Category Archives: Interview

14 January, 2012 · 8:00 am

Olivia Thirlby interview – Dredd

What was it like wearing your leather Dredd outfit?
I’m totally leather body-suited up! It’s like a proper comic-book action hero. One thing I love about Dredd is its really realistic approach, it’s a very dark and gritty approach, so my look is much less sexy femme fatale and a little bit more like a football player.

Is the new Dredd gritty to counteract Stallone’s cheesy ‘90s adap?
It doesn’t go that way only to separate itself from the former Dredd movie, it takes its air of seriousness and violence from the comics, so our idea was to really honour the world of Mega City One in the comics.

Had you seen the Stallone movie before?
You know I actually still haven’t seen it. I didn’t want to see it before shooting and I haven’t seen it since. It’s definitely on my list of movies to see, but I must admit it’s not at the very top!

What was it like working with Karl Urban?
He is definitely a dude. I loved working with him, he’s so good at what he does. We went through the script and really fleshed out the relationship between Judge Dredd and Anderson, who is a rookie. The movie really rests on the bizarre complexities of their working relationship. We wanted that to be the emotional foundation of the film. Explosions and guns and leather body-suits are great, but they get boring if there’s not a story being told.

Did you ever imagine yourself as an action heroine?
Definitely not! I’ve always hoped I could play some kind of role where I could be a really strong, ass-kicking female. It was a really empowering thing to learn how to fight and use weapons. While I was shooting Darkest Hour is when the role for Dredd came up, so I really had no choice but to dive into these 3D sci-fi action worlds.

You seem to get quite beaten up in The Darkest Hour…
That’s true, I did all my own stunts! It was crazy, I have photographs of the bruises that I had all over my body. I was picked up and dropped on the floor of this bus repeatedly. It was really brutal, but I’m pretty proud of it. Actually, I fractured my foot and that moment is in the movie, so I put my blood sweat and tears into that movie!

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Filed under Dredd, Interview, Olivia Thirlby, Total Film

13 January, 2012 · 8:00 am

Kerry Washington interview – Django Unchained

Kerry Washington can’t tell us anything about Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino’s dusty, now-shooting slave thriller. “I’m not actually at liberty to talk about that yet,” the actress says when TF calls her up for a natter. Really? Has she signed a blood oath that means she’ll answer to The Bride if she lets anything slip? “No, no, I just can’t,” Washington artfully dodges. “But I will. I will soon.”

Damn. Despite TF’s best efforts, the Bronx-hailing actress is remaining tight-lipped about Tarantino’s much-hyped latest. To be fair, it’s no surprise security’s this tight. Tarantino’s first film since 2007 Grindhouse revival Death Proof, Django could be the director’s most daring project yet. What we do know sounds massive: a fist-shaking response to America’s slave trade past, Jamie Foxx is the titular Django, enslaved to Leo DiCaprio’s evil plantation owner, and desperate to be reunited with his wife, played by Washington.

Alright, so Django’s off the menu, but what can Washington talk about? Well, new film Mother And Child, in which she plays a young woman desperate for a child but unable to conceive. Directed by Rodrigo Garcia, Washington shares the screen with Annette Bening and Naomi Watts in a movie that she’s clearly passionate about. “I love this movie,” the actress enthuses at the mere mention of its title. “In a world where women are so often the accessory to the story, to have three really fully developed, three dimensional women on such different journeys… I think it’s a special film.” And Bening? “I love her, she’s been a hero of mine for many years.”

Seeing as we’re talking Hollywood big wigs, how is it working with Leonardo DiCaprio on Django Unchained? “What is your next question?” Washington laughs. Clearly nothing’s getting past this smart cookie. And she is a smart cookie. Having grown up in the Bronx, raised by a professor mother and a real estate broker father, Washington studied at The George Washington University before heading to India to study art and culture (“I really wanted to ground myself before selling my soul to do adverts for Burger King!”).

Did she ever imagine she’d end up working with someone like, say, Tarantino? “No, I mean, I didn’t imagine that I would,” the actress says. “When I was growing up I loved acting and theatre, but I didn’t know anybody who did this for a living. Then I realised people could make a living being an actor, and that was the goal for me. And it continues to be; to be able to do what I love to do.”

For the past decade, Washington has done just that. She played Idi Amin’s doomed wife in The Last King Of Scotland, a spy in Mr & Mrs Smith, and The Thing’s squeeze in both Fantastic Four films. Though she admits that she still has “a comforting level of anonymity”, that’s set to change with upcoming Eddie Murphy comedy A Thousand Words, not to mention Django Unchained, her most high profile gig to date.

OK, TF’s grovelling now. Is there anything Washington can tell us about Django? Is she Tarantino’s new muse? What’s Leo like as a baddie? Her favourite line from the script? “I can’t, but I will,” the actress says, sounding genuinely remorseful. “When I can, I’m sure I will.” We’ll be listening Kerry, we’ll be listening…

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Filed under Django Unchained, Interview, Kerry Washington, Quentin Tarantino, Total Film

12 January, 2012 · 9:00 am

Living for the Weekend – Chris New interview

Gritty new romance Weekend is Britain’s answer to Brokeback Mountain – a sizzling exploration of gay identity that’s as smart as it is sexy. Star Chris New chats to Josh Winning about celebrities, gay rights and getting his clothes off…

Weekend’s getting loads of really positive buzz. Are you ready to become a celebrity?
People get very funny about becoming celebrities. In the acting world, all you do is constantly battle your ego, and that’s why people like becoming famous – they give in to their ego when everybody starts telling them they’re brilliant. Michael Jackson, Britney Spears. I’d rather do the washing up.

You actually whip your clothes off for the film as well, don’t you?
I do. I do a Ewan McGregor. I was a bit nervous ’cos you can’t act when you’re naked. You can’t really say, ‘This is the character’s penis,’ it just is your penis.

