The Reel Bits

Tag: Interview

  • Exclusive: Q & A with Prometheus star Logan Marshall-Green

    Exclusive: Q & A with Prometheus star Logan Marshall-Green

    Prometheus poster AustraliaFox has sent us this exclusive Q & A by Joe Utichi (www.joeutichi.com) with rising star Logan Marshall-Green, star of Ridley Scott’s upcoming return to sci-fi, PROMETHEUS.

    Logan Marshall-Green is known for recurring guest roles on 24 and THE O.C. In theatre, he’s the recipient of a Drama Desk Award for his performance in Neil LaBute’s THE DISTANCE FROM HERE. 

    His feature film debut came in 2005 with THE GREAT RAID, and he portrayed Paco in Julie Taymor’s ACROSS THE UNIVERSE in 2007. He can also be seen in BROOKLYN’S FINEST, as Melvin Panton and 2010’s DEVIL, based on a story by M. Night Shyamalan.

    On the set of Ridley Scott’s PROMETHEUS, Marshall-Green discusses his character Holloway, working with one of sci-fi’s greatest pioneers, and the themes of the film. 

    What can you tell us about your character?

    I play Charlie Holloway, who is a scientist and the love interest of Elizabeth Shaw, Noomi Rapace’s character. They are a team. If she’s the brains, he’s the legs.  I wouldn’t go so far to say muscle, but he’s the legs. He’s the one who leaps before he looks, and sometimes it hurts them as a team but a lot of the times it’s helped them.  He takes a lot of chances and so far so good. This mission is one of the chances. The beautiful part is Noomi and I are teamed, but we actually differ in our philosophies as to exactly what we want or what we believe. She’s the believer. I’m the scientist. I’m the skeptic.  I’m the atheist, if you will. But we complete each other, for lack of a better word. We make a whole in that sense. I think its what’s drawn the characters together romantically as well. It’s just this kind of respect, full respect but my skepticism matched with her beliefs, her faith.

    How do you react to a call saying Ridley Scott is interested in talking to you about a sci-fi project?

    One word, “Sure.” And then, “Sign me up.”  It’s funny, the story for me is – without giving too much away – I auditioned for the scene that I had understood to be a science fiction scene.  So that was already exciting knowing it was the scene for a Ridley Scott movie.  He hasn’t done a science fiction in 30 years.  So I’m reading the scene, I’m doing the scene and I find out that they might want to offer me this role and I say to myself, “Well, I need to read the script.” Even though I know it wouldn’t take much for me to sign up. So I’m reading the script, and I have to go back to the office to read it, it’s a super secret script. I realise it’s this great script. This character is really good. This is a science fiction and all of a sudden I get to – I won’t say what, but something happens – and I couldn’t believe it.  My jaw hit the floor.  At that point it was, where do you sign me up?  Where do I get in line?  Because I’m a fan boy. Ridley is really one of the reasons not only that I act but that I love cinema.  He defined modern science fiction.  It was a very easy choice.  If he says, “Jump,” I say, “How high?”

    The story deals with some pretty big themes, which is quite rare of a blockbuster of this scale.

    Rare definitely for most cinema, but not so rare for Ridley.  I think Ridley, he’s a man who deals in detail and spirit and in big questions.  He’s not just going to make another ALIEN movie. He’s not going to make just another GLADIATOR movie.  He’s going to ask the bigger questions as well. It’s all in the detail with the man. It’s just astonishing to see the detail in the world. How truly realized his future is. It allows you just to sit in it and then get to know the characters.

    The crew of the Prometheus all have their own reasons for being on the ship. How has the interaction been to play with the other actors?

    It’s been kind of beautiful.  Like you said, everybody is kind of there watching everyone else. But there are these really beautiful duos where you have Noomi’s character and my character who really hold on to each other because they are surrounded by people who don’t believe in them and want to destroy them. And then you have Rafe Spall’s and Sean Harris’s characters and you have Charlize Theron’s and Idris Elba’s character.  All the pairs are kind of watching the rest.

    How have you enjoyed working with Noomi?

    The experience with Noomi has just been a dream. I rate my experience with working with actors on their work ethic. Nobody has a better work ethic than Noomi. We got kind of thrown into it together. We had to really show our history of being romantically linked, professionally linked. I just couldn’t have asked for a better actress to dive in with and get physical and do little idiosyncratic things. I think she and I both had our eyes on the exact same prize, and hopefully it shows. Without giving anything away, the relationship is essential for the story.  Instead of showing the relationship, we try to attack it with idiosyncrasies that are innate in strong relationships.  Did she just feed him a frozen space raspberry?  Yes.

    Does it raise your game when you’re working with such talented co-stars?

    You want to play with the best.  Hopefully, you want to learn from the best and steal from the best, and do your best. Ridley is one of those guys who is an A guy. Ridley gets A people. B people get C people to make them feel like A people. Ridley surrounds you with a cast of A people, a crew of A people, designers of A people, and also he needs you to help him tell the story. The collaboration that’s happening in this massive motion picture, where we have the time to find these scenes and work the script so that it’s right and not just so that we make our day, I had never been a part of that before. It starts with Ridley and then it ends with us. I have never been part of the cast that is so cohesive; socially as well as professionally.

    You talked about Ridley’s attention to detail, is he a precise director?

    My big thing is I need a director I trust. The way I trust directors is when I’m sure that they know what they want. No one knows what they want more than Ridley. He has that beautiful attribute of being able to let some decision-making go to the actor. Again, allow the crew and the cast to help him tell the story. He knows what he needs in any given moment. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. He’s working not just on a different plane, he’s working on 15 different planes. While he’s talking to you, he’s storyboarding for the camera, he’s watching 10 screens. He’s an octopus.

    Can we expect a lot of action from the film?

    Yeah.  It’s not going to bore you at all. It’s not going to trick an alien through 80 pages and then deliver the alien. It’s not going to do that. It’s going to trick a philosophy and a world. Once chaos happens, it happens. That’s kind of the beauty which has always been inherent in these kinds of movies. We’re doing something different. No one is going to be bored in this movie.

    Have you been enjoying the chaos?

    Yes! So far we’ve never been hurt. It’s chaotic, there is no doubt about that. We’re not CGI-ing the storm later. You’re being blasted with storm and chaos and it’s wonderful. It’s just ideal to act in.

  • Exclusive Interview: Hugh Grant on The Pirates! Band of Misfits and Bridget Jones’s Baby

    Exclusive Interview: Hugh Grant on The Pirates! Band of Misfits and Bridget Jones’s Baby

    The Pirates: A Band of Misfits poster

    Fans and press gathered at the Event Cinemas on George Street in Sydney on Sunday, as very special guest Hugh Grant appeared for the Australian premiere of his latest film, The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

    We also managed to speak with the star, and grab his thoughts on working in animation, film piracy, his piratey influences and the next Bridget Jones film.

    We were joined by other colleagues in our media pit, including our good friend Jorge Duran from The Spotlight Report (who provided us with the photo below), some folks from The Dirt and Courtney Dawson of Lip Mag.

    We need to thank Sony Pictures, and of course Mr. Grant for his time and generous answers.

    After appearing on screen for over twenty years, Hugh Grant makes his animated debut with this film from Aardman Animation. We were interested in what it was like to be confined to a voice booth for the first time:

    “That was a plus point. I’ve reached the age where I’m not mad to be sitting in makeup at six in the morning. Just turning up and doing a bit of shouting in front of a microphone is a bit of a luxury. I always say that when you’re on screen, and you’re forty foot high, you want to minimise the acting you do. If you’re just a voice, you have an excuse to overact like crazy, and I think I do that in this film”.

    Asked about film piracy, Grant was emphatic:

    “I am always surprised by the number of people who boast to me, who say they’ve ‘Oh, I’ve seen your new film’ before it’s come out, when effectively what they’ve said is ‘I’ve just broken into your house and nicked some of your furniture’. Because that’s what it is: it’s stealing”.

    Hugh Grant and Richard Gray

    Photo Courtesy: http://www.spotlightreport.net/

    Meanwhile, we were particularly interested in whether Hugh had any particular influences in playing the Pirate Captain:

    “I wouldn’t say there were, really. I ended up sounding like an English actor called Willie Rushton, but I didn’t mean to. It just happened. But I did centre my character around my character’s beard. He had a very luxuriant beard. I found that if I stroked it, it helped. The beard that is”.

    Inevitably, the conversation turned to Bridget Jones’s Baby, the mooted third film in the popular series:

    “Well, they’re trying to get the script right, and when it’s right, I’m sure we’ll make it”.

