Colman Domingo meets Greg in Los Angeles and New York.
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It was wonderful to work with Colman Domingo this issue, and chart his career path from New York to LA, from theatre to film. His journey has been a steady burn, the labours of a hard-working actor who has found success later in life and ensured his longevity. I’m very drawn to his story, I’m a similar age and I’ve also worked consistently and it’s only been in the last decade that things have stepped up to what he describes as his ‘harvest stage’. I was inspired to hear his acceptance of change – the changes to him and the changes to New York City where we finished our interview during the week of his SNL debut. Colman’s story also resonates with me as we visited two theatres that were integral to his path. I feel comfortable in those spaces as both my parents worked in the theatre and I grew up playing there. The idea of kismet also plays into Colman’s life – another thing I feel linked to. While in LA, we visited a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf that was the place that kicked off his involvement in Rustin, the film that changed everything for him, and was also the location for his first billboard in Los Angeles (also for Rustin). I love the idea of chance changing the entire course of a life.
As part of my bi-coastal cover story, I spent time with Colman over Oscar weekend in LA and although he was going to parties as a celebrated artist his humility shone out and I feel that that’s often a marker of people who have found success later – because they’ve known tougher times. But being humble and authentic was also present in my shoots with younger artists. Spike Fearn is so connected to his hometown of Coalville in the UK and wanted to create work there. It was incredibly refreshing to meet an actor who didn’t just want to move to LA and was keen to work in his own way. Also marching to the beat of his own drum – quite literally – was Lewis Pullman. The son of a beloved actor who’s grown up in Hollywood, Lewis is reverential of his lineage and pragmatic about his career. I like that he felt he would take a lifetime to figure out acting – just because he had a famous dad, he didn’t have all the answers.
And shooting Ellie Bamber in Lucian Freud’s former studio was an amazing privilege, not only because I’m such a fan of Freud’s work but also because Ellie was ‘at peace’ with whatever anyone thinks. That stuck with me because it’s a place all creatives hope to get to in life – and all four of my subjects this issue seem to have found that sweet spot. That’s inspiring and humbling for me. And I hope for you…
GREG WILLIAMS
Founder, Hollywood Authentic
Photographs & interview GREG WILLIAMS
As told to JANE CROWTHER
Having worked decades to finally arrive, Colman Domingo meets Greg Williams on two coasts to explore the steps to success and the evolution of an artist.
LOS ANGELES, 15 MARCH 2026
On Oscars morning, as Hollywood’s denizens begin their glam and grooming all across town, I meet Colman Domingo in his suite at L’Ermitage Hotel in LA. Though he spent last night hanging with Anna Wintour at the Vanity Fair dinner, the twice-Oscar-nominated actor is up early, his smile wide as he invites me in. On the biggest day in the cinematic calendar, we’re going to ride around the Philadelphia native’s adopted city and retrace the career steps that saw him consecutively nominated for Best Actor for his powerhouse performances in Rustin in 2024 and Sing Sing in 2025. Roles that led to turns in The Color Purple, The Running Man and, hitting cinema screens now, playing the King of Pop’s dad in biopic, Michael, and a key role in Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated big ensemble return to alien encounters, Disclosure Day.
This year, the actor is going to be enjoying the celebratory vibe of Oscars night without pressure – he’s attending the Vanity Fair party later this evening (‘I’m good for a crowd – she’s built for it,’ he says of himself). I ask him for his recollection of his two Academy Award nomination nights, a back-to-back run of achieving the utmost accolade of any actor. ‘One memory? Having my family out here. It was nice. Because usually I’m having a lot of this journey with friends and colleagues, and a lot of times not with my family. And my family… that’s my blood.’
Colman’s ‘Oscar breakfast’ this morning consists of a couple of cups of coffee and the enticement of a miniature chocolate statuette; ‘I usually try to bite off the head by the end of the night.’ That’s for later; now, we are going on a tour of the actor’s LA to find out how the city shaped him. ‘The funny thing is, I was coming out to LA as a theatre director, which is wild. And then, you know, other things happened in my career… like becoming a movie star,’ he laughs. As we set off he tells me that the pivot from theatre to cinema was crystallised for him when he saw a giant billboard poster for Rustin, his first with him as lead. He was driving around LA with his friend, Jamie, and glimpsed his face, feet high, and looking down over Sunset. ‘We both cried a little bit. We took pictures because we knew it was such a big deal to have, for the first time, my face up on one of those billboards. I remember it like it was yesterday – we were both in awe. And all the superlatives for the reviews and all. We knew it was a moment. We were like: you don’t get those often.’
Gratitude, pausing to appreciate and having a clear sense of where he began – and the work it took to move the needle on his career – is something that I understand as Colman’s MO as I spend time with him. He doesn’t want to dwell on the past, but at the same time he honours and is reverential of it. A word he uses often is ‘build’; when he describes his approach, his preferences, the stages and steps of his career. It’s apt for an artist who has taken decades of hard work to arrive at a place where he’s admired by colleagues and audiences alike. And in service to that journey, he wants to show me the places in LA that marked evolutions for him.
We head to the Geffen Playhouse where Colman directed Barbecue in 2016, a Hollywood satire about addiction written by Robert O’Hara (which he has since turned into a screenplay). The Geffen is also where he co-wrote and directed the musical, Lights Out: Nat King Cole, which he describes as ‘a dark night of the soul’ for the legendary singer. ‘When you deconstruct an icon like Nat King Cole, who lived with so much grace and elegance, you also start to look at the world that he was living in. How did he create all that beautiful music, living under the harshest times in American history? For me, it’s a great examination.’
I admit that I am fascinated by the artist’s ability to take pain and turn it into something beautiful. Colman nods. ‘To be honest, I come from a very healthy, happy home that wasn’t filled with a lot of heartbreak and tragedy. I lost my parents. But it’s normal stuff. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. But I know I pull from a place of curiosity: what do people do with pain? How do you survive? Do I have that in me? I wonder, “Do I have Joe Jackson in me [who Colman plays in Michael]? X in Zola, a pimp? Mister in The Colour Purple? Do I have Bayard Rustin in me?” I think I’ve always looked at myself as an ordinary man – an everyman – but it’s meant that I can actually shapeshift and become all these people, and try to figure out how they live in me.’
The funny thing is, I was coming out to LA as a theatre director, which is wild. And then, you know, other things happened in
my career… like becoming a movie star
As we drive to the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood Village, I ask if all actors have to be able to tap into that empathy. ‘I really think that has to be the basis of your work. If I go through a character’s perspective, then I understand him, and I can have empathy for him. That’s a great challenge right now with anybody in the world. We’re so polarised, but if we really try, we can really find the humanity in anybody. Once you examine that, I think you can also move forward, and actually find some healing, and find some grace. I think that maybe that’s what I’m trying to find in a lot of characters. I’m trying to find grace, always, even in people who don’t have it forward-facing.’
As I’ve found with many actors, there’s real curiosity that drives their work. Colman agrees. ‘No one would imagine when I was in high school that this would be my career, because I was an observer. I do now know that that’s a part of my gift, because I was very shy. I sort of decided not to be a shy person by the time I got to college. I worked in a Barnes and Noble book store in Philadelphia when I was 19 years old, and I used to take care of the self-help section and the travel section. Even then I was very curious about: how do you become a person? So I would read self-help books all day long, and then I read travel books. I think that I was really trying to figure out, and test out, how to become the person that I wanted to be. I was researching my own character. My older brother, Rick, and older sister, Avery, were very cool, athletic, gregarious and funny. And I was shyer, bookish and not cool or particularly funny. I wanted to become more like them. So I had to learn. But I think that’s the greatest part about this career, too. I’ve learned so many things. I’ve travelled. I do all these things that I would never get the opportunity for. And I feel like that’s all building blocks to becoming a person.’
