Earlier this week I had the good fortune of talking to Sharlto Copley while he was in London promoting the UK release of The A Team. The South African actor was undoubtedly the breakout star of 2009 due to his leading role in Neill Blomkamp’s Oscar Nominated film District 9. He again thoroughly impresses in The A Team playing Howlin’ Mad Murdock (he’s as mad as a bottle of chips in the film). Check out what he had to say for himself below.

What was it like being asked to play Howlin’ Mad Murdock?

Sharlto Copley: I suppose it was moving in a way. The show was a big part of my childhood, Murdock was a character who particularly had an influence and was an inspiration for me to get into film in the first place. I started making little movies with my friends when I was ten years old, so it was a real honour, you know. I just tried to play a Murdock I would like – because I was such a big fan. I just wanted to do the best with the character I could.

You’ve got some hilarious scenes in the film, were they improvised? It looks like you had a blast, the Braveheart moment was great!

Sharlto Copley: There was a lot of improvisation and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to do the movie. When I spoke to Joe and after I sent him an audition tape that I’d made in my hotel room completely improvising, he made it clear to me he was very comfortable in that world. Bradley and Rampage are amazing improvisers and it really surprised me. I think some of my best moments in the film are with me improvising or with the rest of the cast improvising.

How did you find the accent?

Sharlto Copley: One of the things that always interested me was actors who did different characters, or more so caricatures, guys like Robin Williams, Dwight Schultz and Eddie Murphy. I think I had a fascination with that type of thing at a very early age. Actually because I wasn’t pursuing acting as a career I had slacked off from it, but when I was in school from about the ages of 10 and 19 years old I used to do it regularly, I could probably do 20 or so different caricatures dialects, I had been starting to get back into that so I find that stuff very interesting. I studied speech and drama in school, I’m very interested in phonetics and understanding dialects from a creative point of view and a technical point of view.

Dwight Schultz has a cameo in the movie, what was it like working alongside him?

Sharlto Copley: It was a pretty moving experience for me because I had just come off District 9, I had just started meeting Hollywood people, meeting someone who had been such a part of my childhood was a really moving moment. We actually had lunch and we were really getting along great, so I thought he’s not going to see much of what I’m doing with his character today, so I showed him the test footage I had shot, which was basically me improvising and doing different voices and using props in the hotel. The same audition tape I had sent to Joe. He turned to me and he had tears in his eyes as he gave me a hug and said you are Murdock. Then he posted on his website Murdock is dead, long live Murdock, which for me very moving. He called me after the film and he said how happy he was to see the character come to life again. It meant a lot to me.

So what was on this tape? I’m intrigued now.

Sharlto Copley: It was a couple of scenes that wouldn’t end up in the film. It was just different stuff, lots of different examples and a whole bunch of different scenes. One for example was a range of different characters with some stuff being very close to what the original Murdock was doing. Like he would have hygiene issues when he was in the bathroom, he would get paranoid about being stuck in a bathroom and having to call BA on one of those bathroom phones. He’s having this conversation with BA and BA is being difficult and telling him to call the house-keeper, but he doesn’t want to call the house-keeper. Stuff like talking to a plant and he could hear voices. There was an invisible dog that kept barking at BA and he thought the dog was racist (Laughs). They wouldn’t put that in the movie. BA was playing rap music next door and that was irritating him, so he phones BA as the manager and puts on a voice. Just stuff like that (Laughs).

Check out my Liam Neeson, Rampage Jackson & Director Joe Carnahan Interview For The A Team

Earlier today I had the pleasure of catching up with the (super jovial) cast and director of The A Team while they were promoting their testosterone filled and ridiculously over the top action packed flick in London town. Check out what Liam Neeson, Rampage Jackson and director Joe Carnahan had to say below. The A Team is in cinemas now.

There has been so many aborted attempts at bringing The A Team to the big screen, how does it feel to be the man who’s finally done it?

Joe Carnahan: It’s really fantastic. That reception we got last night in Leicester Square was the most extraordinary thing. To make a movie like this and have it be received like that and have that level of enthusiasm was wonderful. Working with these fine folks was great as well (cheeky grin).

One of the big things that worked for me was the comradery between the four guys. How easy was that? Did it come naturally?

Liam Neeson: It was a no-brainer, it’s the thing I’m most proud of in the film – our chemistry on screen. I thought it’s there and it’s very palpable. It was a joy to go to work every day with the boys. Egos were all left at the door, there was none of that stuff. That chemistry is what I’m proudest of.

Being an A Team member there must have been a lot of physicality in the role, did you sustain any injury’s on set?

Liam Neeson: The first week I tore a muscle in my rotator cuff, getting out of the van (Laughs).

Joe Carnahan: We’ve got to change that story, man (Laughs).

Liam Neeson: It’s deeply embarrassing, I wish I could say it was during an action scene.

Joe Carnahan: What is Rampage doing?

Rampage Jackson: I don’t understand how y’all have a premier the night before, then early the next morning y’all have press junkets (Laughs). Fighting we don’t do that! We don’t do that in the fight world, they don’t make us go to the weigh in, then early the next morning fight. They don’t put you to work like that.

Liam Neeson: Rampage and I haven’t slept at all.

