For Andrea Arnold filmmaking is all about instinct. Like her decision to cast Michael Fassbender, the star of Hunger, in her new film Fish Tank. “I cast Michael after seeing him in a clip of Irvine Welsh’s Wedding Belles,” says Arnold, who at the time was unaware of the actor’s celebrated turn in Steve McQueen’s film. “I made a decision on the strength of that clip, on instinct. We didn’t even get to meet because he was in South Africa filming, but he felt absolutely right.” Arnold’s instincts proved to be spot on. Hardly surprising really given the successful track record she’s notched up since making her first short film eleven years ago.

Images inspire Andrea Arnold

When her debut short Milk was selected for Critics’ Week at Cannes in 1998, it was a sign of things to come. A little over a decade later and the former children’s TV presenter has a raft of awards to her name including an Oscar for the short Wasp; a string of BAFTAs for her gripping feature debut Red Road; and two Jury Prizes at Cannes, one for each of her feature-length releases. She’s fast becoming the darling of both the British art-house and the international festival scene. And her latest offering, Fish Tank, about a teenage girl’s life on an Essex council estate, is only her sophomore feature.

The inspiration for Arnold’s writing is usually an image which turns up out of nowhere, grabbing her attention, and Fish Tank is no exception. “The image appears in the film,” she tells me, quickly adding, “I don’t like to say what it was as I feel it gives the film away, but the person in the image was an angry teenage girl. It had no context, of course, and this was for me to work out.”

The angry teenager turned out to be 15-year-old Mia, whose life is turned upside-down when her mother (Kierston Wareing, It’s a Free World) brings home a new boyfriend (Fassbender). “When I begin exploring the images I really don’t know where they will take me,” explains Arnold. “It’s like going into a mine. It’s dark and you don’t know your way, but in time your eyes adjust and you start to see what is around you and understand it. Sometimes what you discover can be beautiful and sometimes it can be upsetting and bewildering. I just hope the audience do not in any way suffer watching the film like I did writing it.”

Newcomer Katie Jarvis plays angry teenager, Mia

Fish Tank may be challenging viewing at times, but Arnold’s gritty slice-of-life filmmaking is always compelling, and has deft touches of warmth and humour. And judging by the critical praise the film received after its premiere at Cannes this year, the Dartford-born filmmaker has nothing to worry about. However, as a reluctant reader of reviews, she may never know it. “Thinking is the enemy when you are trying to make something,” says Arnold. “When you get conscious of what you are doing it can be inhibiting. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like talking much about the substance of the film or reading other people’s interpretations. For me the film is almost everything I intended.”

But there were, of course, frustrations along the way. “The journey from initial fleeting images to a two-hour film is such a tough and, in some ways, brutal one,” she admits. “It always changes. The images I have in my mind are pure to start; I can see exactly how it should be, know how it should feel. Then the reality of making it kicks in. You do have to compromise and I do get frustrated when I can’t realise some of it the way I want to.” She then adds, “But I also love that things change and evolve and present themselves differently to what I’d imagined. Whatever happens I try to hold on to whatever it was that made me start the journey in the first place, and hope it will still be there at the end.”

Powerful performances
Joining her on this latest journey is a mixed cast of experienced actors (Fassbender, Wareing) and first-timers such as 17-year-old Katie Jarvis. Spotted arguing with her boyfriend by a casting assistant at a train station in Essex, Jarvis gives a powerful performance in the central role of Mia. So much so that she won Best British Performance at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival, and has since been signed up by an agent.

From the start, Arnold was keen to cast non-actors. “People who have had no experience, like Katie, have less fear in some ways,” she explains. “They don’t know what is expected so can be very free. That is a very beautiful thing and can be an unwieldy thing too. My challenge was to shape that rawness. In some ways Katie didn’t act in Fish Tank, but she wasn’t playing herself either. When I watched the first cut I was really pleased to see that the girl in the film was not Katie – it was the girl I had written. I love my characters but there’s no doubt it’s good to conclude something you have given so much of yourself to.”

