New York Film Fest Review: The Martian

Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetal Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan
Running Time: 141 minutes
20th Century Fox

Our Score: 5 out of 5 stars

If Saving Private Ryan taught us anything, it’s that you can make a damn great film about a Damon in distress. The Martian, Ridley Scott’s joyous tribute to the ingenuity of scientists, is lightyears away from Spielberg’s gritty epic but the results are still spectacular. The Martian is a massively satisfying sci-fi film on every level that’s anchored by a standout performance from Matt Damon.

When an unexpectedly harsh storm rips through their mission on Mars, Commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) makes the heart wrenching decision to leave one of her crew on the surface of the planet, presumed dead. Mark Watney (Damon) in actual fact wakes to find he’s alive having taken a communication antenna directly to the equipment that monitors his vitals. Not to mention to his own abdomen. It’s really the perfect setup for a space horror and indeed Watney’s bloody DIY surgery is cringeworthy to watch, but that’s not the film we’re watching. It’s funny that the director who gave us the iconic ‘in space, no one can hear you scream’ and with Watney has added an addendum of unless you “science the shit” out of your situation and get your own communications back on line. Here Watney’s approach is that of a highly trained scientist–a botanist to be specific–who responds not with panic but with measured practicality and optimism. Watney turns immediately to video logging his progress, a clever way to clue the audience into what’s up as well as the unspoken truth that his journal, and own sense of humor, are vital to his sanity and by extension, his survival. Damon is charming as ever in his solo scenes, still grumbling at his now-absent crew mates as he rifles through their belongings for anything useful. Like Guardians of the Galaxy last year, Watney’s ship is stocked with disco records courtesy of his captain to keep the mood on Mars generally upbeat. When he has setbacks, Damon does let loose with some powerful emotional breakdowns that are all the more affecting for how strong a character we already know Watney to be.

Meanwhile on Earth, Damon is supported by a bevy of strong actors including Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean (who gets in a pretty great Lord of the Rings shout out), Chiwetel Ejiofor and Kristen Wiig. They’re faced with not only how to keep their astronaut alive, but whether to inform Watney’s crew (still on their ship and out of the loop) and how to ‘spin’ their situation with the whole world watching. I think what’s most refreshing about the Earth-bound scenes is the spirit of rational teamwork among the NASA personnel. There’s disagreements and debates but never, as too often is the case in sci-fi films, a Bad Guy or any gross caricatures of government officials hellbent on an agenda. Some of the best scenes are the NASA leaders just throwing down challenges to their tech teams and watching all their wheels turning into motion. Scott wrings suspense out of the sheer amount of options the space agencies have for a mission where if one astronaut is lost in pursuit of another, the whole thing is a failure. If anything, the enemy is determining who ultimately will take responsibility for the chosen course of action and its outcome.

Already powered by its strong cast and the gripping central dilemma, The Martian also excels in every technical aspect. Harry Gregson-Williams provides a touching, often ‘futuristic-sounding’ score that never overpowers the action while Dariusz Wolski’s cinematography is gorgeous. Jessica Chastain simply floating through her ship on her rounds is already a beautiful image and in the RealD 3D I saw it in at NYFF, it soared. The film doesn’t rely on the 3D, but it is immersive in the space scenes and frequently had me in awe. A thrilling cinematic experience made even better for regarding complications in space as inevitable and workable rather than with terror. It felt like exactly what we need in a moment where NASA continues to make discoveries (just this week: water!) despite threats of shutdown.

The Martian opens on October 2nd. 

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Filed Under: Film Reviews, Movies Tagged With: Jessica Chastain, matt damon, nyff, NYFF 2015, review, ridley scott, ...

New York Film Fest Review: The Walk

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale
Running Time: 124 minutes
Sony, TriStar

Our Score: 2.5 out of 5 stars

When I saw James Marsh’s 2008 documentary Man On Wire, I recall my heart racing. Just listening to Philippe Petit rapid fire recounting his tight rope walk between the Twin Towers, and the amount of sheer luck that his plans hinged on, was exhilarating. When Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit popped up on the top of the torch of the Statue of Liberty in the opening of Robert Zemeckis’s The Walk to narrate the exact same tale, well exhilarated is not the word I’d use. In a perfect world, audiences could see the breathtaking wire walking sequence that Zemeckis has crafted appended to something as thrilling as that Oscar-winning documentary but of course this is not a perfect world. As Gordon-Levitt’s Petit would say through outrageous French accent, c’est la vie. In moving from Man on Wire to The Walk, we must revisit Petit’s spectacular tight rope act with a hefty side of fromage.

The year is 1974 and French street performer Petit, is enamored with wire walking. During his search for more places to hang his wire, he finds a newspaper heralding the nearly-completed Twin Towers in New York City. They’re perfect and he becomes obsessed with the idea of walking between them. In racing towards this vision, Zemeckis takes us through a candy colored vision of the France from the countryside to the circus and Paris. It all culminates in a newsworthy walk between the two towers of the Notre Dame cathedral–a death defying feat unto itself, presented here as a quick bit of exposition. Along the way he picks up French ‘accomplices’ in girlfriend Annie (Charlotte Le Bon in a thankless role), a photographer (Clément Sibony) and eccentric circus mentor Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley) who pleads with Petit to use a safety harness (he won’t). For all the fast paced camera work and bustling Parisian unicycle rides, this first act drags under Petit’s over aggressive narration. In light of the Marsh documentary where the vibrant real Petit told his own story, my mind truly boggled at having this level of wall to wall voice over. For audience members who have not seen the doc, your tolerance may be higher than mine. If anything I miss the different voices from Man on Wire, because here doubt by other characters is treated as repressing an excitable artist. His success is taken as a foregone conclusion.

In 1970s New York, the film takes on more of the heist-like mood that was established in Marsh’s documentary and the film finally takes off. Petit enlists his American accomplices and the element of suspense is restored while Petit and co employ ‘spywork’ to figure out the inner workings of the massive construction site. The level of lax security and staff eluded with charm and confidence of the crew is really something to see from a post-9/11 perspective and is one of the essential elements to Petit’s being a once-in-a-lifetime accomplishment. The biggest hurdle is getting from the sky lobbies to the roof and ensuring the roof is free of guards. Here Zemeckis is great at giving us what can only be described as warm up acrophobia as the team contends with incomplete elevator shafts in the build up to the final walk across the void. That walk is undeniably breath taking and seeing it with a crowd in a theater, the level of tensed muscles was strongly felt. And the walk is not short either. As Petit the artist felt more and more connected to the wire and the towers, the more liberties he takes up there. And the sequence is stunning in spite of Petit remaining on hand to tell us how stunning it is.

With the 3D walk itself being worth price of admission, more so in vertigo-inducing IMAX, and poignant final moments that especially resonated with the New York Film Fest crowd, Zemeckis has crafted a spectacle to be sure even if the rest of the film will likely not stand the same test of time that the 2008 documentary has.

The Walk opens in limited IMAX on September 30th with a wide release on October 9th.

 

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Filed Under: Film Reviews Tagged With: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, nyff, NYFF 2015, review, Robert Zemeckis, The Walk, ...

Blu-ray Review: “What We Do in the Shadows”

Starring: Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, Jonny Brugh, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer
Directed By: Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi
Distributed by: Paramount
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 85 Minutes
Release Date: July 21st

Film: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
Extras: 5 out of 5 Stars

What We Do in the Shadows was released here back in February and still remains my favorite comedy of 2015. From the makers of HBO’s Flight of the Conchords, What We Do in the Shadows is a mockumentary from New Zealand which sees the vampire genre through the eyes of four decidedly uncool flatmates who are also undead. If the thought of yet another vampire film has you reaching for your crucifix, I would implore you to hold off just for these 85 minutes. Despite its slight runtime, Shadows manages to cleverly hit upon all the classic vampire tropes in new and hilarious ways. Rather than Interview with the Vampire, we get interviews with some vampires by way of Christopher Guest or “The Office”.

Taika Waititi is our main vampire, Viago, a friendly fop of only 379 who likes to keep the flat neat even while draining victims of their blood. To start off, he calls a flat meeting where he and ex-torture-master Vladislav (Clement) can confront their youngest roomie Deacon (Brugh, playing 183 years old) about his lax approach to dish duty. Fourth roommate, Petyr, a Nosferatu-like creature who lives in a stone tomb in the basement declines his invite to the meeting. It’s a brilliant intro to the dynamics of this most unusual household before the ‘film crew’ are able to go further into each character’s origins, heartaches and peculiar hobbies. Their routine of hitting up Wellington, NZ nightspots and scouting for potential victims is broken up when one of those potentials is accidentally turned into a new vampire Nick (Gonzalez-Macuer). Nick brings with him a mortal BFF Stu, a deadpan company IT guy, who charms the household into not eating him by simply being cooler and showing the vamps how the internet works. Meanwhile Nick flies around town trying pick up lines like “I’m Twilight” blowing their cover and generally–and fortunately for the viewers – stirring up trouble while blowing their cover.

The film culminates at the Unholy Masquerade where all the communities of supernatural Wellington beings convene. It’s a brilliant finale which allows the filmmakers to expand their lens from vampires to zombies, goblins and werewolves, causing one to wonder what’s going on in all those other shadows over there?? Rhys Darby in particular has a standout bit part as the leader of the werewolves who are just doing their best to keep calm. The comedy works on pretty much every level and was a welcome return to the sensibilities that I loved so much in “Flight of the Conchords”.

Extras 

As seems to be the case with mockumentaries, ‘Shadows’ has a wealth of extra footage that was left on the cutting room floor. This blu-ray is bursting with additional characterization of everyone on the screen, that is pretty much as hilarious as what made it to the final cut. Kudos go to the filmmakers for keeping the final film as tight as it is when they had this much content at their hands. Additionally, while the supernatural gags blend seamlessly into the comedy, the film has a whole lot of practical special effects at work–from blood splatters, to men on fire and rotating entire sets– that the behind the scenes footage highlights. Clements and Waititi’s original short version of the film completes the disc, showing the seeds of what eventually made it to feature length.