Rampage Jackson: Yeah, see the thing is Liam and I like to have fun and the night life, dancing, clubs, bars, drinks in our hands. Whereas Bradley and Sharlto they probably went to bed and read a book or something (Laughs). Liam’s got that wine, I’m on that Grey Goose (Laughs).

As a reformed smoker, how challenging was it smoking those Cigars?

Liam Neeson: I tell you it was tough, I’ve been off cigarettes for sixteen years now. Joe insisted I smoked real cigars, and I think he was absolutely right, and because there was no trade embargo with Cuba in Canada, we had Cuban cigars. After day one I got what Cigars are all about. It was tricky for me the first couple of days.

Carnahan: Up until that point he had what looked like a rubber dog turd (Laughs).

Have your boys seen the film Liam? Did it give you some Dad points?

Liam Neeson: I went to see the film with my boys and my mother-in-law, Vanessa Redgrave, and about three quarters of the way through she said ‘I’m a little bit confused, but I love every second of it.’ When I called Joe he said oh my god I can’t believe you took Vanessa Redgrave to see The A-Team! I got a little bit of credit with this one.

What was your approach on directing such an iconic TV show? Are there any other TV shows you’d like to bring to the big screen?

Joe Carnahan: Everybody was saying it’s a remake of the A-Team, but you can’t really remake a television show. You can’t distil it from five years and eighty episodes, what ever it was, into a two hour movie. People called me about doing The Equaliser, and I thought you know, I’m good.

Liam Neeson: They want to make The Equaliser? That’s fantastic.

Joe Carnahan: Yeah, they wanna do it, man. Let’s go. (Laughs)

Rampage Jackson: Hey what about Knight Rider, I could be KITT (laughs).

Joe Carnahan: You’d be like ‘f*ck you Michael’ (Laughs).

Rampage Jackson: It would be ghetto as hell, I’d be like ‘give me some goddamn gas man’. I’d have hydraulics (Laughs).

What are your thoughts on the closing of the UK Film Council Liam? I know you’ve been involved in films that were partly funded by the body.

Liam Neeson: Yeah I heard about this yesterday. I know we have to tighten our belts but I think it’s quite appalling. I haven’t quite fully formed my opinion yet but that’s my knee jerk reaction. I thought of all the things to tighten, what to save 17 dollars, it’s pretty shocking, it makes me worried about this government. I need to learn a little bit more about it.

Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz and director James Mangold were in town last night for the UK premiere of their upcoming flick Knight and Day. You can check out what they had to say for themselves on the red carpet below. Also if you’ve got a thing for hearing hundred‘s of women (and men) shout WE LOVE YOU TOM, this video is a must!  The response to this flick in the states has been pretty mixed, I’m still looking forward to it myself, it looks like it could be good popcorn fun – in an insanely over the top way. I’m an admirer of Director James Mangold as well, he’s made some great films – Walk The Line, 3:10 To Yuma, Girl, Interrupted and Identity. Knight and Day is in UK cinemas the 6th of August.

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz star in the action-comedy KNIGHT AND DAY. During their glamorous,
globetrotting and sometimes deadly adventure, nothing and no one – even the now fugitive couple – are what they seem. Amid shifting alliances and unexpected betrayals, they race across the world with their survival ultimately hinging on the battle of truth vs. trust. Directed by James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line, Girl, Interrupted), KNIGHT AND DAY stars Tom Cruise (Mission Impossible franchise, Tropic Thunder, Jerry Maguire) and Cameron Diaz (Charlie’s Angels franchise, There’s Something About Mary,), alongside Peter Sarsgaard (An Education, Orphan), Maggie Grace (TV series ‘Lost’, Taken), Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood, Little Miss Sunshine), Marc Blucas (Meet Dave, First Daughter), Viola Davis (Law Abiding Citizen, State of Play) and Jordi Mollà (Che Part 2, Bad Boys)

Last week I caught up Andy Garcia while he was in London promoting his latest film City Island – a charming dysfunctional family flick that will melt even the coldest heart – I promise you, you’ll leave the cinema with a big fat smile on your face!  Andy Garcia is an incredibly talented actor that I love seeing in anything, especially in great roles like this one. It was great talking to him, check out what he had to say about City Island below.

What attracted you to City Island? And how did you get involved?

Andy Garcia: The script was sent to me by the director, who was also the writer – Raymond De Felitta, with the offer of playing the part and to produce the film with him if I liked to. I was very charmed by the script, it was easy to fall in love with. First of all it was a part that doesn’t necessarily come my way that often, it wasn’t the type of character I recognise immediately, the humanity in it, the humour, the emotion in it. Also the surprises in the story telling, there were always turns I wasn’t expecting, it was very clever. But then I had to decide if I also wanted to co produce it because I know what that challenge is having done about half a dozen films independently, I know it’s not a vanity title. I guess it can be if the film comes to you already financed. I knew with the climate that we have in today’s international distribution system, that people would most likely recognise the beauty in the script and we’ll be able to cast the movie well with great actors because actors want to play great parts.