Now it’s back to what the 48-year-old calls “the lonely job of writing”. “I don’t seem to have a choice,” she says. “I have to write for better or worse.” Given Arnold’s finely tuned instincts, it’s bound to be for better.

Curzon Magazine, September / October 2009

** All text and images are subject to copyright and may only be used with express permission.

Film producer Stephen Woolley travels the world making movies, but in between jobs he loves nothing better than the rural life in Dyrham, says Jan Gilbert.

Leading British producer Stephen Woolley has spent a lifetime steeped in movies, from tearing cinema tickets in 1970s London to producing a string of award-winning box-office hits including The Crying Game and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.

But when he’s not busy working with stars such as Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, and Simon Pegg, there’s nothing Stephen loves more than relaxing at home in Dyrham, his haven of peace and tranquility for the past thirteen years.

‘When you make films it’s such a nomadic exercise,’ says Stephen. ‘You’re not really in any one place for very long – suddenly you’re in Ireland or France or America. When you come home you want to be somewhere you can feel quiet. And making films is a pretty stressful activity too so the ideal was to find somewhere as stressless as possible.’

Leading British producer, Stephen Woolley

It was thanks to Stephen’s wife and fellow producer Elizabeth Karlsen that Dyrham became home. ‘I was shooting Michael Collins in Ireland and Elizabeth was in Bath shooting a film called Hollow Reed,’ he recalls. ‘We hadn’t been married long and we’d decided to move from Fulham. Then Elizabeth stumbled across this amazing house in a very quiet and lovely part of the world. It really is quite idyllic. You look out and it’s just countryside. We’ve got a couple of horses and a river running down the end of the garden, but we’re not far from Bath, Bristol, the motorway, or the train station, so in a sense we get the best of both worlds. It’s such a special place.’

As well as regular trips to Bath to take in the big-screen delights of The Little Theatre Cinema or the latest plays at the Theatre Royal, Stephen enjoys hiking through the region’s beautiful countryside, whether walking the family dogs in nearby Dyrham Wood or venturing further afield.

Magical mystery tour

‘Dyrham’s on the Cotswold Way and we recently walked to the end of the route at Chipping Campden. We planned the whole thing, staying at B&Bs and pubs on the way. Different friends joined us along the walk and did a couple of days here and there, so it was really fun. It’s pretty strenuous though as it’s very hilly, so you’re never walking in a straight line, you’re always going up or down something!’

‘There’s a real sense of achievement once you arrive somewhere,’ he adds. ‘And what’s great is the thrill of going to different places. You end up at some B&B and either you’re pleasantly surprised because the food’s great, or you’re crushingly disappointed that you’ve walked seven hours to get there!

‘There’s that sort of magical mystery tour element to it which we all love. Our next mission is to complete the Cotswold Way, which means walking about eight or nine miles from our house to Bath. So that’s our plan for the summer.’

But this month it’s time to hang up those hiking boots and pick out some red-carpet shoes, as Stephen and Elizabeth release their latest movie, Sounds Like Teen Spirit, an irresistible feel-good film which follows four young singer-songwriters from across Europe on their road to the Junior Eurovision finals.

Mariam, who represented Georgia at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest

Never heard of Junior Eurovision? Neither had Stephen and Elizabeth until BAFTA-nominated director Jamie J Johnson approached them about making a feature on the world’s largest song contest for young people, but Jamie’s idea struck a real chord.

‘I think if you’re my age, the Eurovision was an event alongside Wimbledon and the FA Cup,’ says Stephen. ‘As a kid I loved collecting stamps. I’d sit for hours and stare at some stamp from Monaco, not even knowing where Monaco was but just imagining its culture and people. I think stamp collecting and loving Eurovision as a kid were the same thing. I didn’t get on a plane until I was fourteen years old so the Eurovision, like stamp collecting, was like a journey around Europe.’

