Interview with Paul Bettany - December 5th, 2008

Promoting: Inkheart
Venue: Claridges Hotel
Interview type: One-on-one


ViewLondon (VL): Had you read the book (Inkheart) before you accepted the part?

Paul Bettany (PB): No, I hadn't. I had not read the book beforehand, but my son had. Well, he was reading it at the same time when the script turned up. And I read the script – because I'm lazy – and he was reading the book. And while I was reading the script, I thought, 'God, that's a really well-rendered children's story, it seems to have all the things that I would want in a kids' story. Much more complicated characters than I thought there were going to be and usually are, in stuff nowadays. And I asked him, I said, “What do you think?” and he was really loving it and I thought,”Well, that's my target audience”. But he really loves the book and he was excited by the idea that they were going to make a film of it. So I did it. I suppose he deserves ten per cent...

VL: Was Dustfinger his favourite character? Were you always going to play Dustfinger?

PB: Yes, well, it's the part I got offered. He's a cool character. And you know why? It's because he's not impossibly good and he's not impossibly bad but he's somewhere in the middle, but he's trying to make it work in a world he doesn't quite understand. And I think kids can really handle complicated characters and I don't think there are many of them in kids' stories anymore and I liked that about Dustfinger.

VL: Are you on board for the sequels if they get made? Is Dustfinger even in the sequels?

PB: Yes, he is. Although I don't know what the state of that is, because New Line sort of got swallowed up by Warner Brothers, so I don't know what that means contractually. But it was definitely agreed on that I would – I think I'm still contractually obliged to do it if they make them.

VL: How long did it take you to learn the juggling?

PB: Actually, a long while. I'm quite diligent about that sort of thing. I get quite obsessed. Physical activities in films, it's quite easy to get obsessed with learning how to do them. I played the cello in this thing and, like Jennifer [Connelly, Bettany's wife] just learned to play the piano brilliantly - she's playing Emma Darwin in Creation [opposite Bettany as Charles Darwin] and Emma Darwin was a very good pianist. And it's quite easy to get obsessed with it, because it's something you can control, you can absolutely control by effort. Whereas the other stuff is a little more tenuous and you might put a lot of effort in and just never get to the performance that you're hoping for and never understand that character, whereas learning to juggle, I can control just by sheer bloody-minded effort and getting up early and doing it.

VL: Was there a lot of trial and error involved?

PB: Yeah, we did it mostly with this thing called Poi and Poi have a tendency – what makes them beautiful is that they whizz around each other in these concentric circles and what often tends to happen is that they get crossed and then they swing around and smack you in the testicles, which is a less exciting and entertaining part of Poi.

VL: Was there anything that was cut out of the film that you particularly liked?

PB: No, I love cuts. I've never gone up to a director and said, “I think you should put that back in”. I always assume that it was because I was bad in it and then I'm like, “Thank God that's never going to see the light of day”. Except now they do, with DVD, which is a fucking nightmare for somebody like me. They drive me crazy, DVD extras, oh my God.

VL: You must have been delighted when Jennifer agreed to play your wife for the split-second she was on screen?

PB: Yes, it was actually quite sweet. She was in Italy, with the kids, while I was making the movie and she'd come to see me. And, you know, I spend some time away from my family on movie sets, in strange locations, wanting to go home. And Dustfinger's in a really strange location, wanting to go home to his wife and kids. So it was very nice to have it be her. So it was like half a day's filming and she sort of came in and did it as a joke for us all and it was nice. And I thought it would be a really sweet thing, actually, for our kids to see this movie in which their Dad spends the whole time trying to get home to his family.

Interview with Moritz Bleibtreu and Martina Gedeck - October 27th, 2008

Promoting: The Baader-Meinhof Complex
Venue: The Sofitel Hotel, London Film Festival
Interview type: Round table


Q: You must both have been very young when the events of the film took place. What do you remember about that time?

Moritz Bleibtreu (MB): I don't recall anything about this time. I recall the wanted posters in the post office and the strange haircuts and colours, but that's about it. I first started getting into it when I was going to shoot this movie. I knew the hard facts, but all the detailed stuff, it was wow, wow wow all the time.

Martina Gedeck (MG): I was very young, I didn't know what it was . I know that there were a lot of riots in Berlin and demonstrations, which frightened me. I never went to them, but some of my friends went to fight for -- I don't know what.

Q: How have people reacted to the film?

MB: Recently I spoke to some American friends of mine who just saw the movie and they can hardly believe it's a true story. We didn't exaggerate any of it. It happened like that. Just look at what these people kicked off. Especially if you look at it at this time. Germany was, in fact, quite a calm country. I mean yes, we had to face the fact that your postman might have been affiliated with the SS. So there was still this strange situation where one generation would fight the next one because there was huge conflict involved. But on a daily, basic level, Germany was quite a quiet country at this time. The country was rich, unemployment was not really an issue and you could do basically what you wanted. But still these guys started a war. They declared war on a state, which was so strange. If I looked at Germany right now, for instance, you have a big financial crisis, unemployment is everywhere, people don't really have options for their lives. It's hard to find something for them, so on every street corner I see ten more reasons to start a revolution today and nobody does anything any more. I think this is the important thing about this film. It's about a time when people did believe in the possibility of change. They really believed they could change something. I think this is something that got lost. I think the younger generation has a hard time believing they can change something.

