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(The elder Swinton, an old friend of Hoggs, pops up as Julies mother.)
How are you emotionally preparing for that part of the process with this film?Well, Im not.
I havent; my head is in the second part.
We start shooting when I get back on Sunday, in three weeks time.
So I havent had time to think about what this means.
Youre in two places at once.Yeah.
So Im almost wanting to block my ears.
I think I probably know enough without seeing it.
I suppose thats similar to this film.
Occasionally I get that feeling of muddying those memories; its like a book thats been overhandled.
I dont like that feeling.
I feel a bit like Im stomping with heavy boots on my past.
Ill give Honor my diaries to look at, or Tom some recordings to listen to.
Im not very respectful of those things, because I need them.
Theyre necessary to play out this new version of the story.
And Im not sure.
It made me really question whether that was me or not.
Its harder to now know what was true and what wasnt.
Im interested in that confusion.
We built the apartment that I once lived in inside a studio inside an aircraft hangar.
I had to reconstruct it from memory and photographs, literally conjure it up.
There was something about physically building this space and then being able to stand in it …
I had no way of knowing what that was going to be like.
It was quite an extraordinary process.
A lot of the stuff Ive thrown away over the years, and I regret everything Ive thrown away!
I feel like thats something filmmakers of my generation might have lost.
It should inspire you to be more analog.
Its so nice, the tactility of objects.
How the object is just so important.
You dont have a computer and a mobile phone; you have a typewriter.
Having this conversation makes me very nostalgic for that time.
I still write in notebooks.
I resent the computer, I resent email, and I dont think it nourishes our lives.
You dont do traditional scripts; instead you have a 30-page outline.
Everything that Ive included in there, in terms of political events, is true to my memory.
And thats one of the big question marks over the film:What does he do for a living?
Is he really working for the Foreign Office or not?And I dont have an answer for that!
Did you ever get an answer in real life?Not a straightforward one.
You might have to wait for the second part to find out about that.
Dont expect any grand conclusions.
But I felt probably more connected to what was going on politically before I went to film school.
But once I got to film school … actually, its not just film school.
I couldnt do that.
There was a moment when I thought,Well, I dont even have to remember that well.
I can just create my impression of that time.It didnt all have to be true.
One of the things thats interesting about the character of Anthony is that we dont always see him head-on.
I wanted him to be this dark shape in a pin-striped suit.
And actually someone yesterday was asking me if Id been inspired by Cary Grant inNotorious.
Maybe there was some kind of subconscious connection there.
Hed quite like that!
Anthony is so arrogant, but theres almost a charm in his disdain.
So much of that is wrapped up in his voice and his affect.
He very much absorbed that.
It was quite incredible.
It proved to me how deep he had gone.
Hes a brilliant actor.
I think its a dangerous line to make.
Wed be artistically a lot poorer if we could only draw on our own experience.
But Im giving myself license in the future not to just draw on my own life!
I dont think Im going to carry on doing that.
Id have nothing left if I carried on doing that.
You mentioned that the Sunderland idea in the film is one of your actual projects.
Im curious what your other student films were like.You see them in the film, actually.
There was a series of unfinished works.
I had a project calledThe Tragedy of Passionabout an eccentric, self-destructive fashion designer loosely based on Charles James.
And thenFilm Dress, which is about a dress made out of film.
Didnt go very well.
I didnt finish it.
And then before that and at the end ofThe SouvenirtheresThe Rehearsal, which I made with Tilda.
It was about an actress rehearsing the part of Isabella inMeasure for Measure.
It wasnt finished, partly because of what happened with the relationship ending.
So the end ofThe Souveniris very true to life as I experienced it then.
He was an extraordinary couturier.
I liked the film, but I was really worried when I first started reading about it.
I was like,Agh!
I really enjoy the look of the film.
Its slightly desaturated, and slightly faded.
We were very much referencing these photographs of mine.
But there was something about that slight desaturation … which will be different in the second part.
I think the next part is going to be a bit more saturated and more contrasty.
How secretive do you feel like being about the second part?Very.