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Filed Under: DVD/Blu-Ray Reviews Tagged With: bluray, jemaine clement, review, taiki waititi, what we do in the shadows

“The Hunger Games: The Exhibition” Opens in NY at Discovery Times Square

When you think of fictional places you’d like to visit, the dystopian districts of The Hunger Games’s Panem might not seem like the most obvious vacation choice. Nevertheless a walk through that world, based on the films spawned from Suzanne Collins’s wildly popular book series, is now available right in midtown Manhattan. The Hunger Games: The Exhibition has moved into Discovery Times Square where fans will be able to explore the props, costumes and interactive features through January 3rd 2016.

After a welcoming video from Elizabeth Banks both as her character Effie Trinket and herself, the exhibition takes visitors chronologically through Katniss Everdeen’s (Jennifer Lawrence) journey from the impoverished District 12 to the excesses of the Capitol and into the games and the ensuing rebellion. Each room is fully immersive and ripe with small details to appreciate. I knew I was in good hands right from District 12 when I saw Primrose Everdeen’s shirt (worn by actress Willow Shields) was left perfectly untucked.

The exhibit is a bit of a hybrid insofar as it invites fans to immerse themselves in the actual world of Panem via interactive features like sitting down with Stanley Tucci’s flamboyant Cesar Flickerman but then it also takes a step back with informative signage to look at the artistry and designers responsible for the film’s creation.

Another clever touch is the moral dilemmas the exhibit challenges guests with along the way. Much like Katniss, fans are faced with several options in how they’ll face the harsh world of Panem and they’re able to make a decision that will then be tallied in beads for the duration of the show. It will be interesting to see how those choices stack up and I appreciated how many opportunities for hands-on analogue interactions there were rather than solely relying on digital screens.

For me however, the standouts of this exhibition are really the costumes. They’re central to Katniss’s rise to power in the series (with the help of her talented stylist Cinna of course!) and the films have done justice to their importance from the humble mockingjay pin to Katniss’s jaw-dropping wedding gown from Catching Fire. That gown from designer Trish Summerville is displayed in proud contrast with her original leather get up.

Like all good tourist attractions, you inevitably exit through a gift shop that’s just as thought out as the exhibition, with no district left unrepresented–I confess as a Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) fan, I picked up a District 4 pin and left just a little more hyped that the finale of the films is yet to come.

The Hunger Games: The Exhibition is open now through January 3rd 2016 at Discovery Times Square, 226 West 44th Street NYC. Tickets range from $22.50-$29.50.
The final film in the series, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, opens in the US on November 20th.

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Filed Under: Headlines, Travel Tagged With: Discovery Times Square, Jennifer Lawrence, mockingjay, nyc, The Hunger Games

Ryan Reynolds talks about his latest film “Self/Less”

3

3Ryan Reynolds stars this week in Gramercy Pictures’ new sci-fi thriller Self/Less from director Tarsem Singh (The Cell). Self/Less revolves around a dying billionaire named Damian who’s initially played by Sir Ben Kingsley before he undergoes a groundbreaking procedure to place his mind inside a younger, healthier body. Ryan Reynolds’s body to be precise. Secretive underground sci-fi operations generally not being on the up and up, Damian finds himself fighting to find out the origins of this new body while on the run from people behind the shady organization. Assuring us that he was himself and not Sir Ben, the future Deadpool star sat down in New York to discuss the film as well as some other acting aspirations (hint: let’s let the man be evil for a change!)

What attracted you to this film?
Ryan Reynolds: As I’ve gotten older–and I guess I can say that now–I kind of, it’s about working with people you want to work with. And Ben Kingsley had signed on before I was involved. And Tarsem, I remember being so taken with Tarsem’s The Cell. A film which I thought was incredible and of course, Sir Ben and basically everything he’s ever done so…I was just kind of excited to get in the sandbox with those guys.

How familiar are you with the actual research that people are doing regarding this concept?
Reynolds: A little bit, I read some stuff on it–there’s actually some compelling science that would suggest that this is something that we could actually achieve…I find it disturbing, actually. I find the whole concept of it disturbing to so abuse this first life and privilege that we have that we would be as arrogant to ask for a second one. It raises all kinds of questions. For some people it raises a theological argument, for some people it’s just a moral issue, for some people it just sounds awesome. So you know, it just depends. I remember when we were scouting for locations for the movie, we met a couple of billionaires here in New York because we were interested in borrowing their penthouse for Ben Kingsley’s character you know, because he’s a billionaire. And every one of them said “is that possible?” [laughs] You know and you just think ‘wow, you really, you would do that, wouldn’t you?’

Did you meet with Ben Kingsley, since you’re playing the young version of the same character even though you don’t share scenes together?
Reynolds: Yeah I met him. Yeah. I actually spent a lot of time with him. It wasn’t so much that we were shooting together, we had one scene together, but he was around quite a bit. And you know, I would just hang out with him, we had lunch a couple of times. He’s amazing. He’s just an amazing person. I really think he’s kind of like a skin covered nuclear reactor. I mean I’ve never seen a guy with that kind of intensity. He’s got something blowing through him that’s otherworldly.

Lauren Damon: How was it playing against Matthew Goode who’s really playing one of those Archetypal British Villains?
Reynolds: Well, he British. It helps. [laughter] But yeah the Brits are to me, you know, they embody great dry comedy. But certainly there’s a perception that villainous behavior goes in tandem with being British…Yeah, he brought a great screen villain into the mix for us…He is really remarkable. It’s also great because he’s kind of a leading man type of guy and you know, that’s important. I always think–my dream role is to play a villain. I still, to this day, I haven’t had the chance to play like a proper you know, on screen villain. The Voices [2014] I play sort of a nefarious bad guy, but he doesn’t believe he’s a bad guy so I can’t wait to do that some day. Because that’s just, I love villains because villains never ever ever ever feel like villains to me. I would love to do a villain role because I would play every line like he’s the hero. Because in real life that’s what villains are. Villains are just people with opposing convictions, not necessarily people that wake up in the morning and go ‘I need to kill someone.’

Why do you think you’ve not been asked to play a villain?
Reynolds: I don’t know. That’s a good question. I don’t know. I also just think that Hollywood tends to cast villains–they tend to cast people that seem like villains…And I don’t know why they do that. I think like–I would prefer that they take somebody who doesn’t necessarily strike you as a villain and make them the greatest onscreen villain to ever happen. So I don’t know. I would love that opportunity though. I mean I look for them, I always look for them. But typically it’s in the writing–you read them and you’re like ‘oh well he’s written like a villain’ that’s why I don’t want to do it…You know, he’s talking like a ‘bad guy.’ I don’t think villains are like that. I think that villains talk like they’re the hero. You know, if you look back throughout history and you think of some of the greatest, you know, most awful human beings and the people that truly did the most damage, they believed in what they were doing. And that’s why they did the most damage. So like that to me is interesting.

LD: Shooting this and then also being Deadpool, a basically unkillable character, did you find yourself giving more thought to the concept of immortality, whether you saw it as a good or bad thing?
Ryan Reynolds: I don’t know who would want to–to live forever, I feel like that’d just be a sentence. It would be kind of awful. I would not want to, I wouldn’t want to do that. But yeah, as a theme, it’s kind of been around lately for me…I think for a lot of people that’s wish fulfillment and in this film, I think Self/less they kind of tackle it in an interesting way. There’s a real moral argument there. There’s something, it’s a lot to with a class system. There’s a guy who uses his influence, power and money to acquire something that no other human being could really acquire. And to use it in such a way that is not necessarily altruistic but kind of disgusting, that’s the moral journey that he’s on and I think that that is what also derails him. And I found that to be kind of interesting.

LD: Are you going with Deadpool to Comic Con? And do you think you would brave the show floor whether in disguise or not?
Reynolds: Oh yeah, we will have a presence at Comic Con for sure. Yeah, I’d love to go on the floor…

LD: Deadpool’s really covered, you could do it.
Reynolds: Yeah I could! But if I wear the actual Deadpool suit from ten miles away, you’ll know it’s me. Because it’s the actual Deadpool suit, which I think is a feat of engineering. No cosplay looks that good. So I don’t know, maybe I’ll go in a Hulk mask or something.

Self/Less opens Friday July 10th
Deadpool is scheduled for release February 16th 2016

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Filed Under: Film Interviews, Interviews Tagged With: deadpool, Gramercy Pictures, Matthew Goode, Ryan Reynolds, sdcc, selfless, ...

Kodi Smit-McPhee and John Maclean Have An In-depth Talk About ‘Slow West’

Last month John Maclean’s Slow West had its New York debut at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film has since been available from DirecTV but the visually striking drama (read our 4-star review here) can be enjoyed on the big screen in its theatrical release as of May 15th. I sat down with director Maclean and star Kodi Smit-Mcphee (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, next year’s X-Men Apocalypse) one rainy afternoon during the fest at New York’s Bowery Hotel to discuss more in depth the creation of the Michael Fassbender western.

Lauren Damon: John you actually got a degree in art and painting, did that inform your visual development of the film?
John Maclean: I think practically 100% of it in a way. Because it’s all connected and when I was making–when I was at art school I was doing a lot of collage which is pretty close to montage. And when you do look at really early early cinema, they’re so closed linked, you know. There’s cinema and films, paintings, then you have surrealists making films and Dali making films.
Kodi Smit McPhee: I love his films, so cool.
John: Yeah and Buñuel, do you know Buñuel’s stuff?
Kodi: No
John: Luis Buñuel
Kodi: No, I’ve been looking for more surrealism…
John: Oh he’s the ultimate. I’ll give you some names.
Kodi: Please. I didn’t even know you’re a painter. That’s amazing.
John: I studied six years at art school, painting.
Kodi: Really? I’m getting right back into it now. Oh my god, I love it. I’m thinking of maybe doing surrealism in graphic design, I like that.
John: Yeah, I mean especially surrealism.

Lauren: Yeah, that’s definitely evident in having, you have scenes horses attached by a clothes line to dry their clothes in the wind, or Kodi’s character alone in the desert landscape–did you sketch anything out?
John: Oh, I sketched every single shot, yeah. So it took me about four weeks to storyboard it but yeah, heavily storyboarded.

