Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
Across a 24-hour period last week, I got to spend a great deal of time with one of my favorite, relatively new writer-directors, Neil Marshall and his lovely wife, the actress/writer/soon-to-be director Axelle Carolyn, who has quite a memorable role in Marshall's latest work CENTURION. One evening, we did a Q&A screening of the film for a largely AICN reader audience, then this interview occurred over breakfast the following morning, and finally Marshall and Carolyn joined me at the Chicago Comic-Con that afternoon to discuss the movie in all its magnificent violent glory.
Marshall came out of the gate strong with his World War II soldiers/werewolf story DOG SOLDIERS, and he never really showed signs of weakening. His previous film DOOMSDAY wasn't embraced by everyone, but there's no denying it has a following that reveled in its insanity. But his finest film remains what I consider to be one of the scariest films ever made, THE DESCENT, an accidental feminist horror film if ever there was one. CENTURION is Marshall's largest-scale film to date even if his budget was still fairly small. And it features a remarkable cast, including Dominic West and rising star Michael Fassbender (INGLORIOUS BASTERDS; HUNGER; and the upcoming X-MEN: FIRST CLASS--he'll play the young Magneto). CENTURION is beyond bloody and an incredibly realistic portrayal of the final days of the Roman Empire's siege on the guerilla-warfare-style Pict warrior of England, who defeated the Romans at every turn for decades.
I'd always heard Marshall was a great guy, and I have no evidence to the contrary. And his fans love his work unabashedly. And wait until you hear about his next film BURST, to be shot in 3-D. But I'll let Neil tell you himself. Please enjoy Neil Marshall, and look out for the occasional spoiler mixed in. If you don't want to know who dies and who doesn't, you may want to hold off reading this until you've seen CENTURION. It opens today in some cities, and expanding around the country into early October.
Capone: Good morning.
Axelle Carolyn: How are you doing?
Neil Marshall: Morning
Capone: You weren't kidding about making this a breakfast interview, were you?
AC: It was a great idea, and it bought us 30 minutes of sleep.
Capone: I'm going to pump up my level, so my recorder picks up every bite. [Everybody laughs] Forgive me if we cover some of the same ground we covered last night. What was that figure you put out about the shooting schedule of this film compared to the BRAVEHEART fight?
NM: The Battle of Sterling took them six weeks to shoot.
Capone: Right and you had seven.
NM: For the whole film.
Capone: That’s right.
AC: Something that I find very impressive too was that THE DESCENT was made on $6 million dollars and that was six unknown women in a cave. This shoot has been about two caves and 12 unknown woman, budget wise.
Capone: Did you find that the success of THE DESCENT kind of opened things up to you a bit in terms of what you got to do for the next couple of films?
NM: It must have because somebody allowed me to make DOOMSDAY.
[Everyone Laughs]
NM: Which I think in any other world people would just go “What?”
Capone: You had mentioned that there wasn’t a whole lot of historical record of Picts in general, so can you talk a little bit about your decision-making process in terms of everything about them--the costumes, the body art, etc.
NM: Well, the whole reason that they are called the Picts is because they were covered in pictures, which were the tattoos, so we knew about that. We knew about the tattoos and we knew roughly what the tattoos were going to be, based on artwork that they carved into rocks and stuff like that, and that’s kind of like the few bits of archeological evidence we have about them. And the Romans, as well, documented them to a degree. We knew about the “Blue Wode.” A wode is this flower that you grind down, it makes the blue color and that’s what they would paint themselves with. And we knew about the white lime in the hair, but beyond that it’s just a sense of making it up. There is record of the Picts fighting naked or semi-naked, but we were filming in the middle of winter, so not only was it not hugely impractical, but I kind of felt like “Maybe the Picts did that in the summer time.” There would be much of a battle with these naked guys running towards you and in the middle of winter,
Capone: It doesn’t make the most sense.
NM: No. So we tried to make sense of the fact that like “What materials did they have to work with?” Back then there were wolves in Scotland, so they would have had wolf fur and dear fur, sheep skins, goat skins, and anything like that, and that’s what we made their costumes out of and primitive kind of fabric weaving and stuff like that. So it was just based on logic really more than anything.
Capone: The guerilla-style war tactics, was that kind of a new idea back then? That idea that you might not fight in straight lines like the Romans
NM: I don’t know that it was new. These people had been fighting in small groups for quite a long time.
Capone: But that versus the more…
NM: Up against the Romans, probably not.
AC: I don’t imagine that people in like ancient France would have been very organized in battle. I think the main thing was the environment, and it being so hostile.
