Interview with Nina Wadia - March 27th, 2009

Promoting: I Can't Think Straight
Venue: Organic Marketing offices
Interview type: One-on-one


ViewLondon (VL): What's the film about?

Nina Wadia (NW): The film is a romantic comedy, with two women, one from the Middle East and one from India. A lot of it happens in London, a lot of it happens in the Middle East and it's just literally a love story at the end of the day.

VL: How did you get involved in the film?

NW: Shamim Sharif, who wrote and directed it, and Hanam Kattan, her partner, who's the producer, approached me to play a little cameo, which ended up being a little bit bigger, as the house-keeper of the Jordanian mistress.

VL: So were Shamim and Hanam people that you knew already?

NW: No, no. I'd never met them before and I think this was Shamim's first directing project and it was based on her novel. And I actually went and auditioned for it. The house-keeper doesn't have many lines but she does have to spit a lot. But luckily I went to those classes in drama school and did manage to get the right consistency of spit to land the part (laughs).

VL: So you had a spit audition?

NW: Yes, I did. And I actually spat in it, which they found amusing and I think that's what did it for them.

VL: Were you responsible for your character's “sub-plot” or was it already in the script?

NW: Yes, a little bit. It was kind of collaborative. They had a few little things, like, because I'm quite short and the actress playing the Jordanian woman was very tall, there was a moment where we thought, well, I have to light her cigarette and I can't actually reach her. So we had to put a stool down and I climbed up on it and they kept it in the film. So it was quite nice to have such a receptive director.

VL: In both this film and in EastEnders, you display a real talent for sort of withering, sarcastic and very funny put-downs. Is that something that comes naturally? And if it isn't, this is your chance to blame it on the scriptwriters.

NW: I blame everything on the scriptwriters! I'm actually a very nice person and not sarcastic at all in real life (laughs).

VL: Is that true?

NW: No, not at all. I think as I've gotten older I've gotten a bit more blunt in real life and I think that helps in the playing of other roles. I don't suffer fools gladly, so...

VL: As an EastEnders fan, I was amused and delighted to see you sharing the screen with the guy that played Mr Ferrera, but I suppose this was filmed before you got the part in EastEnders?

NW: Yes, it was. And I didn't use to watch EastEnders before I got the role, so it was only in hindsight, when we met at one of the pre-press things that I realises that that's who it was. And all everyone kept saying to me was “Did you like his Elvis outfit?” and I had no idea what they were talking about and then it dawned on me what they were saying.

VL: Have you seen Shamim Sharif's second film?

NW: The World Unseen? Yes. I think they're both being released at the same time. They have the same two actresses and as far as I know, similar topics, except that The World Unseen is set during Apartheid time in South Africa. Both are slightly semi-autobiographical. It's a bit heavier, drama-wise than I Can't Think Straight, which is a romantic comedy, at the end of the day.

VL: But you're not in that one?

NW: No, I'm not in that one and I've told her off for that! So she says that any movie she makes from now on, she's going to make sure there's a spitting house-keeper in it.

VL: Do you have any more films coming up?

NW: Do you know, I would love to, and in fact a couple of Bollywood films came my way as well, because I'd just done a Bollywood film before EastEnders came my way, called Namaste London. But unfortunately, when you sign with EastEnders, you're not really allowed to do any work for other channels or film work, though they might be relaxing that shortly. So if it does come my way, absolutely. I was kind of gutted I had to turn down a couple of Bollywood projects that had come my way but then I've got EastEnders to balance it out, so I can't complain. But I miss Light Entertainment, I miss doing comedy work, purely, you know? That's why I keep Zainab a bit light – I make sure that she has a sense of humour or at least plays a sense of humour.

VL: You mentioned comedy. Do you have any particular career influences?

NW: Well, my growing up was bizarre – I was born in India, but I'm actually of Iranian heritage. Grew up there till I was about nine, then went to Hong Kong for the rest of the time, which was where I first saw, you know, TV from the UK and from the States. And one of the first comedy shows I ever saw was Blackadder. And I found that struck a chord with me and I thought, 'Okay, now that's my sense of humour'. So for me, that whole generation of comedians, all the Not The Nine O'Clock News people, they really inspired me, so that's kind of the path I wanted to take. But I found that at drama school, my teachers would say, 'Well don't restrict yourself to that because there is the ability to do drama'. So I then went down the theatre and Shakespeare route for a while, which I loved, but it wasn't satisfying enough, so I was very lucky when Goodness Gracious Me came along and it was exactly at the right time for me and my career to be picked out for that.

VL: I guess your early love of Blackadder explains your propensity for sarcastic put-downs?

NW: Absolutely, yes.

VL: Prior to the Masoods, EastEnders had a fairly bad track records for Asian families, thinking of the Ferreras in particular. What kind of feedback have you had for the Masoods?

NW: Touch wood, possibly the best I could ever have asked for. Mostly because when I get stopped in the street, it's not for any other reason than people going, 'Oh, you made me laugh last night'. And actually, that makes my day, because I love that within a huge soap like this, people get what we're trying to do with the Masoods. We want to make them real, but we want to make it about the characters, we don't want to make it about the religion. Because that was a huge issue when I was asked to play the part, they said, 'Would you be nervous taking on a British Muslim woman?' and I thought, 'Actually, no, because at the end of the day, I want people to like Zainab Masood for who she is – or hate her for who she is, I don't mind – but I wanted it to be about the character. I wanted it to be character based and character led. Because if you think about it, when they cast white actors, they don't go, 'Well, you'll be Christian and you'll be playing that', you know? So I liked that they went with that, I liked that they said, 'Okay, well let's really invent this woman then, let's make her three-dimensional' and my brief was, let's create someone that people will love to hate. And I hope I've done that!

Interview with Morjana Alaoui and Mylène Jampanoï (stars of Martyrs) - March 17th, 2009

Interview with Morjana Alaoui and Mylène Jampanoï (for Martyrs)
Venue: The Charlotte Street Hotel
Interview type: One-on-one (well, one-on-two)


ViewLondon (VL): How did you both get involved in the film?

