Mandy Griffiths
Actor/Screenwriter/Producer Joel Edgerton adds Director to his resume with “The Gift”, a film he also wrote and stars in.
A young married couple’s lives are thrown into a harrowing tailspin when an acquaintance from the husband’s past brings mysterious gifts and a horrifying secret to light after more than 20 years.
In town for the Melbourne International Film Festival, Mandy caught up with Joel Edgerton to talk subverting expectations, Stephen King, psychopaths in the corporate world and why you should never film a movie without a completed script.
Congratulations on the film, I really enjoyed it. As a reviewer you see a lot of films and you get a sense of the suspense formula and half way through I was like ‘yeah, I know where this is going’ and then it completely didn’t turn out that way. I appreciate that was your intention now, but as a viewer it was a really nice change.
Joel: Oh thank you. That was always the intention – to start going down the road that everyone thinks they know because they’ve travelled down it previously, and then you pull the rug. I think that’s the responsibility of anyone making a suspense film – if the real underlying foundation of it is that the viewer shouldn’t know what’s around every corner then to go down the super familiar path is not staying true to that.
Yes the biggest jumps I had was when things just didn’t turn out the way I expected. The dog coming back really got me.
Joel: Yes the way the dog disappears and what happened to the dog is kind of the big example of how to not go down the same path. When we do that to the dog it takes the hand holding away from the audience. Their expectations are one thing and you take it away from them. That was the key mantra for us making the movie.
I see you got a very nice endorsement from the King of horror himself, Stephen King on Twitter.
Joel: I know that was radical! There’s actually a nod in the movie to “The Shining”. There’s two in fact. And “Misery” is one of my favourite suspense films.
I haven’t actually seen “Misery”…
Joel: Oh you’ve got to see it. You’ve got to see “Misery”. “Misery” is just one of those ones where the idea was just fresh. And again it was a movie that was scary but it was about something. About ideas and intellectual property and I guess for Stephen King it must have been very personal because it was about how the fans start to take on more ownership of intellectual property than the author does.
I read that “Misery” was also subconsciously about his battle with drug addiction. That Annie was the manifestation of the hold drugs had on his life.
Joel: Oh I hadn’t heard that.
It’s interesting as well that you look at the slate of films that are in theatres now and there’s not a lot of original films out there. How hard is it to get an original film made?
Joel: It’s pretty hard. It’s not so much that people don’t like the marketing challenge but it’s definitely a bigger marketing challenge to educate the public about something they’re not familiar with. To be honest I think it’s a bit boring when every movie on the weekend tends to be pre-existing material. The film business has two words in it – ‘film’ and ‘business’, it’s art and commerce. The business side of it I’m starting to understand more and more, I understand why franchises exist, prequels, sequels etc. The one space I do enjoy is books being turned into movies. That’s a pre-existing audience that I appreciate rather than just rebooting every movie. It’s like Hollywood is cannibalising itself. There will be no original stories. So it’s wonderful to know that we can exist in that market and succeed and this weekend in the States “Straight Outta Compton” came out, which is a brand in a way, but it’s a fresh movie and I love that because I just think it’s too easy otherwise. The studios are ruled by marketing. New stories are good stories, we’ve just got to try harder to market that.
I was thinking actually that Australia is quite good at doing original stories – because we just don’t have the big budgets to do franchises…
Joel: No we don’t. My gripe about the Australian movie business is that there’s not enough money to sell the movie. So we end up creating the perception of movies being tiny because we don’t have enough money – and I’m not saying it’s anyone’s fault – but you need to get the money to compete with the sales and representation of the bigger American movies. So by comparison our movies, just psychologically to our audiences, feel small. We’ve got a little poster next to a BIG poster. You’ve got no TV ads compared to tons of TV ads. And people being asked to spend the same amount of money on something they think is little compared to something they know is going to be full of razzmatazz.
It’s interesting you mentioned the book to film trend as I was talking recently to Graeme Simsion, the author of “The Rosie Project” [now being made into a film starring Jennifer Lawrence] and that started as a screenplay but he just couldn’t get any interest in developing it. So he went the novel route to get an audience that would make it more enticing to turn it into a film.
Joel: I absolutely contemplated writing it as I waited for financing on this movie, I almost started writing it as a novel. But I’d never written a novel before. And I got preoccupied with other things. But I had considered it.
That’s another good title to add to your collection – actor, screenwriter, producer, director and then novelist!
Joel: Yes [laughs]. I don’t think writing a screenplay is easy but I think it’s an easier task than writing a proper book. I really admire those people.
More structure maybe but you’ve still got to have a good story.
Joel: You’ve got to have a good story. I can’t say it enough. The amount of movies being made – I’ve been involved in one of them – where they’re like ‘we’re going to start shooting. Now we haven’t got the full script yet…’ or ‘we’ve got a script but we’re going to change heaps of it’.
So it’s just a guide really…
Joel: Yes. Like don’t shoot a movie until you have a script that’s been scrutinised completely, otherwise – it’s the old analogy that you wouldn’t start building a house unless you’ve got the foundation – it’s kind of ridiculous.
You’ve been building up to directing in stages it seems – screenwriting, producing. You’ve worked with a lot of really great directors, was there anything about being in the director’s chair yourself that surprised you?
Joel: I was reminded and surprisingly learned how good actors are at solving problems and how quickly actors become better keepers of their character than even the writers and directors. Considering I’d written and was directing the movie I thought I knew the characters better than anyone who was going to walk into the process late, but actors very quickly – intelligent actors – very quickly become keepers of their character. As a director you always want to have an idea as to what you’re doing otherwise it’s crazy. You come equipped with ideas, you’ve got a bag of ideas for how you’re going to shoot the scene or how a moment’s going to play out or blocking. It’s always important I think that everyone in the process gets their chance to collaborate on their part, whatever their cog in the machine is, they’ve got to be a part of it. And actors therefore throw up really good ideas about the evolution of the scene, the tone of the scene or movement. And to impose your homework on them before they’ve had a chance to collaborate with you is a shame. Because I realised a better idea can come from somewhere else, from someone else. They care enough, or are astute enough, to work a different angle. And I think it’s a really smart idea for a director – this is what I learnt – to hold your breath or hold your tongue until you have a chance to steal someone’s better idea [laughs].
