Unofficial blog providing news about Welsh singer Duffy. Photos, reviews and interviews are charted here. If you have any pics/vids to share please leave a comment.
Duffy arrives in Downing Street on March 29, 2011 in London, England. Aimee Ann Duffy, known as Duffy, attended a meeting hosted by the charity 'Save The Children'.
ABOVE: Duffy, Lord Coe and Natasha Kaplinski attend Save The Children's 'No Child Born to Die' event supported by Save the Children Ambassador Samantha Cameron at Downing St on March 29, 2011 in London, England. The campaign was launched in January this year to try and save eight million children who die around the world each year from treatable illnesses.
Duffy is leading the 'Born to Sing' part of the campaign, which promotes fund raising through performing. Born to Sing is also supported by The X Factor 2010's finalists.
ABOVE: Duffy with Samantha Cameron and charity child fundraisers Josh and Gabrielle Black aged 9 and 10 from Ayreshire.
As you may know, the Soundtrack to the Patagonia Movie was recently released, complete with two new songs sung by Duffy, one in Spanish and one in Welsh.
Tracklist:
1. Desearia (Hope There's Someone) - Duffy 2. Opening Titles 3. Welcome To Patagonia 4. To Patagonia 5. Redondel (The Circle Song) - Kirsty Almeida 6. Sun to Museum 7. Road to Bed 8. Dyma gariad fel y moroedd - Bryn Terfel 9. Heroic to Missing 10. Sad Sad Feet - Cate le Bon 11. Stars to Tango 12. Mi Buenos Aires Querido - Carlos Gardel 13. Ripped to Wet 14. Tyrd Ir Ogof - Meic Stevens 15. Duerme Negrito - Kirsty Almeida 16. Rain to Underwater 17. Grave to Cholila 18. Ar Lan Y Mor - Duffy 19. Patagonia
Thanks to all involved (DM especially) who have made these songs, the Welsh and Spanish lyrics and English translations available to the Duffy fans around the world. Here they are:
Desearía que cuidaras de mí si me voy, si muero. La esperanza nunca la perdí, ni el valor del consuelo. Si me cuentas, mi amor, dime siempre la verdad. Libre es el corazón y tan dulce de verdad. Desearía saber que estás aquí, no sentirme abandonada. Tengo miedo de estar en el lugar entre la luz y la nada. Si me cuentas, mi amor, dime siempre la verdad. Libre es el corazón y tan dulce la verdad. Desearía sentirme junto a ti descansar mi cabeza. En la vida eres todo para mí, la alegría y la tristeza. Desearía que cuidaras de mí, si me voy, si me muero. Qué alegría, me haces tan felíz. Qué alegría, yo te quiero.
Original English Lyrics to "Hope There's Someone":
Hope there's someone Who'll take care of me When I die, will I go Hope there's someone Who'll set my heart free Nice to hold when I'm tired There's a ghost on the horizon When I go to bed How can I fall asleep at night How will I rest my head Oh I'm scared of the middle place Between light and nowhere I don't want to be the one Left in there, left in there There's a man on the horizon Wish that I'd go to bed If I fall to his feet tonight Will allow rest my head So here's hoping I will not drown Or paralyze in light And godsend I don't want to go To the seal's watershed Hope there's someone Who'll take care of me When I die, Will I go Hope there's someone Who'll set my heart free Nice to hold when I'm tired
Ar Lan Y Môr
Welsh Lyrics: Ar lan y môr mae rhosys cochion Ar lan y môr mae lilis gwynion Ar lan y môr mae 'nghariad inne Yn cysgu'r nos a chodi'r bore.
Ar lan y môr mae carreg wastad Lle bum yn siarad gair âm cariad O ddeutu hon fe dyf y lili Ac ambell sprig o rosmari.
Ar lan y mor mae tawod melyn Ar lan y mor mae ton ac ewin Ar lan y mor mae hen atgofion sydd o hyd yn torri nghalon
Ar lan y mor mae cri’r wylan Ar lan y mor mae mam a'i baban Ar lan y mor ymhell o Gymru Mae na un y rwyf ei garu
English Translation: By the sea shore there are red roses By the sea shore there are white lilies By the sea shore my love and I Sleep the night and rise at daybreak
By the sea shore there's a flat stone where we spoke about love around it grow the lilies and a few sprigs of rosemary
By the sea shore there is yellow sand By the sea shore there are waves and foam By the sea shore there are old memories that still break my heart
By the sea shore the cry of the seagull By the sea shore there's a mother and her baby By the sea shore far from Wales there's someone who I love
This Telegraph article shows us why Duffy looks like she is visiting a recently extinguished active Volcano in the above photo..... No, she didn't take a quick holiday to see the old Planet Of the Apes set in Tenerife.... She was just standing in front of the stage for Chanel's Autumn/Winter 2011 show at Paris Fashion Week. Duh!