Mylène Jampanoï (MJ): For me it was just a traditional casting through my agent. First the director gave me the script and I read it. It was interesting and a different story, a different script. And when I met the director I knew that we should do something together. From the beginning, I believed in him, I wanted to be confident and trust in him.

Morjana Alaoui (MA): For me it was different, because there was another actress who was supposed to do the role, but at the last minute she got afraid because she had a son, she didn't want him to see such violent images, so she changed her mind. So Pascal was back looking for an actress and he saw my first movie, so we had lunch. And then this was quite strange because I didn't do any screen tests or anything, he just said it was going to be me.

VL: It's an extremely intense, emotionally draining film. How did you prepare for the scenes?

MA: You know it's a very hard question because we did a lot of preparation but how are you going to prepare, you know, screaming or – so we were really focussed and we worked a lot. It was a chaotic shoot. And the make-up and everything, all this helped me be in my character and I couldn't cheat on any emotions, Pascal wouldn't allow us to cheat, so just on set, they were just coming up.

VL: Can you say a little about Pascal's directing style?

MA: Pascal had two different ways of directing.

MJ: It was not easy. We weren't fighting, but we didn't speak so much, so I was a little bit lost on the set and I didn't know what I would do. I don't have a lot of experience as an actress, so I counted on him a lot, but we didn't find so much of a connection. So I was on a horror movie and I was totally lost, really alone and in another country, so it was really difficult for me. And I spent a lot of energy off the set and I realise now that if I make another horror movie, I will do the opposite. I wasted a lot of energy on unimportant things, you know? But yes, it was a good experience, Pascal is a good director. But a lot of confusion for me.

VL: Did you find that that actually worked for your character?

MJ: Yes, you know, unconsciously, we do some things and realise later and I think that my attitude was close to the character that I wanted to show. You know, she was conflicted and I was a bit like that myself and maybe a little bit autistic. Yeah, it was interesting.

VL: You said two different styles?

MA: Yeah, for me, I think as my character is more responsible and she's here to really take care of Lucie and so on, Pascal had a smoother relationship with me, not trying to, like, push on some neurotic buttons because I had to play the opposite. But it's true that sometimes I felt, like Mylène, very very lonely, I mean, what experience did I have? I had done one film and here I was, screaming and crying and being the saddest I ever was in my life and in front of a camera, so sometimes you need a director to say, 'Yeah, it's good, no, it's not good, let's do this this way' and Pascal really let me be this responsible individual actress, just like my character.

VL: You mentioned the make-up – how long did it take to get it all right?

MA: It took a lot of time. We used to wake up at like 3am to start shooting at 7am, so it was quite intense, as well. But I had never realised there was such a different world, so it was very interesting.

VL: And Pascal told me that you allowed them to actually cut off your hair in the film?

MA: Yeah. And have my head shaved. It was cool because I always wanted to see what it looked like, but afterwards – it was two years ago, so I've been struggling to get my hair back. I'm happier this way.

VL: What was the hardest scene to film?

MJ: Everything was difficult, every day. To keep the same emotion every day was difficult. To be connected with the character was difficult. But when I kill the mother and I torture her, every day I was hitting her, so it's never easy. Every day, the movie was difficult.

VL: What are your next projects?

MA: I just finished a German movie called The Room, with Nikolai Kinski.

MJ: I'm shooting the Serge Gainsbourg movie, a biopic about Serge Gainsbourg and I play his last wife. And after that, I'm doing a movie with a French director, his name is Xavier Gens, he made Frontiers. It's not a horror movie though. I play a journalist, but it's a nice one. And maybe a comedy, but we don't have enough money for that yet.

VL: Do you have any films or directors that have particularly influenced you or that you especially want to work with?

MJ: I like Festen and the films of the Dardennes Brothers. Realistic movies, you know? As an actress, I'm dying to play this kind of character. I would love to work with the Dardennes Brothers.

MA: I love melodramas. I'd love to be in that kind of genre. That's the kind of film I like to watch the most.

Interview with Pascal Laugier (writer-director of Martyrs) - March 17th, 2009

Promoting: Martyrs
Venue: The Charlotte Street Hotel
Interview type: One-on-one


ViewLondon (VL): Where did the idea for the film come from?

Pascal Laugier (PL): I don't know, to be honest. The only thing I can tell you is that I started to write the film by thinking about the revenge sequence, you know, the girl knocking on the door on a sunny morning and killing, one by one, the members of a very regular, very middle-class French family. That was my starting point. Then I started wondering about her past, why is she doing it and the consequences of her actions and little by little I had the whole plot. And as I was writing it, the more I realised how violent it was, you know, almost like a surprise, the more I realised that the violence itself was the subject of the film. The pain, the suffering. That's more or less how the whole project came up in my mind.

VL: How did you find the financing for the film?

PL: I don't know – it's a miracle. And we didn't even wait too long before getting the two million to do the film, probably because in France, besides the big studios, there are still some independent people brave enough to believe that the French industry can produce something other than boring national comedies, if you know what I mean.

VL: It's interesting that Martyrs was produced by the same people who made Irreversible, because I think the films are very similar.

PL: Thank you! I take that as a compliment – I'm a big Gaspar Noe fan.

VL: What was your reaction when the film received the 18+ certificate in France?

PL: It was a surprise. I knew that we were living in very hard times, in terms of censorship and that France was returning to the old times when The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead were kind of forbidden, but I couldn't have anticipated it. I really thought that the film would get a normal rating for extreme violence, like a 16, forbidden to under 16s. But finally we understood that it was a way for the classification commission to simply erase the film, to kill it commercially, you know? It was an indirect way of censoring the film, because in my country, if you censor a film directly, it won't be accepted, if you ask a director to cut out some sequences, it won't be accepted by anybody. So they found a new system, which is to say 'Let's make it an 18+'. If the film is an 18+, it's considered a porn film so you won't find any theatre to release it and it won't be in the big stores on DVD.

VL: So it's like the NC-17 rating in America?

PL: Absolutely. And it would have killed the opportunity for other directors to make horror films too, so it was a very very dangerous thing and I'm very glad we finally got the decision overturned, because of the small media scandal it created. So in the end, we got the normal 16 rating for an extremely violent horror film and it was released. A lot of exhibitors still refused it, but we managed to find 60 places in France to screen the film and the box office was okay for the 60 prints we had.