We pull up outside the 1929-built Geffen, a former Masonic clubhouse that became an Italian restaurant and the Westwood Playhouse before it was gifted to UCLA. It’s a beautiful Spanish-style period building currently run by Tarell McCraney of Moonlight fame. ‘This is such a famed theatre when you are a regional theatre actor,’ Coman explains as we enter the space. His career started in San Francisco regional theatre, where he worked for 10 years, before moving to New York at the age of 36. After 16 years there, he moved to LA. He recalls writing Lights Out: Nat King Cole with Patricia McGregor (who now runs New York Theatre Workshop) for a small ensemble here, an experience that has now led to him playing Cole himself in upcoming biopic, Unforgettable, which he has also co-written and will direct and produce.
We head on-stage and he he moves towards the ‘ghost light’ glimmering centre stage. ‘You must always leave a ghost light on for the ghosts of the theatre. I think it’s the most beautiful thing. You come onto any stage, and there’ll always be a light on for the stage.’ Colman turns on the lights, almost on muscle memory from years before, clearly relishing being back in a live theatre space. ‘There’s been a lot of commentary because one of my colleagues said something that I know he didn’t mean, about performing arts, and two that are “dying”,’ he says, referring to Timothée Chalamet’s pre-Oscar comments. ‘I personally don’t think that he meant it the way he did because, my God, we need this for civilisation, for us to come together in a small room, and wrestle with thoughts and ideas on a stage. It’s older than all of us. It’s just necessary. And fundamentally – this is the college professor in me speaking now – I think that our society knows what the impact of these live art forms can do. It knows it can bring us together. It knows it’s revolutionary. It knows its power to make us have empathy for one another.’
It’s clear that Colman’s rise to prominence has not been an overnight experience, and has been predicated on decades of hard work. I ask about finding success later, the satisfaction of years of graft coming to fruition. ‘It’s funny – now that I’m a discovery,’ he laughs. ‘I’ve been working for 36 years consistently. I used to make my way around the country, working at all these different theatres.’ He even worked in a circus as an aerial web artist, stilts performer, juggler and as a clown. ‘I think clowns are so smart. In Shakespeare, I played a lot of dark clowns; All’s Well That Ends Well has one of the darkest clowns. And so my clowns are philosophers, they’re the truth-tellers. People think that clowns are just being funny. No, clowns are dark as fuck, too! I think I have the heart of a clown, so that’s what I lead with. I use the clowning in everything. I’m always telling actors… I’m never unprepared. I’m researched. I do my work. I know my lines. But then I leave a part of the preparation that feels dangerous, very vulnerable. With a clown, he’s always like this…’ He opens his arms wide towards the darkened seats of the auditorium. ‘Always willing, always open. You have to have a sense of play.’
A lot of the times when you’re working in regional theatre, you’re not making extraordinary amounts of money. Most actors are getting by, working-class people. I was a working-class actor for 25 years. Wherever I worked, it also had to fuel me as an artist. I always had to have a job – I was a good fucking bartender – even as I would take a bow on stage. I would take a bow, change, get a cab, go across town. Within five minutes, I’m like, ‘Hi, what can I get you?’
I ask him to go back to his start and tell me about what drove him – clearly not the fame or fortune, though he has both now. ‘A lot of the times when you’re working in regional theatre, you’re not making extraordinary amounts of money. Most actors are getting by, working-class people. I was a working-class actor for 25 years. Wherever I worked, it also had to fuel me as an artist. I always had to have a job – I was a good fucking bartender – even as I would take a bow on stage. I would take a bow, change, get a cab, go across town. Within five minutes, I’m like, “Hi, what can I get you?” he mimics leaning over the bar ready to take an order. ‘And I don’t even know if that’s humility either. That was just part of the life of an artist.’
Things are different for Colman now: he lives in Malibu, is a brand ambassador for Valentino and doesn’t need to keep the bartending job – but the change came only relatively recently. ‘I feel like I’m playing some catch-up, even with myself,’ he admits. ‘I was actually talking to Spike Lee last night, who knows me as that guy in New York who’s living in a rent-stabilised apartment or an illegal sublet in Harlem. He asked me where I live now. I’m catching up to the fact that I’m someone who lives in a beautiful home in Malibu, and owns some other properties and things like that. I don’t think I’ve changed a lot, but I have changed. That’s OK. I’ve had to evolve.’ He tells a story about seeing someone at Hollywood events who knew him in New York and who keeps saying they miss the way things were. ‘We should evolve,’ he stresses. ‘Not everyone’s happy for you. I’ve attained a lot, and I think I’ve been in my harvest stage. I don’t want for anything. There’s a peace that I have. I know I’ve built a solid foundation of a body of work, and I’m looking for the thing that I don’t know where it exists, or when it’s going to come. But I’m cool if it’s not in six months. I’m cool if it’s not in a year. I’m cool if it happens next week. But I’m open.’
We decide to head to Sunset Boulevard and find the billboard spot where Colman first saw himself and felt a sense of arrival as a movie actor. ‘I still try to approach this industry from being a theatre professional,’ he says as we drive. ‘I try to make it about all of us, and rally all of us together; to get behind something, and not be so individualistic. My career has always been in service of the story. It’s never just been in service of me being number one, or being at the centre of the event.’ On the way to Sunset we stop at the former Complex Theatre where Colman first worked, directing Single Black Female, when he arrived in LA. The theatre is now a shell, shuttered and due for redevelopment. ‘I was just a guy who had come to LA without notions of being in film or TV. I was a theatre rat. But I got here and thought, “This is kind of cool.”’
He tells me he’s always led with opportunity over money, getting paid $150 a day for his work in Sing Sing, and taking work that excites him. He adheres to a ‘one for me, one for them’ approach. ‘Running after the money is never good. You have to run after the experience and the art, and trust that it will take care of you.’ Happily he’s in a position now to pick and choose, but when he landed the lead role in Rustin it was a game changer. I ask if he pinched himself at seeing where he suddenly was, his work recognised, opportunities offered. ‘No,’ he replies quickly. ‘Because I think pinching yourself is being like, ‘I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe I did this’. And without any ego, I know I’ve built this. I know every step it’s taken to get here. I do believe this has happened, because I put the work in. What I am in awe of – and this sometimes will make me cry – I’m in awe that I did it. Whatever energy from my parents, from a higher power – I’m still here, and I’m happy, and I’m whole, and I have love around me. I’m still fucking here, and I’m still the person that I know about here,’ he presses a palm to his chest. ‘I haven’t become something that I’m not proud of, or that my parents aren’t proud of. I don’t want to take any of that for granted.’
Colman lost both his parents in 2006, within a few months of each other. He shows me a tattoo on his arm etched for ‘Edith’, his mother’s name, and although he’ll talk about his parents’ love and their passing, he says he’s conscious of keeping his personal life personal. His love story with his husband of 21 years, Raul, is well known, one he describes as ‘star-crossed lovers’. The duo exchanged glances outside a Walgreens in Berkeley in 2005 but didn’t meet and found each other three days later through the Missed Connections column on Craigslist. He acknowledges that it’s a romantic, hopeful and beautiful story but ‘there’s so much more’. ‘Now I think I’m more interested in talking about the story of longevity. How do you keep reinvesting in a person? No one’s perfect and we’re trying to find some joy and grace and love and good times. You can tell if a person is loved or not, by the way they respond in every way in the world, especially with work and being a creative. I’ll walk into a room with love because I am loved. I’m not grabby for anything else.’
Some people have asked me if I’d have wanted the success to have come earlier? But I know that my journey has been for that to come later in my life, so I can truly appreciate it. I know the value of it. I always look at it as like: it could be my first, and it could be my last. But for now, I’m going to enjoy it
He felt love growing up in a blue collar family and that translated into support when he found acting as a teenager (he joined a summer programme at the Society Hill Playhouse) and in his sophomore year of college while majoring in journalism. ‘I just took to it. It was good for me, and I knew it. And then my teacher pulled me aside one day and said, “Have you ever thought about acting as a professional?”’ I didn’t grow up going to the theatre or believing that Hollywood was this thing that people do.’ Yet, here we are now on Sunset Boulevard, looking up at the billboard where he realised he’d made the journey to movie actor, and in his fifties. ‘The idea that it took over 50 years for me to be on Sunset Boulevard, is extraordinary. You never forget your first,’ he smiles. ‘Some people have asked me if I’d have wanted the success to have come earlier? But I know that my journey has been for that to come later in my life, so I can truly appreciate it. I know the value of it. I always look at it as like: it could be my first, and it could be my last. But for now, I’m going to enjoy it.’ As we stand there two pedestrians shout that they love him from across the street. He smiles and waves, wishing them a beautiful day.
