Sugarhouse | Feed

Adam Deacon MySpace

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Gary reflects on the movie

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Andy on Sugarhouse

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Andy on the audience

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Andy on Hoodwink

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Steven on Sugarhouse

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Steven on Hoodwink

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

The boys meet Hoods

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Ashley on D

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Ashley on Sugarhouse

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Gary on Ashley

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Steven on Tom

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Gary on Steven

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Gary on Hoodwink

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Gary on Sugarhouse

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Rooftop Chase

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Losing it

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Tom reacts to London’s smoking ban

Arrival at Chez D

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Stills

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Hood's bathroom

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Tom & D in the warehouse

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Stills

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Teddy Nygh MySpace

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Win signed copies of Sugarhouse on DVD

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

'Big Brother' competition

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Tolga Safer fan sites

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

TolgaSafer.net
Tolga-Safer.com
Tolga-Safer Appreciation Society

Be an extra!

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

If you’d like to be invited as an extra in one of Slingshot’s next films join our Sugarhouse group on Facebook

Looking for D

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Don't cross Hoods

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Hoodwink's meditation

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Bombing The Set

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

From pristine to derelict in 48 short hours -
the CGO crew lent a hand to create the Sugarhouse.

Crew

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Directed by
GARY LOVE

BIOG:
An established TV director whose most recent credits include Waking the Dead and Murder Investigation Team. He is also an actor whose film acting credits include Stephen Woolley’s Stoned, The Russian Dolls directed by Cedric Klapisch and The Krays. He is best known for his part as ‘Tony’ in series 5 of Soldier Soldier.

Written by
DOMINIC LEYTON

BIOG:
Sugarhouse is based on Dominic’s debut stage play Collision which opened to critical acclaim with The Daily Telegraph gushing: “The ambition is genuinely astonishing. It is not to be missed.”

Director of Photography
DAN BRONKS

Editor
PETER DAVIES

Production Designer
CAROLINE STORY

Costume Designer
GUY SPERANZA

Make Up Designer
MARY ANNE WAITE

Casting Director
CARRIE HILTON

Producers

OLIVER MILBURN

BIOG:
Wolf Committee was founded in 2005 by actor Oliver Milburn (The Descent, The Forsythe Saga, Green Wing) and Assistant Director Ben Dixon (Casino Royale, The Da Vinci Code, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory). Sugarhouse is the first of several projects currently in development.

MICHAEL RILEY

BIOG:
Michael’s production filmography over the last decade includes the feature films Respect, Loop, Boston Kickout, Hard Men, Lava, Out of Depth, The Man Who Would Be Queen and recently Outlanders and Vampire Diary. He has also produced the award winning epic family saga serial In A Land Of Plenty for the BBC.

ARVIND ETHAN DAVID

BIOG:
Arvind Ethan David is co-founder, producer and CEO at slingshot where he leads both business and creative strategy. He has just completed production on slingshot’s second film FRENCH FILM.

Immediately prior to slingshot, Arvind served as Commercial Advisor to Headline Pictures, the production company set up by Mark Shivas, Stewart Mackinnon and Kevin Hood. From 2003 to 2004, Arvind was Managing Director of Ruby Films, working with Oscar-nominated producer Alison Owen; during his tenure at Ruby, the company produced or co-produced three feature films, SYLVIA, PROOF and Dominic Savage’s LOVE & HATE, and went on to win a UKFC “super-slate” award.

Arvind holds an MA in Jurisprudence from Oxford University and an MBA from London Business School, grew up between Kuala Lumpur and London, speaks Malay (badly) and Spanish (even more badly) and likes to blog. (http://www.slingshot-studios.com/blog)

MATTHEW JUSTICE

BIOG:
Launched by Matthew Justice in May 2004, Lunar’s first project was as co-producer of Cedric Klapisch’s The Russian Dolls (Audrey Tautou). Its other credits include multiple Palm D’Or nominee Raoul Ruiz’s Klimt (John Malkovich, Saffron Burrows), Stephen Bradley’s Boy Eats Girl, and most recently David Mackenzie’s Hallam Foe. Prior to Lunar, Matthew was Stephen Norrington’s producing partner for seven years, producing the Wesley Snipes action movie Blade which has gone on to gross over $200m.

BEN DIXON

BIOG:
Wolf Committee was founded in 2005 by actor Oliver Milburn (The Descent, Loaded, Green Wing) and Assistant Director Ben Dixon (Casino Royale, The Da Vinci Code, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory). Sugarhouse is the first of several projects currently in development.