VL: The make-up effects in the film are extraordinary. How long did it take to do the make-up?

PL: Thank you! It took months and months and months of preparation. It was done by a genius, he's called Benoit Lestang. Unfortunately, he is dead now, Benoit died a few months ago. He was my friend, so we shared a house during all the prep and the shooting in Montreal, where we shot the film. And I saw Benoit working days and nights to do all the special effects that he did. So what more can I tell you? I had the chance to be surrounded by a great guy, you know, who took care of everything.

VL: It looks like it must have been an intense and emotionally draining shoot. How did you prepare the actresses?

PL: We spent two months in Paris rehearsing. We weren't rehearsing the sequences in the script. We more spent our time working on building a trust between all of us so they wouldn't feel uncomfortable crying in front of me or showing me their dark side. So it took time for us to trust each other enough so that they would feel open on set and wouldn't be scared of my sights, you know?

VL: Can you speak about the casting process?

PL: I met dozens and dozens of French actresses who refused to even meet me or call me back after reading the script, so sometimes I had the feeling that I was offering them a paedophile or pornographic film, you know? Don't get me wrong – in France, the horror genre is still despised, it's still taken very condescendingly by a lot of people. So that gave me even more energy and even more strength to do that kind of film – the more it was despised, the more I felt like trying to do it (laughs).

VL: Can you say a little about Morjana Alaoui and Mylène Jampanoï?

PL: What can I say? I was very lucky. On set they were real troopers. They never complained, they worked hard to achieve the level of performance you can see. I'm very proud of them onscreen – I think they make the film. So obviously they were the perfect actresses to play the parts and they belong to a younger generation in Paris that's not afraid of horror, that's not afraid to deal with transgressive material. They accepted the film instantly. Morjana agreed to have her head shaved, that was no problem for her.

VL: You really shaved her head? And the same when you see them cutting her hair?

PL: Yes, yes. It's not a special effect. It's true, it's all true. And it probably created her real emotion on set, you know?

VL: Obviously you're an enormous horror fan yourself. Which horror films and directors have influenced you?

PL: Oh, I love all the Italian wave of the 1970s, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and you know in general, I love all the genre directors who use the genre as a way to express themselves. I don't like the tongue-in-cheek horror films that we do today. They're the kind of post-modern, very self-referential films made today. I much prefer the more innocent times, you know, like in the 70s where people like Dario Argento, John Carpenter, were using the genre as a way to talk about their own vision of the world, you know and the human condition. At first that's why I loved the genre so much, because it told me a lot of things that were hidden and largely ignored by other genres. In the genre I saw something really true about my life, about our mind and our experiences.

VL: Are there any horror films today then, of the ones that are being made today, that you admire?

PL: Yeah, of course, I admire M. Night Shyamalan a lot, because he's the kind of guy that chooses the genre as a way to express himself. His films all seem very personal and I can feel that as a viewer, you know? And he is quite serious. He proves that we can still tell very innocent stories with faith, you know? I love films that are the result of an act of faith. I hate distance in the genre.

VL: But The Happening was pretty bad though, wasn't it?

PL: Yes, but I much prefer a bad Shyamalan film than a good, er, Quentin Tarantino film. Well, Quentin Tarantino makes very good films, but I'm saying that, for me, Grindhouse (Death Proof and Planet Terror), for example, that's exactly what I hate at the moment, the self-referential, post-modern film, when you digitally scratch the film, you make it look like a 70s film, that's exactly the kind of thing I don't like. So I much prefer The Happening to the new Batman film, for example. I didn't like The Dark Knight for the same reason. I don't see a genre film, I see a man doing a genre film to make a comment about the genre, who tries constantly to prove to the audience that he is, in a way, cleverer than the story he is telling. And that's not the case with Shyamalan, Shyamalan takes all the risk. Sometimes he wins, he makes Signs, Unbreakable, masterpieces, and sometimes he loses, he makes The Happening, but the process, for me, is still much more interesting.

VL: And you mentioned Gaspar Noe?

PL: Yes. Gaspar is something else, he's an artist. He doesn't deal with the genre. He takes some elements from the exploitation genre in some of his films but he's a pure artist, he's one of a kind.

VL: Were there any scenes that you had to cut from the film?

PL: Nothing. There was only one element of the film I cut, it was a sequence at the beginning in the orphanage, in the hospital, we saw Anna's mother and we understood more why Anna was in the hospital. But I didn't like the sequence, it told too much and I cut it out, but I never cut any gore stuff from the film. I was never asked to do that.

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

PL: No, no, no. I have a very mixed relationship to my own work. I still much prefer other director's films to my own. I love making films and after everything's done I never watch it again, I go to the next one. Pride, being proud of my work, for me, is a ridiculous idea. Pride has nothing to do with art, you know? The important thing is doing and putting your guts and your honesty in what you do. So I can face myself in the mirror after having done that film because I have the feeling that I did the film that I really had to make, but masturbating over my own work is impossible, you know, I – no, I'm too much of a cinephile to do that. You watch Stanley Kubrick's films and you stay very cool about your own work, you know?

VL: What's your next project?

PL: I've been lucky enough to line up four different projects, one in France and three in Hollywood, one of which is the remake of Hellraiser and another one is called Dogs. So I've got numerous projects and we'll see which one happens first.

Interview with Mark Hartley (writer-director of Not Quite Hollywood) - March 13th, 2009

Promoting: Not Quite Hollywood
Venue: The Charlotte Street Hotel
Interview type: One-on-one


ViewLondon (VL): How did the project come about?

Mark Hartley (MH): It was an idea I'd had since I was a kid. I grew up watching these films on TV – I remember distinctly seeing Snapshot, The Man From Hong Kong and Patrick on television. Australia had a weird film culture in that we had embraced our arthouse films as our commercial films in Australia, films like Picnic at Hanging Rock and Breaker Morant were embraced by audiences in Australia as our mainstream films. So anything that was different to our nostalgic period films was considered B grade or exploitation. So when I saw these films on TV, they were like nothing I'd seen before in Australia, they were like American films with Australian accents. So I felt a connection to them because of that and I went to read about them in the library, but they weren't listed. So that kind of started me with the idea of shining the spotlight on these film-makers – people like Brian Trenchard-Smith and Richard Franklin, who had just as much skill as our more lauded film-makers but never got any respect because they worked in genre films.