Lauren: Kodi, just prior to this you were in Jake Paltrow’s Young One’s where your character sketched a lot too…
Kodi: Actually ironically in a lot of movies, I just realized…
John: Weren’t you drawing in Planet of the Apes?
Kodi: Yeah. Planet of the Apes, [All the Wilderness], The Road…
Lauren: Is that something you do on your own anyway?
Kodi: I did when I was younger and I only realize now that like my ego–
John: Did you actually draw in Planet of the Apes or did some production designer give you half a drawing to fill in? [laughs]
Kodi: [laughs] No, they gave me half of like an amazing masterpiece to help, and I’m like ‘Alright, so I’m just going to do my seven-year old rest of it.’ But yeah, I loved drawing when I was little and painting but then I just stopped because I thought that I was just doing the same as other people but I’m not, at all, you know?
Lauren: No, it’s always going to be different.
Kodi: You end up owning it once you master the craft. And then once you master the craft, which only your passion can get you through, you can then talk however you want in the arts.

Lauren: Going back to that image of the horses, how was it working with all the livestock in the film?
John: [Laughs] That was actually–that was a scene where the people on the film, I can’t remember what they’re called, are they called bond people? …The people on the film that sort of question stuff that maybe can’t be done were very concerned about that scene [Laughs] But that was one of the easiest.
Kodi: The clothes line, yep.
John: That was actually pretty straight forward.
Kodi: Yeah
John: I think some of the harder scenes were just like eight horses in a row, standing still. So yeah, there was no problems with the horses but there was problems with some of the riders. [laughs]
Kodi: It’s pretty interesting and funny when you’re trying to do just like a dramatic, still moment and the horse is like just moving around–
John: Or a silent moment and just [horse noises]

Lauren: Did you have previous experience acting on horseback?
Kodi: Luckily, I did. I did Romeo and Juliet in Italy a little before this and I was trained by a jockey so I was pretty set for it–
Lauren: So you’re ready to go fast if you wanted?
Kodi: Yeah I love horses and you can actually build a really unique relationship with a horse if you’re not scared of it. So yeah…I think my horse’s name was Zeke, it was beautiful.

Lauren: I noticed when I interviewed Ben Mendelsohn regarding Silas leaving his gang that he seemed bit defensive of Payne, was this the remnants of anyone on set staying in character?
Kodi: We only had Ben for a tiny amount of time.
John: Yeah Ben was only around for three or four days of the whole shoot.
Kodi: If anything, he was just so cooperative just to try and get it done right.
John: I mean Ben had a really tough scene on the first day which was around the camp fire which, when I wrote the script I hadn’t realized that it was dialogue, silence, dialogue, silence, and there was nothing for him to be able to remember…Usually someone says something, you know someone else says something and it triggers you to remember your lines for the reaction. But there was no…Silas was just like [there].
Kodi: Yeah.
John: So it was basically like a massive monologue, so it was really really tough for him. And then after that was…all that in the field so that was much more fun.

Lauren: So he wasn’t ‘Payne’ on set?
John: No, because I never felt that it was that kind of film or it sort of merited that. Because it was, you know even between takes, it felt like the kind of film where the performances were supposed be kind of quite natural and very just action based so you know it very much just yeah…So it kind of felt like that wasn’t really needed. I think when you’re going into filming hand held digital for hours, someone being slowly destroyed in their mind and all that, you need to go in and out. I think the only time, I think Caren [Pistorious as Jay’s love interest, Rose], when she was at the ending–that I wouldn’t want to spoil–it was quite emotional for her, that scene.
Kodi: Yeah I was saying when it comes to the scenes within the story, you want to stay there. But when it’s obviously just like things like communication, I mean if anything it’s great to leap back into being cool with each other and communicating and kind of talking out the scene before you get back into it.

Lauren: When you read the script, did Jay’s love for Rose bring you back to any crush you’d had in your life?
Kodi: Actually I hadn’t had a lot…I mean now I have a beautiful girlfriend, but that’s only because I do relate to Jay in the way that I only want true love and I kind of see through the veil of all the bullshit in the world. And I was just kind of waiting for that, waiting for the right time and respected that. Yeah but nothing at the point of when I read the script, did it remind me of anything. But I love love. So yeah.

Lauren: Do you think growing up while making films kind of sheltered you from some of that sort of ‘bullshit’?
Kodi: Yes. Yes, absolutely. I mean it could have gone two ways and it could have actually thrown me into the bullshit if anything. It’s my journey, I believe, not just a coincidence that I was taken around the world and shown different cultures and yeah, just shown the state of the world. And it really planted a seed for an inquisitive mind.

Lauren: And you’re from Australia, but are you based in Hollywood now?
Kodi: I’m based in yeah, Studio City, kind still away from the bullshit [laughs]. It kind feels like a suburb type area so I feel pretty comfortable there. I’m there because of work, but I never work there. It doesn’t work out like that [laughs]. It’s cool.

Lauren: Was it nice for this film shooting in New Zealand, kind of closer to Australia?
Kodi: Yes, it was so beautiful and I was so stoked to be going back to New Zealand. I went there for two weeks when I was younger with my dad and I was, even really young, I knew I loved it so much. Everyone says that it’s one of the places in the world that mother nature’s still extremely present and that’s so true when you’re there. It’s just like another world, so beautiful.

Lauren: Were you familiar with Ben or his work as another Australian actor?
Kodi: Oh! Ironically, my father is an actor–he’s the one that got me into it when I was eight–and I lived in a place called Adelaide for, well before I was born, Ben Mendelsohn and my father actually did their first movie together.Well, my dad’s first movie. So it was just kind of weird to connect the dots like that. Makes a cycle.

Lauren: Did you dad visit this set?
Kodi: Yeah! He came to set and they saw each other and yeah, it was just cool to be in the middle of that, for sure. I felt a great connection and I told him, you know, I told him yesterday that even though we’re all the same sorts on the inside, he’s a huge inspiration to me, yeah, he’s a really cool person.

Lauren: Do you have any siblings?
Kodi: I have a sister who’s also an actress but configures more of her energy towards she wants to be a pop star…
John: How old is she?
Kodi: She’s twenty two and it’s been her dream since a child, so she’s really just embraced it. I completely respect her for that. And then I have a nine year old brother who is in Australia right now with my mum. And yeah, he’s a really cool kid [laughs].

Lauren: John, this being your first feature film, were there any assumptions you’d had that flew out the window as you moved from shorts to this?
John: I think just the mountain that I was about to climb. And I think if I’d almost known it, that I would have questioned doing it. You know, but you sort of break it down. So you don’t look too far ahead, you just look towards the week. So you’ve got the pre-production, and then you deal with that and then you’ve got the first day of shooting and you deal with that. Then you get into the rhythm of shooting and you deal with that. And then you finish and then you start editing, and then you do the music and the grading…So just the whole thing just is such–I’m kind of glad I did it when I’m a little bit older and a little bit more kind of…You know I speak to film students that want to make feature films and they’re like twenty and stuff…
Kodi: So eager.
John: Eager, yeah.
Kodi: I feel like I’m just waiting and there’s nothing I want to jump into yet.
John: Yeah, I think you need to…you need to just make short films, you need to read, you need to write, to learn and live. I mean some people–obviously you’ve got your Scorsese’s doing it when they’re six and stuff but I mean, for me it was just much more ‘Ok, this is the right time’ and it felt very comfortable and easy.

Lauren: Do you have a favorite part in all this process?
John: Shooting’s the best bit for me. Unfortunately shooting’s the shortest bit as well. You’re only really doing seven weeks of the shoot and the before bit is years and the after bit’s years. But really the buzz of being on set and the collaboration of being on set and the kind of routine of it, I just absolutely love.

Lauren: In an attempt to be a Michael Fassbender completionist, I couldn’t seem to find [their short film] Pitch Black Heist though.
John: No, I know. We’re going to try and get it out. It’s on the internet in Britain but it’s blocked in America, I know.
Kodi: Why’s that?
John: Because Film4 have got a licensing thing about it..It might come on DVD.
[writer’s note: Thank you, YouTube]

Lauren: Kodi, have you got ambitions to branch out in writing or directing?
Kodi: I definitely have ambitions but I think with wisdom comes the best recipe. So I’m literally just being the sponge that I already automatically am with this–not, immature mind–but this mind that’s still learning. And I just take advantage of it and yeah, taking it all as it comes. I know one day over there [pointing to John’s seat] I’ll have the great tools to express that.

Lauren: What do you think you picked up the most in working on Slow West?
Kodi: I–man, the most important thing for me in art is just like, I don’t know that new…like when someone does that thing that you love, that you want to do, it’s so inspiring. Because when it’s done right and it’s enjoyable and I don’t know. It really is what it is to anyone I guess. I can’t put words on it, I really can’t.

Lauren: Actually going back to John saying you had ‘The Mountain’ of your film earlier, I have to point out that you had The Hound from Game of Thrones in there, how long was Rory McCann shooting with you and how did he come to join your cast?
Kodi: He’s awesome.
John: He was absolutely amazing.
Kodi: He has the nicest heart in the biggest cage.
John: Yeah. And a great talent. He was in a bit of Scotland. We shot for a week in Scotland and he was there and then he came down to New Zealand and we had him for maybe one or two weeks in New Zealand, but it was great to have him around. He, I think Michael Fassbender suggested him because I was trying to figure out someone for the dad…
Kodi: Originally it was Rory for Jay.
John: [Laughs] Oh yeah Rory for Jay. Originally it was Michael for Jay [laughs]…Yeah, Michael suggested him and it was like [snaps fingers] wow.

Lauren: Had Michael worked with him before?
John: No, I think Michael had seen him in something that wasn’t Game of Thrones.
Lauren: Hot Fuzz? With his one line in that movie?
John: [Laughs] Yeah, again and again. But yeah, I loved working with him.

Lauren: And then how did you cast Caren?
John: Caren just it was tapes that were sent to me. She hadn’t done much, if any features. Her profile was pretty low and they were sending me a lot more experienced names and stuff and she was just–her tape was just better than anyone else’s.