  • Exclusive Interview: Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley

    Exclusive Interview: Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley

    Sydney Film Festival 2011 Campaign Poster 1In November last year, it was announced that Nashen Moodley would be taking over as the new director of the Sydney Film Festival. As we gear up towards the festival in June, Mr. Moodley was kind enough to answer a few of our questions.

    Moodley replaced Clare Stewart, who served as the director for the last five years. Prior to that, he was Manager/Head of Programming of the Durban International Film Festival, South Africa’s longest-running film festival from 2001.

    Moodley’s extensive experience includes the position of Director of Asia and Africa Programmes for the Dubai International Film Festival since 2005. In 2006, Moodley was responsible for curating the first South African Film Festival in Tehran. He has also been an adviser to several other festivals including South Korea’s Busan International Film Festival, which is rapidly emerging as one of the leading film festivals in the world.

    We need to thank Cardinal Spin, Sydney Film Festival and, of course, Mr. Moodley for his generous time.

    The Sydney Film Festival runs from 6 to 17 June 2012.

    Congratulations on your appointment as the director of the Sydney Film Festival. What was it that attracted you to the Sydney Film Festival?

    Thank you very much. Sydney Film Festival is one of the oldest public film festivals in the world and has such a rich history. Sydney is a great, cinema-loving city, so it made the prospect of directing the Sydney Film Festival extremely attractive.

    How is the Sydney Film Festival distinct from the other festival roles that you’ve undertaken?

    In some ways the diverse programme of Sydney Film Festival is very similar to the work I have done in Durban for instance, but I look forward to engaging with a much larger audience and of course to discovering the taste of the Sydney audience.

    For the uninitiated, what does the daily job of an international film festival director consist of?

    When at international festivals I typically watch 4-6 films a day, and take meetings with sales agents, national film promotion agencies, and filmmakers, and usually would attend a reception/party or two or three each night. Back at the office, I would have meetings with my colleagues to discuss various elements of the festival, send lots of emails to do with the invitation and negotiation around particular films, attend screenings, and meet with Australian distributors and the media. Typically, in the evening, I would watch 2 or 3 films on DVD for selection purposes.

    Berlin Film Festival

    Has the proliferation of festivals, small and large, around the world made programming more or less of a challenge?

    It has made it more of a challenge. Festivals love to present premieres and with the proliferation of festivals, this has become more and more difficult. At the same time, the large number of festivals help promote a broader range of films and that’s a good thing.

    What do you look for in a film to meet the standards of something like the Sydney Film Festival?

    When creating a programme as large as that of Sydney Flm Festival it is important to ensure diversity and balance – there should be something for everyone. If a film says something important in an innovative and engaging way, I am usually partial to it.

    What purpose do you want the Festival to have for filmmakers and filmgoers?

    For filmmakers, we want to the Festival to represent a high-profile platform for the presentation of their films and opportunities to engage with their fellow filmmakers, the audience and the Australian industry. For our audience we want to create a welcoming festival with films that both satisfy and challenge, and with a fascinating group of visiting filmmakers to engage with.

    Festival Hub @ Lower Town Hall

    What can we hope to see at the Sydney Film Festival this year that we’ve never seen before?

    Well, you will see many new films that you haven’t seen before, and you will meet many new filmmakers who haven’t been to Australia before. We hope also to present the works of a number of first-time filmmakers – the masters of tomorrow. We are also introducing the new Sydney Film Festival Hub @ Lower Town Hall, a place for both filmmakers and the audience to hang out, featuring an action-packed line-up of live music, DJs, talks, panels, screenings, parties and loads of things to see and do from 5pm to 10pm, from 7 to 17 June.

    As the Festival approaches its 60th anniversary next year, where do you hope the Festival will be by then?

    I expect the festival to continue in the great trajectory of the past few years, with more and more recognition of the Official Competition, a greater number of international filmmakers attending the festival and, of course, larger audiences.

  • Exclusive Interview: Joe Cornish on Attack the Block, Tintin and Ant-Man

    Exclusive Interview: Joe Cornish on Attack the Block, Tintin and Ant-Man

    Attack the Block - Blu-ray (Australia)To celebrate the release of  Attack the Block on DVD and Blu-ray in Australia, available from Icon on 4 April 2012,  we were given the opportunity to talk with the writer/director Joe Cornish on the making of his wonderful spin on the alien invasion genre.

    Despite some technical difficulties, necessitating me to talk (in the words of Cornish)  as though I was speaking to “a very far away child”, we had a thorough conversation covering his current and upcoming projects. He generously spoke at length on the production of Attack the Block, his involvement in the screenwriting process for The Adventures of Tintin with Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright, and we naturally asked him about his Ant-Man project with Edgar Wright for Marvel.

    We need to thank Icon for the opportunity to talk to the writer/director, and of course Mr. Cornish for his time.

    Attack the Block is available on DVD and Blu-ray in Australia on 4 April 2012 from Icon.

    How long had the idea of the film been gestating in your mind?

    Quite a while, quite a few years. Probably since I had a kind of mugging incident with a group of kids, not dissimilar to how the film begins. That was a a while ago, that was like maybe even 10 years ago now. The idea’s been bubbling in my head.

    When did the decision happen to make that into a feature film, following on from your television career, and why Attack the Block?

    I’d always wanted to make films, since I was a kid, and I went to film school when I was 18. I trained as a director for three years, if you can call it that.  I ended up doing TV comedy, there’s a lot of directing in that…You know, I was always practicing writing screenplays and stuff, and I guess I just felt it was a doable idea and it was maybe a cool fit to have a go at. it felt like the right idea. I guess I was old enough and had enough contact in film and television to realistically get it done.

    Joe Cornish - Attack the Block

    Was it a struggle to get any of the film financing up for Attack the Block?

    It was really financed by Film Four, and a company called Optimum and this guy called Will Clark who is a very important guy in the British film industry. He just liked the idea and he funded most of it through Optimum. Then Film Four and the Film Council came in as well. The other thing to say is I’m the director of the film and not the producer, so Nira Park and everyone at Big Talk did amazing work raising the money. So they made it seem very easy to me. I just got on with pre-production and storyboarding and it magically happened. They all worked very hard to raise the money I think.

    From your point of view, was there much compromised between your original vision and what we end up seeing on screen, or was that pretty much what you always imagined it to be?

    I don’t think there was too much compromising. We had to cut some sequences out, it was going to get a lot bigger at the end. There was a whole other chase sequence, it was going to be a little bit longer. In fact, you can see one of the extras on the DVD talks you through the missing bits. But I feel really to have got to make it, I’m really happy with the production values. So yeah, I can’t complain at all.

    The casting process itself, the core guys in the film are all fantastic – well, everyone in the film is fantastic. Did they come fully-formed or did you have to work with them a lot to get that very particular vision of South London you were going for?

    Well they were all kids who had shown talent for acting, either in school or in youth theatre. So they all put a lot of effort into their characters and I was very collaborative with them. We let them contribute to the costumes and the set design. I wrote the last couple of drafts of the script after they’d been cast, so they were able to tweak all their dialogue and make sure they were totally comfortable with everything. You know, as young people growing up in London, which all of them are, they all know something about that world. They’re not necessarily from it, but they all know something about it. So it was a combination of their skill, and talent and my skill and talent. [Laughs]

    Attack the Block

    How tightly scripted was the film, and how much did the actors come up during the shoot?

    We pretty much stuck to the script when we shot, but as I say, the actors tweaked the dialogue in the final script stages, so again that was kind of a collaboration. I spent a long time researching and talked to hundreds of kids from the world, or the kind of world, the film is set in. So I put a lot of effort into trying to get the slang right. It’s a bit exaggerated, it’s a bit more full on than it might be in reality, to give it that kind of cartoony, larger-than-life thing. The kids were an amazing resource all the way through. We basically sought their approval for everything that we could.

    The other major characters are the creatures themselves. The design was a staggeringly frightening one, as well as being quite iconic as a new alien. Did that design come before anything else?

    That came as I was writing really. I had a friend who is a cartoonist, and I had him do little sketches of stuff as we went along. So we thought of the design as we went along. But I always had that idea it was a silhouette, because I kind of got that idea from my cat. I’ve got a black cat, and she always looks like a silhouette when lit in a particular way, or when you scrunch her eyes up. So from the beginning I thought it would be good to have a monster who was a pure shadow, who was a pure silhouette.

    This is of course on the eve of the Australian DVD/Blu-ray release, and the film has a very particular South London vibe to it. What universal themes do you hope emerge from Attack the Block?