VL: How did Quentin Tarantino get involved?

MH: After about six years I'd almost given up [trying to get the film made] but I'd amassed a 100-page research document. I'd read in Fangoria that he'd screened Road Games on the set of Kill Bill, so we tracked down his assistant's email and sent her the document and said “Look, I've been working on this project but it's dead in the water but I thought Quentin might like to read these notes if he's got an interest in the stuff?' And I got an email back the next day saying “Quentin's read your notes from cover to cover. What can he do to help you?” So we went over and shot an interview with him on spec. I think it was three hours with Quentin and half an hour with Quentin and Brian Trenchard-Smith just chatting. And during that, I thought, 'There's no way in the world that we can't get this finance now' and it still took another four years.

VL: Why was that?

MH: It was more or less the same problem these films faced when they came out. No-one thought this was a story worth telling. Tarantino did actually help in a big way. We got back to Australia and they still said, 'Well, how does Tarantino help?' And I was trying to explain to them that Tarantino is a beacon for film enthusiasts all over the world and if Tarantino tells you to watch, say, a Henry Silva mafia movie, you'll watch it. And here he is telling you to watch Australian genre movies – why shouldn't we be making this documentary? And they still didn't see it, but thankfully the Americans and the English did and we got funding that way.

VL: How hard was it to get hold of all the clips you wanted? Were there any clips you wanted but couldn't get?

MH: While I was researching Not Quite Hollywood, I actually spent a lot of time putting a large majority of these films out on DVD, through a company in Australia. So I'd found a large number of the materials doing that and also tracked down rights holders doing that, which made it a lot easier. We've also got a really good archive in Australia, the National Film and Sound Archive, which had a large majority of the material. And I said to the producers, if we're going to do this, we're going to do it properly, because I was so sick of watching documentaries where they talk about these films that sound so great but then they cut to this really ratty footage, because they've used old trailers or TV prints or whatever they could get their hands on. So the money went on regrading everything from the original negs, which we did with every title but one. So that helped too, because the whole idea of the film is that we're trying to explain how these movies tried to take on the world and you can't do that unless the films look half decent.

VL: Do you have a particular favourite of the films in the movie?

MH: Oh, look, the other thing I should say about the docko is that it's pretty irreverent – it's not trying to pretend that all these films are good, so hopefully when you're watching it you can tell which are the good ones and which are the bad ones. And I think the docko makes it pretty clear that Road Games and Long Weekend, Patrick, Man from Hong Kong and Next of Kin are really good films. And Razorback, Razorback's a pretty good film too. I'm a big fan of Road Games, I think Road Games is a really great film and still stands up today. It's as good as any of your wannabe De Palma and Hitchcock films.

Note: ViewLondon interview is here.

Interview with Nanette Burstein (director of American Teen) - March 4th, 2009

Promoting: American Teen
Venue: Premier PR offices
Interview type: One-on-one (phone)


ViewLondon (VL): Could you explain how the project came about?

Nanette Burstein (NB): It was a film I'd actually wanted to make for several years, dating back to before reality TV existed in America and there were all these reality shows about high school (e.g. The Hills). For me, high school was a really formative time in my life and I wanted to go back and explore it and all the pressures that you're under at that age and, you know, through various attempts, I was finally able to get financing for the movie, so that's how it came together.

VL: And how did you set about finding the different students?

NB: Well, I chose middle America because it does have an innocence and it's a very isolated part of the country and I wanted that kind of fishbowl environment of high school. And I wanted it to be in a small town that only had one high school so again, back to the whole fishbowl idea, you have even more social pressure than you would perhaps in an urban environment. And I wanted it to be a town that was economically mixed. I was hoping for it to be racially mixed but it proved to be difficult to find in small towns in the mid-west. And then I needed a high school that would give me the access that I was looking for, so I called hundreds of high schools and found ten that would give me the access and went to each of them and interviewed all the incoming high school seniors that were interested. And this high school in Warsaw, Indiana had the most compelling stories and compelling kids.

VL: Am I right in thinking that there were originally several characters and you had to get rid of some of them in the editing room?

NB: Well, there were several who starred in the first couple of months of shooting, but after a few months I narrowed it down to the five. There was one other kid that I followed throughout the whole year that I did not include in the film in the edit room. He was an African-American kid and I – he had a great story on paper and I really wanted some racial diversity to the film, so I really held on to it, but he wasn't that comfortable on camera and he was kind of a shy guy and so it was really hard to understand what was going on in his head and it didn't really work when I tried to edit it together.

VL: I was thinking of Hannah's best friend, Clark. He's kind of in it and then he isn't in it. Was he in love with her or something like that?

NB: He was. He was in love with her. They actually ended up having a little fling at the end of the year and I did originally have that in the movie and I cut it out because her story already had so many twists and turns. The film could have been five hours long and I, for time reasons, had to cut certain things out of the movie. But yes, he was in love with her and they're still very close friends and he's a great kid.

VL: I wondered about that, because I've seen several reviews that have labelled Clark as Hannah's gay best friend. Did you realise that would be the upshot of cutting his love story?

NB: I know! I am aware of it now. Of course, I never thought of that when I was editing the movie. I realised after the fact. I know.

VL: Obviously, there's been a lot of speculation about how much of the film was staged. How did you go about doing the email scene and the two sides of the phone conversation scenes?

NB: You mean when the photo gets sent around? Well, basically every kid in high school saw that photo, so basically I just filmed as much as I could for a week and I got maybe four or five people, but edited together it looks like 'Oh my God, the camera's there the whole time'. And I had to reshoot people actually writing emails anyway, because it's illegal to show someone's actual email address. But I wrote exactly what the emails said. Also, it was not the first photo that she sent to him, there had been a few others. And I think he knew he had an email from her and he told me to come over. But I didn't want to put it in the film that she sent all those pictures, because I think it's, you know, maybe a little damaging to her.

VL: What about the phone conversations?