Weekend’s had a very warm reception Stateside even from non-gay audiences. Are you surprised by that?
The good thing is there seems to be a consensus from audiences saying, ‘Come on now, stop thinking this is just a gay film. There’s got to be more to this.’ It’s surprising what’s happening in America. It started on one screen in New York, and now it’s gone to 16 or 20 screens. That must mean it’s not just a gay audience that’s going to see it.

Do you think it’s a sign that being gay is becoming more and more accepted?
I think it’ll just happen naturally, we don’t need to force it. If we would just relax about it a bit, we’d find we’ve moved quite a long way. I’ve got older gay friends who I like to sit around and talk with about what the world was like when they were my age. Obviously for the majority of them being gay was illegal, so that creates an almost unimaginable mindset. One of my friends is Ian McKellen, obviously he’s had an amazing history, and it’s great to talk to him about this stuff. We have a gay film night at his house where we watch classics and documentaries, and it’s really interesting to hear what happened in people’s lives.

Ian McKellen’s been very active in gay rights, hasn’t he?
When I was growing up in Swindon, I didn’t understand what the gay movement had done for us. I’d heard of section 28, which meant my teacher couldn’t discuss being gay with me. There was one lunchtime when I was 13, he said, ‘Is there something you need to tell me?’ And I was like, ‘Nope.’ The law was that he couldn’t raise the idea, but he was trying to say, ‘I know you’re different and you’re allowed to talk about it.’ It was a very brave, generous thing to do. He could’ve lost his job.

Your love interest in Weekend, Tom Cullen, is actually straight. Isn’t that every gay man’s dream?
Not my dream! Straight men do nothing but pester me! I’m never the one going after the straight men – the straight men are usually coming to have an experiment with me. Whenever straight boys are like, ‘I just thought we’d mess around a bit,’ I’m like, ‘Go home, decide what you want to be, I don’t want to be your play thing.’ I’m a married man now. We didn’t actually buy rings, we bought iPads. We’ll get rings one day.

Do you think straight actors playing gay roles get all the praise, but not vice versa?
I’ve mentioned that to Tom, asked him if anybody’s said to him, ‘You’re very brave,’ and he’s said, yeah, people have. A lot of the scripts that come through for me are usually for a gay character, but if it says, ‘Gay. Funny. Best friend of girl’, I say no straight away. Then suddenly you’ll get a script like Weekend which is so different, it’s a huge relief. You have to jump at those scripts. Bob Hoskins calls good scripts ‘bum-nummers’, because he reads them on the toilet and if he stays there it must be a good script!

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Filed under chris new, gay interest, Interview, QX, Weekend

20 November, 2011 · 11:22 am

Kaya Scodelario interview – Wuthering Heights

Since finding her acting feet in British teen soap Skins, Kaya Scodelario has notched up roles in a low-budget British sci-fi (Moon), a mega-bucks Hollywood blockbuster (Clash of the Titans) and now an art-house period drama. LWLies sat down with Scodelario recently to discuss the gravity of taking on the female lead in Andrea Arnold’s atmospheric Wuthering Heights.

Have you seen the film yet? What did you think?
I really liked it! It was weird because I never received a full script, we were given the lines the day before shooting. So watching the film was the first time I knew what was going on in the rest of the film! So it was really cool to watch. I took some friends as well, who I know would never have gone to see it if I wasn’t in it. They’d think, ‘That’s not my thing,’ and they really enjoyed it. It was nice to know that a younger generation enjoyed it.

It’s not your average period romp is it?
No, not at all. I like to think that Andrea’s kind of created this new genre, where it feels very modern, it’s not stuck to the rules. Everyone thought period drama had to be done a certain way and that’s the only way it can be done, people have to walk very slowly and speak properly, there has to be lots of sunshine and flowers. Andrea’s just turned that on its head completely and I love that she’s done that. It was wicked.

It felt like it could almost be modern day…
Yeah, exactly, that’s what was cool – it was kind of timeless.

Why did you only get your lines the day before filming?
It was a lot to do with helping the younger kids, obviously this was their first job so Andrea didn’t want to overwhelm them with a whole script. And I think she just likes things to be very fresh, and you to go into it very open. She asked me not to read the book or see any of the adaptations, so I think she just likes people to not know what they’re doing, go into it completely open-minded. Which is what I want people to do with the film, to go into it completely fresh not thinking about anyone else in it. It was a good way of working, it was different. It’s nice to push yourself and do thinks in a different way.

Was it difficult to learn your lines that quickly?
No, there’s not a lot of dialogue in the film which helps! Surprisingly, I thought I would, but it kind of worked out okay in the end, thank god.

You have quite an emotional role to play, did you get lots of direction there?
I think Andrea wanted me to do it how I wanted to do it. It was never, ‘You have to cry in this scene.’ It was more, if you feel like crying, cry, if you don’t, don’t. it was one of the lines that Heathcliff said to me that really affected me on a personal level, that brought the emotion out quite naturally. I feel quite upset and we cut, and I said to Andrea, ‘I really feel like this should be quite an intense moment for her.’ She kind of slips into this mental illness, she goes a bit crazy, and I wanted to show that in the scene in the kitchen when Heathcliff and Edgar are fighting. I got James, who played Heathcliff, to sit behind the camera and just scream abuse at me for 10 minutes. On a personal level as me, not as Cathy, cos I just wanted to go a bit crazy for a while.

Did he know you well enough to throw some good things at you?
No, I think it’s easy, it was better than he didn’t know me. It kind of takes you back to the playground, that kind of little things that people say can really affect you. ‘Oh, you’re so skinny’, all of these things that you have personal issues with just come out quite naturally. It was strange, it took me two days to get back to normal. But I was glad I did it. It felt right to be in that scene.

