board. I wrote this in answer to some of them -
"Newsflash - interviewers don't always write the truth - they put their own spin on things and quote things out of context. In all of the video interviews about Leap Year I've seen he was positive about the film, the crew, his co-stars, etc. and self deprecating about his own performance/irish accent. This doesn't exactly tally with this one interview in the Telegraph. He was really stitched up by this Telegraph interviewer - and he gets trashed because of it."
Honestly - you'd think he'd killed his own grandmother!
The serious thing is that as a result of this bad publicity, a decent actor faced unemployment. He was badly bruised by the whole affair and suffered financially - his girlfriend Sophie had to keep them afloat while he looked after their baby girl. In an interview in the Independent three years afterwards he said "I never really understood what happened, and it took me two years to recover from. Some agenda on [the interviewer's] part, I think,"
Anyway - he didn't work for a while and in the end had to go to Australia to get a part. Anand Tucker, the director of Leap Year, recommended him to a fellow director. Isn't it interesting that the director of the film he supposedly trashed did this for him??? That speaks volumes to me.
Like all good rom coms there was a happy ending - he put in a Tour de force performance in the low budget, but astonishing, Burning Man in Australia and got his career back on track. He seems to have worked steadily since then in some excellent TV and film parts.
Of course the real rom com ending was that he earned enough to finally marry his Sophie and I for one hope that they live happy ever after.
So - watch the video interviews so you can hear what he actually said about the film and what a lovely bloke he is. Enjoy the film for what it is and ignore the nasty stuff.
BritGirl