I’ve talked to a few directors who say that the first they need to do is get really physically fit, because it is so exhausting, the hours and the work – your body needs to be able to keep up with all the work you’re doing. Did you find that?
Joel: Well I actually became quite physically fit because I was trying to lose weight to play Gordo. I lost about 12kg, and in order to do that I saw a nutritionist and I stopped drinking coffee, I stopped eating sugar, I drank a lot less alcohol – I won’t pretend I didn’t drink alcohol [laughs] – and every morning I would go for a run before I went to work, even if it was like 4am. Because of all that my diet was very good and my health was very good and it made me just have a really good even temperament the whole time. I was having a good time, but I think that all contributed to me having a good time because I was in a good state of mind. I think it is essential. In fact a friend of mine is going to direct his first movie and everybody asks ‘what advice do you have, just give me one bit of advice’. And I said I don’t know if I can tell you anything creatively excellent that you don’t already know but definitely get up and do a bit of exercise before each day because it will put your mind in a good space.
On the acting side your character Gordo was an interesting one.
Joel: Candidate for sexiest man of the year [laughs].
Yeah that brown hair…. Do you find that you really have to like a character or try to see things from their point of view to make it work?
Joel: Absolutely, and I think even more so, just to not judge a character. I think part of the reason why this film is constructed that everybody you think is good is not really good and everybody you think may be the bad person is not necessarily that – particularly in the case of my character and Jason Bateman’s character – that is the by-product of the way I like to see it. When approaching a character I’m always looking for the elements that are going to give a different perspective on a character. They’re not just a baddie, they’re not just a goodie and the goodies need a little rough edges and the baddies need a little bit of a cuddle and they’re a little misunderstood for whatever reason. And searching for those dimensions I think is very important. It’s just important to not judge a character too much or not paint them with one brush. So I love all the characters I play. And think you have to.
You look at it objectively and the gifts that he gives at the beginning are actually very thoughtful. He’s like ‘I noticed you have a lot of glass, here’s something to wash them with’, ‘here’s some fish for your empty fish pond’.
Joel: Here’s some wine. Yeah. He’s very, as he says, ‘ask and you shall receive’. It’s very thoughtful, very mindful and very virtuous in all aspects except for stuff that you find out later. It says a lot about social graces – you send me a Christmas card, I don’t send one back to you the following year, there’s an imbalance. He gives a bottle of wine and doesn’t receive a thank you message and then the balance is out. The chaos that can be created, the tension that can be created with a one sided friendship is very interesting. As the neighbour points out in the movie, if you have a sexual, intimate relationship and it doesn’t work out – you break up with the person. In friendship people are supposed to take hints and if they don’t, what do you do? You either change your address or you have to have a conversation.
At least on Facebook you can hide them.
Joel: Yeah [laughs].
The Jason Bateman character is really interesting, I understand you initially envisioned him as a bit of a jock type and then Jason came along and it evolved a bit.
Joel: Yes I had two templates for the character in my mind. One was that big, brawn jock character and the other one which I found more interesting which is the more subversive type of human being who uses cunning and wit and words to undermine people and win. And that to me was a far more dangerous character in life because the movie was not so much our ability to physically harm each other. It’s more about our ability to mentally undermine each other and destroy each other with ideas and with words. That sort of answered the question for me of which version the character should be and Jason was the perfect version of that. His comedy tinged with a lot of jerkiness and his ability to be the smartest man in the room. And he’s a very intelligent and elusive character because on one hand you could see how much you could really like him, and on another hand you could see how in a few quick words he could really cut you down. He was the perfect choice. And I love comedians who do dramatic roles. Because they’re just so good at it.
Subverting expectations again.
Joel: Yeah. I mean when dramatic actors decide to go and do a funny part…you go…hmmm.
Lots of editing required. Did you read “The Psychopath Test”?
Joel: I’ve read sections of it, yes.
Yes it reminded me of it and I was so pleased – those corporate guys, you’ve got to watch them. They do so well in that environment because they don’t put other people first.
Joel: I just like the idea of that book because for years you often see the word ‘psychopath’ and just think the guy in the boiler suit with no friends who’s cutting people up in his basement, but psychopathic and sociopathic tendencies exist in every workplace and every family and it’s everywhere. It’s a certain narcissism or self-serving issues in human beings and their ability to walk all over each other. In our case, particularly the question of whether you are enlightened enough to be able to look back into your past and say ‘I acknowledge my role in knocking into another human being’ or the inability to do it – which for Jason’s character will be his downfall. That ‘I don’t acknowledge the past, I don’t apologise, that’s a weakness’ mentality.
And with a hint of – that was his upbringing as well, that was his role model.
Joel: Yeah I wanted to hint about how those roles get solidified by influence of parents and our environment, but also false contrition. Blame shifting. Saying ‘yes I’m sorry but I was treated badly therefore it’s okay’. Whereas the true path of contrition is to actually turn around, open your heart and say ‘I did a bad thing and I have no excuse and I openly say that and I apologise’. Rather than ‘yeah, but…’
I did also want to say that I thought Rebecca Hall was amazing as well.
Joel: Yes she’s incredible!
Thanks so much for your time.
Joel: Thank you.
The Gift is now playing in cinemas in the US and opens in Australia 27 August 2015.