It’s James’ first film as well. How was that?
At first it was difficult, I’m not going to pretend it was all great. There were certain days that he didn’t want to be there, he didn’t want to act, but it was really beautiful to watch him grow into it, to grow into wanting to do well. Every day he’d come in and be a bit more on the ball, more focussed. It was nice to watch him develop as an actor. It was wicked to see. I can’t imagine what it was like for him, although I was 14 when I started on Skins and I felt completely out of place, I felt like I didn’t deserve to be there, everyone was a lot older than me, I felt very insecure about it. So I knew what he was going through. But I didn’t want to be too sensitive with him, I knew I had to push him. There was a scene where I had to slap him, and he didn’t want me to actually slap him, he wanted me to pretend. I said, ‘I ‘m not going to pretend! Cos I’m screaming at you, I’m not going to be able to go from screaming at you to pretending to slap you, so I’m going to hit you.’

He was like, ‘No, no, don’t fucking do that,’ and we got into a bit of an argument over it. I said to him, ‘Trust me, I’m going to hit you harder than I’ve ever hit anyone in my life, and you’re going to like it because you’re going to prefer your performance! It’ll be a natural performance.’ He was like ‘Arrrgh’ being a proper man about it, and Andrea was like, ‘Hit him hard!’ I slapped him, and honestly I’ve never heard a sound like it in my life. It was so hard to keep a straight face. I thought, ‘Oh God, he’s going to punch me now!’ He came up to me afterwards in typical manly style and was like, ‘Yeah that was good, you were right.’

So you didn’t give him too many tips?
Andrea cast him for who was, and that’s all he needed to be. He’s quite wild. It’s a really intimidating thing, my background is very similar to his. You grow up on an estate and you’re in this bubble. Being on a film set, you don’t learn about that at school, you don’t know those jobs are available. It’s a strange industry, quite hidden I think. To be pushed into it must’ve been terrifying for him. He did so well to do it. Especially the little kids as well. The kids were beautiful cos they had this sort of the way kids are, they don’t feel any pressure. Just like, yeah this is fun, they don’t stress themselves, which you tend to do when you get older. They had that complete natural go for it vibe that really rippled through the set and made everyone relax a lot more.

Were you on set with the kids a lot, then, even though you don’t share scenes?
I was around them a lot for pre-production, I love them. I loved Shannon [Beer] to pieces, I wish she was my little sister. She’s what I wish I could’ve been like. She’s gobby, she’s confident, she’s a naughty little kid, but she knows who she is as a person, and she’s comfortable with that. I really like that about her.

It must’ve been weird sharing a character with another actress. Did you work together creating the character?
No, Andrea didn’t want us to. Very strangely. She didn’t want us to get technical with it, or sit down and have little things that we both do. She’s a big believer of just letting things happen, and doing the edit and finding those moments. Natural looks that you give without noticing. She just let us go with the flow.

You don’t look massively similar…
No. Well, it was funny, Shannon was like, ‘You don’t look like me!’ I don’t, but I don’t think that matters.

How was shooting Wuthering Heights different from shooting Skins?
It’s hard. Obviously it was different, but it wasn’t so much so that I particularly noticed it. With Skins, it wasn’t a job at all. It was me growing up, it was my university, the crew knew me since I was 14, they were like family to me. I think Effy helped me personally gain confidence. I enjoyed playing her because it took me out of my depression that I had myself, my subconscious and all that. It gave me a bit more confidence and a bit more fun. Leaving her behind was quite hard, quite scary. She was like this cloak that I’d wear, I would feel cool, even though deep down I’m not at all. It was very scary to leave, but Skins as a whole was this very, very strange thing that happened that wasn’t work. Leaving that, any job would’ve been different. You realise, ‘This is work, I have to behave, be professional.’

You mentioned feeling depressed when you were younger. Was Cathy a slight exorcism where those feelings are concerned?
Yeah, I guess so. Filming the whole Effy mental illness stuff took me to a place. My mum suffers from depression, she has her whole life, and doing that storyline with Effy helped me understand it a lot more. With Cathy again, I always tend to get the crazy roles! I like interesting parts, I couldn’t ever be one of those actresses where they look pretty and their hair looks great all the time, I hate that. What’s the point of being an actor if you just want to look nice all the time? I love the fact that I’m not wearing any make-up at all in Wuthering Heights, my cheeks are pink and my nose looks like Rudolph. I love it! I’d rather throw myself into someone and completely lose me as a person for a while, I love the psychology behind it all. I find it really fascinating.

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Filed under Interview, Kaya Scodelario, Little White Lies, Wuthering Heights

14 November, 2011 · 5:27 pm

Andrew Haigh interview – Weekend

Weekend is only Andrew Haigh’s second feature film, a no-budget romance set in Nottingham, but that hasn’t stopped it causing a stir Stateside. Surfing waves of rave reviews, the film’s been celebrated as a smart and honest examination of gay life in the modern world, and is now expanding its UK theatrical run after an impressive openning weekend. LWLies sat down for a chat with the writer/director recently to gauge his response to all the attention.

LWLies: Can you believe that you’re off around the world talking about your little movie?
Haigh: No, I can’t believe it at all. I find, because it’s happening and you’re in the middle of it, sometimes I stop and think, ‘What? How’s this happened?’

Your first film, Greek Pete, was quite a small movie that not many people saw…
Greek Pete was tiny, miniscule, and I suppose we sort of thought this would be again small, and some people might see it and that would be it. Obviously you always hope for more. And then, it’s been out in America for a couple of weeks and it’s… it’s weird. It’s like, ‘Is this my…? Is this the same film we’re talking about?’

How do you think a little film like this suddenly hits the big time?
I don’t know! It really helped that we played it at SXSW, we went into that festival, and nobody really knew what the film was. I think we built up something, a steam. There were a core group of people, like Indiewire, they really got behind the film and they just wouldn’t stop talking about it. It was a little bit embarrassing, but they really helped it getting out to different people and it took off.

Are you surprised by the different types of media that are interested?
Absolutely, even when I wrote the film – it’s in the film when Glen’s character is talking about people not being interested in [gay cinema], that was borne out of frustration. It was the expectation that nobody would be interested in it. So I feel a bit embarrassed now that I put it in the film! It’s showed me that I’m wrong, because people have been [interested]. It’s amazing, but I’m still not entirely sure how it’s happened. We had big articles in the New York Times and LA Times. I think basically there’s been such a gap of these kind of films about gay people, and I think I’ve hit a good point in time and it’s been quite lucky. I know a lot of other filmmakers, especially Americans, who are gay, and they’re making a lot more naturalistic gay dramas. I think there’s gonna be quite a lot of them coming out, and I’ve just managed to get there first.