We head to grab a coffee at the nearby Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf where Colman also had a pivotal moment in his career. It was here that he had a meeting to discuss playing Bayard Rustin with director Dustin Lance Black. The two men sat at a nearby table to where we are now and decided to work together, to will the movie into existence. Two years later they made it and when it came to promotion, that first billboard went up right above the coffee shop. ‘It’s as if it was pre-destined,’ he says, sipping his Americano with oat milk. ‘Listen, my whole career has been this way. There are no coincidences.’ He tells me about working on Lincoln with Daniel Day Lewis, and his first time working with Steven Spielberg who he re-teams with on the upcoming Disclosure Day. He and David Oyelowo shared a scene together that was almost replicated, historical decades apart, when they worked together again on civil rights drama, Selma. The horse that his character held for Day Lewis’ president in Lincoln was named Glory, the title of the Oscar-winning song from Selma, and the very same horse he later rode in Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation. ‘We’re always moving around history, and dancing around it,’ he says. ‘And if we really allow ourselves… it’s showing up in our art. And that’s why I literally believe in magic. Every time I see 3:13 – that’s my mother’s birthday. And for some reason, I always look at my phone – at least a couple of days a week, it says 3:13. Why? I believe that’s my mother saying hello to me. And I accept it as such.’
NEW YORK, 8 MAY 2026
That sense of magic brings Colman and I together again in Manhattan three weeks later when we both happen to be in town the same week. For Colman, it’s a significant trip – he’s hosting Saturday Night Live!, a major milestone for any artist but particularly sweet to him as a longtime New York resident. He’s busy rehearsing for the show and having dinner with Lorne Michaels but wants to show me something of his Big Apple. We meet at the newly-opened Faena Hotel in Chelsea and decide to grab lunch at the restaurant on site. The waitress there tells me that Colman acts with spirit and soul and that he is something special as she hands over menus. He looks bashful and thanks her, and over Mendoza beef tenderloin empanadas Colman tells me the recognition he receives as he moves through the world now is ‘the most beautiful thing’. ‘People let me know that what I’ve been doing has been meaningful, and it touches people. That’s what my work is now giving me back.’
When he was a self-described theatre rat, Colman lived near here but with gentrification and investment the area is now almost unrecognisable to him. The bar he used to work at is gone, his old apartment in Harlem is now hip. ‘I know that this New York is not mine. It was mine when I was here. I’ve made new agreements with New York, because I think you’re supposed to.’ As he was in LA, Colman is very much about forward motion, evolution, living fully in the present. He can no longer walk the same streets he used to in the same way; ‘I’m a public persona,’ he states, ‘the old me – I was everywhere and doing everything in New York. But that was a different guy, a different hustle.’ He admits that dealing with fame has been a learning curve. ‘As somebody who is really about people, and being out, and having experiences, and being in the world – for me to make my world smaller is a challenge. I wrestle with that every day.’ But he insists he doesn’t mourn his anonymity. ‘Because it’s another chapter.’
This week’s chapter started on Monday meeting the SNL writers, filming promos on Tuesday, and today, deciding on the sketches that will make the show on the weekend from 40-50 options. Colman is taking it all in his stride as someone who has done fast-paced comedy before on The Big Gay Sketch Show – and because this year he’s also travelled to Africa and skydived from 10,000ft up with Bear Grylls. ‘They could be bucket list items,’ he laughs, ‘but also, SNL is one of those things. It’s a zeitgeist.’ Along with promotion work for Michael and Disclosure Day, Colman is busy – and happy to be so – but he confesses to needing to ‘go to ground’ to be creatively fertile. ‘When things start spinning, it doesn’t work well for me. I actually feel like I don’t know how to actually “create” or “do” when things are too crazy. The only way I can work is if things are hyper-organised. And then I’m like, “Oh, then I can be free.”’
People let me know that what I’ve been doing has been meaningful, and it touches people. That’s what my work is now giving me back
With lunch over, it’s time to head to SNL. We jump in a car and head up 10th Avenue and onto 42nd Street, Colman’s old theatre stomping ground. I ask him for his happiest memory of New York, before he made his new agreements with the place. His answer is immediate – it was living in Manhattan Plaza on 43rd and 9th, a rent-stabilised apartment building that was home to numerous artists – among them Alicia Keys, Samuel L Jackson and Angela Lansbury. ‘It gave me more freedom to just be the artist that I was. And that’s your happiest time. You’re like, “I can write the plays I want to write. I can work when I want to work, and how I want to work. I can build the rooms the way I want to build it.” I was on a waiting list for nine years to get into Manhattan Plaza. And once you’re in, you’re in. You feel like you can create with so much liberty.’
We travel onward to Times Square. ‘I used to live over here, down there, and right down here,’ he says, pointing out different apartments as they pass. ‘They say it’s the city that never sleeps, but that’s kind of a lie now, because it feels like it takes naps now,’ he jokes. ‘I worked all up and down these Broadway streets. I’d haunt them. But you don’t own this city. You own it when you’re here, when you’re young, when you’ve got your hustle on. But then you move along, and it becomes somebody else’s city. You don’t want to go backwards.’ At a stop light I move from the back of the car to the front seat and look back at Colman as he watches his former city slide by through the open window. The light is beautiful as he gazes optimistically into his future, the vanishing point of Manhattan behind him.
When we arrive at the SNL studios we drive under the Rockefeller Centre and down through a subterranean maze. We jump in the elevator to rise upward to the SNL production offices and walk the corridors to Colman’s dressing room. His name is on the door in that famous SNL script and a bouquet of long-stem roses awaits him in a vase on the dressing table. He has a moment of calm before the writers’ meeting and the chaos of production towards Saturday night. He smiles and pulls a rose from the bunch, sits on his dressing table chair and presses the petals to his nose. He inhales deeply, taking the moment to appreciate the scent before there’s a knock on the door and he’s whisked away into his busy schedule. Like his approach to everything else in his life, he is literally stopping to smell the roses…
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to JANE CROWTHER
Michael is in cinemas now, read our review here
Disclosure Day is in cinemas 12 June
Grooming by Jamie Richmond
Styling by Wayman and Micah
Coleman wears Kenzo, Maison Valentino, Omega and Jacques Marie Mage
Thanks to The Geffen Playhouse
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Interview by GREG WILLIAMS & JANE CROWTHER
LA born-and-bred actor Lewis Pullman shows Greg Williams around Hollywood and beats the skins as he pursues a ‘fugue state’ in his art.
The morning after he presented Best Film Editing with his dad, Bill, at the Oscars, Lewis Pullman arrives at a Hollywood rehearsal space on the Walk of Fame, a greasy hangover sandwich and iced coffee in hand. He’s dressed down after his night on the red carpet with his parents, a bag of drumsticks over his shoulder, and he admits to nerves the night before. ‘But it was so special. Just getting to see my mom dressed up, and out and about on the town is worth it, you know?’ Lewis is a Hollywood kid, born and bred. The son of Bill Pullman and modern dancer, Tamara, he grew up at the family house in Beechwood Canyon and, aside from his college years and extended trips to the family place in Montana, has called LA home all his life. A drummer in band Atta Boy, he can’t do much shedding where he currently lives due to his neighbours’ proximity (his kit is packed away), so if he wants to practice he needs to find a rehearsal room. The place we’re meeting is right on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, where flash mob dances are happening on the crosswalk, star homes tours leave from the curb and Johnny Cash’s brass sidewalk star sits outside the door.