Q: What conclusions did you reach about why Ulrike Meinhof thought she could effect change through violence?

MG: I think she just had these ideals, especially the post-nazi generation had their own ideals. To have an ideal, to believe in an idea and devote your life to it, these were the same ideas, it just repeated it from the other side. But it's the same, it's left radical versus the right radical. To lose your own human instinct and follow the idea. They continued it. It was like Che Guevara, it was Mao, it was all these people. And they had their systems and their theories and took what they wanted . They thought they had to confront violence with violence to overthrow (the system).

Q: Can you understand why they did what they did?

MB: Why they did what they did? No. Once the violence got involved, once people died then no, I cannot relate to that. I think that it's never going to work out. Trying to change something by killing somebody else, I think only one thing will be changed and that is yourself, because you will become a murderer. That means that you give away the most important part of yourself and that's your humanity. You will never change the world by a war or by violence, I don't believe in that. But the original ideas and ideals were very noble and very smart and they still are. It's just the how that doesn't work. Violence will never be an answer to that.

Q: Did you feel a lot of pressure in portraying Ulrike?

MG: I felt a lot of pressure towards Ulkrike Meinhof. I don't really care about the reception, or criticism from people who were there. I knew that I couldn't be her, I just had to show some aspect of her character. As the British say, I learn my lines and try not to bump into the furniture. In a way I felt responsible, which is the difficulty: not to judge or interpret too much. I wanted to show what happened and other people should make up their minds about her.

Interview with Nadine Velasquez - October 2nd, 2008

Promoting: My Name Is Earl
Venue: The Soho Hotel
Interview type: One-on-one



View (V): What do the writers have in store for you this season?

Nadine Velazquez (NV): They haven't said, exactly, but we are going to meet my extended family. So next week we're shooting, I have a little nephew that's coming, who does voodoo and scares everybody. So anytime I'm interacting with my family, I think it's hilarious, like when they came and rescued me in Guadalatucke, so that I could marry Earl, at the time, that was funny. Whenever you put Randy and Earl in a foreign place, it's hysterical, so in that regard, I feel like I serve a pretty good purpose in the show. So you're probably going to see more of that.

V: It seemed, in seasons 1 and 2 that there was a hint of a romance between Catalina and Earl, only he was completely oblivious to it. They seem to have dropped that for season 3 – was there any reason for that? Were you annoyed?

NV: No! I mean, I think they just come up with ideas and whatever the writers think is going to work or not work, they just go with. They experiment a lot on the show, obviously – I mean, in the third season, Earl's in jail, he's in a coma. So they're not afraid to try things and drop things and I think they just thought that if Earl, the main character, gets involved romantically, it's kind of a new twist to the show, so it's better to keep him focussed on the list. And same with Randy, it's best to keep him focussed on the list as well, because that's the point of the show.

V: How many more seasons has the show got in it, do you think? Have they said if it's going on indefinitely?

NV: No, I mean, I guess you never know. I would love it to go at least two or three more seasons. I did ask Jason and he said five seasons he wants to put into it, so that would be next year and that's it. That would make me really sad, because I can't believe we're already in the fourth season. But I have a feeling that there's at least one or two more left.

V: The Spanish segments in the show are very funny, with you acting like you're saying something that's relevant to the scene but actually addressing the Spanish-speaking audience. Was that something the writers came up with for you or was it your idea?

NV: No, they just did that. Actually, we have to do that this season, I haven't seen that yet. Normally, it's when I'm going off on someone, I'm actually giving a shout-out to the Spanish-speaking audience.

V: The show has a huge supporting cast. All the secondary characters seem to come back and hang out in the bar. It all seems very friendly, so is there a lot of socialising off-set?

NV: Sexualising?

V: Socialising! Hanging out together.

NV: Darnell, Eddie Steeples and I hang out together a lot, off-set. Sometimes Jamie and I will as well. We get invited to a lot of things that people are up to, so yeah, there is socialising.

V: Do you have a favourite episode?

NV: I love the one where I get smelly and stinky. It's called Foreign Exchange Student. It's the one where I have sex with Randy that night and that was, I think, one of the funniest moments for Catalina. There's that whole montage of her preparing herself for the big disgusting moment. I also liked the telenovela thing that I did, the flashback.

V: Who's been your favourite guest star, so far?

NV: Well, I didn't get to actually work with him, but Christian Slater, because I think he's hot.

V: What was your reaction when you realised your character was going to be based in the strip club for the rest of the season?

NV: I didn't know where they were going to go with that, I mean I didn't know how that was going to work at the time, but they've managed to put me in that outfit at the hospital, in the forest and in the car, so if the motivation for it was just to get me in less clothes, then they succeeded.

V: Do you enjoy doing the bouncy dance?

NV: I just did it again, in the fourth season. Jump, jump. It's a hilarious scene.

V: What have you got coming up?

NV: I'm shooting a film in Michigan right now, called All's Fair in Love, set in a Renaissance Fair. So I'm doing that and I just shot my 2009 Nadine Velazquez calendar, so I'm very excited about that. And I'm also shooting an independent comedy in January, called Lucky.