Weekend’s quite refreshing compared to a lot of STV low-budget gay films.
I just had no interest in my film being a… I want to be a proper filmmaker, I don’t want my film to be a shitty DVD that 10 people see. It’s not interesting to me. The films I like aren’t within that genre. Maybe that’s the problem, it’s hard for filmmakers to make films with gay content. I think maybe a lot of them aren’t as interested in cinema as they are interested in getting this film made and to DVD.

A lot of the cheesy American gay films are all about the nudity.
And they’re always people that are like super hot guys with muscles. I don’t know anyone like that! I don’t know who those people are. It’s weird. I wanted to tell a story that was like, ‘Gay people are also normal people, they do normal jobs and don’t look like perfect specimens of men.’ Even though Tom and Chris are quite good-looking. They’re just a bit messy, which I guess is the new gay look anyway. It’s bearded and scruffy.

You’ve got a good beard on you, did you copy it off Tom?
I made him grow a beard! I said you’ve got to grow a beard for it. I just like beards I think. And he’s kept it! He didn’t have one when I first met him.

Sex is quite integral to Weekend and Greek Pete. Is that something that interests you?
My short films are nothing like that at all. I think it definitely interests me, but only because sex is so integral to everybody’s lives, it’s such an important part of everybody’s lives. Either you’re not having it, or sex is a part of your relationship. I think it’s just not dealt with in a serious enough way in films, it’s either just for titillation or it’s deathly serious rather than just being, it’s part of someone’s life and it’s just sex, and it’s not just sex, it shows a lot about your character. How you talk about sex, what you do, everything. So it’s trying to look at sexual relationships in a wider context.

Weekend is similar to My Beautiful Laundrette in that it’s set in a recognisable time. Was exploring modern gay identity something that appealed to you?
Yeah, I think it’s changed so dramatically being gay, and acceptance and equality since Beautiful Laundrette. It’s changed amazingly. But in many ways it hasn’t changed, which is quite interesting. While discrimination has obviously gone down and prejudice has gone down, and things are different, there are still things that are problems, and issues that exist with being gay in the modern world. It was definitely about incorporating, having that as a background to the story, rather than it being all about that. It is funny, you speak to people and they work in the media in London, they’re like, ‘It’s fine being gay! There’s no problems!’ But there are still problems. And even if you work in London in the media.

It’s usually straight people that say that, like, ‘Oh, it’s fine for you lot now, isn’t it? For you gays! Everybody loves you!’ I’ve never really fitted in with that, I’ve never really been part of the gay scene. Obviously I went out, but it’s never really been part of my life fully, and neither is the straight scene. I think a lot of gay people, if they don’t fit a certain stereotype, they just meander around all over the place not really knowing where they fit in. You’re stranded a little bit, which is what I think Russell is. And Glen to a certain extent.

Do you know people quite similar to Russell and Glen?
Not really, I think maybe they’re parts of me to some extent. If there was a line I’d kind of vary between the two depending on my mood, how angry I am with the world.

What are you angry about?
I’m always angry about something. I’m quite an angry person. Everything! I can be quite calm, but I don’t live in London anymore, and as soon as I come to London my rage level starts building up. I live in Norwich now so it’s a very different town, I love it. It’s a really interesting city, but I come to London and you notice the massive inequality that exists here. When you’re in somewhere like Norwich it’s a lot more equal, there’s not massive wealth and massive poverty. There’s more things to make me angry.

Russell and Glen are polar opposites, was that a conscious effort?
I knew they had to be opposites because it’s a drama, and otherwise that wouldn’t be very interesting. It had to be that their characters were well-rounded enough that it wasn’t just me writing two opposite characters. It would just be pointless. I spent so long doing backstories for the characters, because your ideas and your philosophies don’t exist in a vacuum, they’re based on your how your life has been and where you’ve been. So it was just about really working that out, so that when they were together they felt like real people. And the fact that they’re different is what attracts them to each other, they’re grasping at bits of each other. That’s what makes relationships interesting.

Was the documentary look intended to blur fiction and reality?
Definitely, and I always wanted Weekend to be as real as possible. It was scripted, but we approached it like it was a documentary. So shooting everything in long takes, I wanted to imagine that this was happening right now in front of me and I could capture it for this instant and then it would never happen again. So that’s why there’s no coverage. Not having extras. In the club it’s a normal night in the club. They’d be dancing to the camera and you’d be like, ‘No!’ It’s all just real people.

You’re pretty much a guerrilla filmmaker, then?
Pretty much. We used the guerrilla process but I didn’t want it to look like guerrilla filmmaking, it had to feel like it was very thought out, but at the same time captured footage.

It looks amazing, though. How did you strike that balance?
I wanted it to look good and nice and professional. I never understand, just because you’ve got no money doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to look good. We shot on the 5D Canon, a stills camera essentially that shoots video, we had this big rig thing that keeps it steady. But just because you’ve got no money, it doesn’t have to look shit. We didn’t have any lights, but Uma was a good DP. You just make an effort.

Gareth Edwards’ Monsters is quite similar in terms of no-frills filmmaking. Are you a fan?
Yeah, definitely. I was a big fan of all those American mumblecore type films, low-budget character dramas. They’re kind of like an update of Cassavette’s films with modern settings. Monsters is a good example, I think it’s a good film, it’s an indie relationship drama with aliens. Which is amazing. I still don’t understand how he made that film. There was like three of them on the crew. Crazy! He’s doing Godzilla now isn’t he? I’ve heard him speak and he seems like a really nice guy. Let’s face it, a lot of directors can be arseholes. If I like a film and I hear the director talk and he’s a wanker, it really puts me off.