We were like, ‘Let’s get the band back together!’ So we did, and now we’ve made three albums and we’ve done a couple of little tours. It’s 0.5% playing music, and then all the rest is just on the road – gas stations, driving, old buddies, old friends. So it’s the fucking best… I love that I still have it in my life… To be able to challenge your creative brain
When he’s had his caffeine and carbs fix, we decide to head down the labyrinthine corridor to stroll around Hollywood. ‘I used to skateboard here with my friend, Jonah. We skateboarded all the way from the East Side to the beach all the time, on those little rubber-wheeled skateboards. We would take Hollywood Boulevard, because…’ He indicates to the smooth terrazzo of the Walk of Fame. ‘Good skating. We’d stop at Ralph’s, and get a full watermelon, cut it in half, and sit on the curb. It’s the best.’ The Pullman family home was a couple of blocks from where we are now (he points towards the circular Capitol Records) and he and his siblings all still reside in the town he and his dad work in. ‘My brother, my sister, their kids – they all live in the same cul-de-sac.’
It was during high school that Lewis got into the band and was a dedicated drummer, Atta Boy making a record just before graduation. ‘It was a kind of monument to what we had in that era, and that time. And then 10 years later, the guitarist Freddie went and looked at the bank account, and he was like, ‘There’s a lot of money here for not having promoted it or anything. What should we do?’ And we were like, ‘Let’s get the band back together!’ So we did, and now we’ve made three albums and we’ve done a couple of little tours. It’s 0.5% playing music, and then all the rest is just on the road – gas stations, driving, old buddies, old friends. So it’s the fucking best.’ He’s not managed to be on every tour due to his acting commitments but remains committed to mixing his disciplines. ‘I love that I still have it in my life,’ he says of playing music. ‘To be able to challenge your creative brain.’
Creativity is hardly surprising given his lineage. During the Oscars, he joked that he was his dad’s ‘sequel’ and Bill noted that Lewis had carved out a career without his interference; ‘All on your own you did just fine.’ ‘My dad didn’t raise me shovelling messaging down my throat, telling me “do this, don’t do this”. It was very much through watch and learn. And I got another great lesson from him when we walked into the Oscar rehearsal and he was like, “This isn’t how we talk, though. If we’re doing this, why are we doing it as somebody else? Let’s make this our own voices.” I was kind of nervous to change it. But they loved it. If there’s anything I got out of that whole experience, it was just being reminded to protect yourself. Protect your voice. Protect your intention of why you’re doing something. Why are we presenting? How can we get something out of it as a father and son?’
The Pullmans will be starring together in the long-awaited sequel, Spaceballs 2, a project Lewis admits to feeling some trepidation about taking on given it was the film that put Bill on the map. He will be reprising Lone Starr and Lewis will be playing his son. ‘I didn’t want to step on my dad’s toes. This was his second movie. It really launched him, and is so personal to him,’ Lewis says. ‘I think it would be different if I was playing his role, but then once I found out I was playing his son, that changed things. And then once I read the script, and it was one of the funniest scripts I’ve read ever in my whole life, I was just like, “It’d be stupid not to do this.” But I had to talk to my dad, and we had a lot of conversations about it. I think that he thought that I was tiptoeing around it, because I didn’t want to step into a realm that he had already been in. Meanwhile, I was tiptoeing around it because I thought maybe he didn’t want me to step in there. So then once we finally were like, “No, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it’s so meta.” I felt I’d absolutely regret it if somebody else played that role. I don’t think I could get over that if I missed out on it. I’m so glad I did it because it was one of the most rich experiences of my life, working with him in that capacity, which is comedy, which is something we don’t get to do often, but we do all the time when we’re at home.’
Will we be seeing a little of the real Pullmans’ dynamic when we finally see the film? ‘You know, you always have that, regardless of how hard you try. There were parts where it was kind of a challenge to act with your family member, because you fear that they know you so well that they’re going to know better than anyone if you’re lying – if your acting is shit. But I would hope I’m not very similar to my character, although I love him greatly. He’s not the brightest bulb in the shed.’ He pauses. ‘But I don’t know. I have my days…’ He laughs.
We cross the street, passing beneath the 1920s Taft Building, the first high-rise office building in LA, the former HQ of the Academy, as well as housing offices for numerous Old Hollywood stars including Charlie Chaplin and Will Rogers. Across the street, the neon retro sign for the crossroad twinkles in the sun as we head towards the old Pantages Theatre and the Frolic Room bar (the drinking haunt of Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and, in her last seen appearance, the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short). Showbusiness is evident everywhere we look. I ask Lewis how he feels about the business end of his career, the promotion. ‘It’s probably my least favourite part of the whole thing. It’s so different being in front of a camera right now with people that aren’t the crew, that don’t know the “why” of why we’re doing it, or what we’re doing. There’s something about a film set where everyone is under the same preconceived notion about what the story is, and the collective illusion. The publicity part of it – I’m trying to find my way in.’ He stops and admires the marquee of the old movie theatre. ‘I keep thinking about deathbed thoughts,’ he laughs. ‘I don’t know why this has been on my mind lately. What the fuck am I going to be thinking when I’m dying? I don’t want to look back on my memories, and just see slates and hotel rooms and press junkets. So I’m trying to figure out a way to make that all not just something that I sleepwalk through, you know?’
I’ve gotten it down with the lines now. But at the beginning I was thinking maybe this wasn’t the profession for me, because it takes me so long. But now I’m starting to love it, because I’m treating it less as memorisation and more as just steeping. My job is to live in the scene, and to try and paint it in my mind as accurately as possible. Once I trick myself not to memorise, I end up memorising through that process
Does he think that’s because he has watched his father’s experience and has entered the industry with his eyes wide open? ‘I get asked about nepotism all the time… It’s an undeniable truth, but I think one of the more strangely valuable parts of the whole thing is watching my dad through a long career and what that looks like – how he manages his expectations, and what he actually allows himself to feel celebratory over, or where he gets his gratification from. Because he never got it from accolades. It was always the experience of the making of the thing. The journey. And the rest of it is just noise that he mutes. There is a healthy dose of discontent in him that keeps him driving forward, I think he holds onto that. But now I see him taking it all in, and living in the breaths in between a lot more.’
Music seems to help Lewis live in the breaths in between. Growing up, he was in different bands until he started playing with his ‘best buddy’, Kyle McNeill, and they began recording with their bassist, who ended up becoming Lewis’ brother-in-law. He recalls the messing about in the recording studio fondly. ‘There was something about the repetition of takes and what it looks like to get the chance to do it multiple times. In theatre you get one take each night, and then you have a whole day to think about what you might adjust. Whereas in the studio, sometimes you try and just have one night that’s like a one-night play.’
As we wander a few blocks down we pass a movie shooting on location. ‘It’s nice to walk down a set where you’re not worried that you’ve got to be learning your lines right now,’ he grins. He tells me he has ‘all sorts of beautiful, little learning challenges’, including dyslexia. ‘I’ve gotten it down with the lines now. At the beginning I was thinking maybe this wasn’t the profession for me, because it takes me so long. But now I’m starting to love it, because I’m treating it less as memorisation and more as just steeping. My job is to live in the scene, and to try to paint it in my mind as accurately as possible. Once I trick myself not to memorise, I end up memorising through that process.’ Despite the learning challenges, Lewis studied social work at a small liberal arts college, Warren Wilson, in Ashville, North Carolina after high school. ‘It’s a work studies programme. There’s a farm. I was on the tractor crew – I’m handy with the back-hoe and the front-end loader. I was doing social work, theatre, and working outdoors with my hands. And it was that trifecta of variety that I felt was really fruitful.’
We head back inside, to a rehearsal room with a drum kit and a Fleetwood Mac road case doubling as a coffee table. ‘I’m fairly rusty,’ Lewis says, eying the drum kit sitting on the vintage rug. ‘I chose the worst instrument for somebody who travels.’ He takes out a set of favoured sticks and sits on the stool, placing a cloth over the snare. ‘Growing up, my favourite drummer was Levon Helm, and he was all about muting it down, so that it’s not so ring-y.’ He pushes a blanket against the bass drum head so that’s also not as ‘ring-y’. ‘I’m not a technical drummer. I’m all about the feel and the pocket,’ he says as he starts tapping out a rhythm. ‘Let’s fuck around for a little bit.’