Interview with Vera Farmiga and Rupert Friend - September 11th, 2008

Promoting: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas
Venue: The Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Kensington
Interview type: Round table


Q: What research did you do for the roles?

Rupert Friend (RF): I read Rudolph Hess's book, but my main priority was trying to understand what might make a young man of my age believe that his actions were not only acceptable but desirable, because obviously they're opposite to what I believe. And I found a book written by a girl who lived on the same mountain as Hitler's lair, who was utterly swept along by the Nazi propaganda machine, to the point where she was believing that it was necessary to do it and not evil, but quite the reverse. And from that, I was able to try to understand how ambition might play a part in explaining away your actions, particularly in light of my character's father having been a deserter – there's that sort of secret which you're constantly trying to compensate for, because you're aware of the consequences, as we see.

Vera Farmiga (VF): I tried to accumulate stuff on the internet and someone found me books and documents and testimonies and online I found journal entries and diary entries, not only Frau Stangel and Frau Hess, who were the wives of Treblinka and Sobibor and Auschwitz, but other ladies of the Third Reich. Emmy Goering, Magda Goebbels, Leni Riefenstahl, Paula Hitler, both of Hitler's significant relationships, which ironically ended both in suicide. And focus on the propaganda of motherhood, the ideology of the time, what it meant to be a dutiful German wife. And Rudolph Hess also, he talks about his wife and what she provided him and what emotional stability she provided for him.

Q: Did you watch any movies from the past with any resonance to the role?

RF: Personally, I wouldn't have found it useful to watch somebody else's interpretation because I think one of the great things about the way that the story looks at the Holocaust is that it's utterly unique in its perception and I think we all wanted to do something that was completely fresh as a take on this period and with that in mind, it was very important to me to not do anything that was a rehash of the way we think of Nazis, or even of baddies, because the whole point about this story is that yes, they committed this incredibly brutal atrocity, but the point about the story is that it's a family – it's a father and a son and a wife and children – and that they all had this credo that was so terrifying but they were doing family things as well. So I think there was a certain amount of wanting to come at it from a fresh angle.

Q: Were you relieved not to have to do a German accent?

VF: (Laughs) Yes, but at the same time, an English accent as well. It's always terrifying, any accent is terrifying, especially doing it with an entirely English cast, I mean you feel like you've got a whole cord of wood that needs to get chopped and everyone's using steel axes and you're up there with a fish. The first couple of days, we didn't have much rehearsal and most of the rehearsal was spent just developing a sense of family, it was very important to the kids to befriend them and create a sense of safety and love and closeness. So there wasn't much rehearsal and eventually, the accent, I could forget about it.

Q: What have you got coming up next?

VF: A Rod Lurie film called Nothing But The Truth. It's a story about the Constitution in crisis and a woman who goes on a crusade to defend it. And also a Nikki Caro film, based on a novel called The Vintner's Luck, by Elizabeth Knox.

RF: I've got a film called Cheri coming out at the end of the year, which is based on the Colette novel, with Michelle Pfeiffer, that Stephen Frears directed. A sort of Belle Epoque French courtesan's son having an affair with a woman twice his age.

Q: Poor you!

RF: I know, it's tough.

Interview with David Thewlis - September 11th, 2008

Promoting: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas
Venue: The Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Kensington
Interview type: Round table


Q: I heard you on the radio recently talking about the research you did with one of the real commandants of a camp. Can you tell us about that?

David Thewlis (DT): Well, not with him personally, obviously. Rudolph Hess, who was one of the commandants of Auschwitz. It was just very useful for me that this document existed – it's an autobiography of his time at Auschwitz. It brought home to me the reality of it and also the detailing of his time with his family: his love of his children and his relationship with his wife, who did not know for two years, the truth of what was going on, even though it was an extermination camp as opposed to just a labour camp. And some very awful and graphic descriptions of what he was perpetrating. So it couldn't have been more of a gift to have and it was very useful. (153)

Q: I like the fact that the accents were all British accents rather than German. I know that you enjoy the opportunity to do a good accent. Were you annoyed at not having to do a Nazi accent?

DT: (Laughs) I wouldn't say I enjoy it! No, I wasn't disappointed. I thought it was good. As the director said last night (at a Q&A), the main reason was not to burden the children with an already very, very difficult job to get those parts right, which they do beautifully. And I don't think it would be the film it is, had they also have had to take on the accents - their performances would have suffered and if their performances suffer, the film suffers and you won't have the same film, so once you've suspended disbelief - because really we should be speaking German, not German accents. So I was very, very happy to do that, because actually I don't enjoy doing accents at all! Well, not many of them.

Q: I'm basing that on the fact that you enjoyed doing the Welsh accent in Basic Instinct 2.

DT: (Laughs) I did enjoy doing that one, yeah. I did that one because there was not much else to do with the part and I thought, well, he's a detective and most of it was 'Where were you on the night of the fifth?' and I thought, well, that sounds nicer if you say it in a Welsh accent. But not much deep research behind that, really.

Q: Being a parent, do you think your response to the material in the film was that much stronger than it might otherwise have been?