ABBA gold seal

If you’re expecting pushy parents and temperamental teens, think again as Sounds Like Teen Spirit is a real heart melter of a movie which celebrates the spirit of the underdog with all the humour of Oscar-winner Little Miss Sunshine. ‘The kids in the film are very talented and incredibly sussed,’ says Stephen. ‘They all have problems – the break-up of their parents’ marriage, being bullied at school, living in absolute poverty in a war-torn country – but there are so many wise words from these children that the film gives you a real sense of optimism. You’re just bowled over by their spirit.’

Eurovision veterans Björn and Benny felt the same. The Swedish songwriting duo, who are extremely protective of their music, have given the film their ABBA gold seal of approval, allowing one of their songs to feature on the soundtrack.

And the film is already receiving rave reviews and favourable comparisons with the multi-award-winning Slumdog Millionaire. So take a chance on Sounds Like Teen Spirit this month, and you’re sure to say ‘thank you for the movie’.

Sounds Like Teen Spirit is in cinemas from 8 May

The Bath Magazine, May 2009

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Cambridge graduate and one-time member of Footlights Julian Fellowes talks to Jan Gilbert about his latest film, The Young Victoria

Screenwriter, novelist, actor, director, and producer. Is there anything Julian Fellowes can’t do? The answer is navigate, or so he tells me as we sit in a huge multiplex cinema in Milton Keynes. I’m here thanks to an invitation to a sneak preview of his latest film The Young Victoria, a wonderfully lavish drama about the turbulent early years of Queen Victoria’s reign and her romance with Prince Albert. Julian’s here thanks to a satnav.

Apparently he doesn’t possess the same ‘inbuilt compass’ as his wife Emma Kitchener-Fellowes, lady-in-waiting to Princess Michael of Kent. Instead Julian relies on his TomTom which, he says in cut-glass tones, is like ‘having my own coachman’. Yet, despite years without an electronic gizmo to guide him, Julian’s come a long way since his student days at Cambridge where he was a member of Footlights, the University’s famous comedy troupe.

‘We were slightly the bread between two fillings,’ he remarks about his Footlights experience. ‘Before us there was Peter Cook and after came Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry. Nevertheless it was fun. However, they wouldn’t let me into the Amateur Dramatic Club, even though I think I’m pretty much the only person in showbiz from that generation, so last laugh!’, he says jokingly.

Julian with Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend, stars of The Young Victoria

Still it wasn’t the smell of the greasepaint or the roar of the crowd which appealed to Julian; it was the lights, camera, and action. ‘I was in love with film,’ he recalls. ‘In those days there were masses of film societies and cinemas in Cambridge and I used to go to about eight films a week.’

In fact it was a film he saw in the city, I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Isname starring Oliver Reed and directed by Michael Winner, that decided his future profession. ‘You know sometimes there’s a pop record you just can’t hear enough of? Well I saw that film again and again. And during that week, I remember quite clearly thinking I didn’t want just to have an interest in films and a career doing something else, I wanted my career to be films.’

Julian didn’t have long to wait for his small-screen debut – representing Magdalene College on University Challenge – although it didn’t go exactly to plan, as he recalls. ‘I woke up on the day of the show and had this incredible sore throat. I told my mother I was too ill, to which she replied, “You are not!” At the studios they told me they had someone to stand in for me, but my mother told them they were talking nonsense!’

Fortunately Julian made it through the show. However an unhealthy dose of throat lozenges had an undesired effect. ‘You weren’t meant to take more than four in any 24-hour period but my mother gave me about 80 and on the way back my throat locked because I’d taken so much anaesthetic!’

Julian on the set of The Young Victoria

After leaving the academic world, Julian faced a fresh challenge. ‘After Look Back in Anger dramatists had fallen in love with a romanticised version of the working class,’ he says matter-of-factly, ‘and every actor was expected to serve that. And there was a kind of assumption that if you were public school you were amateurish, you weren’t gifted, you hadn’t lived.’

Having been turned away by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, Julian tried his luck in America. ‘At that time British drama schools ran on the basis that theatre was it and camerawork was secondary, something you did to pay the bills. I’d gone into acting to be a movie star and gradually had that pressed out of me. But during two and a half years in America I rediscovered my love of film.’