    Well, I hope people just really enjoy it. It’s a crazy, stupid, action-adventure movie. Also it’s about the very young people in it, and how much potential they have, and how much energy they have, and if you don’t take care of them, that energy can go wrong, like you see at the start of the film. But its also possible for them to be heroes and contribute to the world and do something positive and altruistic. So the film is trying to show you that both of those things are possible with young people, and it’s up to them and to the world to care about them and make sure things have a happy ending. That make sense?

    That makes perfect sense to me. The other thing I like about the film is that it appears to be a tribute to a lot of cinema, but it’s not a pastiche or a parody, so I’m interested in what your cinematic influences were in putting together the look and feel of that world.

    It was particularly John Carpenter and Walter Hill, a cinematographer called Andrew Laszlo. It was kind of influenced by the first movies of directors I really dig. But I think the fact that it was all at night, it’s a gang movie, meant that we referred to Walter Hill stuff a lot. Particularly Streets of Fire and The Warriors, Carpenter’s stuff a lot, particularly [Assault on] Precinct 13, and then other gang movies like The Outsiders and Rumble Fish. So lots of stuff. I’m quite old, I was 41 when I made the film, so that’s quite a lot years of movie watching.

    I’m not far behind. I did see a lot of that in there, and it was good to know they are influences. The other thing I’ve read recently is that you’ve apparently been approached for sequel, remake  or TV ideas. Is that that still on the cards?

    Oh, for Attack the Block? I don’t think so. Certainly not soon. I want to try and do something a bit different next. It’s always flattering and cool to be asked, and lots of fun to think about how the story could continue. It’s fun to think about, fun to speculate but there’s no serious plan.

    The Adventures of Tintin

    Leading off projects coming up, one other interesting collaboration you’ve had for a few years is with Edgar Wright. How did you get involved in [The Adventures of] Tintin film? Was that through Edgar Wright?

    Yeah, that’s most definitely through Edgar. I’ve known him since I was probably about 26 and 27. I had a TV comedy on British television about the same time as Edgar’s program Spaced. So we’ve been friends since then. He’s been an amazing friend to me. We worked on this screenplay together for Marvel that’s still unproduced called Ant-Man…

    I was leading up to asking you about Ant-Man.

    There you go. So when the opportunity to work on Tintin came up, I’m pleased to say he thought of me.

    So the collaborative process on Tintin. How did that work? I’m interested in how your three very distinct styles came together.

    Well, that movie was a very big collaboration. You know, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are both massive fans, so they had very strong ideas. Steven Moffat was the first to do a draft, and he’s obviously an incredibly writer. And then Edgar and I did a few drafts together. So there was a lot of input from the amazing animators at WETA. On a movie that big and that complicated, the ideas are coming in from all over the place, really. Both Spielberg and Jackson are very, very collaborative, and your job as a writer is to sort of corral as much of it to contribute as an author. So it was a process, it was amazing. It was amazing to work with those people, and amazing seeing how that kind of thing gets made.

    I know you’re not involved in the next one, but have you been approached at all for future Tintin films?

    I think…No.

    Would you be interested?

    Yeah, of course. I love Tintin. We worked very long and hard on that one, so its good to have a bit of a break and let some probably even more brilliant people have a go at it and do the next one.

    Did you find the end product of Tintin matched the pictures in your head. It’s obviously a very long process with a film like that between script and screen.

    Yeah, I think it’s a really a good, old-fashioned, rollicking adventure movie. I think what Spielberg does with the camera in it is incredibly. I think the physical performances in it are incredible, the animation is amazing. I think it is a really rich take on Tintin.

    Ant-Man - Marvel

    You mentioned it before, and I have to ask as a massive comic book fan, the Ant-Man project. Is that still moving along?

    That’s a question you’d have to ask Edgar and Marvel. I’m a mere writer. We’re both really proud of our script and think it’s really good.

    If I ever get a chance to talk to Edgar or Marvel, I’ll certainly ask them. Just out of curiosity, I’m just interested in what your take was. Was it comedic or more of a straight take?

    I just wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. So I’m not going to talk about it in any more detail. Sorry not to play ball, but it’s more exciting to keep it a mystery.

    Not at all. You understand, I had to ask. [Laughs]

    Of course, you’re just doing your job.

    You did mention you were looking for the next exciting project. Have you got anything on the boil at the moment?

    Yeah, I’m working on a few things.  Once again I’m going to be a bad interviewee and a poor supplier of tidbits, and not tell you anything. Everything is in fairly early days. Everything is too embryonic to be exposed to the cold light of day.

    There’s far too many spoilers on the Internet, as it is at the moment, I think. It’s nice to have a bit of mystery around upcoming films.

    Yeah, that’s good of you to say. I appreciate that. [Laughs]

    Thank you so much for your time!

  • Exclusive Interview: Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum on 21 Jump Street

    Exclusive Interview: Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum on 21 Jump Street

    21 Jump Street poster - AustraliaChanning Tatum and Jonah Hill were in Sydney a few weeks ago promoting the release of Sony’s very funny 21 Jump Street next month, and we were lucky enough to sit down with the two of them and chat about the film and their future projects.

    We need to thank Sony for the opportunity to talk to the stars, and of course Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill for their time. Present on the round table were Richard Gray of The Reel Bits, Matt Pejkovic from Matts Movie Reviews, Cam Williams of PopcornJunkies, Jessica Chandra of PopSugar and Jorge Duran of Spotlight Report.

    21 Jump Street is released in Australia on 15 March 2012 from Sony.

    RG: Was there a time when you were remaking an 80s TV show when you thought that this was a really bad idea.

    TATUM: The whole time.

    HILL: Yeah, when they approached me to do it five years ago, I tend to roll my eyes like everybody else would when you hear about a television show being made into a movie and you kind of think this seems like a corporate cash-grab or whatever, just to play on something that was popular a long time ago. We make that joke in the movie three minutes into the film, saying like ‘Hey, we get what you’re thinking’ and we’re going to call it out before you can and show you that its a way better movie than you think you’re about to see. For us, it was just about…if you could go back and relive the most important period of your youth thinking you have all the answers and getting back there…and you think you have it wrong, that’s a cool idea for a film. That’s kind of the reason why I did it.

    TATUM: But I wonder if you like changed the title of this movie, would most people even know what it was? [Laugh] This has almost nothing to do…it’s not like we’re playing the same characters in the TV show anyway. It’s a whole re-imagination, because the young kids they don’t know what 21 Jump Street is. [Laughs] They don’t have a clue.

    HILL: They have no idea.

    TATUM: I’m 31, and I was like “21 Jump Street? What?” This is awesome. Then I was like, wait a minute…

    HILL: Yeah, we went to a University [UNSW] last night, and not one person would have known this was a show or anything like that.

    21 Jump Street - Jonah Hill;Channing Tatum

    MP: Phil Lord and Chris Miller, their previous film was an animated family movie. So what was it about them that you thought would be a good fit for this movie?

    TATUM: We figured because this movie was so strongly animated, that we just knew that they were the ones to do it. [Laughs] No. I did not know. I just listened to him.

    HILL: We had a bunch of directors come in, and audition basically to get the part, to get the job and they had a really cool take on it. There were a lot of really great people who came close, and they just had a really cool take on the material that we were doing. So…we took a chance on them and they did a great job for their first film for sure.

    JC: Jonah, you co-wrote the script, as you were writing it, did you pick Channing in the role or how did you know he was right for the role?

    HILL: We pictured it would be me and an action star. That was kind of the idea, we wanted some who was known for action movies who was willing to play with that persona and be in a totally different kind of film, and Channing is the best person working in that field I think, and he was ballsy enough to take a leap of faith and do something different. I love when any actor that has that kind of cojones to jump into something so foreign to them is going to be good, because they’re courageous.

    TATUM: Thanks buddy.

    HILL: It’s true.

    CW: You guys both have an executive producer credit on the film and Jonah has a story credit, and there are always rumours about 80s TV shows getting rebooted into films.  What was the project like when you guys came to it, compared to what we see in the film?

    HILL:  That’s all there was.  There was a real serious Miami Vice style version of the script that we just threw out and didn’t use.  It was super straight.

    CW: Like really over the top?

    HILL: No, just super straight, like Miami Vice style..

    TATUM: It was a drama. [Laughs]

    HILL: Yeah, action-drama. We read it, and it was a good script, but it wasn’t the take we were trying to do.

    21 Jump Street - Jonah Hill;Channing Tatum

    CW: There wasn’t any room for speedboats in 21 Jump Street?

    HILL: Yeah, it wasn’t like ‘Hey, let’s go get a mojito and take a cigarette boat to Cuba. [Everyone laughs]

    TATUM: There were scenes in the movie that I read, they only sent me like 50 pages…

    HILL: It didn’t print out, it’s not like there wasn’t…

    TATUM: It’s all I had.