He begins to play and despite his protests, he’s great – his triple pedals tight and using his hands on the snare. ‘The first drum I ever got was a cajón so I got really into trying to incorporate hand stuff into the middle of that,’ he explains. ‘I forget I’m doing it, for a lot of that time. And that’s something that I don’t get in any other part of my life. In acting, that is what you’re seeking – right? That kind of forgetting that you’re there, that you’re doing it. Losing yourself. The brain just goes into this little fugue state, a purgatory in-between place. It’s a nice place to go.’
He’s recently been in pursuit of that fugue state in Marvel’s Thunderbolts*, The Testament of Ann Lee and the upcoming adap of the bestseller, Remarkably Bright Creatures. Lewis plays a rootless young man in search of his father who befriends an OAP (played by Sally Field) with a connection to the octopus in the aquarium where she cleans. ‘It sounds like something that is so specific for octopus lovers but it’s very much a universal story about found family. And Sally Field is unbelievable in it. Every day, getting to work with her was like going into the boxing ring. You’re just way below the weight class. She doesn’t settle for anything but the total truth. So if anything felt like a lie or a fib, she would really be adamant about tapping into the truth. It was like when I worked with Jeff Bridges. He loves asking questions, and philosophising, and mulling it around a lot – which I find really helpful. I think it’s cool to be able to work with actors of all different generations, because everyone has different styles.’
His experiences playing Bob in Top Gun Maverick, and Bob in Thunderbolts* as well as the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, were similarly educational moments. ‘Doomsday was such an experience – one of those ones where you’re literally trying to open your eyes as wide as possible, to just soak it all in. It’s one of the most massive movie sets I’ve ever set foot on, but you wouldn’t know it with how the Russo brothers operate. Despite it being this massive thing, it always felt like we were doing something that was trying to capture something in the room. It was there, regardless of the kind of scale. I never would have thought I would be in a movie like Top Gun or in a Marvel movie. Sometimes I wish I was a better planner or manifester. But also I never would have dreamed to manifest either of those things. So, keeping it open in some ways has been a gift for me, just because I love those experiences. And yes, they’re big, huge movies, but they’re so different. The characters are so different, despite them sharing the exact same name – I think I’ve tapped out on playing another Bob there.’
He’s just produced his first movie under his Buckwild production company shingle, directed by his friend, Graham Parkes, and co-starring Maya Hawke – they premiered it at SXSW earlier in the week. It follows Lewis and Maya as a couple whose harmony or disharmony affects the world around them (fighting equals earthquakes, stocks crashing, the Dodgers losing). Describing the film as a ‘surreal rom-com-dram’, Wishful Thinking was born out of an ambition to give himself a role ‘other people weren’t giving me the opportunity to do’ – namely, playing a romantic lead. ‘You do a movie like that because you wouldn’t normally be cast in it, you know? Maybe you haven’t done it, so they can’t imagine you doing it. It’s not a short cut. It’s a long cut. But it’s the only way to garner any sort of control.’ He’s also working with his Maverick Doomsday castmate Danny Ramirez on his writing and directorial debut, soccer movie Baton. ‘He’s got a serious plan, and he sticks to it, and it really serves him. It’s just amazing to see him directing and writing and producing and starring.’ Does Lewis think he might want to move into directing, too? ‘I see what it takes to do it well, and I know myself well enough to know that I don’t think I have that gene. Also, I’ll probably die not having figured acting out. I don’t need more on my plate than that. I’m still trying to figure that out.’
With that in mind, he’s looking for projects he describes as ‘never right down the line, off-kilter, off-balance’. As he packs up his drumsticks he considers how his move into producing will affect the choices he makes in roles. ‘I don’t want to spend three months of my life doing something that I could watch, or play a role that I’ve seen somebody else do, or play a role that I know somebody else could do better than me. So it’s about finding the ones where I have something to say, and I can say it in this part right now. That can change month to month, you know? I’m realising that the project that I might be perfect for today, I might not be for tomorrow. But it’s really touching base with that grain of truth, when you’re like, “I know I can do something that nobody else can do right now.” Being able to say that, and with pride, is empowering…’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Interview by GREG WILLIAMS & JANE CROWTHER
Remarkably Bright Creatures is on Netflix now, Avengers: Doomsday is in cinemas 18 December, Wishful Thinking and Baton will release soon, Spaceballs 2 is in cinemas 23 April 2027
Thanks to Hollywood Rehearsals
www.hollywoodrehearsals.com
Photograph and words by GREG WILLIAMS
Greg Williams takes pause to consider the bigger picture on images seen small on his social media. This issue: Willem Dafoe at the Venice Film Festival in 2018.
I shot this picture of Willem Dafoe at the Venice Film Festival. I had a very short amount of time with him. We were in this hotel courtyard, which was very pretty but it didn’t really offer anything. Willem said, “I get it. It all looks great, but it’s not what you want.” So we looked for something to do. And there was this little fountain and he said, “Oh, I can play with this.” So he started playing with the water, flicking the water up at me. He completely soaked my trousers, so at the end of it I looked like I’d peed myself!
But anyway, he’s throwing this water up in the air, he probably did it 20 times, and this is the one picture that by far outshone all the others. There’s this beautiful curve where the drops of water frame his face so perfectly. I focused on him, so the drops of water are out of focus. Really, he gave me this photo. He knew exactly what he was doing, and we waited for this happy accident.
Leica Q, 1/1000 sec, f/2.5, 1600 ISO, 28mm
Photograph and words by GREG WILLIAMS
Dafoe was awarded the Best Actor award at the closing ceremony of the 2018 Venice Film Festival for his portrayal of Vincent van Gogh in At Eternity’s Gate directed by Julian Schnabel
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Actor Leslie Bibb tells Hollywood Authentic about laundry, lazing about and her love of Polo cologne.
How important is a little bit of nonsense now and then to you?
Oh God, I think very important. I feel like in the nonsense, in the fun, in the imperfect, in the silly, lies great depths for me to swim around. It’s like daydreaming to me… it’s imperative. Also, I like being a little devious…
What, if anything, makes you believe in magic?
I was born believing in magic. I don’t know why I do, but I do and it’s as true to me as anything. For me, holding this belief makes me not take anything for granted. Me running into Greg Williams in Venice, in that hallway, it’s cosmic. I think that’s magic. It’s glorious.
What was your last act of true cowardice?
Not standing up to this woman who I was working with on a project. I abandoned myself and let her gaslight me. It’s a longer conversation, but I am disappointed in myself. But, whoosh, I learned a lot of lessons.
Do you have any odd habits or rituals?
I don’t walk under ladders. Why test the fates? I don’t like to talk about jobs too much before they happen. Don’t want to jinx anything.
What single thing do you miss most when you’re away from home?
Sammy and Gus, our German Shepherd. And sleeping in our bed. Our bed is delicious, but so is Sammy [Leslie’s partner, Sam Rockwell]. Also, our washer and dryer. I loathe sending my clothes out to be laundered. I like to wash my own things.
What is your party trick?
I always throw the party, so I fancy that’s the best trick.
What is your favourite smell?
It’s not so much a smell, but I love when I am cooking and the house is full of whatever that aroma is. It’s the way I feel about a stocked fridge. It makes me so happy. And, this is gonna sound nuts, but I love Polo cologne. Sam wears it and it reminds me of growing up in Virginia and I just fucking love that smell, especially on Sammy.
What do you always carry with you?
A excerpt from Nelson Mandela’s 1994 inaugural speech. I have carried it in my wallet for 25 years. I have it laminated.
What is your guilty pleasure?
Being lazy. It’s hard for me. I feel guilty if I have too many lazy days. I don’t know, I think we should take advantage of how much time we are alive. Wasting that, wasting a moment of being curious feels… oh I can’t bear it.
What’s your idea of heaven?
Sitting on a screen porch in the country, the sun is setting, music is playing, fridge is full, friends are in the house, I can hear their laughter, Gus is laying down next to me, and Sammy is walking out onto the porch with cocktails for us. Yeah, that’s heaven.