An Oscar (Gosford Park) and Best Directorial Debut award (Separate Lies) later, Julian’s love affair with film looks set to continue with his latest project The Young Victoria. ‘I was absolutely thrilled to be offered a film about Victoria; I’m mad about her,’ he tells me. ‘The really interesting story is how this girl, who was kept almost under house arrest, became an incredibly successful queen. It’s a miracle she kept such a sense of self through all the terrible shenanigans she had to survive.’

Stellar cast

To Julian’s delight, a stellar British cast including Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada), Rupert Friend (Pride And Prejudice), Mark Strong (Body Of Lies), Miranda Richardson (Harry Potter And the Goblet Of Fire), and Jim Broadbent (And When Did You Last See Your Father?) bring his screenplay to life. ‘I’m really thrilled with the cast. And the producers [Oscar-winners Martin Scorsese and Graham King] were wonderful to work for. I’d work with any of them again at a shot!’

In the meantime, Julian turns to the county of his alma mater, not Hollywood, for inspiration for his next film From Time to Time, which he directs and adapts from Cambridgeshire author Lucy M. Boston’s Chimneys of Green Knowe, the second in a series of children’s books based on Boston’s Hemingford Grey home. Watch this space.

The Young Victoria is in cinemas nationwide from March 6

Agenda, Mar 2009

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Actor Rainn Wilson, whose film The Rocker is released this month, talks to Jan Gilbert about the pitfalls of pratfalls and meeting the fifth Beatle.

Red carpet premieres, awards ceremonies, and glitzy parties: all part and parcel of an actor’s glamorous existence, right? Well, not always. Sometimes being an actor means being strapped to the roof of a speeding van in the middle of the night or being hosed down repeatedly with six kinds of synthetic sweat, as Rainn Wilson found out on the set of his latest film The Rocker, a seriously funny comedy about a failed drummer who gets a second chance at the big time… in his nephew’s teen band.

And it looks like The Rocker, Rainn’s first starring role in a movie, could be the Seattle-born actor’s own ticket to the movie big time after supporting parts in films including Almost Famous and the Oscar-winning Juno. Already well known for small screen roles in Six Feet Under and the US version of The Office, Rainn still can’t get over his luck landing the lead.

Hairy moments

‘It was crazy; the whole film was like a giant weird fever dream,’ he confesses. ‘When the movie got green-lit we found out in the morning and, I swear to God, by 2.30 in the afternoon a full drum kit had arrived at my house, and the next day a drum coach showed up to teach me the basics.’

Rainn Wilson stars in The Rocker

But Robert “Fish” Fishman, Rainn’s character in The Rocker, isn’t just any drummer, he’s a heavy metal drummer, so learning the basics just wasn’t enough. ‘There’s a whole other level of drumming when you’re a hair metal drummer: it’s stick-twirling, getting the crowd riled up, putting on a show,’ explains Rainn. ‘You’re like the Las Vegas magician of drummers. It takes a certain kind of personality to be flashing the heavy metal horns between beats.’

A very different kind of drummer to Fish’s heavy metal heroes makes a brief appearance early on in the film: Pete Best, the man famously sacked by a pre-fame Fab Four. ‘It was kinda scary meeting Pete Best,’ admits Rainn. ‘Although the film’s not based on him, here he is showing up to do a cameo in a movie about a failed drummer! But he’s so at peace about it. He’s just a swell guy with a great sense of humour, and we had a blast.’

Meeting the ex-Beatle wasn’t the only experience which left its mark on Rainn while shooting The Rocker. ‘When I take my shirt off near the start of the movie, you can actually see bruises all over my body. That’s from me throwing myself all over the place, like riding a tricycle into a swimming pool four times in a row at five in the morning,’ he tells me. ‘It was painful, but really fun. I love physical comedy, there’s nothing greater than a physical gag.’