RACHEL CONNORS

BIOG:
Rachel is co-founder and producer at Slingshot where she leads development and project selection. Prior to joining, Rachel was working at the independent film production company, Scorpio Films, in London, as a development producer to Stephen Evans, (whose 14 feature films have received 11 Academy Award nominations and 2 wins). Scorpio’s first film, Dear Frankie screened in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival 2004 and was acquired by Miramax. Before she joined Scorpio, Rachel was an assistant agent to Michael Foster at Artists Rights Group (ARG), a leading boutique talent and literary agency.

Production Manager
STEPHANIE CHARMAIL

Production Coordinator
TAMSIN CURNO

First AD
ADAM COOP

Second AD
LISA RADIN
HEIDI GOWER

Third AD
OLIVER JEFFERIES

Script Advisor
KERENSA BURTON

Locations Manager
PAUL MANWARING

Art Director
STUART MACKAY

Camera Grip
MARK MORELY
ALEX HUDSON
DENNIS DILLON

Sound Recordist
GARTH MARSHALL

Boom Operator
ANDREW ROWE

Stunt Coordinator
GARY POWELL

Music Supervisor
JASON LAMONT

Stills Photographer
Toby Merritt

Ashley Walters MySpace

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Steven Mackintosh fan site

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Andy Serkis official site

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Welcome to D's Crib #4

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Welcome to D's Crib #5

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Welcome to D's Crib #2

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Welcome to D's Crib #3

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Interview with Gary Love

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

What drew you to this script?

Initially I was sent it quite a long time ago and I thought it had a great vibe, it was a great story. Because I knew the budgetary constraints I liked the fact that it was self-contained, which meant that it was relatively achievable.

I liked the idea of something happening to somebody in that one minute where if they’d walked left or if they’d walked right, this thing could have happened to them. Also this film is about London and about a place in London that one guy happens to go to on this one day. I also loved the fact that this film was based on just 90 minutes of real time.

This is your debut feature, had you been looking at scripts for quite a while?

Yeah I’d been looking for a good script for a long time and I’d been attached to varying other types of scripts. Some of them were very close to shooting and others were never going to go anywhere, but you never really know when you first start working on something. Of course, the ones that looked like they were going to go somewhere were the ones you least wanted to do. So this was a little bit different when it came along.

How did you develop the script?

We worked with a fantastic script editor who works with Ken Loach on all his films, a chap called Roger Smith, and we worked, Arvind, the executive producer, put us together in a lab, where we all sat down for a week, went through the script, pulled it apart, then pieced it back together, and on and on.

So how did you and slingshot first come meet?

I acted in a French film with Matt Justice called Russian Dolls, directed by Cedric Klapisch in Paris and in London. We got on really well and he knew my directing agent. We talked at the time about stuff that I was interested in, and suddenly this came up. He sent me a copy and asked me what my thoughts were. I said I think it needed to go this way, that way, and the other way and months later it came back.

How closely did you work with Dominic Leyton on the development of the play to a feature film?

Dom and I worked together for a bit but then we starting working with Roger Smith in the lab. As an actor, obviously you come to directing from a different point of view and this film is very much performance driven.
It’s a tricky one because it is performance driven – originally it was a stage play – but obviously part of my job has been to stop it being a stage play. This means we’ve cut those five page scenes where actors can really get their teeth in and fly. Now the characters go out, we go here, we go there, we go to cafe’s or whatever, and it’s to make sure that those ones sit as the heart of the piece as easily as the stuff that has been there since day one and that’s taken some time.

The other thing for me is about working with the actors. I started directing because I was working on loads of TV where actors were sent to a corner and told to learn their lines and then come on and just do it. I thought that was crap. When I was working with actors I realised how much more they can give and how much more they love to give when given the option. So that’s why I started doing it, it made sense. I feel it’s part of my job to give them as much as possible a forum around them which makes them feel confident and loved. This is even when you’re absurdly under budget, which basically means you don’t have enough time to shoot the film you want to make. That’s a problem with the budget, and we all know that, so the point of it is, not to turn it into another form of TV which is rushed.
That’s the director’s fight with the money. Not with the exec’s, because you know the parameters of the job before you take it on board.