DT: Yes, I suppose so. Certainly, in shooting, I mean, the worst thing one can imagine as a parent is losing a child, so that's certainly what I was thinking about, directly, as we were shooting. But I was also having very bad dreams at the time, when I was doing all the research and immersing myself in this period and the ugliness of it, I often dreamed about my daughter being taken away, to the point where I actually stopped doing the research because it was getting a little weird.

Q: What projects have you got coming up next?

DT: The next thing I've got coming out is a film based on a Paulo Coelho novel, called Veronika Decides To Die. Another cheerful one. It's all set in a mental hospital and I'm the psychiatrist. It's directed by Emily Young, who's this great British director – she did Kiss of Life. And then there's this little sort of independent thing called Harry Potter.

Interview with Mary Elizabeth Winstead - July 29th, 2008

Promoting: Make It Happen
Venue: The Soho Hotel
Interview type: One-on-one



Interview with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, star of Make It Happen (+ Die Hard 4.0, Death Proof and Final Destination 3)

Venue: Soho Hotel

View.co.uk (V): The dance moves are pretty impressive in Make It Happen. Did you do all the dancing yourself?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (MEW): I did. I trained for about a month, about eight hours a day. I definitely learned everything, including all the tricks and all that stuff. And there were a few things that, by the time we shot it, once there were producers around and everything, they were like, “That's too dangerous, she's not doing that. Put in the double”. So there are a few things that probably aren't me, but I learned everything and I would have done it if they'd have let me!

V: So which bits weren't you? Can you give me an example of a dangerous bit that wasn't you?

MEW: Well, of course, there's a big back-flip off the piano that wasn't me. That would have been cool if I could have done that.

V: So did you learn the back-flip and they said no?

MEW: Ah, no, I couldn't have done the back-flip – I made a mistake in saying I could have done ALL the moves. I couldn't have done that.

V: Had you trained as a dancer beforehand?

MEW: Yes, I had. I'd trained most of my life as a dancer. I was a ballet dancer growing up and spent summers at Jofford Ballet School in New York and all of that. A different style of dancing, so it was still very difficult for me to learn hip-hop and burlesque and all of that, because it doesn't come naturally for me to move that way, it comes naturally for me to move in a different style. So it was many, many hours and lots of injuries and bruises and things that were pretty tough to go through, but it's all for the dancing.

V: Had you seen Step Up and Save The Last Dance For Me and the other dance movies?

MEW: Yes. They're all entertaining in their own ways. For me, coming from a dance background, I love seeing choreography and paying attention to that and looking at the nuances of what people do, so it's always really entertaining for me to watch those films. My favourite is still Flashdance, from the 80s – I could watch that over and over again, I love that film. But I really loved Save The Last Dance when that came out, I thought it was a really good story and a sweet film.

V: Is there a name for the kind of dance that's in Make It Happen? In the movie they say that it's rooted in burlesque but it goes beyond that.

MEW: You know, I think they coined some term while we were shooting it, like Caburlesque or something like that. Because it's not really traditional burlesque, it's like a theatrical performance, you know, it's costumes and it's much more elaborate than traditional burlesque.

V: What else have you got coming up?

MEW: I'm in Scott Pilgrim Versus The World, which is a comedy that's being directed by Edgar Wright, starring Michael Cera. It's based on the Scott Pilgrim comic books and I'm playing this really cool comic book character called Ramona Flowers. It's going to be amazing.

Interview with Elissa Down (writer-director of The Black Balloon) - June 25th, 2008

Promoting: The Black Balloon
Venue: The Traverse, Edinburgh Film Festival
Interview type: One-on-one



Note: Actually, I accidentally deleted the interview I did at the time, but Elissa very kindly agreed to an email interview at a later date, so this is that interview instead.

ViewLondon (VL): This is obviously a very personal film for you. How
much of it is autobiographical?

Elissa Down (ED): I have 3 brothers, 2 of which have autism. I also
had a father in the army so we had to move around quite a bit. Most of the stuff in the film happened to me, we just used the incidents as inspiration, and shaped it into a dramatic structure.

VL: How have your family reacted to the film?

ED: My family are really proud. Dad loves it because he thinks he's
funny now - he's heard audiences laughing at his jokes! Mum has cried
everytime she has seen it. And my middle brother sighed and asked why he didn't have a girlfriend like Gemma at highschool, ha ha.

VL: Can you say a little about the casting of Luke and Rhys? How did
you find them?

ED: The casting of the two brothers was really easy. Luke was the 2nd
guy to come in for Charlie and I knew within 10 secs that this is the
actor for Charlie. Rhys came in on his day off (from the show "Home
and Away") and I think in so many ways he was just like Thomas. When we put both Luke and Rhys together they had this instant connection as brothers.

VL: Luke Ford gives an incredible performance (as autistic teenager
Charlie). How much direction did you give Luke with his performance?
Was there a long rehearsal period? Did he spend time with autistic
children?

ED: Luke had a 6month rehearsal period. He walked around the streets of Sydney with his knees strapped so he could develop the physical stiffness of Charlie. He spent time with my brother to get a lot of the specific mannerisms. He would record himself eating, on the computer, walking, running and we would watch it together. I would then give him any notes etc.

