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Category Archives: Interviews
Interview: Jonathan Nolan talks groundwork of ‘Interstellar’
If you found yourself desperate to watch “Interstellar” again after you caught the sci-fi epic on the big screen, Jonathan Nolan is thrilled to reopen up the rocket hatch for another ride on home video.
In fact, the heralded screenwriter, who co-wrote the critically acclaimed blockbuster with his director brother, Christopher Nolan, told me that the two crafted the screenplay as such so movie fans would want to see the film again, hoping they would absorb even more details the second time around.
“That’s the way my brother and I grew up watching movies. If we found one we liked, we watched it obsessively,” Jonathan Nolan, who goes by Jonah, said in a phone interview Monday. “If we found more detail in the second and third viewings, that really became the hallmark of a great film to us.
“With ‘Interstellar,’ there were extra challenges there involving mind-bending physics and the science that we grounded the film in, and that took us years and years to figure out on our end,” Nolan added. “It’s a film that has a density to it on that level, and hopefully it will be enjoyed more and more on that level as you begin to understand the rule-set and some of the concepts that are quite alien the first time through them. Space-time curvature and time warps are a lot to wrap your head around.”
Interview: Christopher Nolan talks ‘Interstellar’
New on Blu-ray and DVD (Paramount Home Media Distribution), “Interstellar” stars Matthew McConaughey as Cooper, a former pilot and engineer-turned-farmer in an unspecified time in Earth’s future. Climate conditions reminiscent of the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s have eliminated much of the world’s food supply, and blight has eradicated wheat and farmers can only grow corn.
Following an odd ghost-like occurrence involving his youngest daughter, Murph (MacKenzie Foy), Cooper finds his way to the now secretly-funded NASA, which tells him that his children’s generation will be the last to survive on the dying planet. Prompted by his old colleague, Professor Brand (Michael Caine), Cooper is asked to pilot an interstellar mission to another galaxy in hopes of finding a world where the human race can survive. The catch is, the widower will have to leave Murph and her older brother behind, perhaps never to see them again.
“Interstellar” also stars Anne Hathaway as Brand’s daughter, Amelia — a doctor on the spacecraft whose emotional vulnerabilities cloud the mission — and Jessica Chastain as the adult version of Murph, who has grown up resenting her father because she felt abandoned.
With a narrative that ties together such elaborate concepts as wormholes, black holes and the idea of love transcending the boundaries of space and time, Nolan no doubt tackled with his brother their most ambitious project to date with “Interstellar”; and we’re talking the same brothers who brilliantly penned mind-bending complexities into such films the last two chapters of the “The Dark Knight” trilogy, “The Prestige” and “Memento” (Jonah penned the original short story, while Christopher wrote the screenplay).
“For me, and I can’t speak for Chris, the ambition was to try to tell a story that certainly wouldn’t encompass, but pointed to the full scope of the human experience,” Jonah Nolan explained. “Most of the films you watch, with a handful of exceptions — ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ being one of them — concentrate on one protagonist and one storyline. But really, the human story for me — especially when I looked at the achievements of NASA and the scientists involved, and the scientists from Newton onward, building the work of the work of ones that came before them for thousands of years — was really a generational story.”
So, Nolan said, while McConaughey’s Cooper is “one protagonist in the piece,” there’s ultimately something going on that’s much bigger than him.
“The real protagonist is humanity, and the work that we do that we hand from one generation to the next in the hopes that we might survive and maybe even prosper,” Nolan said.
Ground zero
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of “Interstellar’s” history is that the film did not originate as a project for the Nolan brothers. In fact, one of the film’s producers, Lynda Obst and world-renown theoretical physicist Kip Thorne (who was a consultant on the script and was an executive producer), first hired Jonah Nolan to write the script with Steven Spielberg attached to direct.
Once the opportunity came for Christopher Nolan to direct the film, Jonah Nolan said his brother didn’t scrap what he started to build things from scratch, but continued to add layers to the foundation of his younger sibling’s narrative.
“When I worked with Kip, Lynda and Steven, I brought some ideas to the table and they brought some, and when Chris came to the project, he brought some of his own,” Nolan said. “Often what happens with my collaborations with Chris is, he gets in there and takes one of my ideas and puts his own inimitable spin on it, or adds a beautiful idea of his own.”
One of the biggest changes Christopher Nolan made to the script, Jonah Nolan said, came with a recalibration of the ending of the screenplay, giving it a much more powerful emotional punch.