NB: That's an editing thing. You never actually see two people talking on the phone. I recorded both sides using a phone tap thing you can put on the cell phone but I only filmed one side of the conversation. In the edit room I just cut to who they were talking to, a cutaway of them listening on the phone so you would know who they were speaking to. But you don't actually see people talking on both sides.

VL: What about when Hannah's been dumped by her first boyfriend and she calls Clark? Doesn't he react as if he's getting the news then?

NB: Oh, you only see his side. I was actually filming them that night and she was supposed to be with them and I had no idea that her boyfriend had broken up with her or what had happened. And they were calling her and she wasn't answering her phone. And nothing was really happening and I was about to leave and then he gets this phone call from her. And she was videotaping herself on the other side, so I have her audio. I don't know why she was doing that, but she was. So I didn't use the picture but I used the audio from her videotape.

VL: The other thing that stuck out for me was Jake's sort-of-girlfriend who cheats on him with the midnight rendezvous at the swimming pool. Surely, if you're cheating on the star of a documentary, you don't invite the documentary crew along?

NB: No, I know! You know what happened? It was at the beginning of the year, in the first couple of months and I was filming about 20 different people. And one of them was the guy that she was cheating with, this guy Mike Hall, who at the time, I wasn't sure if he was going to be one of the main subjects of the film. She didn't make the call going 'Hey, come over, I'm cheating on Jake', it's that I was filming the guy just as often that she ended up cheating with.

VL: But how did you know they were going to the swimming pool?

NB: Well, we were filming them for a few days. They were hanging out non-stop for a few days, though that was the only time they ended up kissing. So she knew what she was doing and she doesn't mind that it's in the movie, because I think she thinks it's high school drama.

VL: That's pretty cold, if you ask me.

NB: Well, people at 14 can be pretty cold. And then I was shocked, because he finds out from a friend and she knows that I filmed her and she still lies! I was totally shocked by that. I was like, why is she – I mean, I guess she just doesn't want to confront him about it yet, but she knows that I filmed the other side of it, so it was...yeah.

VL: Did you not feel compelled to tell Jake yourself?

NB: I was actually very torn, but I don't know. It was hard. But within a day she ended up telling him the truth anyway. Not when I was filming, but she did end up telling him and broke up with him. But if it had gone on for a long time, I guess I would have had to tell him.

VL: I'm surprised he wasn't resentful towards you afterwards for knowing and not telling him.

NB: He wasn't, actually. We had a long talk about it, but he was more upset that she'd broken up with him, period.

VL: Could you give us a quick update on where all the kids are now?

NB: Yes. Hannah's in film school, outside New York. It's a state school, so it's affordable for her. And she's making short films and really enjoying herself and getting so much out of it. Megan's at Notre Dame, she just took her MCAPS, so she's going to be a doctor and is applying to medical school. Same with Mitch, Hannah's very good-looking boyfriend. Jake is actually not in school right now, he switched colleges twice and then he didn't go back the following year. I don't know, I think he still has a lot of insecurities and doesn't feel comfortable in that environment, so he's just working and trying to figure out what he's going to do with his life. And Colin is still playing basketball, although he switched schools, because he wasn't happy at the place that gave him the scholarship. But he got some financial aid at a different school. But he's still playing basketball and studying.

VL: How have they reacted to their unexpected fame?

NB: I think they've reacted very well. They all really like the movie, they're very supportive of it, they worked a lot on the promotion of the film, they got to go to Los Angeles and the studio paid for them to stay in LA for the summer and so on. It was a cool experience for them. But they really have good heads on their shoulders, in terms of not letting it blow up their heads or derail their lives in any way. And we had a lot of conversations prior to that about it.

VL: What's your next project?

NB: I'm actually developing a couple of television non-fiction series. Just doing the promo tapes for them for the networks. One is on the legal process, filming it from the side of the prosecutors and the other is on salmon fishing in Alaska. This one town just fills up with fishermen who have three weeks to make their entire income for the year. And I'm also developing a fiction film that I'm attached to direct for New Line, here in the States. It's a comedy, actually. So, keeping busy!

Interview with Guillermo Arriaga (writer-director of The Burning Plain) - March 4th, 2009

Promoting: The Burning Plain
Venue: The Sanderson Hotel
Interview type: One-on-one


ViewLondon (VL): Could you briefly explain the premise of the film?

Guillermo Arriaga (GA): This is a film that wants to explore the mystery of a very damaged woman. Charlize Theron plays a woman who you can see has something growing inside her, something very intense and strong. And through several other stories, you begin to understand this woman. It's a movie about love and the hope that love can bring with it.

VL: Where did the idea for the film come from?

GA: It comes from several ideas and moments. It's not like there's only one idea. There were several stories that I couldn't see as a whole, until I got the concept of the four elements and giving each story one element: the element of water, the element of fire and then earth and wind. So that allowed me to unify the different stories and make the story as a whole.

VL: I read that you used two different cinematographers for the scenes in Portland with Charlize and the scenes in the desert. How did that come about?

GA: First of all, the photographer of the film is Robert Elswitt, because I planned the whole film with him. We planned the concept of the film and the kind of compositions we wanted and I can tell you that I admire Robert Elswitt like no-one else, because he's a great talent and a great worker. But unfortunately, he had to go and work on another movie – he thought it was going to be pushed, but it wasn't pushed – so he said, “I have this contractual problem, I have to leave, but I have a great substitute, who is John Toll”. And, as you know, John Toll won two Oscars, back to back. So Robert, John and I prepped the whole Oregon sequence and John photographed all of the water story. And I think I was blessed to work with two of the greatest cinematographers of history.

VL: I think it really pays off, the contrast between the two.

GA: Yeah, absolutely. And that's what Robert said, you know? “First of all, I think I'm bringing someone who is a legend, John Toll. Second, I think this is another story that will benefit from having another view.”

VL: Can you say a little about the casting? How did Charlize Theron get involved?