Lauren: Kodi, did you speak much with her regarding your characters’ relationship in the movies?
Kodi: Beforehand? Yeah, I think it kind of stops at a point when you understand what’s happening. And that is just the whole heart in the wrong place idea. Which happens a lot in the world. But in this instance, it’s quite the colossal event. Because he has the ability to follow that vulnerable passion. So yeah, I think that kind of unfolds itself and then you get to put the ingredients in after you understand it.

Lauren: Without going to much into spoilers, but this is a western so it of course it has a shootout in there, how was it filming that? And had you experience with weapons?
John: That was the funnest bit of the whole shoot for me. Because you really–It was towards the end of the shoot and we’re kind of running out of time so we’re ramping up the shot lists and it was really quite exciting actually. We got the guy that was doing all the firearms stuff, he basically was Peter Jackson’s guy for, since the beginning. So he’d done all the Meet the Feebles and all that kind of stuff so he was really amazing. He was really amazing with shooting stuff and he turned up with this huge high-powered air thing for a lot of the exploding everything. So everything was just shot. So we just shot the hell out of the place.

Lauren: Did you get in much gunplay?
Kodi: There was a little bit and I obviously had to be like safely trained how to use it correctly and stuff like that. But I didn’t really use it much in the movie and we wanted it to–when I did use it–look like I had never used it. So I kind of used that! [laughs]

Lauren: Coming up you’ve got playing Nightcrawler in X-Men [Apocalypse], are you entering into any sort of stunts training for that?
Kodi: I think, I mean I’m probably not allowed to say this, but I read the script and I don’t think there’s much physicality for my character as of now. Probably due to his laziness in teleportation [laughs] Which I love! So I’m not going to complain about that.
John: You’re working on your tail though? [laughs]
Kodi: I’m working on my tail stunts, trying to flick it into people’s eyes.
John: Trying to grow it as well…
Kodi: [Laughs] Yeah trying to grow it out right now. It’s like [‘this big’ hand demo]
Lauren: There should be a protein shake for that.
Kodi: Tail Protein Shake! That’s great.

Lauren: Do you have a favorite super hero of your own?
Kodi: The coolest thing is that I really never was into superheroes or comics or anything and I didn’t think as an actor of my physicality would have a chance to play one. But then after I just kind of started researching life and stuff like that, you see weird coincidences in life that you soon realize aren’t coincidences and this character is—his real super power I believe is he’s a great person. Or whatever he is, mutant. And he’s in love with faith and god and he expresses love to his other superheroes who are going through hard times and essentially I think his—Fassbender says in interviews that that’s what’s so intriguing about X-men or even Star Wars. Its idea, it’s got this mask on it but what’s under it is relative emotions so yeah I really can’t wait to get into that. It’s so , again.
Lauren: Yeah, like Kurt, Jay in Slow West does have that spiritual angle to him
Kodi: Yep and intellectual and has the seed to want to know about the universe and that is also a seed in and of itself that ends up just making you go back to yourself.

Lauren: Talking of the ideas in larger films, Slow West has a lot of small, very intense intimate scenes, for instance Silas just trying to calm down a woman holding a gun, what’s the inspiration for these?
John: I think it’s just there’s things like that and the washing line scene, when you’re thinking up what’s happening next, it kind of one thing leads to another and it seems like the only practical solution. So the only practical solution for Silas in that situation is to try and get Jay to calm down by saying breathe. And the only way for him to say that to Jay and bring him out is to pretend he’s saying it to the girl…
Kodi: I don’t mean to go so deep but when you have a mind like mine, and you’re reading a script and you see how cause and effect and laws literally work—Like, if you’re at one with truth, then everything just falls into natural light. You don’t have to pull anything from anywhere, it just naturally happens.
John: It’s a lot of practicality, like if you’re clothes are wet and you have to ride somewhere, then you make a washing line, you know? So you kind of—hopefully it was just all coming out of…pI think that’s how, it’s like not having to think of anything too surreal or witty, but just think more practical things and then you will happen to be, by nature, witty or surreal.

Lauren: I can’t help but notice that when it comes to Jay, he seems like an intelligent character and for him to trust Silas’s intentions when he offers help seems just sort of willfully naive.
Kodi: Yeah, I mean I think maybe not even because…it’s like a theory I have that you can rev your engine so much in first gear, but it’s not going to get to the second gear until it’s the right time…So I think that’s where he’s at. And that’s where nature works. It’s like no matter what, you can know as much as you want but if you’re acting from where you are, it’s only going to have equal effect. So yeah, I think it doesn’t matter how really smart he was, he’s always going to be immature in some way.
John: Yeah I mean I just thought that Jay was the kind of person that sussed Silas out from the first moment he saw someone that was lost and lonely. And he had such a perceptive view on when certain characteristics of people, or certain—but because of that detail, and because of that perception missed the huge big picture that [Silas is] a bounty hunter [laughs]. So you know, it’s like…he nailed Silas immediately with the lonely thing but missed out on the whole ‘I’m leading him to the bounty’.

Lauren: And finally, what’re you working on next?
John: Seeds of ideas that will start developing in the next few months into something. So yeah, I’ve a bit sort of enjoying the traveling and space before starting to write again.

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Luke Hemsworth talks about “Infini” and new HBO series “Westworld”

Shane Abbess’s new scifi thriller Infini finds a rescue team on a mission to save the lone survivor of a biological outbreak on an abandoned off-world mining facility. The teleporting team all have to deal with the ominous confines of the station and each other once the contagion breaks loose. Luke Hemsworth stars as part of the team, technician Charlie Kent.

I spoke to Luke last month regarding his previous film Kill Me Three times and was pleased to get on the phone with him once again. The cheerful Australian actor was excited to be working on a sci-fi film that harkened back to an Alien-type vibe even while contending with acting in an extremely hot spacesuit.

Lauren Damon: Were you familiar with Shane Abbess or his work prior to this film?
Luke Hemsworth: I didn’t know Shane personally, I definitely knew Gabriel, his first film, and I thought that was a wonderful wonderful Australian film..One of the best things of come out in a long time. So it was a no brainer for me in terms of jumping on board. I would have paid to get on board really [laughs].

Damon: What appealed to you most about the story?
Hemsworth: You know, it’s different. It’s familiar and different, you know it sets up a convention and just when you think it’s going one direction, it punches in the other direction. And you know I think this is a world that I always really loved. Always loved you know, that era of ’79 to the mid-eighties—Alien, The Thing and just some of the films that I grew up on. So to get a chance to get into that world and feel close to those giants, it was something that was always really appealing.

Damon: Growing up what were your favorite sci-fi films?
Hemsworth: Oh Aliens. Alien one and two were always some of my favorite films. Predator and yeah, I’m a sci fi fan, you know Star Wars and all those. I’m in there, I love that stuff. I grew up reading fantasy books. Fantasy and sci fi sort of go a little bit hand in hand and you know…yeah I love it.

Damon: How much of that space station set was practical and how much was added later?
Hemsworth: It was all physical except for the exterior shots was all post, but everything was shot inside that studio. It was a physical studio. There’s very little green screen at all. I think there’s, I don’t know, a few shots when you see outside that are actually green screens. It was all very tactile, very—It was a wonderful set that was this beautiful, modular set, like a giant sort of Duplo set which they would take apart and then put back together in a very very short amount of time. And you know, you’d be looking at the ceiling which was just the floor a few moments ago…It was interesting, it was a bit of a mind trip…But yeah, I mean it was great.

Damon: Was it more challenging than usual to be working in primarily a space suit?
Hemsworth: Yes! Yeah absolutely! [Laughs] Uh, I don’t think I’ve ever sweated so much in all my life!  You know, the poor wardrobe people that had to wash that suit at the end of every day, [laughs] I don’t wish that upon anyone. It was so hot in that studio. I mean it must have been, I don’ t know 110 degrees in there and then we’d chuck space suits and gloves on, helmets and neck warmers…Yeah, it was tough. It was definitely tough.

Damon: Did you do you own fighting? You have quite a big fight within those space station tunnels.
Hemsworth: That’s me, yeah yeah. I never had a stunt double. No, that’s us going at it. I mean, he is great—Bren [Foster], who got to beat the absolute living daylights out of me was you know, he’s a wonderful martial artist and there wasn’t any point where I felt I was in danger. It’s very controlled…It’s good. It’s great to do that stuff, I love doing the stunts. I’m always pretty physical so get me in there!

Damon: A lot of the fighting is spurred on in the story because of a rage-inducing contagion, did you guys have a lot of discussion about that sort of virus aspect of the sci fi you were dealing with?
Hemsworth: Yeah, there was always a lot of discussion beforehand and before the shoot. And then you know, I think each person kind of found a way in to that rage or whatever it was in a different way. So you’re going to get a little of a different interpretation every time. Which I found very interesting, you know? Because there’s no monsters, it’s not like we’re all zombies stumbling around. There’s a level of coherence to everyone which is kind of different to a lot of other things. Which is very fun, very fun to play with. You know being on the edge, running that knife edge of insanity and control. But yeah, you get there and you try a few things—I mean we’d go this way and we’d go that way and it was an intense few days in the tunnels. Those tunnels were a bit of a blur for me now…we were definitely up the river so to speak!

Damon: Before things go wrong, your character is a bit of a techie type. When you’re in a sci-fi project do you find yourself researching the science behind it either for the role or just out of personal interest?
Hemsworth: Absolutely, yeah. We all did. We all went very deep into our character. We did a lot of preparation beforehand. We did a couple of things. One day we had to do a presentation to the group and each one of us had to teach the other people one of their skills. Something about their skills. You know, Bren did a knife fight, there was a bit of a CPR course, a bio-med course and mine was obviously a technical aspect. Technical and weapons, that was my little thing so…I actually gave everyone a beautiful knife which was engraved with everyone’s name, each person’s name.