Synopsis

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Tom (Steven Mackintosh) is a middle-class city boy whose life has reached breaking point. D (Ashley Walters) is a young crack-head: smart, witty, desperate. Tom is completely out of his depth when he finds himself in D’s abandoned warehouse attempting to do a “deal” with the energetic, volatile drug addict. The two enter into an irrational, deadly game of cat and mouse. The tense drama escalates when psychotic local crime-lord Hoodwink (Andy Serkis) wakes up to find his snub nose gun missing.

Featuring three outstanding performances, this urban thriller is director Gary Love’s feature debut, based on screenwriter Dominic Leyton’s critically-acclaimed stage play Collision.

Interview with Ashley Walters

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

How has your relationship formed with first time director, Gary Love?

He’s the first director I’ve worked with who’s had an acting background, so he’s very much an actors’ director. That means he cares a lot about the actors, more than the position of the sun or whether planes are flying overhead. Our focus is most important to him, because he understands how it is to be in that space and to be interrupted and then to have to find it again. So we’re very lucky really, he spends a lot of time with us, working on the scenes and the dialogue. The relationship’s been good, I mean obviously I don’t want to look like a fool when the film’s cut together and obviously Gary doesn’t want me to either, we’ve got that trust there. So when I go over the top, he’ll tell me to bring it down, and when its not enough, he’ll tell me to bring it up. I think its worked really well.

And when you say ‘us’ you’re talking about Steve Mackintosh, how was working with Steven?

Mac is just a lovely guy man. I remember him from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and funnily enough we’ve got the same agent so its good to be working with him. The stuff I’ve seen him in is totally different from the character he plays here. He’s obviously a very good actor. I’m learning every day so I know that I’m with people who can teach me a lot and Steve’s very positive in that sense. He’s a very quiet guy, not shy, but quiet and he fits the part really well, he does the part really well.

And what are your thoughts on working with Andy Serkis?

To be fair, I haven’t really seen much of his work other than Lord of the Rings and King Kong and stuff like that, but I know he’s huge, he’s the man! He’s a brilliant actor, my mum and a lot of people have seen what he’s done and I know he’s good at playing a Hoodwink sort of role. It’ll be interesting to see how he tackles it and what he brings to the table.

What is it like working with slingshot?

It’s just a beautiful thing. We’re making a very low budget film, with a group of guys who are all passionate about the project, and its not about money and sales, its about making a good piece of art. To be honest, I prefer to be on sets where there is that intimacy, where everyone cares about it was much as I do. A lot of people are here for free, you know, a lot of people are literally working their butts off for nothing, for experience and for the love of the script or what they do. There doesn’t seem to be that much hierarchy and everyone is just working together and mucking in. The other day we had to move the ‘video village’ as they call it to another place for the shoot and you see all the actors, me, the director, moving stuff around. Everyone’s just putting their best in and that means a lot to me.

Who would you like to see Sugarhouse?

I think everyone can get something from this movie, so there’s no particular group of people that I would say come and see this movie to although I would encourage the youth and kids to come along and watch the movie, if not for anything else, just to take away from it the thing that everyone’s life is different and has bad times, but there’s always someone worse off than you. You can always put things into perspective, move forward, and make a negative into a positive. But I hope everyone comes to see this movie because it is about a side of life that people don’t really know a lot about.

Background

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Writer Dominic Leyton first got the idea for his play Collison in 2001. “I knew the idea had legs as it wasn’t just a passing thought. It hit me as a physical sensation”. The script was written in ten days and five years later, in a warehouse in Bow, the play became the feature film: Sugarhouse due for release on August 24.

Producer Oliver Milburn and Dominic first met at school in 1986. In creative writing courses, Oliver remembers that Dom’s stories were always “…miles better than anything any of the rest of us wrote; they were always arresting, whilst often only relating the mundane and the ordinary.” In 2002, Oliver was involved in the early drafts of Collision, which in 2003 debuted in London at The Old Red Lion, winning critical acclaim, “Genuinely astonishing, not to be missed” (The Daily Telegraph).

The first development meeting was held at a pub in Kings Cross, followed by a further 3 years grappling with the transition from theatre to film, trying to find the balance between the wordiness of a theatre script and the requirements of film script. In early 2005 Oliver and Ben Dixon, an assistant director (Casino Royale, Da Vinci Code) started production company, Wolf Committee, which optioned Collision. Established producer Matthew Justice (Lunar Films) was brought on board. In early 2005 Matthew introduced Wolf Committee to director Gary Love and Arvind Ethan David, CEO and founder of slingshot, a newly launched all-digital film production and distribution company.