Thx to Gui for the five photos below (credit: Carlos Eduardo)
The answer was a one-liner similar in wording to what we have read in a couple of articles. Here is is in it's entirety:
Hi Danyelle,
Thanks for your email
With regard to the below, Duffy is taking a break before starting work on her next album
Cheers
As you can see, it doesn't answer the second question, so I promptly emailed back to confirm whether the second single would be released or not...and then got this reply:
That’s correct it won’t be released
Thanks
So at this stage it looks like the second single will not be released. Who knows whether this means bonus track "Tell Me" is lost forever. It seems to me though that, since Duffy is making a few public appearances right now, it would be a great time to release a second single - even if it was just a download-only.
The Telegraph have the following article about Patagonia. With all this press it is a real shame that a second single wasn't released to coincide with the movie. :-(
Duffy: My role is like the misfit I used to be The Welsh pop star tells Bernadette McNulty that she didn't have to look too far from home to find inspiration for her acting debut. By Bernadette McNulty, The Telegraph
'Patagonia is so alluring because it is almost like an imaginary place, like El Dorado. Does it have a flag? Or borders? Nobody knows.” Cardiff-born director Marc Evans is explaining to me the ideas behind his new film, Patagonia. It is a gorgeous, tender road movie set half in the inhospitable desert of Patagonia, the Argentinian colony established by Welsh settlers in the 19th century, and half in the lush mountains of Wales. Interweaving two stories – in one, a thirtysomething Cardiff couple travel to South America and find their relationship unravelling; in the other, an old Patagonian woman, Cerys, returns to the country of her ancestors with a young neighbour, Alejandro, in tow – the film portrays both the dream of flight and the impossibility of escape. Patagonia was, says Evans, “the perfect place to make a film about the duality of leaving and longing. If you stay somewhere you want to leave. And if you go somewhere there is always a desire to come back.” Patagonia also happens to star Wales’s biggest pop star of the past few years, Duffy, in her first acting role. The 26-year-old singer has a small but pivotal part as Sissy, the alluring Welsh student with whom Alejandro strikes up a sweet holiday romance. Appropriately for a film about chance encounters, it was a dashing gesture from the director that persuaded the singer to make the leap onto the big screen. “I had a lot of interest in film and it was something that I was considering when I received a romantic and heartfelt letter from Marc,” Duffy says. “It said all the right things, comparing my presence to all these beautiful actresses. As a girl I was wooed.” Evans, who is married to the film’s lead actress, Nia Roberts, explains: “From Duffy’s style, I knew that her influences were very cinematic. I knew from [the promotional video she made for her single] Rockferry that I would get reaction – the most important part in film acting. And that’s exactly what I got. “My favourite bit with Duffy in the film is when she is saying goodbye to Alejandro at the bus stop. Not only has she got mascara running down her cheek but she wipes it away. That is about being in the moment.” Sissy, Duffy says, “is a bit like the misfit I used to represent. You get a bit more polished as you get older. You learn to hold your champagne glass by the stem rather than at the top. In the past I would have probably been holding the bottle.” In her scenes as a siren-like, ukulele-playing character, Duffy gives the film a real lift, filling the screen with the glamorous, enigmatic presence of an old-fashioned movie actress such as Diana Dors or Julie Christie. She also seems impressively natural, despite having to cover a lot of emotional ground in a short time, from an intimate love scene to a funeral and a tearful farewell. 'I know as a young woman you make mistakes. The twist between real love and holiday romance is so bitter sweet,” she says. “I liked that [Sissy] didn’t mind what people think of her. She was totally at one with herself. And she has a liberty because she is a nobody. “She reminded me of part of my former self who didn’t care,” she adds, wistfully. Patagonia seamlessly shifts between Welsh and Spanish with only a smattering of English, another reason Evans approached Duffy, who he knew had grown up speaking Welsh as her first language. “I thought it was really good that the first film Duffy would make would be in Welsh. But then of course I didn’t realise she would actually be speaking Spanish for most of it,” he says, laughing. “I hate the mythology that when an English man goes into a pub in Wales, he thinks everyone starts speaking Welsh — the presumption being that they would rather speak English and that they do it to exclude the person,” Evans continues. “It is the language we use and by putting it next to Spanish, it made it seem less political.” Accustomed to being the centre of attention, the young pop star clearly enjoyed the more collaborative process of making a film. “It was nice to be inconspicuous, to be a part of something and to be following rather than leading,” she says. “It is an innocent place to be, whereas when you are a leader it is quite scary.” Cautious about revealing what her next film project might be, Duffy is proud of her first step in this perfect vehicle for her old-fashioned style. “Smokey Robinson said he wrote about love because it was everlasting. It is the one emotion that will still remain. The world may completely change but we will still probably love each other,” she says. “I like to go for the more fundamental rules of existence. I think this is what this film stands for.”