VL: How did Gemma Ward get involved? Isn't she a supermodel or something?

ED: Gemma and I worked together on a short film of mine "Pink Pyjamas" when she was 13. She was this lanky girl that wanted to run away and go to NIDA when she was 18. The fashion world discovered her and this modelling career just exploded for her.

VL: How similar is your father to Erik Thomson's character? Does he
really take advice from stuffed animals?

ED: Yes, my parents have many stuffed bears in the house. There are 3 actually that are in their bedroom, one being Rex. There have been some funny conversations with them over the years.

VL: At what stage did Toni Collette get involved and what was your
reaction when she agreed to take the part?

ED: Toni got involved when the script was finished. It was sent to her
and within a week we got a 'yes'. My producer rang me with the news
and I was doing this clifftop walk around Bondi. I couldn't believe
it! I was so excited and just swearing off my head, going "No, no, I
can't believe it' I think people around me thought I was getting bad
news. I had to then run home and I called everyone (and made them
swear not to tell anyone, ha ha).

VL: There's a fight scene towards the end of the film that is
brilliantly choreographed and looks very complicated. Was it difficult
to film and how long did it take to rehearse? (It felt incredibly
realistic and really captured the chaos of a fight breaking out).

ED: We filmed that scene over a day. We broke it up and shot it
sequentially. We had a number of rehearsals for it and the lounge-room furniture was selected with that sequence in mind (eg padded big lounge, round coffee table etc). We rehearsed it a few times and our stunt co-ordinator Lawrence Woodward (who also worked on the Matrix which I think is hilarious. He goes from that to crafting scenes over a tampon!) help choreograph how to make the fighting look real but be safe for the actors.

VL: How have autistic groups reacted to the film?

ED: It has had such a fantastic response and it is being used as a
training video because they feel it captures the chaos and issues of
families living with a member with autism. Also, families have felt
that someone has told their story of what it is like to live day to
day with this: all the struggles, joys and frustrations.

VL: Are you working on anything else? What's your next film going to be?

ED: I'm working on a number of projects, two being "Savage Garden" and "The Boy in the Sky" but you never know which one will be up next. It's like a horse race, you don't know who is going to come in first.

Interview with Richard Jenkins - June 21st, 2008

Promoting: The Visitor
Venue: The Delegate Centre, Edinburgh Film Festival
Interview type: One-on-one



Question (Q): How did you get involved in the film, first of all?

Richard Jenkins (RJ): Tom and I were acquaintances, we didn't know each other well. And I ran into him in a hotel in L.A. and he invited me to dinner, so we went out for dinner, we talked for two hours and got to know each other a little bit. And then, about a year and a half later he called and said, “I wrote this part for you. I had your voice in my head when I wrote it and I want you to read it and tell me if you want to do it.” So I read it and flipped and I said, “Yeah, but nobody's going to give you any money to do it if I'm playing the lead.” He said, “That wasn't my question, my question was do you want to do it – let me worry about the money”. So I said, “Yeah, I do. More than you know.”

Q: It must be pretty amazing when a director writes a part like that with you in mind?

RJ: It was a gift for me, it wasn't something I was expecting or thought that I'd ever do, you know, and here it is. And he asked me to come look at the rough cut of the movie after we shot it and I said, “Tom, I don't want to see it, I don't want to watch myself”. He said, “No, I need you to see this, I want you to see this.” So my wife and I went to New York and sat in a little screen and saw a rough cut and he came in and said, “Well?” And I'm not the most articulate person in the world, but I remember saying, “I've waited my entire professional life to be involved in a project like this.” That's what I think of it. It was a gift.

Q: Tell me about the drumming – did you have to learn the drums for the role?

RJ: I played the drums when I was younger, I played for about five, six years. But I wasn't very good, so I quit, because I wasn't getting any better. But it did help me get into the film. But I didn't practice at all (laughs).

Q: So the drumming was in the script? Tom didn't know you played the drums and was expecting you to learn them?

RJ: Yeah, that's right. Well, it was a pretty simple beat. I could play with speed – I was always a pretty quick drummer, but I used to get lost a lot. I could never get out of my head – it's like what Tarek says, 'Stop thinking, Walter!' I could never stop thinking when I played the drums. But what I did get out of those five years was I was fairly quick and I know he wanted it to be emotional and full of freedom, anger, you know, release, everything.

Q: Tell me about Tom, how was he as a director?

RJ: Oh, he's fantastic. He's incredibly collaborative - really smart, really articulate. He can talk about what his movie is as well as anybody I've ever worked for. And then you get that vision, you start to see where he's going with it, so it's incredibly helpful. And he's an actor himself, so that's very helpful – he treats you the way he likes to be treated as an actor. And he's collaborative, he'll let you do anything, but he also has a sense of what the movie is and if he doesn't think what you're doing is working, he'll let you know. But you never felt like you couldn't screw up. And even though we didn't have a big shooting schedule – it was 28 days – I never felt hurried or rushed. If I was going to do a big role like this, I couldn't have asked for better circumstances to do it in.

Q: Do you have a favourite scene in the film?