Slingshot’s mission is to offer filmmakers a freedom unheard of in conventional British filmmaking. By employing an innovative profit share model to secure top tier creative, technical and co-production talent, slingshot was able to slice through the culture of complicated financing deals that can add years to development.

Announcing the decision to back Sugarhouse, Arvind Ethan David, commented: “The energy and pace of this project make it a perfect fit with slingshot’s own ethos. In less than six months we went from our first meeting with the writer to the first day of principal photography – this is not something that happens very often in the British film industry. For Sugarhouse to have managed it – and with a cast and crew as excellent and exciting as this – categorically proves that what matters is the strength of your belief, the integrity of your approach and the quality of the material; not the size of your budget. The talent and commitment of our collaborators on this project affirms our faith in the slingshot model, and fills us all with fire to make a really great film”.

One of the first things slingshot did to drive the project towards green light was to include it in a week long residential development lab, in conjunction with The Performing Arts Labs (PAL). That week brought together the producers, writer and director of Sugarhouse with expert script consultant Roger Smith (Land and Freedom (1995), My Name is Joe (1998) and Royal Court Artistic Director Ian Rickson.

Sugarhouse is the first feature for actor & television director Gary Love, who says he wanted to make the film on his first reading of the script “It has all the things I love in a film; pace, emotion, fun, pain and then ultimate enlightenment. I’m intrigued by the world the characters inhabit and the odd couple relationship that develops. I was interested in their plight and felt urged to tell a story that I don’t think has been told in a London film for some time.

Director Gary Love commented; “Dominic draws the characters from a mix of his own experiences & people that he knows…crackhead D, uneducated but very bright; TOM, well educated, articulate, but driven by fury, and HOODWINK, terrifying and manipulative.”

As an actor himself, Oliver found it fascinating to be on the other side of the room during auditions. “Seeing the guys come in and nail their parts was incredibly exciting…we knew then that we had a real opportunity to create a truly original, powerful piece of cinema.”

Cast

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

STEVEN MACKINTOSH – Tom
ASHLEY WALTERS – Ashley
ANDY SERKIS – Hoodwink
TOLGA SAFER – Sef
TEDDY NYGH – Gary
ADAM DEACON – Ray
TRACEY WHITWELL – Tania
ADE – Paul
DANIELLE THOMPSON – Michela
STEFANO GRESSIEUX – Café Owner
STEVEN ROBERTSON – Chris
SHARON D. CLARKE – Crystal

Tom
STEVEN MACKINTOSH

Steven made his film debut in Stephen Frears’s seminal Prick Up Your Ears (1987). Since then he has had an impressive array of roles in films and TV dramas, including Winston in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Andreas Tanis in Underworld (2004) & its sequel Evolution (2006) and Dr. Hopkins in The Jacket (2005). Steven has also worked with directors such as Peter Greenaway, Roger Michell and Len Wiseman.

D
ASHLEY WALTERS

Ashley shot to fame as rapper ‘Asher D’, part of UK Garage group So Solid Crew. After the group split up, he went on to focus on acting, starring in several TV dramas (The Bill, Storm Damage, Holby City), docudramas (notably the 1999 reconstruction of The Murder of Stephen Lawrence) and short films before landing the lead role in Saul Dibb’s Bullet Boy (2004). The gritty tale about gun culture in London was a critical smash hit and Ashley was awarded the Most Promising Newcomer Award at the 2004 British Independent Film Awards.

He has gone on to star in Goal! (2005) and Jim Sheridan’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2005), based on the life of rapper 50 cent. He also starred in the $60m action film Stormbreaker (2006).

Ashley has also appeared in lead roles for Life N Lyrics (2006), Waz (2006) and recently featured in BBC1’s critically acclaimed drama series, Hustle.

Hoodwink
ANDY SERKIS

Andy began his prolific acting career in the British theatre; he has appeared on almost every established stage including the Royal Court and Donmar Warehouse with roles as diverse as King Lear, Othello and Faust. Since then he is perhaps most renowned for his role as Gollum in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings (2003) trilogy. Working closely with the digital special effects technicians, Serkis performed in a motion-capture suit, often shooting one scene up to three hundred times.