It’s a challenge as a producer to get money, you challenge yourself by thinking, you’ve got no money, no one’s interested in your movie, do you abandon it or do you put it on your shoulders and say come on we’ve got to find a way and that’s what we did. It took us two and a half years, so I’m kind of very careful where I say I want to be a producer, I could have just said I love the part, I’d love to play it, you can use my name for whatever and let me know when we start. That would have been easier (laughs).

There’s such a great ensemble feel to the film, with that struggling against the odd’s feeling do you think that added to that feel?

Andy Garcia: Yeah, like I said I knew the film would attract great actors, both Julianna and Emily were friends of mine and people I had worked with before, they were the first people that came to my mind for these parts. In a way the stars had to line up because with Emily when we first called her she wasn’t available, but then when we got the money for the film, the actress that we had had another commitment she had to honour, so the part became available again. Everyone was great, Julianna jumped in with no prep, there was no rehearsal, the movie was shot in 27 days, we had a table read on Sunday, we started shooting on Monday. On Monday we sat around the dining room table and started eating pasta and arguing.

How easy did you find the accent?

Andy Garcia: I worked on it for a while. I had done accent’s from the New York region, but Brooklyn is different from the Bronx, every area is different. I had some time to work on it. It’s an ear that’s fairly familiar to me to some degree because I had gone into that world before, I’m not from New York, I’m not an Italian American even though I would say I’m Italian American by digestion (laughs), at some point I think I completely inherited the Italian culture through the amount of pasta I’ve consumed over the years. I’ve been blessed to play some great parts in that culture. I enjoyed the accent a lot, I enjoyed the character so much, I thought he was so uniquely drawn. I had so many ideas thinking about earning the right to go certain places with him.

What was it like working with your own daughter?

Andy Garcia: She was great, she’s a terrific actress, she was completely prepared and professional, she’s been acting all her life. You always try to personalize things for any part, but the fact that she was there, we were able to exist in our own dynamics that fit this particular movie, then we drew up on those to infuse it. It was very easy, she’s a great actress, very easy going.

I really loved the audition scene, can your remember your first audition?

Andy Garcia: I try not to (laughs)

I thought that scene rounded up the character perfectly, that when it really got down to it, he done his thing…

Andy Garcia: Well it’s a gift from the son, the son is the catalyst for this family to finally get it’s act together, he’s the one that brings everyone together. He gives me the best acting tip, not even Alan Arkin’s character could give me the best acting tip. It was the son who kind of showed him the way. That was the only thing I did, other than some improvisation that you naturally do with the script as your exploring it, it was the only thing I could remember that we really kind of worked on once we got the script. Initially my character had an obsession with all things New York in terms of movies, with Scorsese, De Niro, Pacino, Brando, Coppola, The Godfather’s, Taxi Driver, so he had all these posters in his correctional office and I said to Ray you know this guy is too embarrassed to have anything up anywhere, I said I’d like to change that and just make it one person, I said all those guy’s are like God’s but really there’s only one Zeus and that’s Brando. Brando is the top of the pyramid, he changed the way acting is approached in the eyes of many so I thought it would be better if we could just focus on one guy and then it should be private, he should have thing’s in his draws, the son should discover all the Brando films on VHS and then slowly that should lead to this allergic reaction that he has in the audition, he’s so nervous he doesn’t even realise he imitates Brando. He doesn’t really know how to act so he falls into the fact that this is what acting is. I done this very bad impression of Brando and Ray started laughing and saying that could be very funny, but we have to earn the right to get there, so that when it happens it has to be a natural thing. We had to drill the beats into the story and what’s funny when people see the movie and out of nervousness Brando starts to creep out, you physically see the audience go OH NOOOOOOOOOO (laughs), some of them literally say that out loud, I’ve seen the movie a lot of times now with an audience and they literally are going oh no, ohhh no, oh no, he’s not gonna do that, OH NO, OH MY GOD (laughs). They feel so bad for him, they’re really rooting for this character so much, they really want him to get the part, they want him to fix his life, the poor bloke, they really just want him to do well.

City Island is in UK cinemas 23rd July

Following on from the Christopher Nolan and Leonardo DiCaprio interview I posted earlier this week, here is what both Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon Levitt had to say for themselves about Inception. Gordon Levitt and Hardy are two of my favourite young(er) actors working today so it was a pleasure listening to them talk about such an incredible film.  Inception is in cinemas now, do yourself a favour and check it out…it’s a masterpiece!

Inception is such a complex and emotional film, when you first read the script did you understand it?

Tom Hardy:  It was a complicated to start with, speaking to Christopher Nolan was essential for the simplification of everything. I realised that obviously it was essential to speak to him to fit into the vision and be part of the ensemble and play my part and roll with it. I tried to be with Chris constantly (laughs).

Joseph Gordon Levitt:  I generally find it’s common that when you read a script or watch a movie it’s so predictable, you know exactly what’s going to happen and it doesn’t really take much thought to figure out anything. I enjoy a challenge, a provocation, something to think about, something to talk about after its done. So yeah the first time I read it I found it posed a challenge and that’s enjoyable to me rather than just reading something that I’ve seen before. And what’s interesting though is seeing the final movie, so many of these ideas that when I was reading the ideas in the script I had to go back and figure them out, but when they’re visually rendered they just become visceral and much more emotional.