Actor and producer Leslie Bibb began her career as a model before moving into acting, her big break arriving with Popular. She made her film debut in Private Parts and is known for her roles in Iron Man, Talladega Nights, Tag and About My Father. She’s most recently been seen in Palm Royale and the third season of The White Lotus.
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
*Arguably one of the most memorable (and quotable) scenes in 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is when Mr Salt mumbles, ‘It’s a lot of nonsense,’ to which Wonka replies, in a sing-song voice, ‘A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.’
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to JANE CROWTHER
The Midlands-born Finding Emily actor takes Greg Williams on a visit to the coal-mining home town that is the key to keeping him grounded as his career takes off.
On a bright February morning, I meet actor Spike Fearn as he alights off the London train at Tamworth Station in Staffordshire. It’s the closest station to his hometown of Coalville and we’re heading back to the house and neighbourhood that made him – before he moved to the UK capital to pursue acting. Though he grew up in the small village of Ravenstone, Coalville was the place where he regularly went to Blockbuster and the cinema, fell in love with the idea of film and dreamt of making a career out of it.
Next month, the 25 year-old will make his leading role debut in Finding Emily, a Brit rom-com following an affable student (Fearn) as he tries to locate the titular girl he connected with but didn’t grab her number. His star is rising and a few weeks previously we’d met at a Cartier dinner, Fearn hanging out with the likes of Paul Mescal, Tilda Swinton, Robert Aramayo and Kate Hudson as I shot them at play in the kitchen of a luxury restaurant in London. ‘I’m still at the very, very start of my career,’ he says bashfully when we discuss the evening. ‘You know, maybe the shoelaces aren’t tied yet, but the shoes are definitely on.’ As we drive through the English countryside, Spike tells me that his background and the place he comes from are important to him as he negotiates his career. ‘I hold Leicestershire as my little place, you know? As a sort of medal in a way.’ He slows us down in the car on the B5493 road to show me a tree with a tiny front door in its trunk. ‘My dad pointed it out once. Maybe someone interesting lives there – a fairy, or an elf, or the Yucca Man from Joshua Tree…’
Though he now makes a trade from make-believe, Spike initially wanted to be a MotoGP racing driver as a kid. ‘Valentino Rossi was my first idol. I was obsessed. I used to wear a t-shirt with Valentino Rossi on it all the time. And that was what I really wanted to be, a bike racer.’ Though he still fancies playing a racer (citing Barry Sheene as the biker he’d like to play), the closest he’s got to being a sports star is the film he’s about to start work on. ‘I’m doing a running movie. I’m not a runner but I’ve been training – going out, doing 5K, running on a track with a lot of people. It’s been great fun.’ That, though, is his work life. When he wants to re-ground and settle, he returns home. Now he’s taking me to Snibston Colliery Park, which is in the shadow of the giant coal mine wheels that used to be the main industry of the area. As we walk towards the old colliery, I start to take photographs, and Spike tells me about his discomfort in front of a stills camera. ‘Video cameras and cinema cameras are very different. You’re playing a part at the time. Whereas you always feel like you have to take yourself so seriously when taking photos. I’m not going to lie: I always find myself smouldering in the mirror or something beforehand, and trying to find a good face. And I hate taking myself so seriously.’
Alien was definitely a step up. That was the first time – and the only time, still – of being on something of that size. The things they built inside those studios were insane and everyone was quite young on it. It felt like we were all very fresh then. I’m desperate to do something of that size again
We look at the old mining infra-structure, now a kids playground with machinery looming overhead. ‘The whole place was built on coal mining. The people that worked down here should be remembered like the people that fought in the war. I used to hang out here with my mates. We’d go to the top where the wheels are. You’d go up there, and do what young teenagers do who grew up in a town that has no money pumped into it, and there’s not much resources. Just hang out, and do stuff that you would
lie to your mum about.’ It was his mum, a school teacher, who encouraged Spike to try acting and follow in the footsteps of another of his heroes and a Midlands local, Jack O’Connell. He applied for a place at Nottingham’s Television Workshop, which had fostered talent such as O’Connell, Samantha Morton, Toby Kebbell, Tom Blyth and Bella Ramsey. He got in, trained and began building a resume with small roles in The Batman, Sweetheart and Aftersun, before graduating to TV with Tell Me Everything. He played Amy Winehouse’s best mate in biopic Back to Black before landing a role in Alien: Romulus alongside David Jonsson and Cailee Spaeny.
‘Alien was definitely a step up. That was the first time – and the only time, still – of being on something of that size. The things they built inside those studios were insane and everyone was quite young on it. It felt like we were all very fresh then. I’m desperate to do something of that size again.’ He pauses. ‘I enjoyed it, but I never wanted to. At the very start, I just wanted to do movies about the Midlands. I wanted to just work with Shane Meadows and Stephen Graham, who lives a couple of towns over – these people who I think are like trophies. I didn’t want to go to America. I didn’t want to do any of that. And now I’m finding all these great things in America, and these great experiences, and these filmmakers. I’m like, “Wow.”
America brought work with James L. Brooks and an all-star cast on Ella McCay, with Liam Neeson on graphic novel adap 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank, and with Cate Blanchett on Alice Birch’s fantasy drama, Sweetsick. ‘That was the best experience I’ve had in an acting sense,’ he says of Sweetsick. ‘When I was at The Television Workshop we were doing a lot of improv and script work – that was where I figured out that I want to be an actor. And it wasn’t just something to fuel the ADHD that I had. That’s where I learned most things. I would put that, and then working with Cate, in the same category. I learned so much from watching her… I don’t even think she ever knew that she was teaching me anything. Now I’m excited to step back in front of a camera and on a set, and be like, “I’ve learned these things, or these techniques that I think I’ve learned from watching her.” What makes her so great is that she’s such an amazing performer, but she also understands cameras perfectly. I was like, “If I’m half as good as you when I’m older, I’m going to be happy.”
His mention of having ADHD makes me ask about school. ‘I didn’t do that well at school,’ he winces. ‘I struggle with dyslexia and instead of trying harder at work, I shied away. I wish I hadn’t, but I actually thought dyslexia was a punishment, in a way. I always had a helper come in, who would help in classes and I kind of hated that. I hated all the attention on me. Which is actually weird, because of being an actor now.’ He admits he still struggles with scripts. ‘Sometimes it feels like you’re learning French or something.’
We move onto Coalville town centre and the shuttered Rex Cinema, a 1938-opened two-level auditorium with a glorious retro marquee sign. ‘It wasn’t a cinema when I was a kid. It was a carpet store. And across the street used to be a Blockbuster. So that was the only thing I knew about movies.’ The Blockbuster is now a Subway and Spike turns to look up at the faded grandeur of the Rex. ‘I’d love to eventually be able to buy this place and do what Robert Redford did with the Sundance Film Festival. Imagine a film festival in this beautiful place. Imagine being able to go and see Scarface on 35mm in here.’
When I was at The Television Workshop we were doing a lot of improv and script work – that was where I figured out that I want to be an actor. And it wasn’t just something to fuel the ADHD that I had. That’s where I learned most things. I would put that, and then working with Cate [Blanchett], in the same category. I learned so much from watching her… I don’t even think she ever knew that she was teaching me anything
It’s lunchtime so we head to a local chippie where we both order the kids’ fish and chips and gravy, ‘as if I’m a child’. As we wait for our order (and he requests ‘loads of salt and vinegar’), he tells me about the micro-budget indie drama he’s making in New York, Pocket Dreams. Spike plays a waiter who makes an unhappily married woman question the American Dream. ‘Going from stuff like Alien, to doing these really small, tiny things – especially in New York… Being from here, you would never think you would be in New York shooting anything, you know?’