Andy has worked extensively across the UK and US with directors as diverse as Michael Winterbottom and Mike Leigh, Gary Winick and Gillies MacKinnon. For Jackson’s 2005 version of King Kong, he provided the movements for the ape, as well as playing Lumpy the Cook. Recent films include Stormbreaker (2006) and Rendition (2006)

Sef – One of three local youths, a good guy in with the wrong crowd
TOLGA SAFER

Tolga Safer began working as a professional actor after studying at the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School and Mountview Theatre School. After a brief stint in the theatre, which included Kelkhal in the critically acclaimed stage production of Bintou at the Arcola Theatre, he moved into TV drama and commercials. His big break came in 2003 when director Mike Newell created a part for him as Professor Karkaroff’s aide in Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire (2005). Tolga’s most recent roles include Taylan Ergen in the National Theatre’s production of ‘Invisible Mountains’ by Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Gary – One of three local youths, a factory worker
TEDDY NYGH

Teddy Nygh was raised in London into a family of actors. He has gone on to act in a number of film, theatre and TV projects including feature film Shooters starring Adrian Dunbar and directed by Colin Tegie, a 20 minute thriller Mr Video directed by renowned Canadian director, producer, writer Alex Masterten. Teddy studied the Meisener Technique at The Actors Pulse in Sydney Australia from where he graduated after 4 years. Since returning to London in January 06 he has worked non stop devising and directing plays at the Tricycle and Hampstead Theatres and working hard to reach young people on the streets and estates of Hackney, Harringway and Brent, and acting in various film and theatre productions. Teddy is also a rapper, under the name Supa Ted, and has won rap battles in Sydney and London. He has also written, directed, produced, shot and edited a rapumentary, Clash A Da Tights 1’s.

Ray – One of three local youths, jailbait
ADAM DEACON

Adam Deacon manages a prolific career that crosses theatre, TV and feature films. He appeared in a variety of British drama series including The Bill, Spooks and Channel 4’s acclaimed Sugar Rush. He has also starred in Ali G Indahouse (2002) and most recently in Michael J Basset’s Wilderness (2006). He is best known for his role as Jay, one of the three leads, in Menhaj Huda’s hard hitting teen drama Kidulthood (2006).

Tania – Hoodwink’s heavily pregnant girlfriend
TRACEY WHITWELL

Tracy Whitwell has appeared in numerous television productions including Love in the 21st Century, The Bill, Men Behaving Badly and Casualty. She has been a long-standing member of the Rose Bruford Theatre, starring in productions such as Accrington Pals, Richard III and Lady Windermere’s Fan.

Paul – Wheeler-dealer friend of Hoodwink’s
ADE

Ade’s first acting break came when he was handpicked by Guy Ritchie to star as Tyrone, the getaway driver in Snatch (2000). Since then he has been working across TV and features; most recently appearing as Infante in the latest Bond instalment Casino Royale (2006).

Michela – Young girl looking out for herself on the estate
DANIELLE THOMPSON

Danielle Thompson has appeared in both print and TV commercials – Sugarhouse is her first feature film.

Café Owner
STEFANO GRESSIEUX

Stefano Gressieux has appeared in several feature films as well as British TV dramas such as Poirot, The Darling Buds of May and Blackadder.

Chris – Local smackhead
STEVEN ROBERTSON

Steven Robertson is a Scottish theatre and film actor; he has appeared on stage at the Manchester Royal Exchange and RSC Academy and has starred in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and Working Title’s Inside I’m Dancing (2004).

Crystal – Powerful crack dealer
SHARON D. CLARKE

Sharon D Clarke has worked in theatre, television, film & radio. She received an Olivier Award nomination won for her role as Killer Queen in We Will Rock You at The Dominion, and has also appeared in Chicago at the Adelphi and Lion King at the Lyceum. Her most popular TV role has been as Lola Griffin in the BBC’s Holby City; she has also appeared in Waking The Dead, Soldier Soldier and The Singing Detective to name a few. Her film credits include Imogen Kimmel’s Secret Society (2000) and Michael Winner’s Dinner Date. She has achieved worldwide chart success as Nomad whose hits include (I Wanna Give You) … Devotion, Just a Groove and Your Love is Lifting Me.

Interview with Steven Mackintosh

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Your character plays in a number of very intense scenes, how have you found playing the role physically?

