I want to ask you what part of the country you come from.
I originate from Canada. Now guess where that is.
Oh, I know where Canada is. I've been there myself.
Well travelled for a slave.
Well, this film was incredible and incredibly profound as well, partly because it taught
me something I didn't know about slavery. Did this film teach you anything about slavery
you didn't know before?
It taught me a lot about slavery that I didn't know. I'd kind of assumed that I knew rather
a lot about slavery, but what I didn't know was really and strangely it sort of seems
like one of the most important things to know about slavery is how it felt from inside the
experience of being a slave, and I guess that's one of the things about Solomon Northup's
book that makes it very kind of rare. And certainly as a film, I've never seen a film
like that before, which sort of discusses the experience from within the experience
and all of the things that then means, how that kind of opens up. For example, I never
thought or considered... I always thought of slavery as like one sort of amorphous thing,
but actually when you're inside the experience you recognise the sort of massive distinctions
between say cutting timber and picking cotton and cutting sugarcane and how those three
different plantations, and the industrial work on those three different plantations
create completely different psychological and physical atmospheres, and those sort of
details can only really be discovered through someone who is not looking at it objectively
and not looking at it through the outside, but somebody who is really deep within the
experience.
Solomon Northup is an expert player on the violin.
I was born a free man, lived with my family in New York until the day I was deceived,
kidnapped and sold into slavery.
Some of the film is quite violent, obviously, quite horrific. Does your relationship with
the other actors make that a great deal easier to film on set?
I don't know if it has much to do with one's personal relationships somehow with the other
actors. I think it's, I think as actors you want to trust each other and you want to kind
of go to different places and you are aware that everybody's very passionate about what
they're trying to do, and it was fortunate in this film that it was not necessarily necessary
that we all got on very well. And we spent time out in New Orleans, and we really got
to know each other and you know, on the weekends have a great a time, but I think just sort
of knuckling down to the work and the technical work of acting just required a sort of level
of attention and professionalism in those sequences.
Well boy, how you feel now?
My name is Solomon Northup. I'm a free man, and you have no right whatsoever to detain me.
You're no free man. You're nothing but a Georgia runaway.
Steve McQueen had a lot of nice things to say about you a few moments ago, that you
were always in his mind for the role from word go, and he was incredibly impressed with
your performance. What was it like working with him? Was he a meticulous director to
get every aspect of detail down to the tee?
Yeah, he was definitely someone who wanted to explore every avenue and to explore every
part of the story and every part of the performance and he is a director that allows actors to
create an environment where actors can feel very free to explore and to express and whether
a kind of no mistakes and there's nothing to concerned about. You just need to be engaged
with it, and so he's very encouraging in that way and demanding in that way, and he really
strives for... Everyone wants to give 100%. What else would you do? But it's great to
have somebody who articulates that and constantly articulates the need for that, and he's definitely
somebody who does that, and I think it makes him an incredible director to work with.
That's scripture. The condition of your labourers, it's all wrong.
They're my property. You say that with pride.
I say it as fact. Speak!
A man does how he pleases with his property.
You come here. I said come here!
Was it important in a movie like this that you had superb actors such as Benedict Cumberbatch
and Michael Fassbender playing roles that weren't simply evil people, but people who
were committing horrendous things? Is that important for a movie like this?
Yeah, I think so. I think that it's important that all the characters are kind of three
dimensional, that there aren't just sort of two dimensional characters in this. Certainly,
what Solomon wrote in his book, he wrote these people because in a way, especially Benedict
who plays Ford and Michael Fassbender who plays Epps, are two characters, two people
who Solomon got to know very well and writes about them in incredible detail and these
are people who through this period learn about each other and understand each other and who
later on, he talks about in this way. So to have actors who really embrace all of that
and bring the kind of three dimensional nature to the project is terrific.
One was a free man. I'm not a slave.