GA: I come from Mexico, so you never imagine you'll get to work with the best actress in the world. It's always a dream. So when the producers asked me who I would like, I said Charlize. They said, 'Well, let's see. Let's send her the script.' So we sent it to her and they called me and said she wanted to have lunch with me. I was like, 'Wow! Really?' So we had lunch and we got along very well immediately, we were making jokes and we were spending hours at lunch. And finally I said 'Okay, girl, you will not leave this table until you say yes to the project'. And she said 'I can't – I have other projects', so I said, 'Okay, let's stay here.' And she said, 'I have to go to work, I have an ADR...' I said, 'Say yes and you can go.' So she said, 'Okay, Mexican! YES!' So it was great. She's a very nice, intelligent woman. And when she got involved, everything became much easier, the financing and everything. The difficult thing is that she's so talented that I needed to surround her with talented people. And she also raised the beauty bar. We had to have a beautiful mother and a beautiful daughter.

VL: Was it Charlize that suggested Kim Basinger for the mother?

GA: Yes, we were talking about several actresses that could play the role, who were talented and who could really become the flesh and bone of the character. And Charlize said, 'What do you think about Kim?' And I said, 'Great, let me talk to her to see if she's interested.' And Kim said, 'If you want me in, I'm in' and I said, 'Of course I want you in!' and so she came on board.

VL: I thought she was fantastic, actually – possibly the best performance she's ever given.

GA: I think that she's like a precision machine. She delivers wonderfully and she was very patient and very committed to the character. It wasn't easy to do what she did. For example, it's not easy to repeat a scene over and over again because the little kids in the family were failing to deliver their lines. And she was like, 'Okay, no problem' and then that important scene, it was a very delicate moment. It's not easy.

VL: How did you find the child actors, particularly the teenagers?

GA: You know, this is something that I'm very happy that I found. First of all, I must acknowledge that I have one of the best casting directors in the world, Debra Zane. Debbie Zane has great taste and she sent me the tapes of the first day. She said, 'This is what I think is the cream of the crop of the first day' – she sent three girls and three guys. And it was funny – the second girl and the second guy, on the very first day I said, 'I want her and I want him'. 'Do you want to see them? 'No. They're going to be in the movie.' 'This is your first day! Guillermo, are you crazy? There are many other actors you have to see.' 'No, no, no, no. This one and this one.' And the producers were like, 'No, no, no, Guillermo. This is not the way it works. You have to see several people.' And I kept saying, 'No, no, no. This and this.' And Debbie said, 'You must meet them in person', so I brought both actors together, they played the scene, they improvised and Debbie Zane was crying and I said, 'Look, if they made you cry in a casting session, imagine them in the cinema!'

VL: Was it a deliberate decision not to go with well known actors for the teenagers?

GA: With the teenagers? I don't know who at that age is well known.

VL: But there must have been a list of suggested up and coming younger stars?

GA: Yes, there was, but they were not, like, that big, and I will not sacrifice the talent of these two kids in order to give it to lesser actors.

VL: So there was never any pressure to do that then?

GA: There was. They told me, 'We have this up-and-coming actor, he was in this film and blah blah blah', and I said, 'But I like these two. These are the ones.' And I think that they are great in the film. They carry a lot of the weight of the film, so they had to be good. Even in my first meeting with Charlize [who eventually co-produced the film] she said, 'Man, if you don't choose correctly, this will be a mess.' And I'm happy that I chose correctly. A very subtle actress.

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

GA: I love, for example, the scene where the teenagers make love in her parents' room. I think it's beautiful and perverted at the same time. It's like a metaphor for the relationship between their own parents. And I love the scene of Charlize looking through the window naked and the way she – what's going on in her head, it's very powerful.

VL: Was there anything cut out of the film that you hated to lose?

GA: Yeah, there were things that I hated to lose because of the weather. I will not say which one, but there was a scene that was completely planned in another way but the weather really spoiled it. It was very dangerous to do it, so I cancelled it. And the substitution of that scene was really much lesser than it should have been, but you can't risk anyone's life.

VL: The weather's my next question, actually. All the rain in the film, was that real rain that you had to wait for or was it fake rain?

GA: In Oregon? In Oregon it rained all day, every day, except the day I needed rain! One scene, it's fake rain. I won't say which scene. But the rest of the movie, it was raining every single second. Really, it was depressing.

VL: I'm a huge fan of your other scripts, particularly Amores Perros and 21 Grams. When writing a story that has a central puzzle like that, do you have to write backwards? What kind of approach do you take?

GA: I write the way you watched it. Everything you have watched from me is written that way. It's not that I write linear and then cut it or that I write the stories separately – you can't. You can't write these kinds of stories without writing them in order.

VL: So you have the revelation moment in your head?

GA: No, I have no idea – it just comes out! And it's difficult because you begin writing one story and then another story and then another story and you're like, 'What was going on in the other story?' (laughs)

VL: So you don't have it all mapped out?

GA: No, I have no maps. I discover it while I'm writing it. I don't write outlines or any kind of maps. I'm not an organised person, I have no logic. But for example, when I'm hunting in the desert, I take no maps. And if you get lost in the desert, you die. But I can walk for miles and know perfectly where I am. I can walk from here to here and I can make a mental map of where I am. So it's something I have in my head.

VL: So we shouldn't expect any kind of linear, A to B scrips from you in the near future?

GA: No, no. Since I was a kid, my teachers thought I was retarded, because I have ADD. So I was incapable of following a maths lesson, for example. Really, it's not a joke – school was torture for me, when I was a kid. I didn't understand anything.

VL: Do you have any films or directors that have influenced you?

GA: More than directors, I have been influenced by literature. I have been trying to bring literature to the cinema. William Faulkner, for example. Shakespeare. Those are the writers that have really influenced me, more than film-makers.

VL: Borges?

GA: Of course. Borges is there. And also life – I have always said that life is the main thing that influences my work.

VL: Is there anyone you'd particularly like to work with in the future?

GA: Actors? I have always said I would love to work with Penelope Cruz. We have been trying to find the right project. I would love to work with Javier Bardem. And of course I would work again and again and again with Charlize Theron. I always say that if Scorsese has Leonardo DiCaprio, I would like to have Charlize Theron. Of course, I would also like to work with Leonardo DiCaprio. I'd also like to work with Daniel Craig – he has this -- he's a man that looks like a man. By the way, I would love to work again with all the actors on this film. Jennifer Lawrence! Now that I've brought her into the world, I would like to take hold of her and say 'No-one else works with her!' And JD Pardo, also. Because I learned in my previous films that a real cast is not only your major roles. If you cast a secondary role badly, even a small part, the movie is gone. Brett Cullen, for example, who plays Kim's husband, he's a really great actor. In fact, I wanted him in the role so badly that I ran after him into the parking lot to tell him he had the part after his audition!