He’s about to start the running movie that will film in LA, Gavin O’Conner’s Nike movie with Apple, simply entitled Running. Then he’ll work with Renée Zellweger in London and Montreal on David Yates’ psychological thriller Phantom Son, where he plays a homeless teen taken in by a mother whose own son is missing. ‘I’m trying to be flat-out,’ he says of his productivity and admits to ambitions of creating his own stories particularly with some of his favourite actors. ‘Jack O’Connell, Stephen Graham, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke, Ryan Gosling,’ he reels off. ‘Actually, a funny story about chip shops is, apparently, Stephen Graham brought Leo in one of these somewhere in this area. But every chip shop says it’s their chip shop, and some say, “Oh, yeah, it was Johnny Depp or Leonardo DiCaprio.” It was one of them. But which one is it? So I’ve been in every chip shop now, around this area, trying to find out.’
We arrive in Spike’s village and decide to eat our chips as he used to as a kid, walking the fields behind his house. ‘They’re building houses on all these fields now, and they’re going to destroy it with all these new builds. But growing up as a kid, I used to walk through these fields, and I used to pretend that I hadn’t seen civilization in a very long time. And that I had a broken ankle or something. I would walk up this hill, listening to ‘The Ecstasy of Gold’ from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and as I see that house for the first time, it was like pure joy that I was walking across this field with a broken ankle, you know? It was way before I wanted to be an actor. I guess I’ve always just been obsessed with pretending, in a way.’
He looks across the fields, chip fork in hand. ‘I talk about Leicestershire like it’s a personality, because I feel so proud of it. But I think this is the place that I spend time doing the most thinking. I haven’t really left yet. I’m not as far forward in this career as some people that I watch and look up to. But I feel like I’m getting inches and inches away from this area every time I go back to London. And I like to just come back, and be free. I’m really in this weird decision right now of whether to move back here, or stay, or try to fly away further. Every time I come here, I feel like there’s this special ball around me with friends and family and greenery. The air feels more crisp here. And also no one cares about anything other than just their lives here, you know?’
He points out the highest point in Leicestershire, Bardon Hill, and tells me that his parents often drive up to watch the sunrise from there. ‘When I came off of doing Alien, I was in this bubble. I was doing a thing that I’d always dreamed of. I came from here to being in Budapest, in these huge studios. I didn’t really know how to deal with the contrast. At that point, I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be there. Always there. But then I’d come back…’
A keen painter from being a teen, Spike still enjoys losing himself in the activity when he comes home. ‘I once painted in my mum’s garden with my niece in the summer, and I remember feeling, “I never want to lose this. I have to be here to be the human I want to be.” I want to be a complete chameleon in the acting space. But here, I don’t want to be a chameleon. I want to be myself and this place still holds that for me.’
We finish the mini fish and chips, something of a treat for Spike as he’s shedding weight for two upcoming roles. ‘I’ve never lost weight for anything. But the role I’m about to go and do is the type of role I’ve thought about since I was 16 years old. It’s really gritty, but it has a twist. So I don’t want to half-arse it. I get scared of messing up anyways. But with something like this, I’d kick myself for the rest of my life if I messed up.’
We decide to head to Spike’s parents’ house where Jodie the dog is waiting. Spike picks up a guitar in the front room and noodles – he learned to play for his role in Finding Emily. ‘There used to be a little box TV that we used to sit in front of and watch old films on,’ he reminisces of his childhood with his sister. ‘I remember watching Jaws and Alien very young. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was always on, is still always on.’ His dad is a film and music enthusiast who has been a big part of Spike’s cinematic education. Dad is also key in his interest in fashion, which Spike studied at school. The actor regularly raids his dad’s vintage closet for clothes, even now. He shows me a hand-me-down military green jacket that he cherishes. ‘The first play I ever did at the workshop was called Middletown. I played an alcoholic drug addict when I was 17 years old, and I wore this jacket. I feel like Taxi Driver, you know?’
The front door bangs and Spike’s mum, Jadie, has just returned from work. She greets me warmly and we’re soon in conversation about crystals, Action Man’s ‘eagle eyes’ and her memories of the pits closing locally. She tells me she studied film as a Theatre Studies uni student in the early ’90s and I wonder if this might have partly inspired Spike’s creative path. She agrees there may be something in the DNA but like her son, thinks the place he grew up is special. She tells me their town is a deprived area but that ‘in the poverty of Coalville you’ve got the heart. That lingers on’. She looks fondly at Spike. ‘He’s full of light. He’s got his divine purpose, hasn’t he? He’s got his divine soul, and he’s driven by that.’
Spike nods. ‘At school I wanted to be an artist in some way. I was studying art and fashion at the time. But when I found movies, that became the art that I wanted to jump myself into. But I don’t just want to be thrown everything, and do everything. I want to really do it smartly, and be around for a long time and be remembered for being an actor, rather than someone who was once smiling on social media. That’s how I’d rather be seen…’
Photographs & interview by GREG WILLIAMS
As told to JANE CROWTHER
Finding Emily is in cinemas on 22 May
Words & Interview by ARIANNE PHILLIPS
As told to JANE CROWTHER
The award-winning British designer who has worked repeatedly with Mike Leigh and Joe Wright unpicks the fantasy element of period costumes in creating unforgettable looks for films such as Anna Karenina, Atonement, Little Women and Wuthering Heights.
Jacqueline Durran is a British costume designer celebrated for psychologically nuanced, texturally rich films that are both historically accurate and conceptually modern, across period-dramas and contemporary film. With a career spanning more than two decades, Jacqueline has become one of the most respected voices in costume design – and one of my favourite designers. She is known for her work with some of the most celebrated, respected and visionary directors, including Sally Potter, Steve McQueen, Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, Emerald Fennell, Bill Condon, Sam Mendes, Pablo Larraín, and most notably her enduring collaborations with Mike Leigh, with whom she’s designed 10 films on which she has developed a documentary-like sensitivity with character and social texture.
Jacqueline rose to prominence through her ongoing collaboration with Joe Wright, with whom she designed nine films beginning with Pride & Prejudice in 2005. Notable films Jacqueline has designed include Atonement, Macbeth, Cyrano, 1917, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Blitz, to name just a few. Her versatility extends beyond literary period-drama and across genres that include The Darkest Hour, Beauty and the Beast, Steve McQueen’s television series Small Axe, Spencer, Barbie and, most recently, Jay Kelly and Wuthering Heights. Jacqueline stands as one of contemporary cinema’s defining costume designers, bridging classical craftsmanship with modern sensibility. She is an eight-time Oscar nominee, of which she won two (for Anna Karenina and Little Women), an 11-time BAFTA nominee and three-time winner (for Vera Drake, Anna Karenina and Little Women), and a five-time Costume Designers Guild nominee.
AP: Where did you grow up and what inspired you to go into costume design?
JD: I grew up in the south of England. And I hadn’t gotten the idea that I would be a costume designer at all, ever. I didn’t even know that it existed all the way through to the end of university. I was a great reader, and I was quite academic. I did philosophy at university, and I left university and I just wasn’t sure where to go, or what to do. I sold vintage clothes at Portobello and Camden [markets], because I’d always loved clothes. I wasn’t brought up with film as a great part of my life, but one day I was watching a soap opera on British television, and I thought that the costumes were terrible. It was the thing in my brain that made me realise that somebody did costume. A good costume is so good that it’s almost beyond explanation or analysis, or you can’t identify with it, or you can’t see anything that you could bring to it, because it’s already perfect. My mother met someone who was filming a commercial in one of the buildings she was looking after. And she just said to them, ‘My daughter wants to do costume. What do you think she should do?’ And they said, ‘Oh, she should work in a costume house.’ So then I wrote to the costume houses, and the one that said yes was Angels. And then the whole world of costume opened up to me. Lindy Hemming was one of the designers that came in that I really connected with, and I really loved working on her shows with her. When I became freelance, I started working with her; Topsy Turvy was one of the first jobs I did with her as a full-time employee. She is entirely responsible for me being a designer. I don’t know if I would have done it, but at the time when Mike [Leigh] was doing his next film, which was All or Nothing, she said, ‘You’ve got to do it. I’m just going to tell him.’ And so she did. And I felt a terrible imposter, but I got the hang of it. And now, finishing on what might be his final film, I’ve done 10 Mike Leigh films.
AP: The fact that you studied philosophy, and that you were an academic makes perfect sense with not only projects that you choose to design, but the work itself. I would imagine you must enjoy research as much as I do?
