Interview : Bryan Singer

Bryan Singer (”X Men”, ”Superman Returns”) was quite small when he found out that members of his adopted family had perished in the Holocaust. Ever since then he’s been fascinated by stories about World War II and Hitler. So when his good friend Chris McQuarrie (who won a Best Screenplay Oscar for ”The Usual Suspects”) told him he’d just written a script – based on a true story – about a German Colonel called Claus von Stauffenberg (played by Tom Cruise) who tried to assassinate Hitler on July 20th 1944, Singer says it was a “no brainer. I immediately wanted to direct it.” Gaynor Flynn recently got the chance to chat to both Bryan Singer and Chris McQuarrie.

Gaynor Flynn: Before you read this script were you aware there was in fact a German resistance consisting of high-ranking German officers?

Bryan Singer: Since the 80’s I had this vague understanding that there was a German resistance and many were executed as a result of the attempt. It was because my mother who is an environmentalist was in Germany in the 80’s and she was hosted by the widow of Helmut von Moltke. von Moktke was executed because he was the leader of the intellectual wing of the resistance. So I had this awareness of things. But the Third Reich history has always fascinated me and I touched on it in Apt Pupil and X Men.

Gaynor Flynn: It’s a great story, but one that is largely unknown.

Chris McQuarrie: Its very well known in Germany and you’re right, its remarkable how little it is known outside of Germany. I knew a little bit about it when we first got involved but I had no idea the extent that they had gone to on that day.

Gaynor Flynn: Were you ever worried about how the Germans would react to Americans telling this story?

Chris McQuarrie: I don’t think I felt pressure because I was naturally inclined right from the beginning, Nathan Alexander (the co-writer0 and myself, from the outset what we wanted to do was make the most honest depiction of the story we could. What we were doing was depicting an event and depicting it with as much attention to detail as possible. So I would have only been worried about the reaction of those people if I’d taken some huge liberty or was exploiting the story rather than trying to tell it.

Gaynor Flynn: How did Tom Cruise come to be involved given he doesn’t seem an obvious choice?

Bryan Singer: Stauffenberg was an intense, charismatic individual, so we needed an actor who could really portray that. Stauffenberg was a kind of shining star in the German army who just had a very different point of view to the Fuhrer, so Chris and I both thought Tom was really right for it. It needed somebody with a very strong screen presence because Stauffenberg had an incredible presence in real life as well.

Gaynor Flynn: What was Tom Cruise like to work with?

Bryan Singer: Great, he was very easy to work with. If you look back at his work you’ll notice two things about Tom Cruise. He began his career as a character actor in Taps and then he very quickly became a movie star with Risky Business and Top Gun but he never lost the character actor stuff, he carried that with him all throughout his career and if you look at the choices the characters he’s played in Rainman, Born on the Fourth of July, Interview with a Vampire or the role for Magnolia or Eyes Wide Shut he’s chosen very challenging roles so I knew it would probably be a very exciting experience.

Gaynor Flynn: There was a lot of negative press around her while you were filming in Germany. Reports said permits were denied and you had to deal with protestors etc. Can you talk about that?

Chris McQuarrie: There was a lot made of us being banned in Germany and all those things and that was all blown out of proportion. We shot everywhere where we needed to shoot and in fact the scenes where you see the soldiers are taking the Government quarter, that’s in the middle of downtown Berlin. They closed off the main intersection and we were using the Ministry of Finance which was the former Lufthauser and we were shooting all around there. So we had enormous cooperation from the Germans. We could not have made this movie if we’d been getting the resistance that was depicted in the press. So we were reading all this stuff about the alleged nightmare we were having and we were sort of scratching our heads because we were having the best time.

Gaynor Flynn: ”The Usual suspects” was a complex script as is this one. How would you compare the two?

Chris McQuarrie: I would say this is far more difficult than The Usual Suspects because on the one hand I had absolutely no responsibility on The Usual Suspects except to tell a good story. Bryan and I were laughing on this one because it’s very hard for Bryan and I to find a project to do together to follow that up.

Gaynor Flynn: Why?