Interview with Dean Lennox Kelly -

Promoting: Frequently Asked Questions About Time-Travel
Venue: Lionsgate offices
Interview type: One-on-one


ViewLondon (VL): What's the film about?

Dean Lennox Kelly (DLK): I think the writer had in mind putting three very ordinary fellas with very ordinary lives in an extraordinary situation, which takes them on a journey of madness and insanity and just to see how they're gonna cope with it. And it's a real kind of puzzle box, jigsaw of a movie which sometimes is so confusing, I'm still confused with it – I remember how confused I was when I read it. But it really ends up holding together brilliantly, especially considering the world it's set in and all the time-travel rules - there's a time-travel Bible, there's a way of going about it and he manages to incorporate everything, as well as bringing the film to a larger audience. It's just brilliant and so original and so funny and clever, the fact that we don't really go anywhere and it's set in this pub. It blew me away, really.

VL: How did you get involved in the film?

DLK: Just the way it always happens, you know. You get a meeting, you get told the premise – I'm like, 'It's called WHAT? Right.' And, you know, I really am quite cynical about this sort of thing, cynical in a good way, that I'm not into time-travel and sci-fi, so the casting was pretty perfect. And [co-stars] Mark and Chris were very much into it, Mark especially. And when you read something like that you've got to go and meet these people, you want to meet the guy who could sit and write this thing. And the meeting didn't even go particularly well, I didn't even really think I would hear back, so I just thought, 'Well, it's not really my thing', but luckily I was the man for the job – I had the right amount of cynicism and negativity just to slot into the threesome.

VL: It's very strange to see Anna Faris in it. How did she get involved?

DLK: Who knows, you know? They obviously were trying to get an American star, because of the half-American financing. And she's got a really good profile in the States, she's made good films. And she's brilliant. I think she's going to be a big star. In fact, in the two and a half years since we made the film, she's just got bigger and bigger, so that's great. I think they had all sorts of names. But at the time, I'd never really heard of her apart from the Scary Movie films and she was lovely. And it was a coup, when you think about it. She was just brilliant – really down to earth, just knew it, knew where to pitch it, didn't need to be directed, she was just really good.

VL: In the film, the actual events in the future are only hinted at – did the three of you have a theory as to what actually happened?

DLK: No. I didn't care. I swear to you, I just didn't think about that. I know Chris did, he was like [slips into note-perfect impression of co-star Chris O'Dowd] 'There'd be like people with like tiny big heads and like...' whatever he says and that's about as much as I could take. I just didn't really think, because it wasn't about that. Because there was so much going on. For me, it was about how the fuck do we get back, are we back, are we okay now? It's just bonkers to try and think of it as a beginning, middle and end, it's just so bonkers that you can't approach the film the way you'd approach any other job, because it's hard enough getting your head round the script and the order of scenes and the order of where we are.

VL: You said you weren't a big sci-fi fan generally, but do you have a favourite sci-fi film?

DLK: Back to the Future. That's about as sci-fi as I get. Time Bandits was quite good.

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

DLK: Yeah. I love the scene where we have to do Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart, when all three of us do it, in the toilet and we have to go through the motions and work out if we should all pirouette from this urinal or we should all hold on to each other and finding out what works. And just thinking, 'Well, this is bonkers, but people do go to the toilet and do weird things, do sing, do have their little quirky mannerisms, especially if no-one's there'. You know, you might do little things just because you're on your own and it's just funny, and having Chris say, [does O'Dowd impression again] 'Do you really do all this, Pete, when you're in here?' But I just love the scene too, where our characters are in the toilet, but we're also all in the cubicle and we're peering over the top. All that was just brilliant, it was just so good.

Interview with Bill Nighy - January 21st, 2009

Promoting: Valkyrie
Venue: The Dorchester Hotel
Interview type: Round table


Question (Q): Were you a World War II buff before the film?

Bill Nighy (BN): No, I'm not a World War II buff. I know a little bit about it, I was taught the other side of the story, majorly, in school. It was unfamiliar to me, the idea of a German resistance and it was considerable. And my character, Friedrich Olbricht, for instance, it's suggested, was involved with the resistance from as early as 1937, which is an incredibly sustained period, therefore, of personal heroism on his part, because he risked the lives of everyone he was associated with, including his children. I knew there was a bomb and a table, I knew that Adolf Hitler didn't die, but that's about as much as I knew. It was a revelation to me, this script. It was a great script, as you can see from watching the movie, but it was almost all new information, apart from those bare facts.

And I think it's really important, you know, because like any story that tells you that it wasn't black and white, in any culture – you know, what happened in Germany, it occurs to me, could have happened anywhere. Anti-Semitism and Fascism have a long and mysterious and bewildering and poisonous and vile history and it's not exclusive to the Germans. It was the extraordinarily weird and surreal set of circumstances that led to this lunatic being delivered into the Chancellorship of Germany. And these were very honourable military men, they were not members of the Nazi Party, - they had sworn an allegiance to Hitler, because they required to do, in order to just continue their lives – but they were appalled and disgusted, not only by the Nazi Party and the obvious vileness of that, but the fact that their Commander-in-Chief was an incompetent nincompoop and they were losing men. And, you know, Stauffenberg came from nine generations of military men, he was like the epitome of what was German then and what being a soldier meant.

Q: We know what happened to Stauffenberg's children, they survived. What happened to Olbricht's children?

BN: I believe that Olbricht's children survived also. As we know, you know, the Nazis were pretty merciless and they did kill a lot of people who were on the periphery. Olbricht was a very - - well, they all were, they always say, 'He was a family man', well, who isn't? Kind of thing, you know?

Q: Did you give him that nervous tic that he has? Was that something of yours or was that documented?