Damon: When it comes to movies, teleportation and space accidents just freak me out. I have to ask, if someone said you could teleport somewhere, would you do it?
Hemsworth: Yes! I can’t stand going on planes, get me there instantly any day! [Laughs]
Damon: But the risks…
Hemsworth: Yeah, c’mon, I mean what’s the worst that could happen?
Damon: Uh, your arm could just wind up in the wrong spot on the other side!
Hemsworth: [Laughs] That’s alright, just send me back and do it again, yeah?
Damon: Alright.

Damon: Last time we spoke, they’d just announced your casting in HBO’s Westworld, have you begun work on that yet?
Hemsworth: Still haven’t started yet. Soon, soon, this is all I’m hearing is ‘soon’. So it’s coming.

Damon: Were you familiar with the Yul Brynner film before you were cast?
Hemsworth: Westworld? No I hadn’t seen it, I actually still haven’t seen the original. I think the style’s going to be very different so …but I will watch it. It’s on the list—on the list to watch.

Damon: What do you think about the concept of that Westworld advanced theme park will appeal to the modern audience?
Hemsworth: Oh I think it’s a lot bigger than that. I think there’s a lot of questions about life and what is life and artificial intelligence, you know. There’s robots becoming self-aware amongst a whole range of moral ambiguities, things that appeal to the darker side of human nature. I think it’s going to be great.

Damon: Have you got anything else in the works, or just waiting to start up there?
Hemsworth: That’s it, just waiting, yeah. Can’t really do anything at the moment. Hopefully I’ll get the time to go back and do Shane’s next film which he’s about to start. I think they’re in pre-production now, so if there’s any time that I have to do that then I’ll be on board 100%.

Damon: Will that be another sci-fi film?
Hemsworth: It’s another sci fi. It’s actually called Sci Fi: Volume One. [Laughs] It’s awesome, it’s unreal, I can’t wait.

Damon: Are you able to share anything about it?
Hemsworth: I can say nothing! [laughs]
Damon: Okay, that’s fair! I think that’s a good place to end! That’s all I have on scifi today…
Hemsworth: Awesome.
Damon: Thanks for talking with me again.
Hemsworth: Alright, thank you

Infini is available now on all VOD platforms.

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Olivia Wilde and Reed Morano discuss the film “Meadowland”

In Reed Morano’s new drama Meadowland, Olivia Wilde stars as school teacher Sarah, the mother of Jesse (Morano’s son, Casey Walker). While on a family trip with Jesse and her husband Phil (played by Luke Wilson), Sarah loses Jesse from a bathroom at a rest stop. Morano and Wilde sat down at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival to discuss the making of the film.

Because the film is largely about Sarah’s journey in coming to terms with her lost son, it begins with the harrowing realization that Jesse is gone.

Lauren Damon: Could you guys talk about filming the opening sequence, both technically and emotionally of the child initially going missing?
Reed Morano: I mean, I think I just wanted to not follow the typical conventions of ‘okay, something bad’s about to happen, this is a thriller’ like I didn’t really want to do any indication of it. And that’s sort of like why you don’t–we don’t really even see Jesse before he goes into the bathroom. And I thought okay…We also didn’t really have very much time.
Olivia Wilde: Yeah.
Reed: I was surprised there. So I was like okay, we’re gonna film, let’s just do it. Let’s just have [the actors] do the whole action and we’re gonna kind of–I’m just gonna follow [them] with the camera. Since we were handheld, it was just very easy to just kind of like go with these guys, move off of them. We kind of had a general–we kind of planned out in general where [they] were gonna go look and then I just kind of went with [Olivia] and then focused on you know, Sarah for a while. And then I focused a little bit on Phil.
Olivia: It was very true to life to, we wanted to show that tragic realism of when something bad happens and if you play it back in your mind, you think ‘What would I have done differently?’ And that guilt that both parents may have felt. That they didn’t spend enough time focusing on him right before he went. You know, they’re in the front seat, Sarah’s working on something, Phil’s driving. And there is Jesse in the back kind of entertaining himself. And that’s why, you know, it’s a scene about real life, real parenting, [a] real family moment where everyone is not necessarily completely 100% focused on each other. And then they go into the rest stop and as we said, you don’t even see [Jesse] because that’s how it would be played back in their minds. Like for me watching it, that’s how Sarah’s remembering her last moments with him…She remembers the cookie, she remembers his little voice, she remembers small moments of looking at Phil. And then once they get to the rest stop, it’s kind of blotchy. She doesn’t really remember. She remembers he’s not there and then he’s gone. And when she goes back in her mind, she thinks ‘Who was there? When’s the last time I touched him?’ You know, all of that that we would all do trying to relive it and think what could I have done differently? So I loved how Reed made that choice just to do this as it would be true to life. Just another day, another moment.
Reed: Yeah because if you lose something, you don’t know ahead of time that’s going to happen…There was this thing at one time where people thought I was going to do this poignant moment in the first scene in the car and I was like no, it should be like real life. Like completely real. We don’t want to indicate–it’s not perfect. It’s just like a regular family hanging out, driving. Some people told us ‘Oh some of this stuff’s a little mundane’ and it’s like but that’s a family driving on a road trip. And then him going into the bathroom–I debated should I show a shot of the bathroom at first? To show, to reveal that the door wasn’t open initially. And then it’s like you’re putting too much pressure, you’re putting too much emphasis on him going into the bathroom. It’s like you’re already–people going into the movie, kind of already know what’s going to happen, but that would really indicate it.

 

LD: What was the thought process behind casting Reed’s actual son as Jesse?
Reed: Well, I mean there are practical reasons and there are emotional reasons to cast him. And I felt like when I was trying to cast–
Olivia: He was the best one!
Reed: He was the best one. I auditioned a lot of kids and I finally–and I was trying to avoid it–I think we talked about it and it’s like it’s so perfect, not only does Casey look like he could be Luke and Olivia’s son, he is also, he’s not an actor. He’s like really subtle…Like I know him, he’s sort of been my muse for a long time and I take a lot of photos of him. But just knew that he, he’s just wise beyond his years. And I just thought he’s going to be a natural in front of the camera. But besides that, originally I was scared of the idea because I was like, that’s so fucked up for me to do that. Am I putting this idea out to the universe and then my own son’s going to go missing? God forbid. And then I thought, no maybe it’s the other way around. Like I’m doing this so that it won’t happen to me. And I also thought it’s such a huge thing to ask of these actors, in particular Olivia, who has just had a son. And I know from experience that right after you have a baby, it’s the most emotional time period. It’s such a weird time for women. That’s why postpartum happens and all these other things. And I just thought I’m asking so much of her and I want to be like in it with her as much as possible and it was sort of like my way…And also, I wanted to make sure I got it right. You know, I feel like I wanted to know–and I don’t know, maybe it would have been better if it wasn’t a kid I was connected to because then I could find a way to make it emotional without having extra baggage attached–but I just, I wanted to really feel what they were feeling. And I felt like that was like the closest way I could do it.
Olivia: I think also in terms of performance, something I loved so much about the opening scene is how natural that moment is. And it’s hard to get a child actor to relax to that point. So I thought we were really lucky to have Casey, who’s not only I think a good actor, but he was so relaxed that we got these real moments that kids don’t typically do when they’re performing.
Reed: And to be noted, pretty much all the dialogue in that scene in the car is ad-libbed by the actors. It’s not–we ended up not really using anything from the script. I think the only thing we used was when he says ‘I’m thirsty’ and Luke says ‘Milk or juice?’ But then Luke added in ‘Or beer?’ and then Casey was like ‘Beer.’ [Laughs] I mean that’s what I mean. He was like SO on it. And then that whole story that Casey tells about ‘I was running…’ that was just me saying ‘Why don’t you tell us some stories about why you like going to see Uncle Tim’ and he’s like ‘Well last time I saw Uncle Tim in Ithaca, we were running around in a field of grass…’ And he just like made that up. The weird part is that later on in the movie, Luke tells a story about seeing Jesse running around in a field of grass behind his house. But that was actually in the script. But Casey had never read the script. So it was this weird like thing that happened. And I had to put it in and my editor was like ‘No no no, it’s too much of a coincidence’ But I’m like when people see the first scene, they don’t know what happens later so it’s fine.

The other child actor in the film is Ty Simpkins as Adam, an autistic student with whom Sarah emotionally connects at her school.

LD: What was the thinking behind having the character of Adam be autistic? And what was it about Adam that would have drawn Sarah in more than her other students?
Olivia: Well he’s an outsider and she relates to that. He has trouble connecting and communicating and she relates to that and so I think that was the reason for it. And I think Reed made the really wise choice, along with Ty, to create Adam to be subtlety different and so that Sarah would be the one to recognize what makes him special. But yeah, that everyone else had just kind of abandoned him and that she in no way sees herself as his proxy mother or him her proxy son, but I think she connects more to him. That he’s her and he’s probably the only one that she wants to be around because he’s not asking her to act normal. And she’s not asking him to act normal.

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Filed Under: Film Interviews, Interviews Tagged With: discuss, film, meadowland, morano, olivia, reed, ...

Lake Bell chats about “Man Up” along with director Ben Palmer and writer Tess Morris at Tribeca Film Festival

Man Up, the hilarious new comedy from director Ben Palmer and writer Tess Morris, made its NY debut at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival with the creators and star Lake Bell in a cheerful mood on the red carpet. They along with producers Nira Park and Rachel Prior spoke with me about working on the film.

The film focuses on the awkward Nancy (Bell) accidentally swiping some else’s blind date, Jack (Simon Pegg) and the wild night they have out in London. True to the spirit of Man Up’s main character Nancy, writer Tess Morris was unabashedly honest about how she felt about the premiere, laughing and saying, “First time I’m going to see it with a paying audience–so I’m really excited and also I feel sick!”

Lauren Damon: How did you come up with some of the phrases and strategies that Nancy throws out in this film? The tactical puke? The blowjob paradox?
Tess Morris: Because they’re all actual things in my life! Actually, The Blowjob Paradox is my friend Austin. I have to credit him. That was his theory that I stole. Never be friends with a writer because they’ll just use everything of yours. Tactical puke? Because I’m the least sporty person in the world. So the idea of me actually having to do a tactical puke is sort of like half the joke. But yeah, I just base a lot of stuff on–I have a notebook with me everywhere I go and I just nick everyone else’s…

LD: Like Nancy carrying a notebook.
Morris: Oh yeah! Yeah, she’s very much myself.