    HILL: He said yes on 50 pages of a script which is quite awesome.

    TATUM: I was like, is there more?

    HILL: He’s like this is awesome and I was like, thanks, what did you think? And he was like, how does it end?

    TATUM: And you were like, you’re going to say yes on 50 pages? I was like, I don’t know. I want to be in the Jonah Hill business. That was it. But there’s still a scene I’m almost regretful is not in the movie where we’re shooting like rocket launchers into like a lake in a dream. It was so weird, but it was the most fun ridiculous script I’d ever read in my life and it turned out to be the most fun and ridiculous movie I’ve ever made.

    RG: Channing, you’ve got a bit of a relationship building with Steven Soderberg, how did that relationship come to be after working on Haywire, which we’re waiting to come out here…

    TATUM: Oh, it not out here yet?

    RG: No. And obviously you’ve got Magic Mike next and another film I believe?

    TATUM: Yeah, I ‘m going to do a little two week part on his next thing with Rooney Mara and Jude Law. I’ve found somebody in a way that I can honestly say that I’ve never worked with anyone on a directorial level that is more collaborative than he is. To be someone that has made as many movies, and as many great movies, as he has, he doesn’t have to be.  He really doesn’t, but I think that’s one of his biggest strengths is that he empowers you – as an actor, as a set designer, as a grip, as a costume designer – to literally take it and run with it.

    The character I play in Haywire is written very straight…very underdeveloped character. I showed up and I had kind of an idea of what I wanted to do with the idea of him and I just threw out an idea, and he’s like ‘Great, let’s see what that looks like’. There was no questions of like ‘Ok, how do you want to do that?’, he was just…go and do it. So we sort of shaped it from there. It’s unbelievable, I don’t know of any other director I’ve worked with that has that much freedom and sort of self assured hand with everything. He’s such a confident director, he knows he’s going to find his way through.

    He called me from Haywire, and I was like ‘I don’t even need to read it’. Whatever. Just tell me where to show up and I did. Over a beer after work on Haywire, when I told him I was a stripper for eight months of my life he laughed his ass off and he was like ‘That would make a great movie’. And I was, yeah I want to make a movie one day. He was like ‘You should write it’ and I was ‘Yeah, I’ll get right on it, Steven Soderbergh. Let me start writing. I don’t know how to write.

    Then cut to like six, seven months later, where me and my business partner Reid Carolin, he wrote it, we financed it, produced it, acted it in. It’s cool. We’re almost done with it now.

    Magic Mike

    MP: Jonah – Oscars next week. Just wanted to know what you you thought about the nomination, and what do you expect from the ceremony?

    HILL: I was just thrilled and shocked and humbled to be honoured, and I just expect to enjoy it and bring my mum and hope she has fun. I’m sure that’s the kind of thing that mum’s obviously would have a lot of fun being really proud of their son for doing a good job.

    TATUM: I’m really proud of you, I can only imagine how proud she is.

    HILL: Thanks, I’m just really excited to get to go.

    JC: How much improvisation did you guys do in the film, and are there any examples of scenes that were really different to what they were like in the script?

    TATUM: He can’t say that it’s awesome, the writing’s amazing…

    HILL: The writing’s perfect.

    TATUM: Actually, he can say that. But we would do the scenes and then we would have fun with it after did what was on the page.

    HILL: There was like one moment that I think was like a big laugh in the movie that I really like that just came from us on the day messing around, where we’re staking them out. And you like push my head down and say act like you’re blowing me. That whole scene. And I’m like ‘Why me’ and you like ‘Because you’re in a Peter Pan outfit’. That whole thing felt like classic Bad Boys kind of moment and that was just like Channing and I, that just happened. To me, when I watch the movie, I feel like that could have been in Bad Boys…Sometimes moments like that just happen once you’re in the rhythm of making the movie.

    TATUM:  I don’t have…a background in comedy so I didn’t understand that you can just do like a riff session when you’re standing in front of your picture? What did you say it looked like again?

    HILL: Fred Savage.

    TATUM: We literally sat there for…a couple of long takes during certain scenes where we were just throwing stuff out and people were throwing out stuff off camera. We were doing like a whole riff about what we looked like…I’ve never done that, in a drama you don’t really do that and you can’t riff on a scene.  It’s so cool that you can do that in comedies.

    21 Jump Street - Jonah Hill;Channing Tatum;Ice Cube

    CW: Speaking of photos, the scene you guys were just talking about, are they really photos of you as a kid?

    HILL: Yeah, they are. We’re making fun of my mum a lot in this. Yeah, my parents are like the nicest people in the world, but my mum is super out there. She thinks I’m the greatest person, and my siblings, are the greatest people in the entire world and I guess felt so much so that she needed real glamour shots of them as four year olds.

    TATUM: She treats them like…they’re Mona Lisa. Just won’t let anybody breathe on them.

    HILL: They were all individual. There’s one of me and my brother and me that she got airbrushed and blown up that’s like the size of this wall. She’s a sick person. I said ‘Mum, if you’re going to put me through this, I’m at least going to get to use it for comedy. I had years of my friends making fun of that when they would come over to my house.

    TATUM: The only thing that makes it not creepy is how much she loves you.

    HILL: She’s truly not weird. She doesn’t mean to be weird.

    TATUM: Someone that didn’t love someone that did that would be weird…

    HILL: They’re not for anyone else besides her! She’s not like a creep, she just wants to by her beautiful children.

    TATUM: She literally has the biggest heart I’ve ever seen.

    HILL: She just loves her kids.

    JD: Hey guys, last question. You’ve been in various projects, with John C. Reilly in Cyrus and How to Train Your Dragon…

    HILL: I trained it.

    JD: What is the most rewarding project you’ve worked on lately?

    HILL: I’d say this one and Moneyball the past year. These two movies to come out a couple of months apart from one another. [Counts] Wow, six months. That’s crazy, six months apart from each other. These two movies are movies I’m really proud of. I just want to keep making movies anyway. It’s a perfect example of what I want to do in the comedy world, and what I want to do in the drama world. To come out so close together is like a perfect example of what I want out of my career.

    TATUM: Magic Mike. It’s something that we totally generated ourselves. I’ll always do movies where you’ll jump into a character somebody else has created and be an actor for hire, but it’s just been so special in a way to start it and build it yourself. Then we did something in a way that’s not taboo, but it’s not done a lot. Soderbergh…and I financed it ourselves. We paid for the movie, we put our own skin in the game. We wanted to make it in a way that nobody else could effect what the outcome of the film was. That doesn’t ever happen. Very rarely can you ever make a movie, and not have it be compromised because of what the studios are telling you to do to make money. It’s been odd and kind of interesting do that and have a bunch of different hats on, but it’s just been my favourite thing in the world because we have so much freedom.

  • Exclusive Interview: Daniel Nettheim on The Hunter

    Exclusive Interview: Daniel Nettheim on The Hunter

    The Hunter Blu-ray coverTo celebrate the release of AACTA-winning The Hunter on DVD and Blu-ray in Australia, and in cinemas around the US, we had a chance to ask director Daniel Nettheim a few questions on the film, and his reactions to the themes at the other end of the film process.

    Based on the acclaimed novel by Julia Leigh, writer and director of the recent Sleeping Beauty, THE HUNTER is a powerful psychological drama that tells the story of Martin (Willem Dafoe), a mercenary sent from Europe by a mysterious biotech company to the Tasmanian wilderness on a dramatic hunt for the last Tasmanian Tiger.

    We need to thank Madman, and of course, Mr. Nettheim for taking time to answer our questions.

    Congratulations on the continued international success of the film, and the recent AACTA nominations. Now that you are on the other side of the film process, does the Tasmanian Tiger still hold the same mystery and sway for you?

    Probably more than ever. I went into this project as a Tassie Tiger ‘sceptic’, not believing there was any real possibility of the creature still being out there. However, I was seduced by the passion and enthusiasm of many of the tiger ‘believers’ we met in Tasmania, and heard some pretty convincing stories. I’m now a lot more open to the possibility that the creature could still be lurking somewhere in all that unchartered Wilderness.

     Julia Leigh’s voice is very distinctive. Did that present any unique challenges when adapting to the screen?

    The book was very internal, so we had to find ways to externalise the drama and flesh out aspects of the story that Julia as a novelist had skilfully avoided. What we did try very hard to hold onto was the tone and poetry of her writing, as well as the great sense of awe and beauty in her descriptions of the landscape. The novel really is a wonderful piece of literature and I recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether they’ve already seen the film or not.

    Was Willem Dafoe always in mind for the lead role, and how do you think his presence impacted the course of the film?