Full exposure

It’s a good job Rainn’s such a fan of slapstick as with The Full Monty director Peter Cattaneo on board, it wasn’t long before the comic actor found himself exposing a little more than just his drumming skills. ‘I’m happy to show my body for laughter; it’s been getting laughs for a long, long time,’ says Rainn. ‘They do that on The Office sometimes. I remember there was a scene in the second season of The Office and it wasn’t working for some reason. They needed an instant laugh so I ended up running around with my shirt off!’

Given Rainn’s love of pratfalls, it’s hardly surprising that one of his favourite comedians is the original Nutty Professor, Jerry Lewis. ‘I was a total comedy geek growing up,’ he recalls. ‘My greatest inspiration as a child was Jerry Lewis. I loved the absurdity of his physical comedy. I don’t think I’m much like him, but I loved his movies. I also loved the Marx Brothers and Monty Python. I used to take a big old tape recorder, hold it up in front of the TV and record entire Monty Python episodes and play them over and over in my room and memorise them.’

Idle fan

So when Rainn bumped into one of his comic idols, he couldn’t quite believe it. ‘One of the highlights of my life was when Six Feet Under was just coming out and I was at a premiere for a film in LA. I was being interviewed about the movie, and right behind me was Eric Idle. And he said to me, “I’m a huge fan of your work,” and I was shaking and quivering like a little schoolgirl,’ he remembers, still hardly able to take it in. But never one to take himself too seriously, the 42-year-old star quickly deadpans, ‘Now people compliment my work and I’m like, “Yeah, whatever. You got a cheque for me?”’

The Rocker is in cinemas from 17 October

Agenda, Oct 2008

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 Jan Gilbert talks to Rupert Wyatt about breaking out with his first feature.

After developing features for Miramax in New York, working in British television, and writing and directing several successful short films, Rupert Wyatt makes his feature debut with The Escapist, a prison escape drama about a life-prisoner who decides to break out of prison when he discovers his daughter is critically ill.

JAN: You made a number of short films before The Escapist, how have you found the move from shorts to features?
RUPERT: Hard, like anybody working in the UK to make films. Most independent films don’t make money so to get yourself a decent enough budget not only to make the film but then to distribute it, is a bit like winning the lottery. I’d made about fifteen short films and some of them were made for £100 or £200, and my last ones were made for £40,000 or £50,000. What was great about them was not only the experience of making films, working in drama, and cutting my teeth in that way, but also working with a certain crew which then went into the feature with me, specifically my director of photography Philipp Blaubach, my sound editor Theo Green, and my producer Adrian Sturges. And it also built up great contacts with the financiers that ultimately backed the movie – the UK Film Council and the Irish Film Board.

So how did The Escapist come about?
I started writing it in late 2004. I’d done a short film with Brian Cox called Get the Picture and he and I got on very well. It was a tough shoot but it was relatively successful as a short film, so I went back to him with a feature script but he didn’t want to do it because it was another supporting role. He asked me to come back with something with him as the protagonist and that’s exactly what I did. I’d been trying at this point for about seven or eight years to get a film off the ground and he told me to keep it genre and keep it very contained. A prison escape movie ticked both boxes. And Brian came on board from day one once I’d written the script with my co-writer Daniel Hardy, and he stuck with it through thick and thin.

That’s how Brian Cox got involved in the project, but how did you get the rest of the cast together?
(Laughs) Stalking them! Brian was really the temple of the whole film from the beginning. The kudos he brought to the project, and the very fact that he was always our leading man, gave people belief in me as well. I think, and this is from the experience of having written scripts that weren’t so good, when Daniel and I wrote The Escapist we both realised we had something good on our hands, and by that I mean that the reaction to it was always universally pretty much positive. And it’s very much an actor’s piece, it’s a character-driven film, and it’s an ensemble as well, and I think a lot of actors, especially British actors who have a theatre background, love to work in an ensemble. So I think it was appealing for a lot of actors, and not only that, it was appealing to a lot of very good actors, like Liam Cunningham, Damian Lewis, Jo Fiennes, Steven Mackintosh, and Dominic Cooper. It was ultimately a British and Irish ensemble, but we also wanted to make it a bit more universal without having to go to Hollywood or America. I’d seen City of God, and I loved one of the characters in that film called Knockout Ned, played by Seu Jorge. He’s a phenomenal musician but he’s also a brilliant actor, very natural. And he was someone we spent a long time tracking down and trying to get the script to. Ultimately, he got it translated and we met in California about a year before production. It was very important for us to try and build up an eclectic mix of great character actors, who in many other movies would have been leading men.