Being a director, are you a bit of a control freak?
Yeah, I am a total control freak. You have to be. The hard thing is when you make something that’s really small budget and then it’s out in the world and distribution companies take it on, you’ve had so much control on the early days, and then you have to give that control away, which is really hard. I sometimes have to stop myself. The posters were great. I know the designer, but again that was me sticking my oar in and making sure they use Sam and giving the posters to the Americans saying, ‘This is really nice.’ Also, you know you have to compromise sometimes, and there’s times when you’re shooting where everybody’s focussing on something and you know actually it’s not that important. It’s about being a control freak about the right things.

You’ve made a strong point about gay life with Weekend. Is it now time to move on to other topics? Can you better it?
No, in terms of my desire to explore that kind of world it’s probably done. Doesn’t mean I won’t be making films about gay people, but there’d be no point in me doing that again. There’s themes that are there, whether they’re about gay people or straight people, old people or young people, there will be similar themes. But I need to do other different films. I don’t just want to make small films about gay people talking to each other!

Have you been approached by people about your next film?
Yeah, I’m writing some stuff, I’ve got an agent now. Americans are crazy, I’ve got a team of like 10 people now. You’re like, ‘Okay!’ You get so many scripts. It’s an amazing thing about America, they see this film but it doesn’t limit what they think you can do, they say you can do anything now. Whereas in England there’s that sense of you could only do really small films about gay people. In America they’re sending me scripts like… not quite alien scripts, but things that are bigger. They’re still not big studio pictures, but bigger stuff. Nine out of 10 directors that make a good first or second little film, end up going to America and making a piece of shit. It’s a real common thing. I don’t know why that is.

Perhaps America is too interested in this idea that films are products, whereas small indies worship storytelling.
Maybe there’s just too many people get involved. But also it’s about bad decisions. Those directors have gotten a script, gone, ‘Oh, it’s alright, it’ll do, I’ll do it because it’ll get me into America,’ but it’s never gonna work unless they really care about it. So I’m only going to do something if it’s somebody else’s script that I absolutely fall in love with. Other than that, I don’t just wanna do something just for the sake of getting paid, even if that would be nice.

Greek Pete was quite a small little cult film, do you count Weekend as your first proper film?
In America they’re trying to pretend that Greek Pete wasn’t my first film, because then you can get on first feature lists. But for me, that was my first feature and it is. I really enjoy it, I’m proud of that film, I like that film. Yeah, this is my second feature, I can’t say it’s my first because that belittles what I did before. This is obviously scripted and different, but it’s still my second feature.

Do you think the label of ‘gay film’ is a reductive or restrictive term?
It’s so difficult to know what it is. For me, Weekend’s a film about gay people. Whether people call that a gay film is up to them, really. It’s funny, because the film partly is about how you struggle to define yourself, and you continually try to define yourself. So it’s funny to me that as soon as you make a film, it’s like ‘It’s a gay film!’, people throw it in a pigeon-hole. I suppose it’s inevitable, and I’m not embarrassed that it’s gay. If people want to call it a gay film, that’s fine. I think it’s going to be like that for quite a long time, it will take a while I feel before it’s just ‘a film’. Also because it’s very much about gay sexuality and it’s got sex in, it’s automatically going to be pigeon-holed.

It’ll probably be like blaxploitation, films about black people are not called ‘black films’…
You wouldn’t call a Spike Lee film a black film. He’d be like, ‘Fuck off!’ When you do make a gay film it’s suddenly, people say, well it’s gay. I should slap people every time they say it!

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Filed under 2011, Andrew Haigh, Interview, Little White Lies, Weekend

4 August, 2011 · 9:20 am

Velour vixen

The main thing that people yell at Kim Cattrall in the street? “I’m you! I love you! I wanna be you!” laughs the actress. “I’m like, you don’t want to be me, you want to be her.” The ‘her’ in question is Samantha Jones, the sultry, man-eating PR star of TV show Sex And The City. Cattrall played Ms Jones for six seasons and two movies, but sitting cross-legged in a swish London hotel on a breezy June morning, she’s a million miles away from her New York counterpart. Softly spoken, quick to laugh, friendly, she’s both businesswoman sophisticated and pleasantly approachable. She’s also breaking away from her most famous role with new film Meet Monica Velour, an indie that has Cattrall swapping posh frocks for porn as a washed out, washed up adult star. “I finally got a great part!” she jests…

Do you find many gay guys have an affinity with you and your Sex And The City character?
What do you think? Absolutely! The gay and lesbian community have been so supportive, even before Sex And The City. I just got a GLAAD award, which is an amazing organisation that I support, so I’m very grateful for the support that I get from the gay community.

What was the most exciting part of playing ex-porn star Monica Velour?
The most exciting and difficult thing was to keep her dignity. Once I found that everything else came. I rehearsed this like I did a play. It’s a great part for a woman – who writes a part for a woman in her fifties? Nobody, especially a first time director. This was such a departure, I had to go away and rehearse it.

Did you find that amount of prep hard?
It was devastatingly hard. I saw the [behind the scenes video] about six months ago, and I was never out of character – I was Monica. I was doing and saying things that I would never do. Having a couple of drinks after work, I would never do that. That whole thing with kissing the biker, that’s not written and that’s a real biker. [pulls a face] And I thought, ‘How did I do that?!’

Would you say you’re quite fearless in the projects you’re taking on after the show?
When I read the script for Monica Velour, my agent said, ‘You’re not going to want to do this, because it’s about sex again.’ I don’t think it’s really about sex. This is about sexualisation and marginalisation. That really got me going, and it terrified me more than many of the roles I’ve taken on because I wasn’t going to look sexy and pretty.

Was it quite liberating to take off all the gloss?
It was fantastic, it really was. I have a huge appetite and my body type is heavier than I am right now, so to be that 20 pounds extra was heaven! I loved eating and putting it on, I savoured every bit of it with crap meals and McDonalds, whatever I wanted!