Tom you said in one interview you were playing Chris.

Tom Hardy: Ah yeah, I shouldn’t have let that out, (laughs). But then part of me was, I found myself sort of speaking in Chris’s cadence a lot with Chris on set, I don’t know if he’s noticed that. I’d copy things he was saying (does a great Christopher Nolan impression), mimic his mannerisms on set as much as possible. It meant I didn’t’have to think too much I could practically apply this this on the floor.

What was it like filming the zero gravity scenes? They were amazing.

Joseph Gordon Levitt:  It was a little painful occasionally. But no more than playing a hard game of Football, American Football that is (laughs). Honestly it was just about as much fun as I’ve ever had on a set. I felt like a little kid playing in the back yard. Playing pretend but it was actually really happening. I loved the fact that it wasn’t done in front of a green screen, because then it WOULD just be playing pretend, but because Chris had built these enormous contraptions and various devises and technique’s the floor was really spinning under my feet, and I really was ten feet up in the air with nothing beneath me. I think that makes the scenes a lot more compelling because I don’t have to fool the audience that I’m off balance, I really was off balance. I think it comes across, those sequences looked very different than your average digitally created action scene, I think that’s why they’re so fun to watch

A ridiculously talented director + a great cast + an interesting and original story + amazing imagery + jaw dropping action + heartfelt emotions= win win win win win win win win win win……and more win. Inception is finally in cinemas now and believe you me it does not disappoint. By a stretch it’s my favourite film of the year, Christopher Nolan has truly become the modern master of balancing entertainment and substance. 2010 has been a great year for Leonardo DiCaprio after an amazing performance in Shutter Island and now with an even more astonishing performance in Inception. I caught up with Christopher Nolan and Leonardo DiCaprio – two men at the top of their games - at the London Press conference for Inception. Check out what they had to say below:

What was your initial inspiration behind Inception, and how did it develop into the movie it is today?

Christopher Nolan: I’d always wanted to make a film that addressed dreams, and do something set in that world. About ten years ago I focused in on the idea of a exploring a technology that might allow people to share dreams, and the uses and abuses of that, and came up with this idea of doing a heist film set in the world of dreams with a technology that could be used to penetrate a person’s subconscious.

Inception is an emotionally complex and complicated film. When you were first approached to appear in the film, did you understand it?

Leonardo DiCaprio: It certainly took a couple of readings, but it was really the interaction with Chris, one-on-one. It’s an idea that’s been locked in his mind for eight years now. So for me a lot of the preparation was understanding what he wanted to accomplish and achieve. Being able to sit down with him and understand that he had this concept of doing a highly entertaining Hollywood film, that is existential, cerebral, surreal, and that delves into various states of the subconscious. The way that he wanted to put that up on screen involved us really talking with him at great lengths to truly understand his concepts.

How did you find the process of creating the rules of Inception’s dream worlds, as compared to the realism of The Dark Knight?

Christopher Nolan: I think that with every film you take on, you try to establish the rules and the tone of what you’re working with. In taking on the idea of dreams, you have a real burden on the rules of the film, because dreams are infinite and have infinite potential, which is the thing that really makes them fascinating in the first place. But it also makes them hard to address in drama, because anything can happen, and therefore how does anything matter? The rules of the world were designed to impose limits. The key thing for that, in my head, was to make it the story of a con, as soon as you take on the idea of trying to fool somebody and creating a reality for somebody else, naturally the team have to adhere to certain rules within the dream to avoid fracturing the reality of it.

Did you have get up to scratch on the world of dreams when researching your role?

Leonardo DiCaprio: I tried to take a very traditional approach to researching this film and read the analysis of dreams immediately and tried to pick apart the psychology of what things represented in the dream world. But I quickly realised that this was a whole new type of preparation, that meant basically talking with Chris at great length about this cathartic therapy session my character goes on, the psychoanalysis. In doing that we created this really powerful emotional journey.

As far as the analysis of the dreams in this movie, and how Chris was going to make four different states of the human subconscious interact with each other in a cohesive plot structure, I left that ENTIRELY up to Chris (laughs). I did not want to get involved, because Chris is obviously very capable of pulling off complex narratives like this and making them emotionally engaging for an audience. It’s reassuring as an actor to know you’re dealing with someone who has a great track record of accomplishing stuff like that. As far as my own dreams, I’m not a big dreamer, I think obviously we suppress things in life, emotions and thoughts, we wake up, and we should look at that. Ironically I had a really powerful dream the other day, I won’t get into the details of what it was but I remember sitting there saying to myself, forgetting totally that I’ve done this movie, but saying to myself, wait a minute, these details in this dream are real and I can create these dreams and manipulate the environment, I’ve heard this somewhere before (laughs). And I started to play with the dream in a very surreal way. I had that moment of knowing I was dreaming and being able to combat my surrounding so it was kind of cool. I had no previous knowledge I had done Inception or heard of this movie in that dream state so it was kind of fun.

The film was kept under a wraps. Why was this, and was it difficult to maintain such secrecy?