And you also had a track specially written for the film by Coldplay.
We had a music supervisor on the film called Lol Hammond, who’s a bit of an alchemist in terms of getting to certain people. He works with Vertigo our distributor, and he got the film to Coldplay and showed it to their management initially and then to the band, and they all loved it, which was great. So they agreed to write a track, which is now called The Escapist, and I think it’s going to be on their new album. They co-wrote it with John Hopkins, and we use it at the end of the film. It’s very ethereal and uplifting after being in the dark for ninety minutes within this prison and during the escape. It’s great to be lifted out of the movie at the end.

There have been some great prison escape movies over the years. Do you have any particular favourites and where do you see The Escapist fitting within those?
Of course there’s the American side of things like Papillon, Escape from Alcatraz, and Cool Hand Luke. But my favourites are A Man Escaped, a 50s French film, and another French film called Le Trou, based on the true story of four men escaping from a French prison, which was a huge influence. What was great about those European films is that they dealt very much with telling a story through a very limited dialogue. It was all about action, for example, a spoon carving up against the back of a wooden door in order to break through, which was played out over two minutes of screen time. I love the idea of that, of making the audience feel like they are in a prison where time has stopped, and everything is gradually played out, rather than a more Die Hard approach. But there are elements of Die Hard in The Escapist and that sort of action side of things, but I think I was trying to create a marriage between the more art-house side of cinema with a more out-and-out action film.

The majority of the film was shot in Kilmainham Jail in Dublin. How did you choose that particular location?
An actor friend of mine, who’d done a TV series called Rebel Heart, told me about this prison. I knew of it already because it had been used for In The Name Of The Father. And in the original Italian Job when Noël Coward’s coming down the stairs, that’s where they shot it. So Adrian Sturges, one of the producers, and I took a trip out to Dublin to see this prison, and that was actually my first time in Ireland. The prison is pretty extraordinary. There’s a very operatic feel to it because it’s built with the idea that if you’re a prison guard you can see at any point any part of the prison at any one time. And that’s exactly what I wanted for the film because I wanted to create a very enclosed world, but a world very much of our making, so you’ve got different levels and different hierarchies. So as soon as we found Kilmainham we realised that was where we wanted to film. And ultimately we shot in Ireland for four-fifths of our schedule.

And you had Alan Moloney of Parallel Films on board as producer.
Yes, Alan played a key role in the making of the film both financially and in terms of the actual production itself. Our production base was out of Ireland and we utilised a lot of Alan’s infrastructure. He has a TV series called The Clinic, and the majority of our crew were from that series so it was a really good experience because it was a very gelled crew who worked very quickly because they were used to working with each other and who understood the time constraints of our very tight schedule. We also filmed in a disused cigarette factory that Alan uses for his TV series and we used it to build a lot of our sets, like the prison cells that we couldn’t actually shoot in Kilmainham.

What’s next for you now?
I have a project set in New Mexico. It’s a modern-day Western about two US soldiers who take off into the mountains five days before deployment to Iraq. They go off in search of an injured Native American, and as we go up the trail, which is the name of the film, we flash back and we begin to realise that one of the soldiers may have had a hand in why this man is injured and may be going out not to help him, but to finish the job. And that’s something that I’ve been working on again with Daniel Hardy, my co-writer, and we’re casting at the moment.

The Escapist is released on the 20th of June.

Film Ireland, July / Aug 2008

** All text and images are subject to copyright and may only be used with express permission.