    Willem was on our very first wish list, and it was always useful for me to imagine his face when working on the script. His interpretation of the character was spot on, and lifted the story to another level. I would also have to add that his name has been extremely useful in terms of marketing and selling the film around the world.

    The film touches on this, but how did the locals in Tasmania receive you in that particular landscape?

    We got an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm and support for the project from the locals we met. And this includes both sides of the debate in the battle to save the forests, a political climate which is present in the background of the story. We had local loggers and greenies playing themselves in certain scenes, with a serious dedication towards getting a fair representation on film. More importantly, the film was passionately received by Tasmanian audiences, and the State Theatre in Hobart was the number one venue for the film in Australia.

    Still on the landscape, were there specific stylistic influences you and Robert Humphreys looked at when shooting Tasmania?

    We looked at a lot of seventies ‘New Hollywood’ films, particularly those shot in scope; The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Deliverance, Five Easy Pieces, Southern Comfort. We also looked at some of Herzog’s great landscape films, and some more local films like The Piano, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Vigil and the underrated and rarely seen Tasmanian film The Tale of Ruby Rose. The influence of all these works is present at various places in the film.

    Has the Australian film industry changed in your time making films? Is it easier or harder now?

    Every project is hard. Even for the most experienced directors and producers, starting a new project can be like going back to square one, reinventing the wheel and learning your craft all over again. We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t love it, but I haven’t seen it getting any easier.

    What projects have you got lined up for the near future?

    I’m reading scripts right now, looking for something that will appeal to me as much as The Hunter did.

  • Exclusive: Channing Tatum on Magic Mike, The Bitter Pill and Steven Soderbergh

    Exclusive: Channing Tatum on Magic Mike, The Bitter Pill and Steven Soderbergh

    21 Jump Street poster - AustraliaChanning Tatum and Jonah Hill were in Sydney this week promoting the release of Sony’s very funny 21 Jump Street next month, and we were lucky enough to sit down with the two of them and chat about the film and their future projects. Here is a sample of that interview.

    Tatum talks about working with Steven Soderbergh, and his forthcoming collaborations with him, Magic Mike, based on his experiences as a stripper, and The Bitter Pill.

    We need to thank Sony for the opportunity to talk to the stars, and of course Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill for their time. Also present on the round table were Matt Pejkovic from MattsMovieReviews, Cam Williams of PopcornJunkies, Jessica Chandra of PopSugar and Jorge Duran of Spotlight Report. We will post the full interview closer to the release date.

    21 Jump Street is released in Australia on 15 March 2012 from Sony.

    On Steven Soderbergh

    “I’ve found somebody in a way that I can honestly say that I’ve never worked with anyone on a directorial level that is more collaborative than he is. To be someone that has made as many movies, and as many great movies, as he has, he doesn’t have to be.  He really doesn’t, but I think that’s one of his biggest strengths is that he empowers you – as an actor, as a set designer, as a grip, as a costume designer – to literally take it and run with it”.

    “The character I play in Haywire is written very straight…very underdeveloped character. I showed up and I had kind of an idea of what I wanted to do with the idea of him and I just threw out an idea, and he’s like ‘Great, let’s see what that looks like’. There was no questions of like ‘Ok, how do you want to do that?’, he was just…go and do it. So we sort of shaped it from there. It’s unbelievable, I don’t know of any other director I’ve worked with that has that much freedom and sort of self-assured hand with everything, and knows he’s going to find his way through it”.

    Magic Mike - Matthew McConaughey, Channing Tatum and Joe Mangianello

    On Magic Mike

    When asked about the projects he is most looking forward to, he answered Magic Mike without hesitation. “It’s something that we totally generated ourselves. We’ll always do movies where you’ll jump into a character somebody else has created and be an actor for hire, but it’s just been so special in a way to start it and build it yourself”.

    “Then we did something in a way that’s not taboo, but it’s not done a lot. Soderbergh…and I financed it ourselves. We paid for the movie, we put our own skin in the game. We wanted to make it in a way that nobody else could effect what the outcome of the film was. That doesn’t ever happen. Very rarely can you ever make a movie, and not have it be compromised because of what the studios are telling you to do to make money. It’s been odd and kind of interesting do that and have a bunch of different hats on, but it’s just been my favourite thing in the world because we have so much freedom”.

    Tatum also spoke about how he came to be involved with the project, and what its current status is: “He called me from Haywire, and I was like ‘I don’t even need to read it’. Whatever. Just tell me where to show up and I did. Over a beer after work on Haywire, when I told him I was a stripper for eight months of my life he laughed his ass off and he was like ‘That would make a great movie’. And I was, yeah I want to make a movie one day. He was like ‘You should write it’ and I was ‘Yeah, I’ll get right on it, Mr. Soderbergh’”, he says laughingly. “Let me start writing. I don’t know how to write”.

    “Then cut to like six, seven months later, where me and my business partner Reid Carolin, he wrote it, we financed it, produced it, acted it in. It’s cool. We’re almost done with it now”.

    On The Bitter Pill [Update – Renamed: Side Effects]

    Channing didn’t give much information on the role, but we know that his part is a quick shoot: “Yeah, I ‘m going to do a little two-week part on his next thing with Rooney Mara and Jude Law”.

    Look for more of this interview in the week 21 Jump Street opens.

  • Exclusive Interview: Alexandre Philippe on The People VS George Lucas

    Exclusive Interview: Alexandre Philippe on The People VS George Lucas

    The People Vs George Lucas DVDThe original Star Wars films are undoubtedly some of the most famous pieces of cinemas on the planet, but thanks to a myriad of changes by creator George Lucas, they remain some of the only films of their kind where the original theatrical version is not available commercially in a restored digital format. This, along with lacklustre sequels and a seeming ignorance of fan pleas, has made Lucas one of the most loved and simultaneously reviled filmmakers of the last thirty years.

    Yet the love/hate relationship the same fans have with the creator is a unique one, and a phenomenon that documentarian and unabashed Star Wars fan Alexandre Philippe found impossible to ignore. In The People VS George Lucas, Philippe uses a courtroom motif to offer up fan “evidence” of this duel of the fates, ultimately showing that for every criticism, there are a hundred fan films, books, artworks and tributes waiting to happen.

    We were lucky to speak with Alexandre on the Australian DVD release of his film, where he spoke about his motivations, the contradiction that is George Lucas and Paul the Psychic Octopus.

    We need to thank Hopscotch Entertainment for the change to talk to Alexandre, and of course, Mr. Philippe for his generous time and answers.

    The People VS George Lucas is available on DVD in Australia from 23 February 2012 from Hopscotch Entertainment.

    The People Vs George Lucas

    Fantastic film, Alexandre. I really enjoyed it.

    Thank you.

    Please keep in mind that anything I say about Star Wars fans, I am sitting underneath a giant Star Wars poster and drinking from a Star Wars cup.

    Excellent.

    I should ask you straight up then. You’ve probably been asked this before, but what was your motivation in making this film?

    Well, you know, there’s kind of a few sides to me. Obviously, I’m a Star Wars fan, I was raised on Star Wars. Clearly, I think it’s obvious in the film that it had a huge impact on me when I was a child. Also, I’m a documentary filmmaker with a particular interest in pop culture, and I’m always in tune with what’s happening in pop culture. Certainly the love/hate relationship that fans have had with George is something that’s been going on for a long time, and something that has really fascinated me for a long time. It became obvious to me [Laughs] very quickly, well several years ago now, that something needed to be done, that a film needed to be done about this. It was really important to look at this pop culture phenomenon for what it is and it’s truly unique. There’s really no dynamic, I think, in pop culture between a creator and his fans similarly to the one that exists between George and his fans. So it was really that curiosity that pushed me to make this film.

    How George Lucas Might F@#% Up Indiana Jones 4 - Paint It Jar Jar

    And you chose to do that from the perspective of the fans, did you approach LucasFilm representatives to start with?

    Oh, absolutely. The thing you have to understand is, when you make film with the title The People Vs George Lucas… [laughs]. On the one hand, it was the best thing for us because it created instant awareness and publicity, and we’ve had really constant coverage on the film since 2007, so it’s been really great on that level. On the other hand, there was a lot of fear about it, especially coming from the industry and especially the LucasFilm camp. Obviously they don’t know us, and you may tell people you are making an objective documentary, but there is still the fear that the film is going to be Lucas bashing, that it’s going to be against George. So in fact LucasFilm were the very first people that we contacted. When we launched our website, my first email was to them. I just told them we were making this film, I told them it was a documentary, I said look, it’s not an attack on George. I really want to look at this cultural phenomenon and invited them to participate. They respectfully declined [Laughs]. There are a lot of people who declined as a result, but getting [American Graffiti, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back producer] Gary Kurtz was  a big catch for us, very important to us because it opened the door to a number of other ones as well.

