First of all, Jonathan, I've got to say, I've loved you
since Velvet Goldmine, so I'm a big fan.
Oh, that was a long time ago when I was a young
child, was a pretty boy with Todd Haynes,
was just about to make a film about Peggy
Lee and that he's making a film about Sigmund Freud.
OK, so one of my all time favorite film gneres is the gangster film.
And I do love a good gangster flick.
And Alessio you mix that with the world of art as well
with this film. Is this story one that you've always wanted to tell?
Yes, absolutely.
I took it took a lot of time and effort, and I love my work on characters.
I started from the characters of the classical Mars,
which are the anti-hero, which is John Kaplan, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyer.
And he is an anti-hero because he does the right thing
for the wrong reason or the wrong thing for the right reason.
Then there's the antagonist, Michael Rubino,
the good wife, Paz Vega, the femme fatale Annabelle Belmondo
and the innocent played by Jeremy Piven and the characters Vincent.
Then I added a twist on the classic character
of Nora by adding by adding an element of chaos,
which is the character of Shaky, who brings another piece to New York.
And chaos ensues.
I also wanted to ask,
well, if all the paintings in the world, why did you decide to pick Andy Warhol?
Because I see the whole movie on a certain level
was the reflection on icons and on pop culture.
So obviously Marilyn Monroe wasn't really an icon then, and Andy
Warhol took her photo and made it become another
icon of pop art and pop culture.
And so I was really reflecting on
what is what are the icons of pop culture
on so many aspects, for example, even with the composer,
our composer Marco Beltrami took the memory up
his very famous possible pieces and transformed them into something else.
Now, John Kaplan on the lead, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
He does the same thing. He takes the matter of thing.
I don't want to spoil the movie, but he takes the Marilyn
and transforms it into something else.
So it was an operation about icons, pop culture and transformation.
OK. And also, you know what?
You always get these kind of films where it's all art and crime
seem to fit perfectly hand-in-hand with each other.
Why do you think that that that works for both of you?
Well, to be a good to be a criminal, you have to be an artist,
and being a good criminal is a fucking art, you know? Yeah.
So it is one thing.
You're just an artist on the outside of the law.
You're an outlaw.
So but it does it takes a great amount of artistry to be a successful criminal.
You have to be a genius.
OK, and Jonathan, also,
you've had many different types of roles, you've had a few thrillers as well.
What was it about this this story that got you excited?
Well, I like the character of John Kaplan
because he's somebody who's constantly under an enormous amount of pressure.
He seems to be fighting a thousand invisible swords at all times.
He is he's desperately in love.
With Paz Vega's character,
but he doesn't know how to be a good guy.
He comes from the criminal world.
John Kaplan is a forger.
An exceptional soldier.
And so so when so
when the Lord Morgan enters my commands and enters, they have a past.
And so you get to see flashbacks of Lord
Morgan beating the fucking shit out of John Kaplan.
And so John has been in he's been in this
sort of like murky little world of art.
And if you've ever been around the New York art scene,
it is it's it's it's well, it's the mafia in itself.
The who decides who decides who's going to be the artist?
Who decides what's good art?
You know, I've seen you know, I mean, you know, is it is it
Jeff Koons or something?
Who does all those sort of, you know, blowing up balloons sort of things?
I can't remember the name completely, but I fucking can't stand them.
I'm like, what's the fucking crack here?
I don't get this at all.
I mean, I can get William Turner.
I can get Picasso, I can get Vásquez, I can get sort of
I can even get Mark Rothko on a certain level. And.
But there's some are
some aren't that's going on today that I just don't fucking understand.
You know, I just can't understand that.
But then that's art.
I'm not meant to understand that it's interpreted taste.
Some person like it's everybody knew. Do you see the thing is, art.
The problem with art is this.
Nobody knows what's good art until they're told.
Because if anybody knew what good art is when they saw it, then all our great,
great grandparents would have been buying, would have been buying, putting
Van Goghs when they were being sold for seven guilders
on the fucking streets of Paris.
Now they're selling for 50, 60 million dollars
because people have to be told what's good and then they bang it up
on their fucking walls so they can impress their friends
or bang a fake buying, or more importantly, they bang a forgery.
The real painting always exists in a safety deposit box somewhere.
It's too dangerous to have a real Van Gogh
So when a rich person buys a real Van Gogh, they get in an exceptional forger
to make an absolute forgery of it, which they hang in their living room.
But the real Van Gogh is hidden somewhere because it's where 50 million dollars.
You don't want somebody throwing it down.
Yeah, well, you don't want some fuckin drunk lunatic at a party.
Let me spilling a Beaujolais over your nice painting.