Christopher Nolan: It’s difficult to keep anything fresh in movies these days, with technology being what it is people seem to know everything there is to know before you’ve even made it. For me, as a film goer, I like nothing more than to sit in a cinema, have the lights go down and not know what I’m about to see and every time we go to make a film we do everything we can to just systematize things so we’re able to make the film in private. So then once it’s finished it’s up to the audience to make of it what they will.

What were the challenges of making this movie?

Christopher Nolan: For me, the underlying tone of the thing is best summed up by Leo’s character in the film when he says that dreams feel real while we’re in them. So everything we did in a production sense was an attempt to try and retain a tactile sense of reality to the world of the dreams, so they felt like possible worlds even as impossible things were happening. This creates challenges for all departments, for example, when you have a freight train barrelling down the street smashing cars and things. We wanted to do these things for real, so they would feel possible to the audience and that we wouldn’t have an obviously surreal quality to things. That’s why we went to all these locations and travelled all around the world, and shot in blizzards and so forth.

Inception is in cinemas NOW (finally!)

I’ve been a fan of David Slade since I watched his debut film Hard Candy, and even though his second film 30 Days of Night didn’t quite floor me as much as his debut, I still loved his visual style. With his third film Slade has directed the best Twilight film to date, it still wasn’t my cup of tea, but it was about 122354905 times more exciting than New Moon. I accept that the Twilight series is not made for me, my reaction to this film is not– omg omg omg omg EDWARD IS SOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOT, I’m team Jacob <3<3<3<3 luvluvluvluvluv……..to be honest I couldn’t give a rats ass, but seeing as this series has a MASSIVE audience (the caps lock still doesn’t do the ‘massive’ justice) it’s connecting with people.

Below is the result of me catching up with David Slade at the London Press Conference for ‘The Twilight Saga: Eclipse’. Eclipse has already broken the box office record for a midnight opening in the US, and I’m sure it will have the teenage population going nutty over here when it opens in the UK this Friday.

How did you get involved with Twilight?

David Slade: The producers sent me New Moon, the book, and I started reading it. I’m a slow reader and Chris Weitz was signed, but I don’t think I was ever really a contender for it to be honest. When Eclipse came around they sent me the screenplay. It was mad, there was a week and three days between them sending me the script and saying, would you like to do the film? It was all very quick. Thankfully there was no dark moment of the soul where I had to think about it too much!

How did you find it directing Twilight: Eclipse? Especially considering you didn’t direct the first two films, were there certain constraints for you?

David Slade: Obviously there’s continuity, there actors and actresses have done it twice before, so the most important thing for me was to listen. I had one-on-one meetings with each and everyone and listened to what they loved about the other movies, with regards to their characters, what worked out, what didn’t work out, what they want and then we’d talk about script. After all the talking I knew exactly where they were at, as well as what I was after To that extent I was fully informed.

In terms of constraints, the reason they got different directors was to have a different aesthetic. I was just so immersed in making the film that it became my own film, by virtue of it being in my head so much. If anything I was encouraged to do more and be more different. I’m not particularly reverential. I only saw the first Twilight film once. From the very first meeting we said this was the most mature film, that is was going to be more realistic in every way. There were no constraints besides the obvious things.

What do you think the appeal is for the Twilight series?

David Slade: It’s a love story, a true love story. These days we live in such ironic times in terms of media coverage and the way that people write scripts and write dialogue, irony is such part of the zeitgeist now. To find something so unapologetically a true love story is so rare and it’s nice. It wears it on its sleeve, which is quite healthy, it’s nice to see true love as a nice thing, not to get all angsty. I also believe what Stephenie has done with the vampire is somewhat institutionalized it and made it acceptable and given it a family, something that can be pur, but at the same time at the end of the day it’s dangerous because it’s a carnivore. He goes out into the woods and rips bears apart and drinks their blood. It’s taking the unattainably dangerous and making it loveable. Those two things together are really attractive.

What was your take on the theme of chastity?

David Slade: I think we had to address it because I didn’t want Edward to come across as a prude. He really wants to have sex and you can tell he does., but he comes from a different period. I don’t think the film dictates that message. I think if anything, it does two things: it reverses the role which neutralises the men and not the women and two, in a time when women are over-sexualised it suggest that you don’t have to jump into sex straight away, which isn’t the same as some kind of Biblical chaste message. It’s more about timing and being in control

If any film is going to split opinions this year it will most certainly be Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me, some people (like myself) will think it’s one of 2010’s best films, while others will be disgusted by it’s violence. The film is based on the 1952 Jim Thompson novel of the same name and remains brutally faithful to the material, even I was taken back by some of the violence, yet I really do feel it helped make the film one of the most intriguing and unsettling insights into the mind of a serial killer we have seen on screen for years. Check out my Interview with the film’s director Michael Winterbottom below.

First of all how did you come across the book?

Michael Winterbottom: Well I was planning to make a movie about gangs set in Manchester in the 1950s, with elements borrowed from a noir fiction by pulp author David Goodis but we were caught out by copyright issues. Then I read The Killer Inside Me and I thought, this is great, I loved the book and I thought that instead of trying to adapt it, we would just film the book almost like a text. I think when I read it, I thought it was such a claustrophobic world, I thought it would be better to stay very close to the book.

Why did you want to stay so close to the book?