RJ: I liked the drum lesson a lot. I like that scene. And I like the scene in the restaurant, when I confess that I don't do anything.

Interview with Noel Clarke (writer, director and star of Adulthood) - June 11th, 2008

Promoting: Adulthood
Venue: Soho Hotel
Interview type: Round table


ViewLondon (VL): Writer, actor, now director – what was that like for you?

Noel Clarke (NC): Yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was obviously a challenge, but I'd been acting for a few years and writing for about half of that time as well and so when the film company asked me to direct, it wasn't something that I wanted to miss. So I had to do a test shoot, which was shoot a few scenes from the film, so they could approve that, so I did that and they passed it and then I got to do the feature.

VL: Will you concentrate more on acting, writing or directing now, do you think?

NC: Well, I'm hoping – I know there's a real thing in this country where they like to shove you into a box but I'm allowed to do all three because essentially, that's what I do. I remember when Kidulthood came out, people were like, 'Do you write now? Is that what you do?' and I was like, 'Well, no, I still act as well', so if I'm allowed to, I'd like to still be able to do all three. Although not always at the same time.


VL: What have you got coming up?

NC: I'm doing a film with Jim Sturgess called Heartless, which is directed by Philip Ridley and that's just as an actor. And it's great to be able to sit on set and look at the director stressing and be like, 'Ah, yeah', you know, 'cos I've done it. And obviously I'd just like to continue my writing and hopefully to be able to direct more stuff as well.

VL: The role of Sam is very different in this film to the last one. How did you set about transforming him from the villain into the hero or anti-hero?

NC: Well, obviously he's the same character and in the first film he was more like a one-dimensional bully and was there to serve a purpose. And in this film, obviously he's learned a valuable lesson and has to come out and deal with the consequences of his actions. But you know, it had to be his character because he had the biggest journey to go on. Because what a lot of young people that do these things don't realise, it's not just about you, it's about your victims and about how they feel. And I think that people aren't necessarily afraid of prison, you know, and I wanted to show that you go in there, there's people that really do really horrible things and if you're young like Sam was, you know, and you realise, actually, I was just a guy that thought I was some kind of big-shot but actually you go in there and there's really horrible people, you become humble very quickly. And you either go one of two ways, you either are sorry and you come out and you change or it can make you worse. And I wanted to show a character that is actually truly sorry when he comes out and wants to change his life. But I didn't want to make it too easy - in fact, he didn't come out saying sorry, he just wanted to be left alone. [SPOILERS] But then throughout the day, he's realising what he's done and who he's hurt, so when he says sorry at the end, he's earned it and you know that he truly means it.

VL: When you finished writing the first film, did you always have an idea of how you thought the character's life would go after the film had finished?

NC: No, I didn't. There wasn't even going to be a second film, it wasn't something I was interested in doing. I was back filming series 2 of Doctor Who at the time and it wasn't something I was thinking about. But then one of the actresses got a bit excited and she was telling people there was going to be a second one and she was going to do this and she was going to do that and I was like, 'This girl's mad', but then I thought, 'Actually, if I was going to do a second one, what would I do?' And I thought it would have to be that character and supported by Jay as well, that character, because he was friends with Trife and what would happen to you if your friend got killed like that, what would it turn you into? [SPOILERS] And I think throughout this film you see Jay as almost one-dimensional like Sam was but then at the end he says, 'I'm here because of you', you know, 'You did this, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be like this'. And you think 'Oh wow', that's what happened, it becomes like a vicious circle, people do things and then other people want to get them back and at some point somebody has to walk away or it never ends. Or it does end when someone dies.

VL: He was such a bad character in the first film - were you worried that it would be difficult for audiences to be sympathetic towards him in this one?

NC: Yeah, yeah, completely. I can see that. But even at the end, if they're not sympathetic, I don't necessarily mind. You can't always be forgiven by everyone if you do something as deplorable as he'd done. But if you're truly sorry within yourself, I think that's what counts. Not everyone's going to forgive you, but you don't always deserve to be forgiven. But what counts is if you've done something and you've learned from that mistake and you are not going to do it again and you are truly sorry and you've changed your life and become a better person and it's one less person doing wrong on the streets, I think that's what matters. So if people come out and they're like, 'Well, I still don't like the character', that's fine, as long as they can see that the message is there, that you can be an individual and walk away and not participate in continuing the circle of violence.

VL: Why do you think Kidulthood was so popular?

NC: I think it's just the air of authenticity because other films have come out that have tried to do the same thing and they've dropped like a lead safe. And I think the reason Kidulthood has been so popular is the authenticity, I think people can tell. If it's written by people that know or people that actually care, I think the audience can tell and I think that's what happened. Because, I mean, apart from Bridget Jones, Mr Bean or 28 Days Later, I defy you to tell me any British sequels made in this country. [No answer]. Right? And the reason we got a sequel is because the audience spoke. They went to see the film because their generation was captured by the movie and they went to see it. Sequels just don't happen in this country, for British films. And I think it is the authenticity, it's the fact that they related to it. A lot of adults and journalists were saying, 'This doesn't happen, this is ridiculous, kids don't have sex at fifteen, this is outrageous' and all the kids were like, 'We do this, man!'