The film parodies the porn industry and the cheesy knock offs they create of mainstream movies…
There’s one of Sex And The City! You have to watch a little bit of it…

Did you find the strip scene difficult with all the male extras booing you?
It was the last scene that was shot, when I was the heaviest. I gained 15 pounds before we started shooting, and another five over the course of shooting. I made a choice that she wasn’t in her body [during that scene], which protected me through the different angles we had to do, but after a while it did affect me. I went into the dressing room afterward and had a good cry. But hearing that age rage, I’m not made of stone and it does have an effect, but that’s what the film is about.

Do you feel it’s a pressure to look a certain way?
In some ways it is, but I’m a child of the Jane Fonda generation, so I’ve been on a diet since 1974! So it’s business as usual, really. And I don’t sleep well, so if I exercise I sleep better. I like to look fit, I’m single, I’m dating, I want to be attractive, but at the same time there’ll be a time when I say, ‘I’m tired, I just want a hamburger and fries!’

Do you feel lucky you’re not in the same position as Monica?
Oh my God, yes. I don’t want to live in a freakin’ trailer park. I have choices, I have a voice, I have a platform. I can’t compare myself to her situation in any way, it breaks my heart. The similarity in it is survival. It’s a really fucking hard lonely job in a lot of ways, there are the great highs, the lows. And sometimes you’re just a person in a hotel room who can’t go out.

Have you ever had your own 17-year-old stalker?
Yes, I’ve gone through restraining orders and court cases, but I keep it very private because to make noise about it is to create more instances of it. I was doing a play once in California and in the interval the artistic director said, ‘We’ve had a death threat.’ It was terrifying. I mean, I’m an actor, why should I have to put up with that insanity? But that’s part of it.

Meet Monica Velour is out on DVD now.

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Filed under Interview, Kim Cattrall, Meet Monica Velour, Out In The City

4 July, 2011 · 9:38 am

Denis Villeneuve Interview – Incendies

Canadian writer-director Denis Villeneuve lit up the festival circuit last year with his searing domestic drama Incendies, adapted from Wajdi Mouawad’s play of the same name. Now, with the film currently enrapturing UK audiences, Villeneuve talks to LWLies bout war, women and the challenges of reworking a complex story from stage to screen.

How did you first encounter the play version of Incendies?

Villeneuve: I saw it a few years ago in a small theatre in Montreal, and I was astonished by how powerful and disturbing it was. The way it talked about anger, it described the movement of anger inside a family, inside society, and it really deeply attracted me right at the beginning. It’s such a strong story, I just took my two legs and ran as quick as possible in order to get the rights. For me it was delightful to hear such a story, it was like a dream.

Did you know instinctively that you wanted to make it into a movie?

The thing is, the dramatic structure was quite amazing, and despite the fact that it was a four-hour play, it was very theatrical with a lot of strong images on the stage. The dramatic structure was suitable for a film. I made a lot of changes, [playwright] Wajdi Mouawad gave me a lot of freedom to make changes and additions.

Was that not a massive, daunting challenge, to make a four-hour play into a feature length film?

It was a lot of work, yes. First of all, Wajdi gave me total freedom. He said to me, ‘No matter what happens, as long as you make it your own, I will love you.’ He meant that as long as I stand responsible, it will agree with him. I kept the dramatic structure and the characters, but I removed a lot of secondary elements to it, and I simplified the story. There was a lot of stuff with mathematics and the trial, I removed a lot of it to make it more simple.

Your other films Maelström and Polytechnique are female-driven stories as well. Is that something that appeals to you?

That is about inspiration, and at one point I decided not to try intellectualising what that is, it’s something very weird for me to realise. First of all, my first feature was about women, and then after that I took a break. And I realised when I chose my next two projects that they were again dealing with a female lead character, dealing with the female condition and women struggling with power against men. So it’s something that inspires me, but I cannot explain why. It’s just something that touches me.

Do you feel there are enough films about women being made?

That’s a good question. I’m not an expert, I never did any research about movies made with a female character. I think what’s more important is we should have more female screenwriters, but that will come slowly more and more.

How did your lead lady Lubna Azabel get involved with the movie?

I was looking for an actress who could portray the mother all across Canada, and I didn’t find her. Then I went to Europe and Paris, and the casting director there said to me, ‘You really want Lubna Azabel.’ I met her in Paris and I was really amazed by her; she had this kind of strength, a fire inside her that was necessary in order to portray the mother. She had this face that was able to go through time – straight away through the camera she looked 22 years old without any make-up. I was amazed! I knew that I would be able to age her. Before I met Lubna, I thought maybe I would use two actresses, or even three. But after I met her, we decided to go with one. It was quite a challenge because we didn’t have a lot of budget, but I’m very happy about it. Lubna Azabael, I owe her a lot.

Did Lubna have any ideas on how she wanted to create the character, or was it all cued from the script?

She took the cue from the script, but she’s a very intuitive actress. Basically, it was a long screenwriting process and the script was quite precise and clear. I gave her some reading to do, she read some plays and books. In a way it was tough because there were a lot of tough scenes, but at the same time it was very easy to direct her because she was very daring, she doesn’t ask questions, she just jumps.

Were you aware of trying not to swamp the human story with overly stylistic visuals?

I did try to, maybe I failed, I tried to be as humble as possible with the cinematography in order to tell the story with less shots. It was a big film crew but we did try to keep authenticity and spontaneity in front of the camera. Honestly the art direction, we tried to be as humble as possible and concentrate on storytelling. I consider myself a student, each film you try to focus on one aspect of the filmmaking and for me it was the storytelling for Incendies. From the screenplay to the shot list, because it was quite a sensitive dramatic equilibrium in order to not fall into melodrama. It was a lot of work with the actors.

The story can be quite melodramatic, was that a concern for you to not let it just become ridiculous?

It can be quite ridiculous, so it was like walking on a wire, it was really scary.

The film’s had a great response, it got nominated for the Oscar. How was it getting that acclaim?