Michael Winterbottom: In the original screenplay the narrative was made a little bit more complicated and was broken up more, what I liked about the book was that it was very direct, almost straight away Lou meets Joyce and is hitting her. It’s very linear and not complicated. Because we see the whole film from Lou’s point of view, bits get left out, for example we realise the cash had been marked after the event, it’s very straight forward and because Lou is actually not aware of a lot of things in the film you’re not aware of them either, your kept in the quiet, I found that more dynamic.

How hard was it to find the right actors for the film? Casey Affleck’s role is such a key to the success of the film for me.

Michael Winterbottom: It was actually quite easy because the first person we wanted to cast was Lou Ford, it’s obviously Lou Ford’s film, he’s in every scene, everyone else is only in the film briefly, so Casey Affleck was the only person I actually met for Lou, from previous things I had seen him in and then meeting him I knew he’d be perfect for it, he was really up for it as well, from the first meeting with him we knew he was the one. After that we thought whoever plays Amy or Joyce could play either part, with the descriptions of them in the book even though they are both different, they are quite synchronised,. Jessica Alba wanted to play Joyce and she was great, it was easy on that level. The people who came to me all knew the book or either knew what the book was all about, they knew what they were getting themselves into. It wasn’t the case of having a big discussion to persuade anyone to do it. Jessica was really clear she wanted to play Joyce and had some strong ideas about how to play her, she was incredible to work with.

I loved how the film looked, other than the book what other sources did you use for that?

Michael Winterbottom: To be honest not that many, by chance I had a lot of documentary’s and footage from the 50’s in middle America where this story was based, so we looked at that and checked out cars from the time period. There’s a difference from what you get in the magazines of the time period and what actually people where wearing or driving at the time, we shifted the time of the film to 1957 because we thought it would look bolder, 1952 visually wouldn’t be quite as obvious, we also looked from the perspective that it wasn’t the case of what was the latest car or clothing of that year, people would have been driving cars they had for maybe twenty years, so we tried to make it look bold but realistic.

What we found so important was finding the location, so we spent a lot of time driving around West Texas then also Oklahoma and New Mexico, then finally because of tax breaks we couldn’t shoot in Texas so we shot the landscape in New Mexico and we used the town in Oklahoma, that basically meant it ended up looking pretty much like West Texas, the story and the world the book created can happen pretty much anywhere, but it wouldn’t have the same feel if the story was based in 1950’s Bradford (laughs). I think giving it that landscape made it so much more cinematic, the towns over there have such broad streets to this day, it looks so harsh and hot, it has a particular feel to it, what was amazing that I hadn’t exactly understood from reading the book was that the central building in these towns wasn’t the town hall like over here (in the UK), it was the courthouse, with the court room, sheriffs office and the jail all in one building, right in the middle of the town, so many town’s in those states followed that pattern, with the police and punishment element at the centre of society.

I loved the music as well, with the more operatic side of it and also the country and western stuff. Did you ever have a piece of music in mind when you were shooting a scene?

Michael Winterbottom: I never have a particular piece of music in mind, I would often think of what music I might put into a scene. I love the idea of filming a scene with a certain piece of music in mind but to be honest the one or two times I’ve tried to do that it didn’t work, I love to play around with different pieces of music, music is so important in film, it can change the whole tone of the scene. Before hand we listened to a lot of Texas Swing, we thought it had a nice quality to it, it often talks about themes covered in the film as well, with death and broken hearts and that sort of stuff, with that sort of bright surface. I think the music kind of helped Lou’s image as well as this sort of easy going sheriff. The book made a big point of Lou reading his Dad’s medical book’s and figuring out algebra problems, but I thought you can’t really film someone reading a book and make it have much of an impact, him listening to music was the equivalent of that in the film. What’s great about the story is that, that side of him is a lot like his Dad, but he hates and wants to destroy his memory’s of his Dad, but at the same time he wants to emulate him, music in the film references his Dad a lot.

Has the reaction to the violence in the film surprised you?

Michael Winterbottom: I don’t know really, at the beginning when we were thinking should the violence be shot in the film I always thought it should, it’s important for the shape of the story. When Lou is violent to Joyce and Amy, two people who love him in an absolute way, it shows he’s destroying anyone who’s close to him. The violence is a way of showing the whole point of the story and the pointlessness and wastefulness of Lou’s actions. Yet at the same time once you’ve made a film, you’d rather people would be shocked but liked it, than shocked and disgusted by it (laughs). Literally the first screening of the film at Sundance the first person to speak after the film finished was a woman who stood up and shouted, ‘It’s disgusting! It’s disgusting! The festival should be ashamed of itself showing the film here, it’s immoral’ I wasn’t quite expecting that to be honest.

“I’m a very particular tree and I grow very particular fruit.” Director of Heartless, Philip Ridley, recently talked to me for the wonderful people over at Film4.

As an acclaimed author, painter, photographer, screenwriter, playwright and director it comes as no surprise that Philip Ridley’s first film in fifteen years works on so many different levels. Set on the gritty streets of East London, Heartless follows Jamie (Jim Sturgess), an unsettled young man who’s deeply affected by a large birthmark on his face. Hiding from the world, he photographs it, leading him to catch on camera a group of hoodies that even David Cameron won’t be keen to hug anytime soon. I caught up with the film’s director to find out what inspired him to make Heartless.