LD: Did you write Jack with Simon Pegg in mind?
Morris: No I didn’t, I actually wrote it on spec, but he came on board it quite early and just changed the whole process for me. Because obviously once he was playing Jack, I could just have even more fun with him. And he brought so much to it, obviously. As did Lake. So yeah, that was a very exciting moment when he agreed to do it.
LD: I appreciated how none of your other female characters are mean, how the other date isn’t grotesque or competitive.
Morris: Oh yeah, like she gets her–I just sort felt like it was really important that she didn’t come across as like some young shallow kind of gal. Like she’s really excited for them because she’s a good soul. And I don’t like mean movies, you know? What’s the point?

LD: Can you name some of your favorite romantic comedies?
Morris: Oh yeah! I love Moonstruck. I think it’s underrated a lot. And I obviously love When Harry Met Sally and I also, most recently, Silver Linings Playbook and Crazy, Stupid, Love and Enough Said actually. I really liked Enough Said a lot. I think there’s been a slight resurgance recently.

 

Producers Nira Park and Rachel Prior had worked with star Simon Pegg throughout his entire “Cornetto Trilogy” with Edgar Wright and even earliar than that on UK sitcom “Spaced.”

LD: Can you speak about your relationship with Simon Pegg since you’ve worked with him dating back to spaced?
Nira Park: Eighteen years, seventeen years…we met on Spaced actually so I’d done something small with Channel 4 with Edgar before Spaced, then Spaced was starting up and Channel 4 actually asked me if I’d just do a couple of days a week initially to just kind of help them get it together. And I remember being really nervous when I met Simon and Jessica [Hynes] and I’m a bit older than them and they said they were terrified of me for the whole of the first series but I was actually quite scared of them! And–cause he’s just so bright and so brilliant and so funny–so yeah, I did a couple of days a week at first and then we all got on so well that kind of within a few weeks they were like ‘will you produce it??’ So okay.

 

LD:How did you get connected to this particular script?
Park: Well this script came about, we were just saying, because Rachel [Prior]–well we were all completely obsessed with Bridesmaids because we premiered Paul at SXSW and Bridesmaids was the surprise screening at midnight after Paul’s screening and it wasn’t finished at that point and actually [producer] James [Biddle] and Rachel weren’t there but I came back to London and was like ‘Oh my god, I’ve seen this film! It’s amazing! I wanna make this film!’ and we were just like ‘Why are there no more female writers in the UK who are writing this kind of thing??’ And then literally a couple of weeks later, this script, no one in the UK really writes on spec in the same way–it’s not the same as in the States–and this script just arrived through the letter box written by Tess and she’d kind of written it for Big Talk in the hope that we’d like it. Because she liked the films, the other films. And it was like everything we’d been hoping for! So at that point, we picked it up and we developed it for like a year and a half, we attached Simon kind of six months into the development.

 

LD:When did Lake come in?
Rachel Prior: When Lake came in it was just as we got to the point where we had a script that we were happy with and we were about to sort of start putting together and actually with BBC films and StudioCanal to actually start going into production. And we saw a couple of trailers for In A World and it was like there’s this–we had knew Lake from “Children’s Hospital” but there was something in In a World where we were like ‘Oh my god, she could play Nancy’ It’s obvious she was great at accents. And then we read an interview with her where she had said she studied drama in the UK for four years so we were like ‘Can she do a British accent?’ And she can.
Park: A brilliant one.
Rachel: Some Brits when we tested the film had no idea that she was American!

 

Lake Bell’s previous film, In a World featured her playing none other than a dialect coach with a great ear for accents.

LD:Was it gratifying going from In A World where the subject matter was doing dialects to this full feature where you’re using your British accent?
Lake Bell: It definitely was. You know accents and dialects are very much an obsession of mine. That is very authentic to In a World. So this was definitely on my actor bucket list of things to do was to play a fully realized British character, so yes. It absolutely satiated a desire to play a British character.

 

LD: How familiar were you with Simon Pegg before you paired up here?
Bell: You know I had known Simon’s work and certainly upon first meeting him I noticed we had a good sort of comedic chemistry and you know was excited to kind of go down this journey with him because I thought ‘Yeah, this if is gonna work.’ Especially with Tess Morris’s words which are so brilliantly…I really do attribute the brilliant repartee to her script.

 

Finally, director Ben Palmer comes from having done the feature film of UK TV teen comedy Inbetweeners.

LD: Your previous feature was The Inbetweeners, with just this manic teenage male energy, how was it switching to having a strong female lead?
Ben Palmer: It’s how I respond to a script, to be honest. And so the Inbetweeners was a really big part of my life and when I got sent Man Up, I almost felt they probably had sent it to the wrong person. Because I never thought that I’d be doing a British romantic comedy. But there was something–within the first couple of pages of reading Tess’s script, there’s something in that dialogue that stuck with me. And in a way, it has sort of that sharpness and that speed and the naturalism, I suppose. Those characters are so well drawn that I was a sucker for it, basically. And there’s and edge and there’s a truthfulness and it’s anarchic in its own way. There’s swears, there’s all that sort of stuff that excites me, I suppose. Although it is a romantic comedy, there is a crossover to the Inbetweeners. And it’s nice just to keep shaking it up and do a different thing.

LD: The film takes place over the course of one night, but has so many locations, what was that shoot like?
Palmer: I loved that hook, that it happened over sort of 24 hours, in one night really. So within that…the challenge is to try and liven it up and move it around and the fluidity and the speed that they’re hammering through this city. It’s trying to find locations, not the easy locations to shoot in, but to go well ‘this is where this would happen.’ And so with that, when you’re doing a low budget film, there’s problems there. Because you can’t close down whole blocks, so you’ve gotta sort of work around general public in a way. But that’s how you achieve something that feels real and honest.

LD: Bowling features heavily in Nancy and Jack’s date, was there a best bowler on the set?
Ben: (Laughs) Simon. Simon’s a pretty good bowler. I’d say he’d edged it.

Man Up opens in UK cinemas on May 29th, while Saban Entertainment has recently acquired US distribution rights. You can read my review from Tribeca here.

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Director John Maclean and Stars Kodi Smit-McPhee and Ben Mendelsohn talk about “Slow West”

Slow West held its New York premiere on April 19th at the SVA Theater during the 14th annual Tribeca Film Festival. Writer and director John Maclean joined stars Kodi Smit-McPhee and Ben Mendelsohn in speaking with me about the Michael-Fassbender-lead western on the red carpet.

Ben Mendelsohn is a renowned Australian actor who in Slow West takes on the larger-than-life role of Payne. Payne, in his oversized furry coat, is the leader of a vicious gang that Fassbender’s character Silas used to run with, and like his character, Mendelsohn seemed a bit bitter at the abandonedment of his gang-mate…

Lauren Damon: Can you discuss the relationship of Silas and Payne
Ben Mendelsohn: Okay, so Silas and Payne rode together back in the day and Silas essentially decided he was gonna go his own way–you know, he’d had enough, like ‘Yeah yeah, I’ve got what I wanted, I’m off doing my own thing’ Which, when you think about it is sort of a really punk move, you know? Because essentially Payne you know, gave this guy A LOT. Now, I’m not saying Silas isn’t a talented man, he is. But basically, he packed up and he got his tail between his legs and off he ran. And you know, time’s come now where our paths  have crossed again and [Silas]’s got this fine little bounty he’s traveling around with and really I just wanna know what’s up with that? Are we gonna share this spoil? Or are you gonna TRY and take it all for yourself? Or are you gonna try and be “a good boy”? So that’s a lot of what that’s about.

 

LD: And how did you all develop the look of Payne?
Ben: Oh the coat is genius. The very talented wardrobe lady [Kirsty Cameron] had it made and showed me all the pictures of trappers and what not from that period with these massive coats on. So once you put that coat on and that hat and you’ve got the tattoos, the rest of it’s a cake walk.

 

LD: How was it to shoot in NZ and with that wardrobe?
Ben: It was…yeah, it’s really crazy open wide spaces. It’s very desolate, it’s harsh. It’s a harsh sort of enviroment but very beautiful too. New Zealand’s a great place to shoot, it’s really got an extraordinary array of you know, locations and looks and feels…it’s all there. It’s a beautiful place to shoot.

 

LD: What attracted you to the film? I mean for a western it had a sense of humor about it too that I didn’t expect at all.
Ben: Yeah, I wasn’t sure how that would go. Michael Fassbender had started with John Maclean and they’d done a couple of short films and essentially the fact that you know that Michael Fassbender had sort of backed this to the degree he did was a very good sign. I’d seen his short films that John Maclean had done and they had something. You know, you could feel there was something there, western, it felt pretty cool. It felt like a good bit of fun with a decent chance of it working.

 

Director John Maclean had previously worked with Michael Fassbender on the short film Pitch Black Heist, which was shown at the 2012 Tribeca Film Fest.
LD: Can you talk about how you initially came to work with Michael Fassbender, what drew you to him or him to your work?
John Maclean: I think it was around the time that he was shooting with Tarantino [on Inglourious Basterds], I knew his agent. And his agent had given Michael some of my early short films I was making on my own. Michael saw something in them, came to me and said you know, if you want to do something, I’ll give up a day. So we started working together there.

 

LD: And when you approached this script, there’s a lot of dark humor in it—did you primarily come at it as a comedy or a western first?
John: I think, like my favorite films—I mean you look at a film like Fargo and it’s not a comedy, it’s not a thriller—I think some of the films I’m interested in, I think you just have to try and be truthful. And like life, comedy comes in to sad moments and sadness comes in to comedy moments.

 

LD: And it’s unconventional that your young romantic lead, his love interest doesn’t actually like him like that back!
John: I think “spoilers” here!