When you’re making the film, you’re not thinking about that. In fact the thing that surprised me most was the reaction here in Toronto, it was quite a box office success. For a film like this with a lot of subtitles and a dark story, it had a strong response among the audience here, we were overwhelmed by that. Very surprised and very happy.

Were you sad you didn’t get the Oscar?

Not at all, just to be there was a big honour for me. To be honest, it was already a very huge honour to be there, I still forget or don’t believe it. [laughs] It was quite a ride and we feel very proud just to have been nominated.

Is that success going to lead to any English-speaking or Hollywood movies?

I love to work with people abroad, that is the thing that I love. I would love to work just one time in the American system just to try it, like a game in a way. I did receive a lot of offers, but I have to strongly believe in what I’m shooting in order to be able to direct it. It’s very difficult for me to find a script that I would love to do. There is something that landed in my hands a month ago called Prisoners that I thought was fantastic. Maybe I will do that in a few months.

Did you feel that you wanted to comment on war and tragedy in Incendies, or was that just part of the story as it was?

For me I wanted to do a movie about family, how a family deals with stress. And anger driving from parents to children, and the children have to get rid of this anger in order to become adults. About war for me, I’m not a war expert at all, I didn’t have the ambition to talk about war, it’s more a background for the film, I think. The author of the play is from Lebanon, he was raised in a war, he knows what he’s talking about. I see it with a lot of humility. I’m a war movie fan, but we did try to inspire our film from life, from photojournalism instead of cinema. It’s quite tough, of course I am influenced by other films, but I try as much as possible to draw inspiration from reality.

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Filed under directors, Incendies, Interview

10 June, 2011 · 10:33 pm

Simon Pegg & Nick Frost’s Guide To Road Movies

Put your pedal to the metal and your foot to the floor as the Paul duo salute classic movie road trips…

Dusty Texan sunsets. White hot wheels. Parched, soulful yearnings. Road movies and America go together like Bonnie and Clyde, like Thelma and Louise… like, say, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. “One of the reasons America is so big on road movies is because it facilitates that,” says Pegg. “It’s a big country. You can’t do it in England – here you can get from one end of the country to the other in a day.” Which is exactly why he and Frost set their very own road movie, Paul, in the wilds of America – the kind of sprawling, untameable landscape where two blokes trundling along in an RV can result in all sorts of mishaps. Like, for example, meeting a strange little foul-mouthed alien.

Now that they’re experts on the matter of movies that take to the tarmac, Total Film asked Pegg and Frost to join us on a journey through the land of opportunity. Just what is it that drives road movies? “Incidents, peril, friendship,” muses Frost. “And also vista, geographical location. I think in every good road movie there’s that montage where the laughter and the talking stops, and you hear some Bluegrass and you see the Deep South…”

1. Sideways (2004) – Los Angeles to Santa Barbara County, Californoa (130 miles)
Wine snob schlubb (Paul Giamatti) and TV actor fool (Thomas Hayden Church) putter up the coast to sup their way round the winery region for a two-hander stag do. DUIs and rages against Merlot inevitable.
Nick: Fantastic! Lots of nice geographical fodder to gaze at. I love the way a road trip seems to suspend everything that happens in your proper life back home. It’s all put on hold while you’re on the road.
Simon: I love that it’s about the need to discover and for something else in life. It’s a great metaphor for the trials and tribulations of life. It’s about what’s around the next bend; the bumps in the road, the corners, that kind of stuff.

2. Thelma & Louise (1991) – Arkansas to the Grand Canyon, Arizona (1685 miles)
A ditzy housewife (Geena Davis) and a hardbitten waitress (Susan Sarandon) roadtrip from Arkansas to Oklahoma, shoot a guy and go on the lam. They’re heading for Mexico (avoiding Texas) but end it all in Arizona’s greatest tourist attraction.
Simon: “It’s a journey of self-discovery and physical journey, and it has this terminal end as well, which is brilliant. They can literally go no further in every way, geographically and in terms of themselves as people.”

3. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) – Albuquerque, New Mexico to Redondo Beach, California (812 miles)
When Olive (Abigail Breslin) qualifies for a kiddie beauty pageant her whole fucked-up family climb into a VW camper can for a sweaty, sweary voyage of discovery. Everyone just pretend to be normal…
Simon: When we pitched Paul we said it was like Little Miss Sunshine but with Gollum instead of Alan Arkin. Everyone in that van goes on a sort of a journey and it’s a cracking soundtrack too.
Nick: Steve Carrell has a great beard in that.

4. Easy Rider (1969) – Los Angeles, California to New Orleans, Louisiana (2206 miles)
Two bikers (Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper) flog drugs to fund their Route 66 journey to Mardi Gras in ‘Nawlins’. On the trip (in every way) they run into bigots, hippies and Jack Nicholson. Far out.
Simon: That’s a road movie that goes to nowhere but doom. It’s kind of heartbreaking. The campfire scene in Paul is a tribute to the campfire scene in Easy Rider.
Nick: We filmed in Las Vegas, New Mexico where Easy Rider was shot. It’s on at the cinema in Prospect, where Paul disguises himself as a cowboy. And the street that we are walking down is where Jack Nicholson and Henry Fonda meet for the first time.

5. Two Lane Black Top (1971) – Needles to East Tennessee (1517 miles)
A pair of unnamed petrolheads race their ’55 Chevy coast to coast against a souped-up GTO. After burning rubber through California, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Arkansas the film burns out during a bone-jangling drag race near Memphis.
Nick: I saw that when I was 18, it’s in my DVD collection.
Simon: We went on a lot of two lane blacktops on our road trip. They’re amazing rides because the one in Nevada goes in a straight line to the horizon, so it disappears out of sight, it looks like it goes into a hair-width point in the sky.

6. Vanishing Point (1971) – Denver, Colorado to San Francisco, California (1277 miles)
A delivery driver (Barry Newman) is assigned to drive a new Dodge Challenger from Denver to ’Frisco and bets he can do it in record time. Pill popping, cop baiting and wheel spinning through Colorado and Utah, he delivers the car straight into a police roadblock in California. (Inspired the car-fawning in Death Proof.)
Simon: In Vanishing Point it’s a road movie where something’s got to be done but I see road movies as being it’s the journey that’s important, not the destination.