The last few days of the shoot were challenging. I spent a day smashing up the bathroom and I spent the next day soaked in blood, crying and breaking down. But it feels that the stuff we’ve done is good. It’s been quite intense, there has been a lot to do in a day, they’ve been long scenes. But for both Ashley and I, they’re great parts, there is a lot to get your teeth stuck into. Andy Serkis’ character ‘Hoodwink’ is interesting in terms of the energy of everything, his is such a psychotic character.

How have you found developing your character’s relationship with Ashley’s character?

I think the scenes between me and Ashley have been working really well, I mean we look totalling different, we are chalk and cheese, and I think that’s been really important. Our energies are completely different in character and it feels like it’s working really well.

What has been the highlight of working on this film in this role?

Smashing up the sinks, the bathroom, the loo, it was quite a odd day but strangely cathartic. People ask me about these kind of things before and I think its because in real life if you behaved like that you’d probably get locked away or something, but you get the chance in these work situations to kind of let rip and smash up some porcelain and people go that was fantastic, do that again! So it felt great, and the bathroom it looked completely wrecked, and I was swimming in water and in blood, and Gary was going, more blood, more blood, more water, more water, and it was insane. It was one of those moments, where I was lying there in a pool of water and blood, going, am I really doing this?! This is my job then, is it?! So that was a particular moment, and apart from that it has all been a good wheeze!

Interview with Andy Serkis

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000

What drew you towards playing this kind of monster, the character, Hoodwink?

Well I’ve got a little bit of a history playing monsters but this one particularly, Hoodwink, he is a great character. Although he is ultra violent and has a short temper, what appealed to me about him is that he is very much a human being. Although he is a trained fighter and can go off at any time, you do get to see a domestic side to him with his wife, Tanya. At the beginning of the story everything is going well, he runs the estate, its his manor, but he’s also just about to have a baby. So his life could go one of two ways at the moment. His wife is trying to bring out the ‘ying’ in him, taking him away from the alpha male that he is and trying to calm him down.

There are devices in the film that humanise Hoodwink, the Buddhism, having a pregnant girlfriend, how does this affect how you play the character?

The thing that Dominic has done brilliantly with these characters is the fact that your moral judgement of them switches from one second to another. You don’t really know who your allegiances are with, where you lie morally, I think that is the power of the piece, the most important thing about it. I think it would be very unbalanced if the villain didn’t have a window of humanity because then it would be too clear cut – very black and white – that’s not interesting drama. So right at the beginning of the story you actually see him at his most tender. Then when he’s put under pressure, when the turning point of the drama happens, he is incredibly driven. He’s just like a fury for the rest of the film, but you’ve been allowed to see that tiny little window into his domestic side first.

How did you come to the project?

My agent was sent the script and I read and loved it, but I was in down mode for the first time in a long time with my family so we had to work it around some dates I’d already booked for the holiday. I drove back from Italy, sixteen hours drive, and started a seven or eight hour tattoo session and costume fitting. Filming the following morning started at 6am!
It took me a bit by surprise, the first couple of days I was really tired because the whole thing takes an immense amount of energy. Hoodwink, he’s a pressure cooker, so from the first take you’re on adrenalin. Its pretty full on stuff, you can’t really fake it, you can’t pull back on it, you can’t really half do it, you have to really go for it every single time.

You knew Gary Love before this film came along?

Yes, we’ve known each other for a long time and I’ve respected Gary’s work as an actor for a long time. He’s got a reputation as being a good actors’ director and it made perfect sense when I got this script. It was a play first, transferred onto screen so it made great sense that it was going to be directed by an actor director as it is very much a character piece. And I’ve just been blown away by him. He’s a lovely man and he creates an amazing work environment. He’s so creative about everything, his choices, he is incredibly accomplished in the way he uses the camera, in all the aspects of the filmmaking. I’ve really, really been impressed by him and he’s just great to hang around with.

How did you find working in this kind of filmmaking environment with Gary’s direction?

Often on film sets you, as an actor, fulfil a function in the whole filmmaking process, but actors are not given the space on set to get into the head space of the character and play the scene properly. That is often neglected and Gary takes that very seriously. We would always just before a take, take a moment of concentration to create that magic moment for the actor to step into the creative atmosphere and that is something that a lot of directors don’t think about, because they are focused on the shot, the look. The DOP’s are concentrating on the lighting and the way it looks, and so on, so very often the actors aren’t included in the creative process so much, they are thrown in at the last minute as if they are not part of the creation, which I think is somehow ridiculous.

Welcome to D's Crib #1

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 00:00:00 -0000