NM: But they did kind of utilize the concept of war parties and hit-and-run kind of tactics.
Capone: It occurred to me the second time watching the film that in a lot of films that deal with the Roman Empire in some fashion, the Romans are the bad guys. The Romans are the villains that somebody else has to sort of overcome, and here we are clearly supposed to be rooting for them.
NM: The thing is that most films that I can think of about Rome are told, with the exception possibly of LIFE OF BRIAN or something like that, are told from the Roman point of view, be GLADIATOR or even the TV series "Rome." So that, I think, was kind of a given, but the fact that we are clearly portraying them as an invading army and capable of brutality and savagery towards the locals was slightly new.
Capone: And invading England. When are the English ever portrayed as the villains, especially in a film about invading Romans.
NM: Right, that hasn't happened before. But again, I wasn’t wanting to portray them as just straight forward villains. I wanted them to be equally sympathetic and certainly with Etain’s character.
Capone: For the actors, what were some of the most difficult aspects of making this?
AC: Well the climate definitely didn’t help, or it did help, according to which way you want to look at it. I’m sure for the guys who played the Romans that must have been the toughest part of it, because we were on horses most of the time, Olga and I and the Picts, didn’t get to go all the way up in the mountains, because the horses couldn’t get there. So we were reasonably--I wouldn’t say warm--but warmer, not quite as cold. I find that for me personally anyway--nd I’m sure that Olga [Kurylenko] would agree with that, the biggest challenge was to look like… When you put women warriors in films, you often have that kind of “Why are they not bodybuilders? Why are they not super huge? Why are they like girls who are so frail?” It’s kind of trying to make it work anyway, to make it look like, “Well, women, unless they do body building and eat in a certain way, they don’t put on bulk, even if they have muscles, they still remain reasonably thin,” and kind of sell the fact that we could fight and that we could use the speed to our advantage and we know how to strike and just fight in a different way from the men, but we can do it. I think that was a big thing trying to make that work.
Capone: Talk a little bit about how you made your character scary. She was supposed to be maybe the scariest person on that side.
AC: Well, she’s the one who’s the big villain. She’s the only one who’s got not excuse on screen for being that evil. For me, it was mostly just showing that she enjoyed the battle. My thing for that was just to try to show that she likes to fight and she’s going to fight no matter what and she likes it so much that she’s going to laugh if she manages to kill you or to harm you.
NM: I think she has a bloodlust.
AC: Yeah, a little bit of that. I originally wanted to have filed teeth, but they didn’t go with that, to show “This is my life. This is what I do; I kill people. You wont escape me, because I’m having too much fun doing it.” And the other thing that made the character work is just the makeup and the costume and the wig and everything. Really, the first time that I saw it was like when we were shooting.
Capone: It’s got to be tough to see yourself like that and not just go “Okay, I’m just going to go for it.”
AC: It was like “Yeah, I’m someone else. This is great.” It helped so much.
Capone: Speaking of bloodlust, as someone who has dabbled in bloodlust-like activities before, you’ve got some of the most creative kills in this kind of film I’ve ever seen. Can you talk a little bit about just applying that horror sensibility to a sword fight/axe fight movie?
NM: In a way it totally comes naturally that I would bring that sensibility to this, and you’ve been given a whole knew range of weapons to play with and how could you possibly use them creatively. Yeah it was just such a blast coming up with those kinds of creative kills, just things that are going to keep people interested with some surprises.
Capone: Do you have a favorite, one you are really proud of that?
NM: Well, there’s two and they both involve Axelle. One is her death, which again is just when I was writing it was the idea that this guy would get shot in the back by her and then snap the arrow off and stick it in her eye and then throw her over the wall as the final indignity.
AC: Throwing me over the wall, that's what I wanted. I wanted to, because you think--I’m spoiling way too much here--but she gets a kind of noble death and something a little bit more almost peaceful. I said, “Just treat me like a piece of garbage, and throw me over the wall. That was fun.”
NM: I like that and the kind of indignity about it. And then the other one is right at the start when I think it’s pretty much the second death. Well it’s the second kill of the movie. It’s the thing with the guy ringing the bell, and I wanted Axelle to shoot him in the back of the head, and then his head would gong the bell. The finishing touch on that was when it became a flaming arrow, so you really see this flaming arrow whack him in the back of the head, and all of these sparks fly off. I just love that, but there were so many other great ones like the first guy getting the spear up the groin.
Capone: Oh my God, yeah.
NM: Which gets everybody.
Capone: That’s a big groaner.