VL: What about the accusations that Kidulthood glamorised and promoted violence?

NC: In real life, if you get hit with a baseball bat, you might die. That's what happens in real life. In other movies, you get thrown through a window, you get rolled over by a car and you get up and you fall through a pool table, that's glamorising violence to me. Because it's making it unrealistic, it's telling you these things can happen to you and you'll be fine, but in real life, you get hit once, just get hit wrong with the wrong thing and you might die. And it wasn't glamorising, it was just reflecting what society was doing and I think, unfortunately the film was right.

VL: Kids are always in the news – only yesterday there was talk of how kids are demonised and thrown in prison and so on. What can people do to tackle young crime and why are those perceptions out there?

NC: I don't know what people can do to tackle young crime. I'm not a journalist or a politician or someone who thinks they know the answer to that. All I can do is what I do and what I do is make films that raise questions. But if you want to look at anyone who's helping young people then you can look at this film because we set up a music initiative for young people to send their music in and young people sent their music in. We had 800, 900 tracks being sent in by young people who were making music in their bedrooms. And the hook was, 'Do something positive, make some music and if you get picked, your tracks will be in the film'. And their tracks are in the film. If you give young people positive things to do, they will do positive things. We literally scanned everywhere looking for new and young people. We let people from MySpace who liked the film come and be extras and got them excited about being on a film set. Again, if you give young people positive things to do, they will do positive things.

I can't answer why their behaviour is the way it is, but I can say that in the area I grew up in, there used to be a thing called YCTV, which was Youth Television, and it got young people into directing and acting and stuff like that. There's a director I know called Luke Hyams, he does Dubplate Drama, he came from YCTV. And all it was, local kids or kids who were behaving a bit bad could go there and learn about the industry and last year they closed it down. Why have they closed it down? Because now, all those kids who could go there and learn, what are they going to do now?
And with the amount of money that's floating around, you can't say it's because of funding. I have no idea why they closed it down, but if anyone could find out, I would love to know why they closed down YCTV, because the kids in that area need something like that.

VL: Do you have a favourite scene that you either wrote, acted or directed?

NC: I think one of my favourite scenes is when Ben Drew and Arnold Ocseng (Dabs and Henry) go into the basement flat and the other boys are playing the computer game and they kind of just sort of take it over. It doesn't move the story forward, it's not essentially really aggressive, it's just like teenage boys, you know, 'We're in here, we're more important than you, give us the controllers' kind of thing. And then the continuation scene from that, when they're playing the computer games, because sometimes young people are demonised and stuff like that – it's a very small minority but the stuff they do is so awful it grabs the news – but we forget that they're kids and sometimes they just want to play computer games and sit down and have fun. And I like that scene because for a moment they're young boys again. Which is what I think some of them would really like to be if they thought they had a choice.

VL: What do you want young people to get out of the film when you see it?

NC: I want them to realise that if you give them positive things to do, they'll do positive things. Yes, some young people are demonised and some of them are quite rightly demonised, but on the flipside, you have a lot of good young people that are doing things and some of them really grab the opportunities to make music and stuff like that. But also, I want people to look at the bigger picture of the film and see that the message is there for the characters to not be afraid to be individuals. [SPOILERS] You know, Henry doesn't want to be involved. Dabs hits him with a brick, but it's because Henry doesn't want to be involved. For every Dabs, you have a Henry, for every Jay, you have a Mooney, who wants to study at university, you know, for every Jay at the end you have a Sam who's going to go, 'You know what? I'm walking away'.

And I think young people need to not be afraid to be an individual. If all your friends want to play football and you want to write poems, write your poems! Sit on the football pitch and write a poem about them playing football if you need to, but don't be scared to do it, you know, don't be scared to be your own person.

And also, at the same time, for those slightly negative young people that always have excuses – and I've heard a lot of them say, you know, 'Who knows about what I go through? I grew up with a single mother on a council estate. You can't tell me anything, you don't know'. I do know. I was raised on a council estate, by a single mother and I'm making films. So now that excuse is not eligible anymore, you need to look at yourself and sort out your life, you know? A lot of them are quite rightly demonised but some just make excuses. Don't make excuses. Stop whatever you're doing that's negative, because you can't use that excuse, and find something positive to do. And I hope that's something that people take away.

VL: You've written about something that's very close to you. I would imagine you'll now get lots of people sending you their scripts for you to direct. Is that something you'd consider?

NC: Yeah, most definitely, I'd direct anything. You could send me the next Care Bears movie, I'd do that, if it was good enough. I wouldn't like to be pigeon-holed as 'He does this sort of work'. The films I've done just happen to be the films I've done because that's what I've been allowed to do. But I'd be more than happy to write and create other stuff. Also, to be quite honest – and I know some people might be annoyed at this – we've written about this genre and we've got a sequel, so anyone who's at home going 'I'm gonna write a film about gangs, I'm going to write a film about this', so anyone who's at home writing those films, face facts: you're not going to be as good as these films. You're not going to get a sequel. So you might as well stop that and write about a doctor or a lawyer or think of something new or exciting or different so we can start moving away from this sort of subject and show young people in a more positive light. We have teen films coming out of America every week, which we flock to see and they make millions of pounds, so why are we not doing them over here? They're not difficult to do, you know, they'll get the audience, but we just don't make them. We need to be doing stuff like that. So hopefully, the fact Adulthood has created the history it has by getting the sequel, hopefully now we can just take that audience, the MySpace, Facebook, PSP, Wii, Nintendo, Playstation culture and take them into new directions.