“The ending to my script was quite pedestrian in comparison to his, and what Chris added to it had the scope and scale of the emotion in the film. It was so beautiful,” Nolan observed. “We have a really fun relationship because he gets to take my ideas and twist them around, and I get to take his ideas and twist them around. We surely think alike in a lot of ways, but he has his own unique perspective.”
And in the case of “Interstellar,” that perspective of being a parent drove Christopher Nolan and eventually, Jonah.
“Most of the work I did on ‘Interstellar’ happened before I was a parent or even married. But when he started working on the script, he had lots of kids and brought that perspective to it,” Jonah Nolan said. “He was bringing the perspective of a father to the storyline, where I was kind of guessing the emotions you would feel with a real acuity. The script clearly benefited from that. It’s always a great experience collaborating on a project with him for that very reason.”
While Christopher Nolan has yet to announce his next project, Jonah Nolan is well into his. The filmmaker wrote and directed the pilot episode of his new HBO series “Westworld,” starring the likes of Anthony Hopkins, James Marsden, Ed Harris and Thandie Newton. Created by Nolan and his wife, Lisa Joy, the re-imagining of the 1973 sci-fi favorite starring Yul Brynner film will debut sometime this year.
Christopher Nolan to appear at Walker Art Center career retrospective
Celebrated filmmaker Christopher Nolan will be the subject of the Walker Art Center’s Dialogue and Retrospective series in May in Minneapolis, the museum announced this week.
Nolan, who most recently directed and co-wrote with his brother, Jonathan, the sci-fi blockbuster “Interstellar,” will kick off the retrospective, “Christopher Nolan Through Time,” with a Dialogue with Variety’s Scott Foundas May 5 at the Walker.
The Nolan retrospective is a huge deal for the Walker, which kicked off its Dialogue series 25 years ago with Clint Eastwood, which I attended. Since then the movie program at the museum has hosted career retrospectives with the likes of Jodie Foster, Tom Hanks, Joel and Ethan Coen, and most recently, “12 Years a Slave” director Steve McQueen.
Read more about the Nolan retrospective here. In addition, check out the interview I did with Nolan for the theatrical release of “Interstellar” last November. The film, which is now available on digital platforms, will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray (Paramount Home Distribution) next week. Also, look out for my interview with Jonathan Nolan for the home video release next week.
See below more about the Christopher Nolan retrospective on the segment I did Friday on KARE 11 in Minneapolis.
U.S. exclusive: Helena Bonham Carter talks ‘Cinderella’
When Helena Bonham Carter was cast in the pivotal role of the Fairy Godmother in director Kenneth Branagh’s new live-action version of “Cinderella,” there were some rumblings of surprise on the Internet, where various journalists questioned whether she was better suited to play the wicked stepmother instead.
Given her past as deliciously evil Bellatrix Lestrange in the last four “Harry Potter” films and the delightfully funny but unforgiving Red Queen (“Off with their heads!”) in “Alice in Wonderland,” some thought that despite her experience with a wand, the magical staff that the Fairy Godmother was better suited for somebody not known for playing such dark characters.
Of course, those same people tend to forget just how versatile the two-time Oscar nominated actress really is. Whether it’s good or bad character, Bonham Carter has proven throughout her illustrious, 32-year screen career that she wherewithal to play them all. Still, Bonham told me in an exclusive U.S. interview, that she was taken aback when asked to play the character associated with the iconic phrase, “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.”
“I was surprised not to be asked to be Cinderella, because I’m in some time-warp denial,” Bonham Carter told me, laughing, in a recent phone call from London.
Always funny and lively in her interviews, Bonham Carter told me she had fun bringing the effervescent Fairy Godmother to life during the making of “Cinderella,” yet inside she took the role very seriously. After all, “Cinderella” is a legendary tale that has been told countless times in different variations on screen and the stage over the years — chief among them the 1950 Walt Disney animated classic — so Disney, which also produced the new live-action incarnation, knew this new version had to work on all levels.
As it related directly to Bonham Carter, she knew her role would be under the burning spotlight, because the Fairy Godmother, who apart from Cinderella, is perhaps the first character people associate with the classic fairy tale.
“It was really flattering and nice to asked to play the role, but having said that, it was a quite a responsibility, and I was apprehensive about it,” said Bonham Carter, who also narrates the film. “My first reaction was, ‘What great fun! This can’t be a losing situation,’ but on close inspection, I got somewhat freaked out. The Fairy Godmother is iconic as an idea — there’s no real image of her apart from the character in the animated version — there isn’t really an obvious image and I didn’t want to replicate what’s in the cartoon.”