Chris McQuarrie: Because whatever we did next we knew everybody would be expecting a big twist and we did not want the pressure that M Night Shyamalan has now that every time he makes a movie there’s got to be an expected payoff at the end. The irony was that after we decided to do this I laughed and I said well here’s the best part. On Suspects the ending was a huge surprise and with this movie it isn’t. Nobody’s going to be expecting a twist at the end of this movie so we didn’t have that pressure. The pressure now was to make a movie where you think you know how it ends, but make it compelling enough to get you there.

Gaynor Flynn: Mr Singer you’ve made three comic book films back-to-back, ”X-Men”, ”X2” and ”Superman Returns”, how did this one compare?

Bryan Singer: It was a different challenge because it’s based on actual events. With both X men and Superman there was enormous attention and concern about the comic books and the fan base. Everyone was afraid that I’d screw it up. Here it’s just a different kind of attention. Even though the story is so fascinating and amazing on its own we’re still making a movie we’re not making a documentary and of course the more history we can maintain the more exciting it will be for somebody watching the movie once they realise that’s what really happened. So it was just a different challenge because you have to stick to the facts and make it entertaining.

Gaynor Flynn: Did you write this with the hope that Bryan would direct it?

Chris McQuarrie: I never even thought of that. I wrote this ironically enough to be a very small movie that I had in mind that something I would direct. Because again because of the subject matter I thought no one would be interested in it. In fact I thought I’d have a really hard time selling the movie. And that the only way I’d get something like this made is if I did it on a very small scale. I tend to write my screenplays with the attitude that they will never get made. When I write about history and historical subjects I am attracted to the stories that people tell me are impossible to tell. But it’s not that a story is impossible to tell, some are just very difficult to sell. And unfortunately everything I gravitate towards is difficult to sell. So I wrote it as this very small movie and then Bryan got interested and then Tom got involved and then reality altered and it became what it is. And I’ve got to say I’m very proud of this movie. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.

Gaynor Flynn: Did any films in particular inspire you while you were writing this and if so which ones?

Chris McQuarrie: I grew up on WWII movies. A lot of people my age tended to grow up on films of the 70’s. I was actually more a student of the films of the 50’s and the 60’s and I grew up watching The Great Escape, Patton, The Devils Brigade, all of those movies and this one was written very much with a love for and an affinity for those movies.

Gaynor Flynn: What did you love about them?

Chris McQuarrie: What I loved about them was the straightforward nature of the filmmaking and their style had a lot to do with how unpretentious and de-stylised they were and ultimately they were about story and character. And especially The Great Escape it’s a movie with an enormous amount of involving characters. You know them all even though they only occupy a few minutes of screen time and that was the real challenge here. There were so many people in the resistance and we didn’t want then to feel like extra’s in a scene. We really wanted you to be involved in all of those characters and all their stories and at the same time I didn’t want to create scenes solely to get to know them. So the rule was you had to get to know these guys through their actions and not through bogus writing and fabricated scenes.

Gaynor Flynn: Mr Singer, the majority of your films have been ensemble pieces. What’s the attraction?

Bryan Singer: I made a short film many years ago called Lion’s Den with Ethan Hawke and I think since then something about the ensemble appealed so much it carried me from The Usual Suspects to X Men to this, there’s something about it I like. In most ensembles, except The Big Chill, there’s always a main character that the audience is experiencing the movie through. But there’s something about the group I like. It takes the burden of the whole movie off a single actor’s head and puts it on mine. I’m okay with that, I like that and it’s fun balancing all those pieces. It’s just more to cut to.

Gaynor Flynn: Who or what inspires you? I know as a child Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were the reason you wanted to become a director in the first place.

Bryan Singer: I think my three biggest directorial influences that informed me on camera and the way I work the camera would be Spielberg, Peter Weir and David Cronenberg. But I have many other favourite filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick. But in terms of filmmakers who come to mind, those three are important to me but they’re by no means the totality of my favourite directors.

Gaynor Flynn: Can you talk about how you came to cast Kenneth Branagh and Bill Nighy?

Bryan Singer: I love them. I’ve done three movies with Ian McKellen. I’ve done two movies with Patrick Stewart. I won’t be satisfied until I work with the entire National Theatre and NIDA.

VALKYRIE is now screening