    You’re obviously a fan, so did your view of George Lucas change over the course of the film?

    My opinion of him? You know, it changes every day. Obviously I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for what he’s done. I think it would be foolish not to, you know. He’s really changed film, he’s really changed the industry, he’s brought a lot of fun to our lives – of course, he’s brought a lot of frustration as well. But I think, the thing is, that has really changed to me, is how much of a mystery he remains. The stuff that he’s done, post release of The People Vs George Lucas is – you just want to scratch your head. Now he’s talking about the fact that he’s retiring from Star Wars because he’s sick and tired of hearing the fans complaining about him, and what he’s done, and just two days ago there’s this article in The Hollywood Reporter…

    Yes. I was going to ask you about that…

    …yeah, where he claims that Greedo always shot first, right? I mean it’s like you want to say “George, are you serious? Are you kidding me?” What is he playing at? This is what I feel, that the whole thing is just a big joke to him. Where this love/hate relationship has spiralled so out of control that he is just taking it to a level of absurd that you can’t possibly take him seriously anymore. Either that or he’s completely lost his mind. I mean, these are the only two possible ways to look at it. I don’t know, it’s really difficult to understand George. I’ve had a lot of conversations with Dale Pollock, his biographer, who has spend more time interviewing him one-on-one than anybody, and I think he’s also really baffled by him, and I think this notion of control that is really important in my film – and again I’ve had a lot of conversations with Dale about this – is that George is all about control. They all told me that even if your film is a positive account of George, even if it shows him in a good light, he’s not going to like the fact that this film is out of his control. That’s why George tries to stop the publication of Skywalking. I don’t know if you’ve read the book, it’s crazy because it’s such a positive account of his life. So at the end of the day, he just baffles me and I think, it’s cool, you know. It’s something that I spend four years of my life just really studying the guy, you know, and it just shows how complex of a character he is when there’s just so many unanswered questions.

    Star Wars

    This is the thing. He does seem very confusing. As you said, this week he just came out and made another comment about Greedo shooting first. This seems deliberately antagonistic given he’s already said he doesn’t want anything to do with Star Wars anymore, but also that he’s just re-released the films in 3D.

    [Laughs] Yeah, the whole thing is a contradiction and its funny because he’s like well,”I don’t care anymore” but at the same time he likes to just poke the fans. Like I said, I somehow don’t think you can take what he’s saying that seriously anymore, because it seems to be getting more and more outlandish. Even the changes that he made to the Blu-ray version of the Special Edition. It gets more and more nitpicky and plain weird. The stuff like adding rocks in front of R2-D2 in the original Star Wars. I mean, we’re so far removed from that notion of original vision.

    Was his original vision to have those rocks there, but he couldn’t achieve that technology in 1977?

    [Laughs] Yeah, or he says he couldn’t make the Ewoks blink back in 1982, well of course he could! It seems that he’s just doing that kind of stuff to make the fans talk, and clearly its working because it was the best-selling Blu-ray out there. When you turn it on the fans too, they bitch about it: if you go to Amazon, the Blu-ray box-set has a 2 or 2½ star rating. You’re talking about people who love Star Wars. They give it a 2-star rating, then they put it in their basket.

    It comes out in your documentary, and again – bearing in mind that I am a huge fan myself – do you think that fans are their own worst enemy?

    Oh, there’s no doubt about it. I think for everything that George has done that may be irritating the fans you…can certainly understand why George would be so frustrated by his fans, because it has become a religion of sorts, and I think that’s why they’re taking them so seriously. On the one hand, Star Wars is just a movie, there’s no doubt about it, and you want to tell the fans get over it.  I tell myself all the time ‘Get over it’. On the other hand, it’s so much more than just a movie, and George’s refusal to restore and release the original films that are critically important to the history of cinema is a travesty and it’s a huge issue. If you forget about being a Star Wars fan, if you care about film history, if you care about film preservation, and if you think that film is important to our culture, it’s a huge issue. And George knows it, he knows better than this. That’s the one thing that really irritates me.

    You bring it up in the film as well, about Star Wars being added to the National Film Registry, and it seemingly like a complete contradiction on his part, that he’s famously spoken against the tampering with other films but he’s quite happy to do that with his own. I suppose the line he’s drawn in the sand is ‘This is my film, and I can do what I want with it’.

    You know, just to say one quick thing about this too. I don’t think that there’s a single fan out there who doesn’t agree with that. Yes, it is his film, yes he can do what he wants. He can make as many versions as he wants, that’s fine. But I think to deliberately make the effort to make those original cuts disappear, that’s the problematic, that’s the issue right there. Let’s not forget that The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were not directed by George Lucas. It’s just a power trip.

    There’s little special special effects that people would have worked very hard on in 1977 that would have completely disappeared now.

    Oscar-winning special effects. Let’s not forget that!

    Absolutely. Obviously you are talking to fans, these are people that are huge fans of the trilogy and two things come out of that: first of all, did you ever consider looking at people who just hated the Star Wars films? 

    Yeah, I’ve actually talked to a few. In fact, there is one of them in the film, her name is Wendy Ide, she’s a critic in the UK [at The Times]. I think to me, the whole thing is about the love/hate relationship people have with the film, and those conflicting emotions that people have. If you just plain hate the Star Wars movies, to me it has a completely different resonance. To me the film is about people who love it so much that they hate it. It’s a different kind of people I think.

    The People Vs George Lucas

    Another thing I thought was kind of interesting, and I haven’t had a chance to see it as it hasn’t been released in Australia, is Red Tails, which has just come out in the US. Now, have you had a chance to see this film?

    I have not. Sadly, I just keep procrastinating. I just don’t really feel like it. The reviews have not been very good, eventually I’ll get around to it, but no.

    This is a film he’s obviously not directed but he claims has been a passion project for years. Do you ever wonder if it has been a passion project for so long, why is he still tampering with films he made thirty years.

    That’s the thing…There’s been a pile of scripts on his desk for decades now, of projects that are passion projects that he’s wanted to make, and I think that’s kind of a sad thing that you feel in some way that George has collapsed under the weight of Star Wars. How can any of us comprehend what it’s like to have created something like Star Wars. The weight of it and the responsibility that comes with it. I really hope, I really hope, now that George has said I’m going to stop with Star Wars that he’s going to make those experimental films he’s said for decades now that he was going to make. Even if he fails, even if they’re terrible films, even if people hate those films, I think he should go and make the films that he really wants to make and that’s his prerogative.

    I really hope he does make those films. There was talk that he was going to give up on the film industry completely, or he’s going to walk away from Star Wars. Do you believe that?

    Again, that’s what he says, but can you trust what George is saying anymore? I don’t know. He told us many years ago he was going to make those experimental films, he hasn’t done that. We were told about Episodes VII, VIII and IX and he hasn’t done that. There’s so many things. I can’t imagine that he’s going to completely stop. I hope he doesn’t, but in the grand scheme of things, if he stops now, his legacy is safe. Just for any filmmaker to do, even if he had only made Star Wars, even if he had only made American Graffiti. People don’t understand how difficult it is to make a film in the first place, and to make a film that resonates with so many people is extraordinary. So I think he should be really proud of what he’s accomplished, and yet there’s a bitterness. It’s so sad! Sometimes you just wonder if he realises how great he has been, and how much he has impacted people in a positive way. There’s no reason to be bitter about that.

    One final question, and I’m sure you’ve been asked this before: if you could talk to George Lucas, and ask him one question, what would you ask him?

    I think, well assuming I could get the  truth from him, assuming I could give him a truth serum, the one thing I’m dying to know the truth about is precisely why is he still refusing to this day to restore the original cuts of the original Star Wars Trilogy. Because we’ve been told so many things. The last excuse is that it costs too much money, and you just want to laugh! I mean, look, all it takes – if he’s so concerned about money, which if you’ve got tens of billions of dollars it’s a huge concern for you – if you’re so concerned about money, all it takes is one phone call to the Criterion Collection. ‘Hey guys, I don’t want to restore this film: you take it, you roll with it, we’ll get a royalty’. Can you imagine what a huge release that would be? So clearly it’s not the truth. The truth is he is stubbornly refusing to do that. For what reason, I really don’t know, and I wish he would tell us the truth.

    Absolutely. Or he could crowd-source the restoration.

    [Laughs] You know the thing is, I’ve heard through the grapevine that there are fans out there who got their hands on a pristine print, and who are going to do it themselves. So that’s the thing about our culture today: if George is not going to do it, the fans are going to make sure it happens.

    The Life and Times of Paul the Psychic Octopus

    For you then, what’s your next project?

