I really wanted specifically to make THIS film,
and there was even, at some points, discussions as to whether
we would try and do this first,
because I was still working on Submarine. It just ended up that
the script for this took a lot longer and it was more...
I guess more complicated, in a way. The narrative was just...
Took a long time to work out
a suitable form for it that we felt was good.
So, yes, I really wanted to make this,
and certainly after making Submarine,
I really hoped I'd be able to, you know, make another film.
I took my jacket off only because it's so hot.
Not because I mistook the office for a brothel.
How long have you been here, son? Just started, eh?
Seven years ago.
The start of this particular film was that Avi Korine,
who I ended up writing with - it was his idea to adapt the Dostoyevsky
novella, and one of the issues with it is that
it's a very high concept...
..proposition, which is that...
a doppelganger appears, and that's a kind of fantastical, impossible
thing to occur, and it's so strong, you know, where does it go?
How does it unravel? And...
And in general... in mythological terms,
if you see your doppelganger, you die.
You know, there's a certain way it pans out,
and how to do that and how to...
keep it interesting or surprising... felt hard.
Also, partially, you know,
Dostoevsky was dissatisfied with the ending of his book,
so that became like a big block,
you know, how can we possibly end something that he was unable to?
But in a way, what we really did was take the premise of the book,
which is that someone's so lonely and put-upon
and invisible and unremarkable
that an exact replica of them could appear and no-one would notice.
Like, that premise we just thought was brilliant.
Harris, have you spoken to the new employee?
James? Yeah, sure. I met him.
And?
But did you notice anything strange about him?
I mean, did he remind you of anyone?
No-one at the office?
No.
The love story isn't present in the novella,
and in a way, yes, it provided, for us, the solution
of how to end the story about what the thrust of it should be,
because the novella is...
hard to follow, or I certainly find it hard to follow.
It's in the third person, but it feels like it's inside his head,
and it's kind of a spiral into madness,
and, you know, very innovative in its style
and kind of pre-figures Kafka and Jungianism and, you know...
But it's quite heady. It's very difficult to know where you are.
It changes location in a sentence. It's very... Dense.
So, we wanted, I guess, something that was clearer, in a way,
and more centred on a relationship.
Whereas in the novel,
it really is a character very much on their own,
going, you know, cooking in their own head.
Doppelganger story, inevitably,
it's partially about this idea of the divided self, and...
I guess what is taken up in the idea of the shadow,
the Jungian idea of the shadow,
and that what you can't accept about yourself...
..if it's not in any way dealt with, will out in some way that you...
that people are flawed, and...and...
that is something that has to be accepted,
and its...it's maddening to think that you're not, you know.
It's kind of a path to craziness
to think that the world is wrong and you're right.
It's like I'm permanently outside myself.
Like...
Like you could push your hand straight through me
if you wanted to.
And I can see the type of man that I want to be
versus the type of man I actually am,
and I know that I'm doing it,
but I'm incapable of doing what needs to be done.
The actors are the most important thing, I think, in a film,
and until they're there and until they're doing it,
you can't have too set an idea.
I mean, in some ways, storyboards are partially for arts departments
and to know how much set to build and, you know, just a sense of you
having at least thought through the visual language of it
before you are shooting.
But I'd never tell an actor where to stand or where to...
You know, you see what they do and what they're interested in
and then you adapt it round them.
Jesse plays these very different parts without really
altering his appearance a great deal, and because the premise of the film
required that the two characters don't look dissimilar in any way -
in fact, they have to look identical and dress identically -
we needed someone who was able to animate them internally
and make them look different, to the extent that when we were
editing the film, if you had a freeze-frame of Jesse, you could
instantly tell which character he was playing, just from his attitude.
And I really think, of his age,
I can't think of anyone who has his range or his ability.
Do you still have eggs here?
Then do me a favour and make me some scrambled eggs.
Bacon.
Anything else?
With the technical aspects of it, what's so good about Jesse
is that he's able to combine this complete precision of timing...
Because with the motion control and the split screen,
the way it works is that you record one performance,
and then he has to wear an earpiece
into which the selected take is played of that first performance
and then act against that and match eye-lines
and play it in the precisely same rhythm as he did before.
And that's almost against all of the instincts of an actor
to be in the moment and feel that you're responding naturally.
But he's able to...
you know, meet the technical demands while being emotionally engaged,
and that's very rare, I feel.
We'll make a date and you can go as me.
I'll give you a little more coaching.
Don't take this the wrong way, but I think it's unlikely you'll be able
to get into an unethical situation on a first date.
Unethical. That's very sweet.
There's the thing that Kubrick said,
that he didn't feel that a truly original mind could work in cinema,
because it's just a classical medium now, there's a certain grammar to it.
But I guess you're always trying to think
of something to do with the way you're showing it, or the camera,
or where you put the camera precisely, that conveys a feeling.
And particularly in a film that's subjective.
And I really like films that have a kind of subjective point of view,
because I feel that it's very difficult
to see what a character's seeing in other mediums as directly.
You can...
You know, in a novel
you can see how a character would describe something
or you can observe how they talk,
but actually seeing something through someone's eyes,
there's something just very direct about...
You know, Vertigo, there's something just very direct about Scottie's gaze
and what he sees and how instant that is.
And that's something that's, yeah, very appealing to me,
and how...how interesting editing is
and juxtaposing two images and creating something
that can only exist because of the two things that precede it
and how it exists in time,
and all of those things are, you know, fascinating to me.
Sir, I have been through all of this in the report.
I think maybe he needs some help. He's gone a little crazy.
Look at me! Look at me! Look at him! He stole my face!
I feel that any film is a fake world
by the very virtue of how things are seen,
in that you're being presented something via a lens,
which is just not how people look at things,
and when you see people's eyes, they're constantly fidgeting
and making a million adjustments and constructing a kind of reality,
whereas you've suddenly got a fixed point of view
and you're deciding the rhythm of...
So, just the space of it is impossible.
I always find it strange when people decide that something's
either realistic or a surreal film,
because to me, the weirdest thing is that you can show someone's face
in a close-up and then cut to another person's face
instantaneously, which is an im... You can't see that. It's impossible.
But that's normal, but, you know,
if someone's phone is four inches too big, you go,
"That's a pretty weird world,"
so in a way, I think all films, really, are...
non-real spaces, because they're non-real time
and they're non-real things, and... they're primarily just stories.
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