And you can't put it behind glass, because if you put it behind glass,
it sucks the of oxygen. And so the painting starts to flake.
So you have to have the painting in his actual form.
You have to be able to touch the paint.
So, keep the restoration, to keep painting the colors
in the painting, it's most difficult with Vermeer because Vermeer
was so much about shadow and light, and
to expose it to the sunlight even would immediately start to dampen the colors.
OK, I was actually hoping you were going to mention there's a scene,
an intimate scene with you where you're covered in paint.
I was I was going to say that was the thing that drew you in, but
that seemed to be that must have been really difficult to shoot as well.
Well, at the sexy [scene] with Paz Vega, where we're covered in paint, yes.
No, she's Paz Vega the most beautiful woman in the world.
What's difficult about that?
Fair enough. I was just thinking it might be a little bit slippery.
Yeah, well, sex usually is a little bit slippery if you're doing it right...
And it's the most difficult scene we had to shoot in the entire
film was the scene with Lord Morgan, because what had happened was
we had built this set, but we built it in this incredible location
where they've rebuilt New York at the studio in Bulgaria.
The problem is that it's fucking cold in Bulgaria,
and there was no doors, there was no windows.
We hadn't just gotten these in.
So by the time we got to the set, it was minus three on set.
And so that's so the first scene in the movie was like,
how the fuck are we going to do this ?
So we had all these like heaters on and such, but we have to be in our clothes
and we have to sort of like we had to drink hot tea to avoid
the breath coming out of our mouths because this meant to be in New York
we're meant to be inside an actual art studio.
So that was rather complicated.
The first morning we walked on set, we were all sort of taking
a little bit back about how cold it
is. And it's also for both of you, there's a couple of hairy scenes
in there with an explosion and a raging fire as well.
Obviously, it would have been done under strict safety protocols.
But was that quite scary to film it?
Was there any kind of like did you feel like any kind of danger
or did anything happen that, you know, anybody get injured?
No, it's nobody got injured miraculously
because the fire was the fire and that was the whole fucking place is on fire.
But you're in the character. You have to do things that are in the character.
So sometimes you have to walk through fire.
And, you know, as long as you can walk through it quickly
and it won't get you won't get burned or anything like that.
Now, if I had to wear a long haired
blond wig or something like that, we might have had a few more issues.
But, you know, it was.
But once you're in the character, you're in the character.
Once the cameras are turned on. Danger doesn't even come into it.
I mean, on Vikings, I was smashed into walls by horses.
And, you know, you don't you kind of don't feel it.
You feel it in the evening when you go home
and you try to have a cup of tea and you can barely move your arms.
But in the moment when you're doing is you're in the character,
you're playing the character, you don't you know, it's like, look,
there's a difference between film and theater .
Theater is a I don't do theater.
I've never done theater. But when I've gone to see it,
it seems like an atmosphere of total pretense.
When you're making a film, it has to seem like this is real life.
And you are you are a fly on the wall watching these people do that thing.
So you can't go into it with some sort of danger.
Or if I'm going to get burned out, you can't do a sex scene thinking
about how your fucking abs look or, you know, you just can't do that.
It's just like you're either going to be the character,
you're not going to be the character,
that you're going to be the character. Be it. .
But keep your actor's
fucking ego, you hang down on the door when you come in.
And everything was based on with safety, and there were technicians,
everybody was making sure everything everything was done properly.
I mean, the FX were the practical, the fire was real, but everything was done
with safety measures, safety issues, and everything was now.
OK, and Alessio, you've also you know, you've got Jonathan on the cast
and you've got a few other obviously top names like Jeremy Piven and
Emile Hirsch, who seems to have
channel his inner Tony Montana at one particular point.
Did you experience getting any of these cast together?
I'm sure logistically was complicated because we had people
flying from more than 10 countries to the set.
But it was a blast, it was a blessing, was there some of the most talented actors
on the planet that was so like him, so grateful and was so cool?
And Jonathan Rhys Meyer's performance in the movie is incredible.
The characters has so many
aspects like a diamond, because,
you know, it's not just so what do you work on?
Characters from Noir in the classical
every character is double, every scene as double.
You never know who's doing what.
But we took that to a different extent to which characters
have so many different layers.
I wanted to show the good side of the bad guy.
I want to show the bad side of the guy and show the character of John
Kaplan has so many sides and.
Being the antihero, he does the right thing,
which is opening the gallery, but for the wrong reason.
So. And I was super happy, super, you know, everything was wonderful,
and Jonathan Rhys Myers played the character
so well in portraying all these different aspects of
the diamond as a metaphor.
Well, thank you both for your time tonight,
and good luck with the movie as well.
It's been a pleasure talking to you both.