BN: Er...I have a coffee problem. (Laughter). Er, no, you see, this is odd. I'm not aware of it until it's over. So it certainly wasn't a conscious thing. I have no sense memory of what happened when I was there. It's not because I go into any fancy altered state or anything, it's just because I'm getting old. But, you know, I must have made a decision, because I am quite, you know, like any actor, I'm meticulous about that. So it was in order to act in the moment -- this sounds so lame, go directly to Pseud's Corner - - but in the moment, I stand by it, in as much as it was there to express a part of the story.

Q: And a man living right on the knife-edge?

BN: Yes, exactly.

Interview with Eddie Izzard - January 21st, 2009

Promoting: Valkyrie
Venue: The Dorchester Hotel
Interview type: Round table


Question (Q): You're quite a history buff, aren't you? You throw various lines into your act. Is World War II a particular interest?

Eddie Izzard (EI): I feel I am encyclopaedic on World War II. My dad took me to D-Day beaches when I was a kid. I was there four years ago – every five years they have a remembrance on D-Day beaches and I would have liked to have been there and done my bit. As Tom Cruise said in an interview yesterday, and Bryan Singer too, that everyone wanted to, essentially, kill Nazis. I mean, it sounds a bit extreme, but you do, you think these are the -- if evil's an over-used word by a previous President who just got into a helicopter recently -- but if anyone's evil, they got it, the top guy, you know. The SS, that was it, that was evil and you just wanted to kill them.

Q: So were you familiar with the Valkyrie story beforehand?

EI: Yeah, I knew about the plot, the bomb in the briefcase, I knew about that, I knew that when things went wrong, a number of them were executed with piano wire and it was filmed. And I've been to that place – it's just a simple building but a lot of people died there. So it's great to - - you know, we have The Great Escape, we've grown up with The Great Escape, if you think, if you're from the UK, if you're from America, we've grown up with these films where we went and did this thing to the Nazis and German kids have grown up -- anyone under the age of 75 has nothing to do with this -- and they didn't grow up with anything. And now they've got a film, an international film where they can watch Germans try to kill Nazis and I think that's great for them. Hopefully they'll like it. And that's the end of my answer.

Q: Bill Nighy referred to Hitler as an incompetent nincompoop, earlier. Is that an assessment you agree with?

EI: Unfortunately, for my mind, I wouldn't say he was incompetent. I would say that he was a sociopath, which I prefer to call anti-sociopath, because, you know, they don't seem socio at all, these sociopaths. You know, he went around with kids and you know, he was obviously - - you think, friendly with kids, oh, that's - - but he was, you can see it from these pictures, he was going out, he was asking them questions and with dogs and his dog Blondie and all this kind of thing. And anyone who was on his side, and everyone else, he was happy for them to be killed in the most merciless ways. It's sociopathic behaviour. And they were – they were unfortunately very organised, very driven, and Goebbels was very clever. These were not unintelligent people. And that was the bloody trouble, they spent so much time and effort on this. Most people just want to live their lives and there's politicians, they'll make some decisions and try and make their lives better, but these people they're just desperate for power. He is a cracked personality.

Q: Everyone that met him first-hand, they always say how charismatic Hitler was.

EI: Well, yeah. I mean, Hitchcock did this with all his bad guys, they've got to be charismatic. Because we do think of him, he built himself up in Germany by being evil, well he didn't actually show that side. He went round writing books saying we've got to, you know, deal with the Jewish people - - I'm not putting it - - you know, he said very negative things about the Jewish people, but he would spend a lot of his time once he became the politician of saying, “I will be strong for Germany, you will get jobs and work and stuff”, which seemed pretty positive after the '29 crash. Because the Nazis did come up in the '20s and then go down towards the late '20s and then because the Weimar Republic started getting its thing together and then the '29 crash sent unemployment spiralling and then they came back in.

Q: And even then, they never got 50% in a legal election, did they?

EI: No, until they went to these referenda, um, the endless referenda. Germany no longer has referendums because of what Hitler did. Because once he got in and removed all the Communists, by putting them all in prison and started shooting Social Democrats, and so there was really no opposition at all, he said, “Do you like what I've done?”, because everyone was not allowed to say no, for one thing, and were getting jobs and whatever and if you disagreed and went on strike you went to prison. So everyone was just saying yes. And things were coming round, they were using certain economic methods to get everything going and then they had a referenda saying, “Do you like this?” and they were getting 90% “yes”s. And that was part of the problem, that's what led to Time Magazine giving him Man of the Year in 1937.

Q: Speaking of Germany not having referendums, I think Mrs Merkel would prefer Europe not to have them as well.

EI: Well...you're talking about the European question? Well, that's a separate thing to Nazis, you know.

Q: Yes, but what you said about the Nazis, if you want to prevent that happening again, Europe seems to be the answer.

EI: Well, yes, that's how I feel. For my money, that's why I believe in Europe, I think everyone fought – in Europe, from Alexander the Great to World War II, we've made wonderful, beautiful things in Europe, every fifty years, we down tools and say, “We haven't killed anyone for fifty years, let's kill the guys over there with the blue hats. Yes, the blue hats this time, much better.” Because we used to be on the side of the Germans all the way through, against the French and now they're with the French against the Germans, then we can be with the people from outer space, against the blue people, you know, so I think the European Union, for my money, is about the idea that we don't ever go to war again at them, we try and stop it happening. And now all the Balkan countries are choosing to join the EU, which I think is a vote for peace and a vote for trade and jobs and stability and against the violence that came out of that region.

Q: Can I just ask about the accents? Were you relieved not to have to do the normal Nazi accent or disappointed?

EI: No, I've done two films with German accents and I find there is a way you can do it so it's not too overblown. We've seen a lot of films that way. There's less films, er, World War II films with people just doing it in English. And of course, as the director, Bryan Singer, was saying, when German people were talking to other German soldiers, they weren't hearing accents, they were just hearing someone speak the same language, so I think it gives an immediacy for British audiences, for American audiences, just to see it in that way. So I didn't mind either way, they just chose that way. I thought it was going to be with German accents, so...

Q: Well, you could have done it in German, with English subtitles.

EI: I could have done it in German, but then I'd have sounded like an English guy doing it in German.

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.