First glimpse finds him silhouetted against a window, gazing at an object held aloft while something classical swirls in the background.

Is it the text of a play; a letter; poor Yorick’s skull, perchance?

Alas for those who like their actors more rock ’n’ roll than scroll ’n’ drag, it turns out to be an iPad. Dominic Cooper is catching up on his e-mails. “Business is being achieved,” he says jokily in a London accent that sits nicely between the National Theatre and a night out with his best mate, James Corden.

“You don’t like the look of that, I can tell,” he teases. “You didn’t agree with that at all.”

It’s been six years since Cooper first played the part of Dakin the charmer in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, and there’s still a lot of the playground wag about him, the clever lad who is good for a giggle but who also knows his way around a classic or two.

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Gemma Arterton and Dominic Cooper are getting down and dirty in the country in new British comedy ‘Tamara Drew.’ They explain about their characters and reveal who really seduces who on screen.

To view the interview click here.

Comic strips have long been a rich mine of inspiration for movie makers – and Tamara Drewe has proved to be no exception.

Posy Simmonds’ original cartoon ran in The Guardian for just two years, but it gained such a following it was turned into a graphic novel.

Now director Stephen Frears has taken Tamara to the big screen, with Bond girl Gemma Arterton in the lead role alongside Mama Mia’s Dominic Cooper and Tamsin Greig of Green Wing fame.

Revealing what appealed to him about Tamara Drewe, Frears said: “The script made me laugh. It’s very, very funny and very sexy and a very contemporary, modern film.”

The plot is pretty familiar: Tamara’s a city girl returning to the village of her birth, and breaking male hearts wherever she goes.

Then there is the local farmer’s son she had a teenage fling with (before the nose job), Cooper’s bed-hopping rock star and famous writer Nicholas (Roger Allam), whose long-suffering wife Beth (Greig) runs a writers’ retreat while he indulges his love of younger women behind her back.

Released on September 10, the film cleverly weaves comedy and dark themes – infidelity and death among them – but there are enough gags to keep it moving along.

Originally, the comic strip was loosely inspired by Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd and the film also tips its hat to the classic novel with Cooper’s drumming seduction of Tamara a modern echo of Sergeant Troy’s swashbuckling sword play.

Frears – whose credits include The Queen, Dirty Pretty Things and Dangerous Liaisons – added: “Comic strips are normally Superman or about superheroes, but this is a comic strip which is also intelligent about things you recognise.

“I’ve never made a film like this – I had to completely rethink how I do things.”

To view the interview with Dominic Cooper and Gemma Arterton click here.

The National Theatre is pleased to announce a special encore broadcast of Phèdre, by Jean Racine in a version by Ted Hughes starring Helen Mirren (The Queen) and Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia! film), directed by Nicholas Hytner on September 23, 2010. Phèdre was originally performed live on June 25, 2009, launching the National’s initiative to broadcast performances to cinemas worldwide. This encore broadcast heralds the second season of National Theatre Live, beginning this fall.

The first season of National Theatre Live was seen by over 150,000 people on 320 screens in 22 countries.

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We’ve got one pair of tickets up for grabs!

The UK premiere of Tamara Drewe, will be taking place on Monday 6th September, and you could be there too!

With a full British cast and crew, this is set to be the premiere of the year and has already received outstanding reviews from its special screening out of competition at the Cannes festival. All of the cast are expected to attend the premiere including Gemma Arterton and Dominic Cooper.

For more information click here. Please note you do need to make an account with the site to enter.

Dominic Cooper admits he can’t sing, despite appearing in 2008 musical movie ‘Mamma Mia!’ alongside Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried.

Dominic Cooper can’t sing.

The British actor – who starred as the hunky Sky in 2008 musical movie ‘Mamma Mia!’ – always wanted to be a musician but had trouble when he tried to start bands as a youth because he was “dreadful”, though he blames his upbringing.

He said: “I was in bands. I was the lead singer. They were dreadful. I couldn’t sing. They were all not very good.

“There was a terrible sort of mixture of one brother who is into kind of bad 80s, Nick Kershaw and Duran Duran and a much older brother who is into soul and my mother who is into classical music… it was an amalgamation of very different music styles which came out as something quite appalling.”

However, Dominic admits he did discover a passion for the drums while filming the role of rocker Ben in romantic comedy ‘Tamara Drewe’ – although it was short-lived.

He joked to BANG Showbiz: “I had some lessons and got really into it and loved it and then went completely over the top and purchased a drum kit, and then I got letters from the local council asking me to leave the premises immediately.

“Of course as soon as the film wrapped, the drums went into a box and I’ve never seen them again.”

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Tamara Drewe star Dominic Cooper says he likes visiting home.

Going home makes Dominic Cooper feel settled according to the gorgeous star.

Star stud Dominic Cooper admits he likes to return to the south London district of Greenwich – where he grew up – because it helps him get away from the unsettling feeling he can have as an actor.

The hunk, who has starred in such films as box office hit Mamma Mia, said: “When you spend so much time away from home and doing things like this and talking about yourself too much it can be very painful. But actually going home among people who know you extremely well and you can’t be anything other than yourself, it’s a relief, really. It gives you a sense of who you are again. It’s an existence of feeling very unsettled.”

The 32-year-old says he thinks his friends keep him grounded because he has hung out with the same people since he was young.

He said: “If you are lucky enough to have a group of friends and family somewhere – all my friends I’ve known since I was at school when I was four or five – it’s perfect.

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