7. Trains, Planes and Automobiles (1987) – Wichita, Kansas to Chicago, Illinois (714 miles)
Uptight guy (Steve Martin) and annoying fool (John Candy) take a plane (diverted from Chicago to Wichita due to weather), train (to Missouri), truck (to Jefferson City), bus (to St Louis), rental car (to Illinois) and milk float (Chicago) to get home for Thanksgiving. Those aren’t pillows…
Simon: It’s heart-warming and even though the end is sugary sweet you buy it, you allow it. You can earn that kind of sentimentality.

8. Dumb And Dumber (1994) – Providence, Rhode Island to Aspen, Colorado (3539 miles)
Simple chauffeur Lloyd (Jim Carrey) convinces his equally dim friend Harry (Jeff Daniels) to drive a dog van across country to return a lost suitcase to the object of his affection. They accidentally go to Nebraska and complete last leg is completed on tiny scooter with frozen snot.
Nick: That film is so soundtracked! That film has got so much music in it.
Simon: It’s almost like a mix tape. There are so many great moments in that film. The snowball fight. And “You just go man”, and then they get frozen. What’s great about that is they actually go back halfway across America ! It’s great, I love that film.

9. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) – Parchman Farm Penitentiary, Tennessee to Arkabutla Lake, Tennessee (102 miles)
Three Depression-era convicts (George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson) escape the chain gang at a Memphis clink and begin a wandering journey via radio fame to find a $1.2million stash in a valley about to flooded by water for a new power station. Get into some darn tight spots…
Nick: I love the Coen Brothers, they’re perfectly suited to doing an American road movie. Their take is old America as well, so it’s pre-vehicle.

10. National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) – Chicago, Illinois to Walley World, California (2037 miles)
Clark Griswald (Chevy Chase) insists on driving his family across seven states to ‘America’s favourite fun park’ so he can spend some quality time with them. Thanks for the memories of desert breakdowns, dead grandmas and SWAT team stand-offs, Dad…
Nick: Love a bit of Chevy Chase.
Simon: The Griswalds are a kind of bizarrely American family in a structural sense. And to have the whole family on the road together… funny.

Via Total Film

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Filed under feature, Interview, nick frost, Paul, road movie, sci-fi, Simon Pegg, Total Film

9 June, 2011 · 4:43 pm

Emma Bell – "You get to see people die pretty atrociously"

Emma Bell knows fear. Having faced zombies in The Walking Dead and deadly ski lifts in Frozen, the 24-year-old actress confronts death itself this summer with Final Destination 5. Clearly all this scary stuff has had an adverse effect on the New Jersey native. “If I could have my way, I would play a fairy for the rest of my life,” Ms Bell muses…

Tell us a little about Final Destination 5…
There’s a really big giant catastrophe sequence on a suspension bridge. Actually when I was flying to Vancouver for the shoot, I got up to the ticket counter and the woman there said, ‘Will Vancouver be your final destination?’ I was like, ‘Nooo!’

How do the death scenes compare to the previous films?
The deaths are going to be amazing, you get to see people die pretty atrociously. The writer came up with some really interesting ways to go, I mean just sick, perverted ways to go!

Do you enjoy making horror movies?
Walking Dead is probably the most quote unquote horror, but the quality of that show was so superior. It was more like a character driven drama with zombies.

Via Total Film

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Filed under Emma Bell, Final Destination 5, Frozen, Interview, news, Total Film, Walking Dead

24 March, 2011 · 5:49 pm

James Buckley – Funny people

My Comedy Hero
I watch more television but my comedy hero is Steve Coogan. The last film I saw him in was The Others Guys, which I thought was quite good. Without sounding stupid, obviously, he’s funny, but on top of that he’s just a great actor, he’s absolutely brilliant. Unless I’ve had lines written for me, I don’t consider myself to be that funny, but Steve Coogan’s the best at it.

My Favourite Funny Movie
I guess it would have to be National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I watch it every Christmas. I just think that movie’s perfect, it really is funny. You know, you can watch it by yourself and you’ll still laugh out loud even though there’s no-one around. I love that film. Chevy Chase was in another film with Dan Aykroyd, but I can’t remember what it’s called.

My Favourite One-liners
The one that just sprung into my head is Ace Ventura after he’s been investigating at this swanky party, and he’s been wrestling with a shark. He comes out of the bathroom and he’s ripped to shreds and dripping wet, and he just shouts “Whew! Do not go in there!” That’s a really good moment. That’s a great line to use in everyday life.

My Comedy Present
We’ve just finished The Inbetweeners movie, we’ve got another week of pick-ups in June then it’s done. I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to talk about it. We’re lucky that we all get on and I guess that comes across on screen as well. It would be a really tough job if we all didn’t get along, you spend so much time together. Joe and Simon are shooting a pilot in a couple of weeks but I didn’t get a phone call.

My Comedy Future
I’m looking forward to The Hangover Part II. I think that comes out around the same time as our little film that we’ve made, so bring ‘em all on, we’ll take ‘em. The first film is quite perfect for a comedy, the fact that it’s in Las Vegas just makes it larger than life, even the location was a clown in itself. It has all you need: some people go on an adventure and things go wrong for them.

My Comedy Past
The whole sequence in the season two episode of The Inbetweeners when the boys go on a field trip with the school and then end up in a little boat… I was really confident that that was going to come across well. I think it was funny, even if I do say so myself. I’m really proud of that. It isn’t easy to be funny, but with The Inbetweeners we’re always asking ‘Is this funny?’ because all we want to do is make people laugh.

Via Total Film

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Filed under Ace Ventura, Chevy Chase, Christmas Vacation, Dan Aykroyd, Funny people, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Interview, James Buckley, Steve Coogan, The Hangover, The Other Guys, Total Film