I loved the imagery of the film – when writing the script, did you have that look in mind?

Philip Ridley: Thank you. Yeah, absolutely, the first thing for me was that the film had to be cinematic. I had been doing a lot of photography in the East End of London – I live in Bethnal Green, right in the middle of the area the film was shot – and having always said I would never go digital, it’s film or nothing, suddenly I bought a digital camera and thought ‘fucking hell what have I been waiting for? This is fantastic!’ So I did these cityscape shots of the East End of London, and what’s great about digital photography is the night photography; it works in a way film would never work. And I thought, god, that’s such a great template for a film set in the East End, so I had that in the back of my mind for a few years, and then the character of Jamie Morgan started to take shape.
I had been doing some work with kids who had been excluded through school, and I write stage plays as well, for young people in particular. I had done work with excluded children and children who suffer from bi-polar disorder, some of them slightly autistic, so it was interesting to me how all of these young people between the ages of fourteen and eighteen said the same sort of things about how they thought the world works and how they fit into that world.

How demanding was the creating the film, emotionally and physically? As a viewer it’s very intense, emotional and chaotic, it works on so many different levels.

Philip Ridley: It was very time consuming because a lot of the imagery connects; it’s like a huge Chinese puzzle, everything links together, every image and echoing image. You could almost go through every scene and say ‘well, that becomes that, where the father is born becomes the Cinderella story, back by midnight, and he has to kill the boy by midnight, the image of the butterfly in the cocoon on the television becomes the boy in the cellophane…’, so that was a fucking nightmare (laughs). That was a case of literally sitting down and working on how that can happen, and how everything is colour-coded. So yeah, there was a lot of work in that, but fun, it was great work to do, not work that was arduous, it was a great thrill.

I think because there are so many interlinking aspects of the film I’m going to have to watch the film again…

Philip Ridley: Yeah, I really think the film is made for that, which is why I’m so excited about the way it’s being released [in cinemas and on DVD in the same week]. With all films our journey with the film is both a journey and a process, we experience it first of all, but the films we feel something for, we process that experience for the rest of our lives. I think it would be great for people to see it on the big screen and just experience it, and then watch it on DVD or Blu-Ray and then maybe work it out more.

What I’ve found that has happened a lot, because it’s done quite a few film festivals, going back to when it premiered at Film4 Frightfest last year, is it seems to divide an audience very strongly, people either get it and they really like it, or they resist it and they don’t get it and they think it’s really jarring. Which is fine, but I’ve found with a lot of people that saw it the first time and thought it was very jarring and didn’t get it, was when they saw it a second time, it begins to make sense for them. Yes, it does go from genre to genre, and does deliberately have this experimental thing of playing around with the audience, but for me that’s a part of the film – it never declares what it is, you have to go on this ride: it’s a roller-coaster, then it becomes the dodgems, then it becomes this sort of sleigh ride, then it becomes something else, it’s always changing, but the experience is linked together by Jim Sturgess – that is the thing that threads the film together.

I thought the cast was great, and with a film like this you really need a great cast. When writing the film did you have any people in mind?

Philip Ridley: Not while I was writing it, but definitely when we started casting I wanted Jim; I said unless we get someone like Jim it’s not worth making the film. Jim is the best of two things, he’s a tremendous actor but he’s also a star and I felt like I needed that star quality and I need the great acting, because the narrative of the film is this different brightly coloured jewelled thread on a string that keeps on changing – you get a diamond, you get a sapphire, you get a rusty bolt, you get a blood clot, all threaded together and the string has to be REALLY strong and Jim is the string.

With the rest of the cast, I was very lucky, I got my first choice on all the actors I sent the script to, they all wanted to be a part of it. Some of the actors I had worked with before, like Luke Treadaway, who was doing a play of mine in the West End at the same time as doing the film, so we had to get him to do his scenes, then push him into a taxi quick. Ruth Sheen who plays the mother, I got my first choice, Eddie Marsan, he had to be the weapons man – there was no one else on the planet who could have played that character.

I know you’re prolific in many aspects of the arts, as a playwright, as an author, as a photographer, but do you think there is going to be such a big gap between this and your next film? I was in Year 6 when your last film came out…

Philip Ridley: Don’t tell me that! I feel like Gandalf sitting opposite you now [laughs]. We had a screening at the Prince Charles Cinema last night, and I said I had a niggling suspicion half of you weren’t even born when I made my last film. It wasn’t intended like that – as I’ve said to people before, I’m a very particular tree and I grow very particular fruit. It’s getting increasingly difficult, as that gap of time indicates, to make the kind of film that I want to make, they don’t fall into a nice neat category, they’re not easy to release, they’re films you have to come to, and it’s not easy making those kinds of films. It’s a tricky thing to do and I’m not prepared to compromise on what I’m trying to do – I’m very particular with what I do and what I think cinema is.