    In fact it’s almost finished now. We’re looking at a May world premiere about Paul the Psychic Octopus. From the Soccer World Cup, do you remember that?

    Yes.

    So it’s called The Life and Times of Paul the Psychic Octopus and we’re putting the finishing touches on it now. A different kind of celebrity.

    Perhaps Paul would have known the answer as to whether the original cuts will ever be released.

    [Laughs] I should have asked when he was still alive.

    Alexandre thank you so much for your time!

  • Exclusive Interview: Josh Lawson and Christian Clark on Any Questions for Ben?

    Exclusive Interview: Josh Lawson and Christian Clark on Any Questions for Ben?

    Any Questions for Ben?In the 12 years since The Dish, the creative forces of Santo Cilauro, Rob Sitch, Jane Kennedy, Tom Gleisner and Michael Hirsh have produced television gold in the form of talk show The Panel, improv comedy Thank God You’re Here and political satire The Hollowmen. Now their first theatrical outing since 2000, Any Questions for Ben?, explores the quarter-life crisis that is a reality for every young global citizen.

    We were lucky enough to sit down with Ben himself, Josh Lawson, and co-star Christian Clark on their experiences making the film, and their upcoming projects. Lawson is, of course, currently starring in US television series House of Lies opposite Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell.

    We need to thank Roadshow Films for all the access given to the cast and creative team of this film, and of course, Mr. Henshall and Ms. Gordon for their time and generous answers.

    Any Questions for Ben? is released in Australia on 9 January 2012 from Roadshow Films. You can also our full review, along with our interviews with director Rob Sitch and Daniel Henshall and Jodi Gordon.

    Listen to the interview above, or read the transcript below.

    RG: What attracted you to the film?

    JL: Well! I mean, it was an attractive notion not to be unemployed anymore. Yeah, that’s always a nice thing as an actor. When Working Dog ask you to do a job, it’s almost impossible to say no.

    RG: I’m hearing that a lot today.

    JL: Well, they’re pretty amazing. Their track record kind of speaks for itself. Geez, I wouldn’t want to be the guy who turned down a Working Dog film.

    CC: Me? Look, he said it well. Those two words: Working Dog. What they do so well. We see The Castle, those characters…with the family, Hollowmen with politics and Frontline with news. When I read this script, and Jane [Kennedy] kind of talked me through it, it was very clear that it kind of captured something in Australia that – the twenties. You know, those people, the characters. It’s done in such a funny way. As soon as I read that, it was very clear that they’d captured something again in the script. And so of course, I jumped at the chance, you know?

    RG: I was just talking to Rob [Sitch] about this point. Did you ever worry about that character who was, in fact both your characters, who lead a lifestyle that a lot of us would envy. Did you ever worry that was going to be a barrier to the audience?

    JL: Of course. For me, that was probably the biggest challenge. You know, this idea that you didn’t want people to watch Ben and go ‘What are you complaining about? You’ve got everything’. Stop whinging, basically. I don’t think that’s – we hope that we avoided that. You know, because Ben’s heart is in the right place. He really does love his friends, and of course, he loves Alex [played by Rachael Taylor] and he learns that maybe a bit too late in the film. But I think he tries to fix all of his mistakes. I think the balance that I needed to find with Ben was to make his frustrating, so the audience would go ‘Just pick up the damn phone and call the girl’, but without being unlikeable. Rob and I were constantly monitoring during that, and I think we got away with it. Trust me, Ben is going to frustrate you. He’s flaky, and he says he’s going to do things and he doesn’t, but believe me when I tell you that his heart is really in the right place.

    Any Questions for Ben? - Josh Lawson and Christian Clark

    RG: The other thing I’ve been hearing a lot today is just how tightly scripted the film actually was. Did either of you find that difficult?

    JL: No, in a way it was liberating. [To Christian] Did you find that? It was like you could relax because you trusted the script so well. I mean, when you read a script and it sucks and they say ‘Stick to the script’, that would be scary. I’d go, I really don’t believe that’s the right decision, we need to change it. But when you read a script and it’s great, and you say stick to the script, it means I don’t have to improvise. Yeah, so for me I found it quite liberating.

    CC: Yeah, we had a week rehearsal process and at the start Rob said ‘Go for it, try anything, say anything’, and of course I went in there batting and swinging and trying a few lines. But they’d written such an amazing script that it didn’t really matter, you know what I mean. It was all there.

    RG: And Christian, with you – you’ve obviously got a background in television at the moment, so when you come to something like a Working Dog production, how do you approach that differently?

    CC: Strangely enough, this is like my seventh film. The first one I got cut from, the others have gone straight to DVD. So this is the first one I’ve actually stayed part of and it’s hitting cinemas. Look, all my other characters I’ve played have been dark, gritty drama characters. The one before that was on Home & Away playing a psychopath, so when I got the opportunity to play a comedy in a big film like this, first of all it’s Working Dog, and I didn’t want to be the guy that stuffed up, you know what I mean? So, I worked as hard as possible with Rob, and he just made…the whole process seem so easy, you know what I mean? By the time  I walked away from that rehearsal process, he instilled confidence in me that I deserved to be part of this film and I could deliver the jokes and stuff like that. All credit goes to Working Dog and Rob for doing that.

    RG: Josh, you’ve been having a terrific year with television. I just read this morning that House of Lies got renewed.

    JL: I read that this morning as well, probably at the same time you did.

    RG: So when you’re working with Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell, did you ever think it would come to that?

    JL: No. I guess you always hope you can make a living out of it, it was always – we just wanted to keep doing this forever, and I think it would have been on paper, say working with Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell, sounds great, it would have been terrible if they were awful people. But they’re lovely people, and that trumps their celebrity.

    RG: So I don’t get that scoop then?

    JL: No, sadly not. Luckier than working with celebrities has been working with nice people. To me that’s the luckiest thing in the world.

    CC: And the same thing with Will Ferrell.

    JL: Oh, Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, I just did Dog Fight. Again, they were nice. After the initial, ‘Oh my god, their famous’ moment, which wears off after a minute, what remains is I got to work with nice, generous actors, and that’s lasting. Not celebrity. So I think I put working with Christian, and Rachael and Rob and the Working Dog team on par with working with Don Cheadle and Will Ferrell for the simple fact that they were all really nice to me, and I learnt something for all of them.

    RG: Christian, after that high praise, the other bit of high praise I was reading this morning was Kelly Dolen describing you as a ‘director’s dream’. 

    CC: Isn’t that nice?

    JL: Who’s Kelly Dolen?

    CC: I worked with him on Gates of Hell, he’s got a new film coming out called John Doe.

    JL: Are you in it?

    CC: Not John Doe, no, but Gates of Hell.

    JL: Yeah, no no no. Sorry, I’m catching up. You’re the director’s dream, that’s great.

    CC: Look, I just want to do the best job possible. Before I’m an actor, I’m a movie fan, I absolutely love movies. I just want to be be part of them, so any time I get an opportunity to be part of them I go to any length to make sure I do a good job.

    JL: Yeah, he works really hard. Harder than most actors that I’ve seen. He really does. Put everything in it. Everything comes second to the project when Christian’s working on it.

    CC: I appreciate that, thank you.

    JL: No, it’s true.

    RG: Well, Daniel was praising you this morning for turning up seven days a week for seven weeks.

    JL: On this film? Yeah, but it didn’t feel like work. To take away some of the praise, it just didn’t feel like work to us. I enjoyed turning up to set. In a weird way, even if I wasn’t scheduled that day, I would have loved to turn up just to be a part of that team. I know that sounds like I’m sucking up to them. I wasn’t, I’m selfishly saying I enjoyed every second of it. I loved it.

    Any Questions for Ben? - Josh Lawson and Christian Clark

    RG: And I guess for both of you, you’re working together again on the intriguingly titled $quid: The Movie. Is that based on the short film?

    JL: It is. It’s based on the short film, it’s shot, it’s done. We finished it many years ago, and I know on IMDB it says ‘in post-production’ or something. It’s because it still is literally in post-production. I don’t think it will every get finished. Am I wrong? It’s just not. It’s never going to get finished.

    CC: It’s got to come out on the DVD extras of one of our films. But we did…Josh and Ed [Kavalee] co-wrote another film that is coming out second half of this year called Scumbus.

    JL: So look out for that.

    RG: And you produced that too, didn’t you?

    CC: Yeah. Any chance for me to get to act, you know. Whatever I have to do, you know what I mean? There’s another one called Border Protection Squad which is Ed Kavalee’s first feature film which is very exciting.

    RG: Thank you so much for your time!

  • Exclusive Interview: Daniel Henshall and Jodi Gordon on Any Questions for Ben?

