First.
Congrats on the movie.
Weird, surreal,
you know, all at the same time.
And one thing that that note is an observation I made.
And one of the dinner scenes that is a hell of a lot.
of peas. Yeah.
Very very strange.
I think that should be some sort of Oscar category of some sort.
Most vegetables in one scene, something like that.
I think so, too.
I think so.
I mean, you know, the peas, I quite like it.
There's peas usually quite like they're good gateway food to kids.
When you have kids, they will not eat anything.
You know, you kind of go fish fingers and they look at you like,
no, that was a gateway food, like when you were a child.
Now it's peas.
It's like broccoli, carrots,
the peas, the green and
and they're easy and they don't touch anything.
Apart from peas, I don't know.
They're usually quite palatable.
And I just want to start by asking what we your intial
thoughts on the screenplay
and what was it about this character that was so interesting to you?
When I first read A Banquet,
I just had just seen a short film of Ruth Paxton's.
It was called Be Still My Beating Heart.
And I just wanted to work with her so much.
And the short film,
it was like being inside your own dream.
You know, it made so much sense
in a way that was completely visceral and made sense of like, this is why
you use film to tell a story rather than any other medium.
And Ruth gets that, but also she has what I like about A Banquet.
Is it it's really ambitious in terms of how it tries to sell, tries to that.
It does acknowledge a lot of pressures of being a woman
and a mother and a daughter and the fact that none of us have a clue
what we're really supposed to be doing, but we're given these responsibilities
and we don't know what we're supposed to believe in, but
we're told it's good to believe in something
and that it's okay to be a bad mother because
it's exciting being well to play a bad mother is a wonderful thing
because, you know, is it's an unforgivable flaw, essentially.
And there's nothing redeeming about being a bad parent.
And but at times, we all are.
You know,
your character goes from one trauma
to another as a quite daunting when you're looking at the prospect
of trying to take on that character, you understand that character.
Not, that the trauma's easy....
I'm always
quite amused by directors when I work with them
and they're like, Oh, my God, wow, that's easy.
That's a ten.
You know, if you're doing something that's really, really
traumatic, it's a ten. You
Just hit every single thing again, then keep going and then keep going
a bit more and then keep going until someone else cuts.
But it's the more subtle things that are much more interesting and
much more important
so that the traumatic stuff doesn't
mean it's it's quite tiring, but it's cathartic as well.
I'm not scared of it.
And of
course, you mentioned, you know, working with Ruth.
How was that?
this was her feature debut.
You know what? They view us
there's there are very few directors that I've worked with.
Maybe that will certainly from my experience,
there are very few directors that really really, genuinely try
to make the best film they can at every given second.
And that we will put
series ahead of other directors in in my book.
I mean, she looks at every angle of what we could be saying
and how we're saying it.
And she doesn't kind of it's not that great big, long discussions.
It's just a shorthand of,
oh, yeah, I get that.
And I saw that and I want
I want to explore if we can if we can explore this idea as well.
Does that does that work? It's like, well, let's try it, you know?
She's always
looking for the most interesting way of telling a story.
And she works very fluidly with with that sort of amazing
intellect and understanding of what story and syntax is.
She was she's also just very instinctive and she kind of just feels so hands off.
She makes you feel like you're improvising, you know, improvising.
She makes the best of what's there.
You know,
she finds qualities in people like the way she worked with Jess Alexander.
She just was like, this girl is stoic and so beautiful,
but she has this wonderful
you know, Betsey's so sure of herself.
And Holly, my character is just kind of really quite flimsy,
you know, in comparison and in looking at the different ways
those arguments work, you know, in using the camera so well.
And it also, you know, talking about, you know, Jessica you know, she's great.
And that's how much of your own experience, you know, as a parent,
you know, helped you. You form that dynamic
and that relationship that you guys have got on screen.
I think it can't
help but inform, you know,
but also,
I have such
have such love for actors especially.
You know, you can't help
but kind of see yourself a bit and you just want to look after people,
you know, and
I, you know, I generally I it's such a privilege
to work with young actors because they're there and, you know, it's
you're there to help them.
And go on the journey with them.
And yeah, I mean, I can't help but bring my own experience of being a parent to it.
It probably makes me harder
because at times, you know, you think these are
this is an older child than my children.
I can probably read her the riot act a little bit,
you know, in a way that I know that she gets me.
I know that she knows I love her.
So I'm going to really tell her because, you know,
in a way that I might be a little more gentle with my own children. But
that's the movie
and that's that was only, you know, something like four weeks.
I read
You know, that kind of a time constraint
will obviously be your used to in your profession.
But that that, you know, can I help with the intensity
of can I each day is,
you know, you know, not going to get a lot chances to do some scenes that well.
That's what I really love about
about independent film and about, you know,
it's kind of a kind of love exams as well.
I sort of I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie.
I think I like terrifying what I like scaring my own socks off myself.
And it's that thing of you have to tell the story in a way
that really takes a huge amount of headspace and care and caution and
preparation you got to get
really fast and probably like get more than one take.
So can you do it?
You're kind of like you want to kind of go, no, I want to do it
on a big set where we get lots of guys and there's loads and loads of camera
and they take away all the shit bits and they just keep the best bits.
But no, it's great too.
It's great to be given that challenge and just to be like
I've got to do it, got to get it right.
You know, for the most part it's, you know, all shot and you know,
in that house, you know, quite an enclosed space,
you know, you feel like of tension bouncing off the walls.
Was it like that, you know, during filming on set for you guys?
No, I think that's just the brilliance of Ruth.
She creates such texture,
you know, she makes she brings this of thickness.
You can smell and taste everything.
I mean, thickness in terms of texture of being in the room, but
just seeing and dancing and being stupid
and rolling around with our masks on you know,
Yeah.
And one final question before you go, I understand
you've been working on The Meg 2
You know, what can we expect you know, can you guarantee
a plethora of shark madness?
And of course, you're working again with Ben Wheatley I mean,
if Ben Wheatley was doing a film about
prehistoric bacterial infection.
Yes. Yes, I will work with you
I don't care what it is or doing.
I just he's brilliant. He's so brilliant.
I'm so excited that he's doing this.
The script is incredible.
I don't know if I'm allowed
to say anything, so I'm going to stop there.
Is there a point where maybe Jason Statham says, you know, it's a Megalodon.
Is that in any point or they a spoiler?
Maybe
I dunno.
But Jason Statham, I mean, brilliant is that he's
just he's a real you know, he's an Olympic athlete, isn't he's?
Like is a diver. Yeah, a diver.
I think it's great.
I like I like that I like with Jason that you see
Jason, that you feel his warmth, that you feel you know,
there's a sense of a person that rather than a kind of a performance
and a facade, you know, he's he's solid in lots of ways.
And I think that's lovely.
But I'm really really excited to see
what an enormous brain and passion that, you know, it's been.
We bring out of something that we're not, you know, I think it'll be something
quite unexpected, but definitely very, very exciting.
Well, see, that's all the time I have.
Thanks so much and good luck to the movie's release.
Thank you so much for watching it and being a fan.
I'm really, really grateful. No worries.
Take care. You too.