Boxoffice Pro - January 2020

BEHIND THE SCENES
actors do it seven, eight, nine, 10 minutes at a time.
And trusting them, giving them the ammunition
and the knowledge they needed to just take wing.
I never doubted that they could do it, because I’d
rehearsed them properly and we’d planned it properly
and they understood what was needed from
them in every scene. And that’s all theater. Judging
the shape of the story without recourse to editing,
these are things that I do as a matter of course as
a theater director. I sit there and watch two and a
half hours of story pass by and I never say cut. So
for me, a nine-minute take is nothing compared to
a two-and-a-half-hour play. I remember [people]
saying about Anne Hathaway in Les Miz: She did it
in one take! As far as I’m aware, they do the whole
of Les Miz every night in one take. You just have to
go down the road and you can buy a ticket. It’s not
that amazing.
How exciting is it for you to give
these two young actors an opportunity like this?
It’s exciting, but I’m grateful to them, because
they walked in and they managed to embody the
two characters that Krysty and I had imagined,
but then they added something else. When you’re
rehearsing and writing and making adjustments
in rehearsals, you start tailoring the role towards
the actor. And George brought this quiet dignity,
this restraint, this great old-fashioned heroism, a
kind of upright Englishness, which is of another
era, almost. And I thought that was perfect for this
sort of grammar school–educated, slightly more
middle-class Schofield. And then Dean’s cheeky
chappy: chirpy, slightly vulnerable, very young, a
bit puppy fat–ish—and thin-skinned, emotionally
very available, and slightly lower-class than Scofield.
And the two of them are thrown together, two
people who would never meet in life, never even
share a drink down at the pub because they’re from
different upbringings, and they suddenly find that
they get on, that they amuse each other, that they
like each other and learn from each other in ways
that even they don’t fully understand. And I think
that came in part from the script and in part from
the two of them. It’s thrilling to watch what’s happening
to them now. It gave me a huge lump in my
throat, watching them walk onstage just now and
seeing the audience carry on applauding, because
they’re great. I don’t think they’ve had that in their
lives before.
One thing I found remarkable was the function
of the extras in this film. I can’t think of a recent
film where the extras are as important to
its success.
Well, thank you for saying that. My first A.D.,
Michael Lerman, is a bit of a genius, and he set the
background [extras]. I was very particular. I audi-
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