I’m hoping with some of the attention this is getting, it will make the next one easier and there won’t be such a big gap, because I feel there’s definitely an audience for it. I really do believe audiences are beginning to crave these sort of films – I really believe we are underestimating the audience out there endlessly by what we’re giving them. They don’t want to sit there and see Saw 20, I think they really crave a new idea, they crave something different and I feel if you give it to them, the audience will come, which is what I’m hoping anyway. Famous last words!

Check out the full interview here. <<<<<You can also found out my name if that sort of thing interests you!

Heartless is in cinemas now and out on DVD and Blu-Ray the 24th of May

Avatar’s habit of breaking records is not coming to an end any time soon, last monday it broke the UK record for the biggest opening-day sales of a Blu-ray disc, selling 222,824 copies, which was more copies in one day than what the previous record-holder The Dark Knight sold in its first week. I’m sure the first week totals are going to be ridiculous. Check out my interview with the legendary and lovely Sigourney Weaver for Avatar’s DVD/Blu-Ray release below.

What was it like working with James Cameron again?

Sigourney Weaver: I found it less intense than in ALIENS, maybe because we’re both older now. He was much more relaxed this time; he was like a kid in the candy store. The hours were long and everything took longer than expected. But it has been such an adventure and I think because I did work with him before, it was wonderful, I know him well. We picked up where we left off, except I think he’s merrier now, he’s happy, he has kids and a family and he was so excited about working on AVATAR and working with each of us.

What kind of director is he?

Sigourney Weaver: Very intense but wonderful. Jim is always so generous, finding out what we want to try with each scene, or what we think about our characters. He is a very gentle, encouraging director who always makes you feel good about what you are doing. He has worked so hard to create this entire world for AVATAR, the whole concept, the creatures, everything. It is amazing, because Jim actually invented the cameras that shot this movie, he shot every frame. I remember reading the script and thinking that it was just so incredibly ambitious. I’m just so thrilled for him, that he’s pulled it off, you know. He’s done the impossible, which was to create this other world, it is an entirely different way of life. And that’s such an amazing accomplishment. I hope he had a good time doing it.

What was the most challenging aspect of the work for you?

Sigourney Weaver: The challenging part was the motion capture work, you do have to pretend it is Pandora, because you are acting on an empty stage, you have to use your imagination. It is all about being very specific, because you might just have a stick or a feather to react to.

Can you talk about your character’s journey in this film?

Sigourney Weaver: When you meet Grace, she’s working for a company that she hates and hoping to work with Jake’s brother, because he is a very promising scientist and she wants him to help her crack this mystery about Pandora, so she can get the corporation (who are mining on Pandora) to stop mining and protect this world she loves so much. When it turns out that Tommy is dead and has been replaced with Jake (Sam Worthington) she is furious, because she discovers that this ex marine clearly has not got a scientific bone in his body. So during the course of the story, she goes from a difficult position, working for a company that she hates, to trying to break through to find the science she needs that will wake them up to what they’re doing. In the course of the story, she is thrown together with Jake again and again. I think they both fall in love with Pandora and he ends up really teaching Grace how to fight.

What’s the theme of this movie for you?

Sigourney Weaver: I think it’s a story about a young man who comes of age and who finds something to fight for. Avatar is a great love story and it’s the story of a modern conflict. It is a conflict between what you love, what you have to do and what you believe in vs. what people are telling you to do. So it’s a very rich story with creatures and places and huge battles. There is nothing modern and cynical about this story. In many ways it reminds me of my favorite classic films. I used to love the feeling of settling into my seat in the theater and then it would say: ‘David Lean Presents’ or something like that and you would know that you were going to a place that would be extraordinary and that something was going to happen to you that you would be thinking about for days to come and I feel like AVATAR is that kind of movie.

You were essentially the first female action star; do you feel that you changed everything for actresses in some ways?

Sigourney Weaver: Well I think that if it hadn’t been me it would have obviously been another actress (laughs). I really loved the character Ripley (ALIEN). I still see the woman who inspired me to play Ripley, she’s awesome. She works as an environmentalist actually. At the time I played Ripley, women were entering the work force and were taking on jobs only men had done before, in the armed forces and in industry, so I think it was the right time for that to happen. But I am really glad that I got to be a part of that. What I love about Ripley is that I was allowed to play a woman as a complicated character, without a man, without anything and that is still unusual. I sort of blame Ridley Scott for all of that and Jim Cameron, because they love women and respect women. Ridley just let Ripley be a person. ”

You have had such a challenging career, what have been the defining experiences for you so far, do you think?

Sigourney Weaver: I think most of my life changing experiences have been as a parent and as a wife. For a mother, just getting your child through the school system is a heroic job. And when I think of my life, I don’t think of my work, I think of my real life. You know, at home I have my family and I have all the different things that I care about, like human rights. There are lots of causes that I work for and when I’m in New York I end up just spending a lot of time on them. I don’t begrudge it all, I’m saying that I keep incredibly busy.

What do you like to do when you’re not working?

Sigourney Weaver: I love to be with my family, I love to do nothing, I love to read, to be in the garden, I love to take walks, play with my dogs and to cook – I am incredibly boring (laughs). My perfect day would be spent in the country, out in nature with the dogs and my husband and maybe my daughter and her boyfriend. We would hike up some small mountain with a picnic, then have a swim and cook hamburgers or something and then go to sleep.