    Exclusive Interview: Daniel Henshall and Jodi Gordon on Any Questions for Ben?

    Any Questions for Ben?In the 12 years since The Dish, the creative forces of Santo Cilauro, Rob Sitch, Jane Kennedy, Tom Gleisner and Michael Hirsh have produced television gold in the form of talk show The Panel, improv comedy Thank God You’re Here and political satire The Hollowmen. Now their first theatrical outing since 2000, Any Questions for Ben?, explores the quarter-life crisis that is a reality for every young global citizen.

    We were lucky to sit down with Daniel Henshall, one of the stars of the film and a recent winning of an AACTA for Snowtown, and model/actress Jodi Gordon, perhaps best known for her long-running role on TV’s Home & Away.

    We need to thank Roadshow Films for all the access given to the cast and creative team of this film, and of course, Mr. Henshall and Ms. Gordon for their time and generous answers.

    Any Questions for Ben? is released in Australia on 9 January 2012 from Roadshow Films. You can also our full review.

    RG: How did you both come to get involved in the film?

    JG: I was sitting at my mum’s house one day and got a call from the agent. [Laughs] I’m going to be very specific. They just said Working Dog are making this new film, do you want to be part of it? This is the character, this is a very brief outline of the film. No script was read, but of course with Working Dog you just say yes.

    DH: Absolutely, yeah – same sort of deal. I got a call while I was doing Snowtown, and it said they were making the film and they would like to offer you the role. They’d like to meet with you. Actually, they just said they they would like to meet you.  So I was back in Sydney for a weekend, and Jane [Kennedy] was kind enough to fly up and have coffee with me, talked about it, showed me some scenes and then she said pretty much ‘Do you want it?’. And I was just gobsmacked. I didn’t say yes because I didn’t know what to do, but of course as soon as I got on the phone to my agent I was like like “S-should I…yes!”.

    Any Questions for Ben? - Daniel Henshall and Felicity Ward

    RG: So I guess it was purely Working Dog was the lure, but was there an element to the story that attracted you at all?

    DH: Yeah, it sounded like something they hadn’t done before, and they were very excited about it and it was their first project in 12 years. They put a lot of time and love and effort into it and they were extremely excited about the cast that they were assembling and very excited about making the film, and they had a very clear idea about what they wanted to showcase in the film. A lot of that being the character that is Melbourne, a side that we don’t always see in film and television, the classy kind of bright, shiny, beautiful cultural city that it is and the Working Dog thing kept coming home. They’re pretty tight with their scripts, they like to keep them close to their heart, which is great, and I love that.

    JG: It’s a surprise.

    DH: It was a surprise. This person’s in it, this person’s in, this is who we are, this is what we’d like to do with you, this is the character you’re doing, do you want it?

    JG: For me it was about doing a comedy with the best people to do a comedy with. That to me is hugely educational, you know? It’s a whole learning process. It’s like learning an entire new language. So it was great.

    RG: You talked about how tight the script was. To me it felt as though there was an really easy, natural back-and-forth between the characters.

    DH: They’re very specific about what they’d like to get out of the scene, how the lines should be delivered, and they’re constantly changing if it doesn’t work. To the last minute, if this isn’t working, try this.

    JG: Just constantly fine-tuning to get exactly what they want, but at the same time they give you that freedom as an actor to have your input and to share what you have, and then you assess whether that’s right or wrong and if that fits in. But ultimately, they have their vision and you all work together to get that right.

    DH: Rob’s [Stitch] extremely strong about the idea that you go home, learn your lines, come to set and we’ll do the work with you. That’s all we need to know, and it gives you that freshness and that realness to it, and that ease to it and rather than pinpointing it and honing it until the point where you’ve lost all that. But it’s always about hitting marks. Comedy is very structured, unless you’re an extreme talent like Josh Lawson or Felicity Ward and just nail it every time in different fashions. For myself, Jodi pretty much nailed it every time.

    Any Questions for Ben? Ben (Josh Lawson), Kelly (Jodi Gordon) and Jim (Ed Kavalee)

    JG: It’s very different, and when you watch it you think it looks so improvised and very free, but there’s so much structure to it and that’s one of the major things I noticed when I got on set and everybody’s talking really fast. [Laughs] I was like “Oh shit, how do I keep up?”.

    DH: Very, very keen on the pace of it, and not just to hit home on the punchline. To have a natural reaction when it happens. The way that they’ve edited it, they’ve edited it around the situational comedy. There’s a lot of punchlines in the film, but I find the lovelier moments are just the situations. You see people are reacting in the room who may not have a lot to do with the dialogue, but you find the context very funny.

    RG: Also, Daniel: first of all, congratulations on the AACTA this week for Snowtown. It’s a huge deal for you, and I guess in the spirit of Any Questions for Ben?, how has this moment altered the direction of your life and career?

    DH: Ask me in about a year? It was an honour to be nominated, and for the film to be recognised in the fashion that it was just meant so much to us. We spent a long time and a lot of effort trying to make this film with integrity, and do that with as much sensitivity as possible because it’s such a horrific story. People are still living with that story, and the history of that story, and the families and the victims that were involved. So to be acknowledged that way in the public light by the highest standard in Australia was very special, and to win what we did meant the world to us. To be recognised in your own country is very special.

    RG: Jodi, you’ve had extensive experience on television before this.  You’ve said you came to this wanting to try comedy, so for you how was the approach different coming to this feature?

    JG: Being in television for so long, you get used to the pace and energy. The pace and the energy of doing a comedy is still there, but it’s very different, because making a film is such a slower process. There is so much to learn. I remember when I’d done my first feature film, trying to take it all in, and it really was overwhelming, but it’s what I really love doing and it’s what I’m really passionate about.

    RG: And you’ve just made two horse-related films in a row. You did The Cup…

    JG: The horsey girl! It was a bad choice wasn’t it? If there’s a horse film, I’m in it.

    Any Questions for Ben? - Josh Lawson and Jodi Gordon

    RG: I suppose they weren’t filmed back-to-back…

    JG: It’s funny when I turned up. I’m at the racecourse again! What’s going on?

    RG: The other thing is you’ve got coming up Daniel is Not Suitable For Children. Is that filmed?

    DH: That’s done. I play a very small part in that, but that’s definitely Sarah Snook, and Ryan Kwanten and Ryan Corr’s film. And they’re all brilliant and beautiful in it and I can’t wait to see it. It was fun working with them

    RG: You’ve both touched on it already. Working with the Working Dog team, working with someone like Rob Sitch…

    DH: Tom Gleisner. Santo [Cilauro]. Jane. Michael Hirsch…

    JG: That whole team.

    DH: D-Generation, Frontline. I grew up watching those guys. My brother and sister are quite older than me, and they made me watch the D-Gen. Every Christmas, we’d get the D-Gen Best-Of and just watch that. I mean, Rob Sitch had the best comic sketch in Australian history with “Shit Scared” [from The Late Show]. It’s just comedy gold, and to work with a guy who is as funny as that, and so intelligent and so inspirational is just brilliant.

    RG: I’ll preface this by saying that I’m about to go into another room and talk to Josh Lawson and Christian Clark…

    [Deadpan]

    DH: Those guys are dickheads.

    JG: Arseholes.

    RG: So is there any embarassing stories I can spring on them?

    [Both laugh]

    DH: They’re both beautiful people. Funny guys.

    JG: Just the best. Josh’s energy is just something on another level.

    DH: He worked every day for seven weeks, on that film.

    JG: And I never saw him having a…

    DH: Never had a princess moment. Always upbeat, how you guy. Happy to give you the time of day when he had the chance. Much respect and admiration for anyone who can do that and pull it off on-screen. Christian: how funny is Christian?

    JG: Oh my god, he is hilarious in the movie.

    DH: So funny. I think I laugh hardest when he comes on-screen.

    JG: And Lachy Hulme.

    DH: Lachy Hulme. If you ever get a chance to meet Lachy Hulme, he’s such a wonderful man. Such a great character.

    JG: Someone was warning me about him, I think it was Josh,  but he’s one of those passion actors…

    DH: Loves to talk about acting, loves to talk about film. So passionate.

    Josh Lawson, Daniel Henshall, Felicity Ward and Christian Clark in Any Questions for Ben?

    RG: So what’s next for you both.

    JG: Just auditioning, having a good time, living life.

    DH: Getting married…

    JG: Getting married. Some fashion things.

    DH: Can we say that? Am I hitting on that too hard? Getting married?

    JG: No, I love that.

    DH: Ok. She’s getting married…

    [Laughs]

    RG: I’m not getting a scoop then? Thanks so much for your time.