LD: I know, I’m sorry, my review says he’s been friend zoned
John: I just I mean, maybe that was from personal experience (laughs) when I was younger. But that’s what happens with young boys, I think. I guess it was for personal experience actually but um, I think he was never right for her. I think she was always more practical and he always too much of a dreamer. So from the beginning, I guess it’s doomed.

 

LD: How do you describe the back story between Payne and Silas?
John: Yeah, I think that’s the hard thing with wanting to make a shorter film—you can’t branch out into too many of the backstories but…I just imagined that the wild west, there wasn’t that many people at that time. So people sort of crossed paths much more often than you’d expect. I imagine they travelled together and [Silas] was part of Payne’s gang and then didn’t like the senselessness of some of the violence and left and went to go alone and Payne’s trying to draw him back into it.

 

Kodi Smit-McPhee was recently cast as Nightcrawler in next year’s X-men: Apocalypse, seeing as his previous film co-starred Nicholas Hoult (“Beast”) and this one he shared the screen with Fassbender (“Magneto”) I had to ask about joining them as mutants.

Lauren Damon: Have you contacted your past coworkers here for advice on joining the X-Men?
Kodi Smit McPhee: I haven’t contacted them yet. So we got Nicholas Hoult, Ty Sheridan and Michael Fassbender whom I know well. And I really can’t wait to get on set and work with them. And I haven’t said a word to them.

 

LD: What’re you most looking forward to about playing Nightcrawler?
Kodi: I really love the warmth that comes with the passion behind his character. And the novelty within just the tradition of him. I don’t necessarily have a desire to bring new things to it, but just show the world that they love.

 

LD: And are you familiar with Alan Cumming’s take on it from X2?
Kodi: Yes, absolutely. Usually, I mean if I don’t need to–like for Let Me In, I didn’t look at Let the Right One In–but for something like this, I thought it  was right to just find all the roots, you know, see how Nightcrawler evolved into who he is now.

 

LD: If you could choose your own X-power what would it be?
Kodi: I would love to physically, and within my own body, be able to travel back and forth and time. See how the history and the future plays out.

 

LD: Back onto Slow West, I was rewatching The Road recently and I saw your character there sort of as the young optimist to an older guide, like Jay in this film, did you feel that connection there?
Kodi: Absolutely and maybe in fact this whole story itself and the concept of a western story, it was very much like that. Like desolate and moving towards something hopeful. So yeah I really loved that idea and that was never intentional, but I guess it’s something that I’m just great at expressing and hopefully with Nightcrawler, I can move onto other things.

Next week: A more in-depth discussion with John and Kodi, meanwhile, you can check out my review of Slow West here.

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Film Review “Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron”

Director: Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, James Spader and Samuel L. Jackson
Running Time: 141 minutes
Marvel

Our Score: 4 out of 5 Stars

We’re already ten movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe when we wade into the battlefield with Ultron this first Summer Movie weekend so I think it’s a pretty fair assumption that most people have taken a stance on whether or not they’ll be grabbing a ticket for this latest offering. I know I’m betraying the idea of a critic’s ‘power’ here, but honesty’s the best policy. And honestly, we’re seven years in here and I’m on board despite it not always being the smoothest of rides. That said when it comes to this, the culmination of Marvel’s “phase 2”,  I was a bit overwhelmed. Age of Ultron is more of everything. How could it not be on the heels of its predecessors? There’s more characters, more back stories, and inevitably more destruction.  The former two will always play better than the latter for me but I can’t deny that Whedon’s film is an often wow-inducing spectacle that leaves our heroes on intriguing and unstable grounds.

As we learned from Iron Man 3, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is capable of accidentally creating some demons. In that solo story, it just happened to be a slighted science colleague, but in Ultron he really steps up his screwup game. The Avengers have been tracking down the scattered physical remnants of their 2012 outing, Loki’s mind-controlling scepter included. With that ‘glowstick of destiny’ finally in the capable hands of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Stark’s vision of utilizing Artificial Intelligence in his technology to protect the Earth from off-world threats can be realized. But faced with the prospect of the scepter being returned with Thor to Asgard, he does a rushed job of instilling his AI, Ultron, with a peace-at-ALL-costs mentality. And after raiding the internet and all the digital files of humanity, Ultron notices that it’s really the humans who always are in the way of peace. Oops, our evil robot threat is born. When Ultron beams his programming across the globe to the HYDRA facility from whence the scepter came, he picks up two ‘enhanced’ twins (read: evilly experimented on to the point that they’re super. Or as Cobie Smulders’s Agent Hill sums them up, “he’s fast and she’s weird”) in the form of Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who have their own axe to grind with Mr. Stark, a former weapons dealer lest we forget.

Ultron himself is menacingly played by James Spader via motion capture that is really chilling, especially in his zombie-like entrance. I hadn’t bought into a CG villain like this since Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. As a character born of quip-master Stark, he has a wicked sense of humor that these films always benefit from, even if he’s not as clever or fun to watch as Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. Furthermore, it’s always a risk with comic book franchises to load their sequels with new characters but for me the twins were completely welcome additions. Olsen is particularly compelling as Scarlet Witch, whose powers to access the minds and darkest fears of her opponents induce some emotional, trippy visions for our core heroes. Later we’re introduced to the sublime Vision (played by Paul Bettany, on screen in the flesh, finally! Rejoice!) whose amazing origins are a bit too spoilery to divulge here but he is really a marvel (sorry) to behold. His introduction is one of the quietest sequences and winds up being the most entrancing. I suspect he, more than Ultron, will be what gets the most people talking in the category of new characters.

What’s interesting about Ultron as the chief villain is the gray area he thrusts the Avengers into. It’s all well and good when a mysterious army descends upon New York to be defended by the group, but when they are the creator of the threat, the onus to protect civilians is that much greater. Thus for better or worse, much of our battle sequence time is dedicated to getting the innocent populous out of range. A novel concern for a blockbuster really, though one wonders how much care they receive from the Stark Relief Fund in the aftermath what with their country destroyed…This responsibility is what causes the most strife amongst our original team. With the next Captain America film being Civil War—a comic book conflict that saw Cap and Stark fighting over a government registration of the super powered— it’s really exciting to see that seed of disagreement take root, evencoming to blows in a way they hadn’t since Thor was still a stranger to humans.

As you may have guessed with all my talk of hero in-fighting and quiet sequences being the best, I truly believe that the real power in these films ultimately comes from the scenes where things aren’t exploding. These actors have lived in these characters for years now and Whedon wisely gives them a couple extended sequences in which they just get to be human for a while. Of course they would all try and lift Thor’s hammer (side note: Thor in a red sports coat? Four for you wardrobe department), and hey, maybe some of them even have a family life, how crazy. There’s especially touching exchanges between Ruffalo’s Banner and Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanov, both damaged in their own ways, that remind you just what an amazing caliber of actors this cast contains. Not to mention it’s especially pertinent to highlight their humanity in the face of legions of evil robots. I came away wishing for more of this in fact, since as far as I counted the film had four major city-leveling sequences to the first film’s two. Still, the destruction-fatigue continues to be offset by the cleverness embedded in the action—Cap’s shield certainly is a team player, even if that Hammer isn’t—and the cool new players in the field.

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2015 Tribeca Film Festival Red Carpet Interviews

The 14th annual Tribeca Film Fest was held from April 15th to 26th in lower Manhattan. Media Mikes had the opportunity to speak to many of the creative minds behind the films making their premieres over the course of the Fest. You can read my coverage by clicking on any of the posters below and check back to see more additions:

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About the Tribeca Film Festival:

“The Tribeca Film Festival helps filmmakers reach the broadest possible audience, enabling the international film community and general public to experience the power of cinema and promote New York City as a major filmmaking center. It is well known for being a diverse international film festival that supports emerging and established directors.

Founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff in 2001, following the attacks on the World Trade Center, to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of the lower Manhattan district through an annual celebration of film, music, and culture, the Festival brings the industry and community together around storytelling.

The Tribeca Film Festival has screened more than 1,600 films from more than 80 countries since its first edition in 2002. Since inception, it has attracted an international audience of more than 4.9 million attendees, and has generated an estimated $900 million in economic activity for New York City.”

 

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Terry Gilliam discusses Monty Python at Tribeca Film Festival

Iconic British comedy group Monty Python reunited at New York’s Beacon Theater on April 24th to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of their film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The showing was part of a celebration of all things Python, including screenings of Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life and the new documentary The Meaning of Live at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Beacon Theater attendees were treated to a showing of the classic comedy and a post show discussion between group members Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, John Cleese and Eric Idle with moderator John Oliver. Along with the Pythons themselves, other famous audience members that came out for the group included original Broadway Spamalot cast member Hank Azaria, comedian Rachel Harris and A Fish Called Wanda co-star Kevin Kline.

On the carpet outside the theater, I got the chance to speak with the always-animated director, Terry Gilliam who braved the crowded carpet to share his tongue in cheek thoughts on his co-conspirators, New York audiences and comedy at large.

Terry Gilliam: Hello this is a nice quiet part of the carpet.
Lauren Damon: How are you doing?
Gilliam: I’m doing fine, it’s nice down here. They’re all [the assorted Pythons] just making fools of themselves. It’s awful when you’re past seventy and they’re just desperate for any attention!
LD: How does it feel to be here with the film in this festival?
Gilliam: Well. It feels like I’m here for the festival. That’s what it feels like, nothing more, nothing less!
LD: When you were making the film back then–
Gilliam: Yeah we knew we were gonna be here. We knew we were gonna be here 40 years on. Every day we were shooting we said ‘I CAN’T WAIT! Forty years from now, we’ll be at the Tribeca Film Festival! C’mon boys, action! Cut! Action! Cut!’ We’re ready to go. And here we are. We were right.

LD: Having debuted Spamalot here [Eric Idle’s smash 2005 Broadway musical based on the film]–
Gilliam: Spamalot? Horrible! It was a terrible thing! Eric did that, he ripped us off. He ripped us off and he’s made a fortune on our hard work. Yeah.
LD: But it capitalized on a whole New York audience that you’re back with tonight.
Gilliam: I love taking advantage of New York audiences. They’re fantastic. They’re too rich. They’re too smart. They MUST be taken advantage of!