NM: There’s Liam’s death, when he pushes the steel threw himself again and kills the guy behind him, just so many fun things to do.
Capone: When the head gets cut off in the middle in that one shot. And I’m immediately thinking, “Of course, not ever beheading is going to be clean and across the neck.”
NM: As much as you want a nice clean beheading sometimes, but I just thought, “Yeah it is always pictured as being a neck job, but it really will take it off wherever. Can we have a head that like slices down the middle somewhere?” So it’s very fun coming up with that stuff.
Capone: Even though DOOMSDAY and CENTURIAN are bigger in scope, you do like these small packs of fighters, I guess that’s the best way to put it. Even in THE DESCENT, these women are not victims, by any stretch; they are survivors trying to survive. Tell me what you like about that group dynamic .
NM: It’s partly the group dynamic that I’m fascinated by, the interaction between not only the actors but the characters as well and the combination of the two. I am fascinated by the survival instinct and what people will do to survive and how far they will go and whether they will support each other or betray each other. Those kinds of interactions are what I find the most fascinating. A band on the run is always great cinematic stuff.
Capone: The number of people that actually make it to the end of the film, you could very much argue that this is a comment on the futility of war. You struggle and struggle and fight and everybody dies and in the end there’s just “that.”
NM: Oh totally. I really liked the fact that this is essentially two outcasts who find each other at the end. That’s the only way that they are able to get on with this, to be outcasts.
Capone: Michael Fassbender, obviously in the last couple of years his profile has gone significantly up. Do you feel kind of lucky to have gotten him to be in this film, and what did he add to it? Clearly if he’s willing to run half naked through snow banks, that’s pretty committed.
NM: It’s kind of a double-edged sword, because within industry circles he’s huge and everybody is talking about him, but you as anybody on the street and they wont know who he is. I was lucky to get him at the time when we did. I know that he had just done INGLORIOUS BASTERDS and he had just done HUNGER, but we hadn’t seen him in any of those. I had actually auditioned him years before for DOOMSDAY, so I knew him kind of through that and wanted to work with him, but I had no idea that he was suddenly going to go through the roof. I’m waiting for that to happen.
Capone: I feel like he’s on the verge.
NM: He is. He is totally on the verge.
AC: It’s feeling like it’s going to pay off at some point that we got him now, but it hasn’t paid off yet. He’s brilliant in the film and he brings a lot to the film, but in terms of getting butts in seats, that’s going to change with X-MEN, though?
Capone: I agree. You have always been really good about even though these are horror films or more action-oriented films, you never have sacrificed anything in terms of character development, great performances, and complex story ideas. But there's always a bit of humor in your work, without resorting to jokes or one-liners.
NM: I think, yeah, with the humor, that’s the point--I don’t want to undermine the situation, but if it comes from within the characters then that’s fine. I am myself not mocking the situation that they are in, and that was very specific with DOG SOLDIERS. I think there are a couple of jokes in DESCENT. It’s not really a funny movie. I think DOOMSDAY was far more outrageous, and this one has humor again, more like DOG SOLDIERS where it comes from the characters, but yeah I do. That’s something that I applied to DOG SOLDIERS and I’ve applied ever since, that I want the characters to be interesting and real and have you care for them. I’m not out to make cardboard people running around dying, and who cares?
AC: Sometimes it’s even humor that isn’t necessarily obvious on the page, like the scene with the soup with Liam Cunningham. That scene, he makes it so funny with the way that he plays it, but on the page I never thought that was a great joke.
NM: No, I didn’t really read it that way, and it was a combination of taking what was on the page, working with the actors…
Capone: Whether the soup was poison or not? That part?
NM: Yeah.
AC: When he goes, “It’s delicious.”
NM: Their timing, as well. From my point of view, it was my choice to do it as one take and just let it play and not cut into it and just let it find its own timing. That natural timing between the three actors is what makes it funny. To mess around with that would have screwed it up. Liam managed to bring so much humor to the film and through his lines and the way he delivered stuff was just wonderful.
Capone: That’s a really interesting scene, because it’s one of the few moments when you just ease up a little bit, and in a lot of ways it’s the calm before the really awful storm atthe end of the film.
NM: That’s what I mean, some people think that that slows it down a bit.
Capone: I feel at that point, you need it to slow down for a second.
NM: I think you do and I really enjoy that little segment where they are in the hut, because there is more warmth and humor going around, but as you say, “It’s the calm before the storm.” It lulls you into a false sense of security thinking, “Actually, these guys might make it.”
Capone: That’s exactly it, you think “These are the survivors here.” Then immediately I get suspicious, so…
[Everyone Laughs]
AC: Do you mind if I talk about what’s missing in the end?