The 3 photos below are credited to The Cardiffian, Rich Welbirg, who reports:
Welsh starlet Duffy, 26, dazzled on the red carpet promoting her first movie Patagonia last night at Chapter Arts, Cardiff. Duffy, 26, was accompanied by boyfriend, Welsh rugby ace Mike Phillips, 28, and the pair gazed lovingly into each others eyes between interviews.
JUST 24 hours after the star-studded London premiere of her debut film, Duffy was at a small independent cinema in Cardiff last night for the Welsh launch of Patagonia.
But the Grammy Award-winning singer arrived late for the screening after she and rugby star boyfriend Mike Philips got caught in the capital’s rush-hour traffic.
She later teamed up with director Marc Evans and some of her co-stars, including Nia Roberts and Matthew Gravelle, for the red carpet event at Chapter Arts Centre.
Following the exclusive screening, she was due to entertain guests at the after-show party on a makeshift stage.
Hollywood actor Matthew Rhys, who also stars in the road movie, was unable to attend due to filming commitments in Los Angeles for the ABC series Brothers & Sisters.
But among the VIP guests who were sent invitations to the screening, which also marked the launched of the Wales One World (WOW) Film Festival, were Charlotte Church and members of the Welsh rugby team.
The night before the Welsh premiere the stars had been at the Odeon in Covent Garden for the London showing.
Actress Roberts, wearing a cream chiffon blouse and navy shorts, said: “It was amazing. I have never experienced anything like it before. We wanted to take the film out of Wales but it was really important to us to premiere in Cardiff tonight and invite the people we wanted there.”
Patagonia is Evans’ eagerly-awaited film which explores the bonds shared by Wales and the eponymous South American Welsh-speaking region of Patagonia.
It features two different stories – one is about a Welsh woman travelling East to West through the Argentine autumn, while the other is about a Patagonian woman travelling South to North through the Welsh springtime. Duffy plays an aspiring singer living in a caravan park in North Wales who strikes up a romance with a young man from Patagonia.
She said of her character Sissy: “I based her on who I used to be – this girl who was a bit of a misfit, didn’t fit into the small town, who used to long for the big smoke.
“ So it was nice to go back and be captured that way.
“I don’t know if it felt like acting really. I heard a really great bit of advice once – the way to be a good actor is to not act.
“There was no pretence really.”
And it’s not just her singing talents which are showcased – she proves an expert on the ukulele too. The 26-year-old, who is from Nefyn, had to teach herself how to play the instrument especially for the role.
“Music is part of our culture in Wales, we’re very musical, so it didn’t feel as if I was going back to my roots as a singer,” she said. “It just feels like a kid from Wales would be able to sing a hymn and play the ukulele, so I happily took that on.”
As far as director Evans is concerned, Duffy is a natural in her first acting role.
“Duffy is a real discovery as an actress – she looks comfortable and she does amazingly well in the film,” said the Cardiff-born film-maker whose previous successes include My Little Eye, Trauma, House of America and Snow Cake.
“She was keen not to be ‘Duffy the singer’ in something. She’s very busy, as she’s so successful, so we thought it was far better for her to take a smaller part in something where the whole film doesn’t rest on her being in it, than to expose herself in something bigger.
“Welsh is her first language, but most of her lines are in Spanish, she can act and be herself on camera – and I think we captured that girl from a small town in Wales.”
The seeds of the film were sown when producer Rebekah Gilbertson, director Evans and actress Roberts – who also happens to be Evans’ wife – set off on a recce to Patagonia, intending to do the research to make a historical epic.
“In Wales, we’ve all grown up with the Welsh/Patagonian myth,” said Evans.
“A lot of Welsh boys have got an obsession with Patagonia, as it’s a unique adventure in our history. We learn about the early settlers, but no-one’s quite sure where or what Patagonia is.
“On our way back from our recce, I’d come up with a different idea – of an old woman travelling to Wales in search of her past, and a young couple travelling to Patagonia in search of their future.
“So we decided to make a contemporary road movie for romantics, instead of the historical epic.”
During their trip they also bumped into old friend Matthew Rhys who was in Patagonia filming a documentary.
Rhys said: “One day, truly in the middle of nowhere, I heard, ‘Oy Matthew!’ and there were Marc, Nia and Rebekah, who had tracked me down.”
He plays Patagonian guide Mateo, who falls for Gwen, played by Roberts, when she is visiting the area with her photographer boyfriend Rhys, played by Gravelle.
For Rhys, the part of Mateo was “everything I would ever want from a job”.
He said: “The script description was an Argentinean James Dean, and I thought: ‘Brilliant!’ But what I really liked about Mateo were the flaws behind the façade of the Zippo lighter and the rugged jeans.”