LD: How did working in Monty Python help you with your directing career?
Gilliam: Well it taught me never to work with the other Pythons. That was the most important thing to my career. Because they’d been obviously holding me back for all those years Python was alive. And luckily once I got away from them, my career shot. Pew!

LD: Do you think comics are too nervous about offending people these days?
Gilliam: Offense is a very important part of life. And people who are afraid to offend obviously aren’t saying what they really think. I think people have got to learn to develop thicker skin and start learning to laugh again. That’s what’s so funny. People are frightened of saying what they think anymore and offense is crucial. People gotta just learn to live with it–“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me…It a dangerous business, comedy. Just because there’s lunatics out there, you shouldn’t change the way you think about life. I mean the fact that there are more religious lunatics out there than there were when we did “Life of Brian” is not my fault! [laughs]

LD: If you had to cast a “Holy Grail” or “Life of Brian” with today’s comedy stars, who would you choose?
Gilliam: Oh, I don’t even know what’s going in the world anymore. I’m in my own little world, I’m a hermit now. I live at the bottom of the garden and I’ve got a nice little place. I only am allowed out every ten years like this! [laughs]

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Director Jeppe Rønde and star Hannah Murray talk about “Bridgend” at Tribeca Film Festival

Jeppe Rønde’s harrowing new drama Bridgend made its debut during the Tribeca Film Festival this past week with both the director and star Hannah Murray (“Game of Thrones”) in attendance. Bridgend is based on the true story of a massive series of teen suicides that occurred in a small town in Wales. The suicides received media coverage at a point where seventy-nine young people had taken their lives between 2007 and 2012. In the film, teenager Sarah (Murray) moves to Brigend with her police officer father and quickly finds herself running with the pack of local teens who’ve recently lost some of their peers to suicide. They are a wild bunch who borderline worship the deceased and memorialize them in an anonymous online chat. All the while Sarah’s father, like the rest of the community, seeks to find what is causing this horrible phenomenon.

This mystery intrigued director Rønde who spent time in the actual community and eventually shot the film there on location. Rønde and Murray both spoke to me on the red carpet about how important it was to dramatize the town’s story in a respectful manner.

Lauren Damon: You spent time in the actual community of Bridgend, what was that like and did you go there with the goal of developing a film about it?
Jeppe Rønde: I went there with the–a goal is a strong word–but I went there to try and find out what is this about? And why is this tragedy happening? Which is of course may be a mystery, because it doesn’t make sense. Why do so many youngsters kill themselves? So I was trying to figure out how can this happen? And how can it keep on going?

LD: Was Hannah’s character influenced by a particular story that you found there?
JR: Not particular, but I wrote the whole script through all the characters that I met there. Many of them. And I mixed them into, you know, one character. So you couldn’t do like a one-to-one, ‘oh this is that character’, because I would never be able to do that. Because that would be morally incorrect. So I built it on the reality I met but also making it a fiction which was important to me. Because it cannot be too close to the real people living there…

LD: How did you find filming in the actual location?
JR: Actually to film on the location was very important to me. Because you feel the presence of what is there. The geography is specific. There’s a fog coming, you know every day it rains a lot. And it can feel depressing. And at the same time it is extremely beautiful. And it was easy for me to get the actors into this state of mind that I wanted them to be in.

LD: How much preparation went into your work with the DP to get this very ominous atmosphere?
JR: Of course we wanted to push forward a feeling of something that would be this collective subconsciousness. Something that’s within us that’s a darkness. So we wanted to put that also into the shot.

LD: What would you want audiences to take away from the ending of the film?
JR: I hope that they will take away from the ending that this is something that is beyond understanding of who we are as human beings. That there’s something in us that we don’t know what it is…that if we do look into it carefully, then we can maybe choose one or the other. Because it is an open ending.

LD: Is this still going on? All the suicide statistics associated with the town seem to come from 2007 and 2012.
JR: Because that’s the only figures that you can find officially. But unfortunately yes, it is still happening. From what I heard and no one really knows, but the media was shut down in 2010. So it’s difficult to say, but you would have to ask the authorities there.

 

Hannah Murray, who currently plays Gilly on “Game of Thrones” had a breakout role in the UK teen TV drama “Skins” but saw the role of Sarah as a wholly different teen.

LD: What was your initial reaction to the script?
Hannah Murray: I’d never done something that was based on you know, based loosely on true events. I felt a huge sense of responsibility and I didn’t really want to get involved unless I thought things were going to be done sensitivly and respectfully. And when I had been offered the part I had a meeting with Jeppe to ask him why he wanted to make this film because I was worried about someone, I don’t know, wanting to do it in a kind of half-hearted way or taking advantage. So when I understood how long he’d taken to research it and how dedicated he was to the subject matter, and how involved he’d become with the community, I thought ‘Oh, you’re going to do this right and you’re going to do this honestly and bravely and compassionately.’ So that made me decide that it was something that it was worth jumping into.

LD: How was it shooting in that location?
HM: I don’t think we could have made the movie anywhere else. When you go there, you feel something very unique about that place and it’s beautiful. It’s incredibly beautiful but in a very bleak way. And there’s something kind of almost mystical and strange about it. I loved being there but it was, yeah you do feel a sort of sense of darkness in the air. Maybe that was because of the story we were telling though, I’m sure.

LD: You have this background coming from “Skins” of acting in the midst of a bunch of wild teens, did you feel a little like you were tapping into that again?
HM: I mean I feel like they’re incredibly different projects in sort of every way. Skins shows a dark side of teenage life but it also shows an incredibly fun and comedic side of teenage life. And in this, I mean, one of my friends saw this movie and described it as a gangster movie. Which I think is a really really interesting way of looking at it. And I think there’s a kind of, there’s a level of tribalism in this world that is so much more severe than anything that related to my teen experience. Whereas “Skins” I could kind of go like ‘Oh yeah, it was fun, we went to parties.” It was very different.

LD: How was it different on set with between the days you had you just acting with the pack of young actors versus the more intimate, intense scenes of just your character and her father?
HM: I mean that was one of the most amazing things about the project was all the different people I was working with were so different in terms of experience they’d had and the types of things they’d brought to these characters. So yeah, I remember every day we had the gang there it was just like this injection of energy and they were so exciting and would throw all these amazing lines that they’d improvised…And they would talk a thousand words a minute. And when I was working with Steve [Waddington] I felt like a child and when I was working with the kids I felt more like an adult because I felt sort of more responsible for them. And then I also had the love story with Josh O’Connor, which was a whole other element to play out…but I love everyone who worked on the film. It was such an amazing group of people.

LD: Finally, congratulations of continuing with Game of Thrones–especially this season’s opener being their highest rated–
HM: Oh was it?
LD: Apparently
HM: Oh that’s great!

LD: Why do you think the audience just keeps growing for it?
HM: I think it’s a REALLY good TV show. I think people put an incredible amount of hard work into it. The production values are really high and I just think David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and George [RR Martin] are geniuses. I just think they’re so smart…And George created this amazing world in the books and these incredible characters and then the way David and Dan have adapted it is beyond. I think they’re so so smart.

LD: And how many times a day does Kit Harrington have to hear he knows nothing?
HM: He gets told quite a few times. Not by our crew, but I’ve seen people come up to him in the street and that’s allllways the thing they want to say to him.

LD: How about you, do you get fan recognition out and about?
HM: Um, a bit. Less so than I think some of the others. I think because I’m–well, now I have red hair, but I’m normally blond in real life whereas I have dark hair in the show so I can kind of be a little bit more under the radar. But I still, I’m surprised how many people still spot me. I think because there are so many fans of the show.

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Martin McCann, Olwen Fouere and Mia Goth talk about “The Survivalist” at Tribeca Film Festival

Stephen Fingleton’s post apocalypse drama, The Survivalist held its NY premiere at the Tribeca Film Fest on Thursday April 16th with the stars and director in attendance. Martin McCann takes center stage in the film as the survivalist who has a small farm in the woods and a strict solitary routine to keep himself alive.

Lauren Damon: Was it daunting for you to receive a script where your character spends so much time in silence?
Martin McCann: No no, I just think when you’ve got a silent script, you’ve got more of an opportunity to appear a better than you actually are. Because most actors mess things up when they’ve got lines! [laughs]

The Survivalist’s routine is broken by the appearance of mother-daughter travellers, Milja and Kathryn, played by Olwen Fouere and Mia Goth.

LD: Did you two have a backstory worked out for this pair of characters?
Mia Goth: Well you know, you never actually find that out in the movie either so you sort of, you know–which was a lot of fun–you get to create your own idea of what that character was and who she was as we lead up to where we meet her in our story. And I think I kind of just got the sense that she was just a normal girl, an ordinary girl, thrown into like extraordinary circumstances. And she, I don’t know, just shows great bravery and resiiliance and that was one of the things that I found most compelling and [made] me wanting to be involved in this. I thought it was very empowering.   
Olwen Fouere: We sort of did, yeah. We sort of did together and seperately. You know, I think what I thought was important was that we would each have a very strong internal life. So we would have individually worked towards that…And I think that it was also important that there was sort of a distance between the two of them as well, you know, because one of the points of the film is how it overthrows societal norms and the whole idea of family values, which of course is a whole idea that’s falling apart now anyway.

LD: The Survivalist adds to a long string of recent bleak post-apocalyptic views of the future on film, what do you think the appeal of that genre is?
McCann: Sometimes the truth hurts. And even though it’s a science fiction idea, you know post-apocalyptic and in the future, the inevitability of the life we’re living is that resources will run out. So I think there’s a weird sort of effect that that has.
Fouere: Well I think perhaps the world is starting to question the fact that with the explosive of our population, of the human race, and that the human race is becoming the greatest virus on the face of the Earth. So I think maybe people are beginning to realize that and you know, I think that’s what happens at a critical time is people start to envision what might happen. What the future might hold and how you might address things.

You can read my review of The Survivalist here.

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Filed Under: Film Interviews, Interviews Tagged With: festival, film, fouere, goth, martin, mccann, ...
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