NM: No, not at all.
AC: I think it’s not really a secret that Neil had to fight a lot against producers in the script stage and the whole romance aspect to it, which kind of now feels like it’s a moment where you almost stop from the action and you take a breath. But at the time had a much more integrated payoff in a way.
NM: It feels like it’s just shoved in as a romance, and it was never just a romance.
AC: It feels a little like it’s just preparing you for the ending, but originally the ending was kind of different and had a payoff that made he whole thing look a lot less romantic and a lot more integrated in the action.
NM: There was a lot more backstory to it. What it actually turned out to be was Aeron was Etain’s half sister. And it was Etain that gave her the cut on the face, so there’s this big history between them, and originally Etain survived the full battle and when Quintus went back to Aeron’s house at the end, Etain was waiting for him and there’s this big fight, and it was actually Aeron who killed her.
Capone: What a difference.
NM: It made it much more integral to the story that it wasn’t some kind of…
AC: It had this awesome ending which was like, it’s a romance, but it’s a Neil Marshall romance, where he would have the fight inside the house, and Etain gets killed, and you just see from the outside opens the door, throws the body of Etain out of the house, closes the door and is like…
Capone: She's still garbage.
NM: It was literally like Quintus just walks out of the house dragging Etain by the leg, drops her in the mud, walks back in the house, and shuts the door--The End. The producers felt that was a bit harsh, but I felt like that was absolutely the ending the film on the right note, but what can you do?
Capone: That would have been a crowd pleasure. Real quick before they stop me, talk a little bit about where you are with BURST, which I guess is not very far, but that is definitely the next thing that you are doing?
NM: Not definitely; it just depends on how long it will take, so something might nip in before it, but it’s a very long drawn-out process. We are working on the script at the moment. We'll see.
Capone: Committed to filming in 3D?
NM: Oh totally. I’m totally up for that. What I’m most immediately doing now is Axelle’s movie. Axelle is directing her first feature and I’m producing that.
Capone: What is that?
AC: It’s a ghost story. It’s called THE GHOSTS OF SLAUGHTERFORD. It’s kind of an old-fashioned ghost story set in an English village after the second World War. I usually call it THE OTHERS meets FATAL ATTRACTION. It’s that kind of very atmospheric scares and some little twists in it. It’s a woman and a ghost in a house.
Capone: And you wrote it, too?
AC: I wrote it too.
Capone: How far along is that?
AC: Hopefully, we are shooting in October. The financing is kind of closing at the moment with the lawyers and everything else, and if that works out then we can start casting in a couple of weeks.
Capone: That’s great. Congratulations on that.
AC: Thank you, it’s very exciting.
Capone: So back to BURST for one second. You like the idea of 3D bodies blowing up? It appeals to you in some way?
NM: Oh yeah. I wanted to have a go with 3D at some point. I think it’s a fascinating tool that some directors are using very well and others not so much, and I definitely want to have a go with that, and the idea of doing this thing with people exploding in 3D was kind of very appealing and working with [producer] Sam Raimi as well, so I couldn’t really turn that down.
Capone: No, I don’t see how you could. Alright, well great and I guess I will see you guys in a few hours up at the convention center.
AC: Really appreciating the support from Ain’t It Cool News, by the way, since the first screening in the states it’s been great.
Capone: I know a lot of us saw it at SXSW. What was it the person from Magnolia said about the CENTURION views On-Demand?
AC: Most successful ever for Magnolia, and in three weeks.
Capone: That’s incredible. How did you feel about On-Demand being the first place people got to see your movie?
NM: I have been and I still am a little bit dubious about it, because I don’t fully understand it, and as a director, obviously, theatrical is the thing. But I suppose at the end of the day, as long as people are seeing it and enjoying it and not pirating it, then it’s all a bonus.
Capone: That’s true. I’ve got a lot of emails last night when I got back. The people who were there last night were just going crazy for it.
NM: As far as I can say, to me it’s a big-screen movie. I made it to be a big screen movie, so that should be the first experience with that. I’ve seen it on BluRay back at home, and it looks amazing, and you'll have that treat yet to come, but for the moment see it on the big screen if you can.
Capone: Yeah, I’ve seen it twice, so I agree.
NM: And also it’s a good audience movie. They get into it, especially when Axelle dies, and when he gets it between the legs. [Laughs]
Capone: Even some of the anonymous deaths are great, so it’s not just the main characters. All right, well great. I will see you in a few hours then.
NM: See you shortly.
AC: See you there.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcool.com
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