Opening in theaters and on IMAX screens nationwide on Friday, “Cinderella” tells the time-honored tale in a familiar, historical setting, yet gives the title character (Lily James) a strong sense of independence. Bonham Carter plays the Fairy Godmother as a character with some bits of uncertainty: a giddy magician not quite aware of the full extent of her powers.
“I thought I had to re-invent the wheel a bit, so people would genuinely believe the character with some sort of credibility,” Bonham Carter said, recalling how she prepared for the role by examining the mind of the Fairy Godmother. “I thought, ‘Why a pumpkin?’ because it’s not immediately obvious that you would choose a pumpkin as your source material to turn into a carriage; and ‘Why glass?’ because glass isn’t immediately obvious to make a slipper with.’ Also, I wondered why the magic was running out at midnight.
“All of these choices she made sort of led me to believe that she was this accidental magician, or her magic wasn’t quite up to scratch,” Bonham Carter added. “Accidents happen, and often in history, the greatest things have been born of the greatest accidents. I thought it was funny that things that have ended up being iconic, like the glass slipper and the pumpkin, were all improvised in the first place.”
Interview: Kenneth Branagh talks “Cinderella”
Branagh, who has worked with Bonham Carter before, told me in a separate interview that he was absolutely enchanted by the direction the actress took with the character.
“The Fairy Godmother may have great plans of how these transformations may go, but not always the skills, and I think Helena does that beautifully,” Branagh said. “She also adds this sort of poignant touch, when she follows Cinderella’s coach for just a step and says, ‘Goosey, off you go.’ There’s a really wonderful maternal, protective look on her face that lets you know she loves this kid. She feels for her in addition to all the fun she’s had with her.”
Plus, the director said, Bonham Carter has impeccable comedic sensibilities.
“Helena brings a joyful, delightful and silly sort of lunatic kindness to the character, which is a variation of the sorts of the kindness theme that is central to the film,” Branagh said. “The beautiful sort of dotty, ditsy, dizzy comic brilliance she brings is a lovely kind of literal fairy dust to sprinkle into the middle of the movie.”
The theme of kindness is important because it’s essentially what grounds “Cinderella.” We first hear the phrase, “Have courage and be kind,” uttered to a young Cinderella by her dying mother, and Cinderella lives by those words despite the fact that she’s trapped as a servant to a cruel stepmother (Cate Blanchett) and her two daughters after her father dies.
Bonham Carter, much like Branagh, hopes viewers take those words to heart.
“I think they’re terribly important words, particularly in this day and age with social media,” Bonham Carter said. “People think there’s an anonymity and a lack of responsibility whenever they write something, because they’re not necessarily held to it. So many people are suffering because of bitchy comments about not being liked or whatever.”
Helena, Mom face-off
Bonham Carter’s “beggar lady” is the first character Cinderella sees before she transforms into the Fairy Godmother, and the actress says she was thrilled to get to have extensive prosthetic work done to play the small, but very important role. The beggar lady sets up a key moment in the film, because she tests Cinderella’s will of kindness and observation of others less fortunate than her, even though her heart has just been crushed by her evil stepmother.
“Sadly, it took me less long to become the character described in the script as ‘1,000 years old’ than it took to become the Fairy Godmother. It took me only four hours to age 1,000 years,” Bonham Carter, 48, said, laughing. “When the designers approached me and asked me, ‘What do you think you’re going to look like when you’re 80?’ I said, well, my Mom’s around, so they took a face mask of her. Having said that, Mom doesn’t look 80, so they had to add wrinkles on top of the mask. It did look a bit bizarre, and God knows what some psychotherapist would say about me wearing my own mother’s face.”
And while the end product didn’t exactly resemble her mother, there were still some features of the face that to be resolved.
“In the end, I had to post-sync all of her lines because her upper lip is bigger than mine, so apparently I was completely inaudible,” Bonham Carter said. “Still, I always love being in prosthetics. I don’t like process of putting it on or getting it off, but being in it is all fun.”
As of our conversation, Bonham Carter’s mother still hadn’t seen the film, but the actress warned her mother not to be shocked by the makeup when she gets around to it.
“Having seen the film myself, you don’t recognize her. So I told her, ‘Forget that it’s you, Mom, because it’s not the most flattering,'” Bonham Carter said with a laugh. “Mom is still really beautiful.”