VL: I know you're filming material for the DVD at the moment. Is it important for you for the DVD to be as good as it can be?

NC: Yeah, I think it'll be as good as it can be. We'll have as many features as we can cram on there because that's what people want, they want extra content. We've got music videos for the film – that never happens! The last thing I remember was Love, Actually, with Girls Aloud and Hugh Grant dancing around. We've got music videos with footage from the film. The cast appear in the Sway video – that happens in American films, it doesn't happen here. And the question is why not? Why doesn't it happen with, quotation marks, “urban” films? It's because no-one's given it the chance to happen. And I might look quite dumb, but I've orchestrated all of this because I'm trying to give people opportunities to do new things and let us become more creative. And the soundtrack? My goodness! I don't know if it's your sort of music, but when you hear the soundtrack, you'll be jigging away, seriously. Seriously.

VL: Your films -Kidulthood, Adulthood and West 10- have given an opportunity for a lot of young talent, in particular black actors, to get into feature films. Was there anyone in particular who stood out for you?

NC: Adam Deacon, who plays Jay. I think a lot of people overlook him because he is what he is. You see him and that's him, but he's a very, very talented actor and he's going to be doing good things. And there's a new kid in this film called Jacob Anderson who plays my little brother. He was only 17 when we did the film, I think he's just turned 18 now, but he's a fantastic prospect for the future. And obviously, I set Aml Ameen on his way – a lot of people think he was in The Bill first, but he wasn't, he did Kidulthood first and they saw him and they took him and now he's on his way doing good things. And Shanika (Warren-Markland) and Red (Madrell), the two girls, they're really good talents and I think if they're allowed to, by the industry, all of them could do really, really well. They're fantastic talents and I hope that they're supported and do well in the future.

Interview with Scarlett Alice Johnson (star of Adulthood) - June 11th, 2008

Promoting: Adulthood
Venue: Soho Hotel
Interview type: Round table


ViewLondon (VL): Sorry to mention EastEnders immediately. You had quite a tough time on EastEnders, from the critics. This is a completely different role - do you hope that it will blow the critics away?

Scarlett Alice Johnson (SJ): God, that is quite a tough start! No, this is utterly different, in every way. I've always said that I'd rather have a reaction rather than no reaction to every character I play, so I make a conscious effort not to pick very generic characters. Nine times out of ten you get passed on scripts where it's just like the daughter or the wife, especially as a female actor, obviously, that can be really frustrating.

The thing that I love about this character and about this film is that it's completely specific. It's a very specific subculture, it's a very specific language, she has a very specific physicality, everything. It's just so far from being generic. Which is great, it's such a good tool as an actor to really narrow down the person you're playing.

VL: Talking of accents, it seemed to me that you, or rather the character modified her accent depending on who she was talking to. Was that right?

SJ: Yes. It's more of a colloquialism rather than an accent, so obviously she's aware of what she's doing. So when she's speaking to someone, she'll slightly vary her speech, so she'll speak differently to her boss than she will to, say, her dealer. But I'm glad you picked up on that!

VL: Was that something that came from you or from Noel's direction?

SJ: No, that was written in the script. The words in the script really dictated how I was going to say them and that was there right from the start.

VL: Were you a big fan of the first film? And was it daunting to come in and play against the character who had dominated the first movie?

SJ: I was very aware of Kidulthood, I'd actually bought the DVD. I'd also met Noel about three years before the first audition, so I wasn't particularly nervous coming into join it, because it was a nice thing to come into the second instalment of one big story.

VL: Do you have a favourite scene in the film?

SJ: That's quite hard. I think, in the beginning of the film, there's a scene where Lexi first meets Sam and they're just talking and she's got her back up completely. She's at her most abrasive because I think she's quite insecure and quite nervous and she doesn't quite know how to react to him, she probably fancies him a little bit, but in that scene she's Lexi at her most raw, her most Lexi-ish, if you like. And she has some great one-liners, she's got such a dark sense of humour. And there's one line that I can't repeat as it's slightly rude, but that just made me crack up. So that's my favourite scene, not in terms of the filming but in terms of the script, I just think it's brilliant.

VL: You have, not a sex scene, but a bit of hanky-panky in the film – how was that to film?

SJ: Ha ha! Everyone phrases it in different ways. Hanky-panky, intimacy, love. It was fine. Obviously, Noel has been with this project from start to finish so I felt very confident that I was never going to arrive on set and things had changed, I would suddenly be topless or wearing, I don't know, something on my nipples. I knew what it was going to entail. I've always felt very strongly that I would never do any kind of sex scene, or any kind of nude scene, in fact, unless it was absolutely necessary in the script. And this is not a gratuitous sex scene anyway, I think it's quite an honest portrayal of that slightly awkward, initial fumbling sort of thing. I'm very pleased with it.

Note: I've posted interview notes in the comments section below.