John Nugent is a journalist and editor, based in London.
- He is currently Reviews Editor at Empire Magazine, the world’s best-selling movie magazine.
- He is a Top Critic at Rotten Tomatoes.
- He has written words for The Guardian, The Skinny, Film4, Londonist, and many others.
- In his spare time, he enjoys cycling, walks on the beach, and referring to himself in the third person.
- He is open to commissions: john@thenuge.co.uk
- For Empire enquiries: john@empiremagazine.com
Some recent work.
An interview with Nicolas Cage.
Nicolas Cage has a mantra. Something
he returns to whenever he has a big decision to make. Lately, he tells Empire, it seems to be coming into play more than ever. “I always ask myself, ‘What would Prince do?’”
[Full article]
An interview with the Coen brothers.
Walking into a room with Joel and Ethan Coen is like walking into the saloon of a one-horse town. But get the brothers talking about Westerns, and it’s as if the honky-tonk piano starts playing again. “Making Westerns somehow seems connected to that play that you used to do as kids,” says Ethan.
[Full article]
A set visit report with Dwayne Johnson.
Long before he became The Rock — when he was merely The Pebble, perhaps — Dwayne Johnson was a freshman in Hawaii. Fast forward 30 years, and Johnson is driving a flame-throwing motorcycle through a jungle half an hour north of his old high school, filming the new Jumanji movie as the highest paid actor in Hollywood. “To be able to come back like this,” he beams, “on a movie of this size, to put a lot of good people to work, it’s very cool.”
[Full article]
An interview with Jodie Foster.
Every Thanksgiving, while family members whipped up a turkey dinner in the kitchen, Jodie Foster would sit in front of the TV and watch The Twilight Zone. “Every single year,” she recalls. “It was like a 48-hour marathon. Non-stop Twilight Zone. It was my favourite thing.”
[Full article]
A reported feature on Grizzly II.
What exactly happened during that fateful shoot in communist Hungary? Why has it taken nearly 40 years for anybody to see the damn thing? And why is it only now emerging from the wilderness? “It was a really crazy thing,” George Clooney says now. “I haven’t seen it. And I actually don’t know that I want to.”
[Full article]
A review of Roma.
There is a devastating emotional coda that will
wrongfoot you, and still leave you feeling
buoyant. Perhaps Roma’s most impressive
feat is its humanism: its understanding of
the chaos of life, and its unerring respect
for those who meet that chaos with love.
Really, Roma feels like a celebration of
what it means to feel alive.
[Full article]
John Nugent 