JD: Yes I do love research but for me that is just the foundation on which you build the costumes. I find it hard to define the process of designing. Each project creates its own problems and its own patterns. Anna Karenina, for instance, was never going to be set in a theatre. It only became a theatre 10 weeks out. Prior to that, it was just going to be a period-drama set in period locations. But for one reason or another, Joe [Wright] decided to pivot and make it a theatrical movie. The switch taught me something – I realised that you picture a scene to understand what the costume is going to be. But if you can’t picture the scene or understand the location it’s a block to where you are going costume-wise. And you realise that everything is connected.
AP: People talk about your work all the time: the green dress in Atonement; the tailoring in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; those gowns in Anna Karenina, which I feel are reminiscent of Piero Tosi’s work. And then of course there’s Barbie and Wuthering Heights….
JD: Joe and I came to Atonement having already done Pride & Prejudice together. Obviously I read the book and the dress is such a pivotal moment in the film. Joe would just say to me, ‘It’s just got to be the most amazing dress ever.’ I went through books of different dresses, different designers for the period and I just chose all the elements that I liked. The motivation for the costume is: what would you put on if it was the hottest day of the year and you couldn’t bear the heat? Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, Joe and I came up with a stack of green swatches, which I gave to Tim Shanahan, the dyer, and he created that beautiful green colour from the range of greens. The fabric for it was fine cream silk from a wholesaler called Whaleys – its lightness because of the heat of the day. And then the detailing on the bodice was taken from a Lartigue photograph where the dress was beaded. But because of the logic of the heat, and because we were trying to take away any weight or depth, I laser-cut that instead of beading it. So everything was about reducing and minimising the weight of this dress. And obviously it came to haunt me because every five minutes this bodice split. We made absolutely loads of them. I was always fully aware of the fact that I wasn’t sticking to period, because obviously if I take all these different elements from these different period references and put them in one dress, the dress is no longer period, because I’ve messed with it.
AP: I really appreciate that because we’re making films, we’re interpreting a story and we’re creating a world. I think the greatest gift for me, working with a director, is that ability to interpret, and what’s appropriate for the story that we’re telling. It’s all taking cinematic license.
JD: When you’re working on the costumes of a period film you have to communicate the character. I do not believe that most of the audience would be able to interpret and understand a period costume if there was no license taken with how you communicate that. Anna Karenina was a good example of an artistic decision made in order to communicate a position, a theme and a meaning that Joe was bringing out in his telling, which was about consumption and opulence and display. So conspicuous consumption and the 1950s and the New Look after the war create a moment that you can transpose into the past. It is something a contemporary audience understands and it opens up the story set in the 1860s – it’s a key into the story but when you mix the two together, you are telling a new story. Costumes sometimes have to be invented for modern tellings of stories set in the past because the action in the script is not something that would have happened in the past. In Little Women, Greta asked for Florence [Pugh] to be downstairs in pyjamas, not fully dressed. If your director is telling a story, you may have to costume it in a way that is not accurate – but it is the director’s story that counts.
AP: What were your conversations like with Emerald Fennell when discussing Wuthering Heights?
JD: During the time that Emerald had been writing the script, she’d put together this huge file of reference pictures from cinema, old paintings, photographs, fashion, the catwalk… This whole collection that probably spanned five centuries, and was completely eclectic. So that was my starting point. The film falls roughly into three acts. So you have Wuthering Heights, and you have Thrushcross Grange, and then you have Act 3, when Cathy is in mourning but she’s also in the full throes of passion with Heathcliff. Each act has a silhouette, to define it. The first costume that we see Margot [Robbie] in at Wuthering Heights was the result of my favourite piece of reference that Emerald gave me, which was the cover of a paperback edition of Angelique. It’s a drawing of a made-up character in a costume that’s from no period at all. It’s just imagined. And that was always the thinking in the process of Wuthering Heights – to hit this imaginary level all the time, and to hover somewhere in the past that’s non-specific. Margot jumps into the movie. She is in a costume. She is an imagined paperback novel cover. She is not in linen. She’s in silk. It’s not real. It can’t possibly be justified in any way, apart from in the imagination, and in what this woman is representing to the 14-year-old Emerald. Again we are telling Emerald’s version of the story, so I tried to incorporate as many of her references as I could. The wedding night costume came from a picture of a woman sitting wrapped in clear cellophane plastic with a big red ribbon wrapped round it. We wanted to use it because it worked symbolically – the woman was a gift. It doesn’t really have any period context at all!
AP: The wedding dress was just beautiful.
JD: And it goes back again to the story that directors are telling. It’s not at all likely that that woman would have been walking across the moors on her own with a huge veil and a white, sparkly dress covered in glitter.
AP: Your work in Lovers Rock is one of my favourites…
JD: We shot it in 10 days, with two or three weeks of prep. I did a lot of research into different kinds of street looks of that period in Brixton. The one thing I noticed quite often was that at particular types of parties, West Indian women wore a particular type of dress that seemed to be quite proper. There was a soundsystem look, and then there was this other look, which was dressy and quite feminine. And Steve [McQueen] said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ He created this room of people who were so in tune with each other. I think it’s an amazing piece of work.
AP: Is it important to work with a director with a real vision?
JD: The more precise the brief is, the more you’ve got the challenge of meeting that brief, but you’ve also got the excitement of getting there. If there’s never a brief, how can you ever arrive? That frustrates me. I can be given a really minute destination to land on, but if I don’t have anything to aim for, if I don’t understand what we’re doing, then I find it really hard to be creative. The greatest joy of making a costume is nailing it. Looking at it, and saying, ‘That is it. It’s the right costume for the right film, right now.’
AP: Do you draw? Do mood boards? Collages? Do you drape? How do you help your director understand your volume and your colour and the feeling?
JD: I really like mood boards. I just like the way that they’re incomplete. They’re like a suggestion of where you’re going. It’s going to be a combination of this and this and this. And I really like that. I like to get the fabric, and I like to look at it and see what it will do, and then start to look at the proportion on the stand. Interestingly I learnt the other day that Coco Chanel didn’t draw and she built a whole empire! I have often collaborated with Chanel on movies and we used their jewellery in Wuthering Heights. We were looking for fantastic large beautiful costume jewellery. They went through their archive and found an amazing selection from the ’50s to contemporary – it was perfect, especially the large jewelled gothic crosses which were so much a part of Cathy’s look. Over the years, Chanel have supported different movies I’ve worked on. Their contribution is so wonderful because they have a sensitivity to what the movie is and want to support that rather than impose themselves upon it.
AP: It makes me think of Kate Hawley’s relationship with Tiffany this year, for Frankenstein, and how she went into the archive. I had my experience when I did W.E. with Cartier and Van Cleef. It can be such a wonderful asset. I dressed Margot for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and we got a couple of pieces of Sharon Tate’s real jewellery from her sister. And that just became such a touchstone for her.
JD: Yeah, totally. And on Anna Karenina, it was diamonds. Chanel lent us millions of pounds of diamonds. I used to bring them out in a tray to Keira [Knightley]. This tray would be shining with diamonds, and it was a great Anna Karenina thing, because it was about that kind of conspicuous consumption. The diamonds were real, and I felt it was a really good kind of contribution to the whole costume.
Words & Interview by ARIANNE PHILLIPS
As told to JANE CROWTHER
Wuthering Heights is available on home entertainment formats now
Atonement / Anna Karenina / Vera Drake / Barbie / Pride and Prejudice / Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Photographs MARK READ
Words by MATT MAYTUM
A London institution since the 1840s, this grand Italianate palace on Pall Mall has hosted numerous film and literature greats including James Bond, Sherlock Holmes and Paddington Bear. Hollywood Authentic invites you inside the exclusive private members’ space that is a home for progressive thinking and a bastion of tradition: the Reform Club…
It’s fitting that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself was once a member of London’s exclusive Reform Club; the palazzo that has been the Club’s home since 1841 (five years after the club was founded) has served as a shooting location for countless sleuthing films and shows. At least three films based on Doyle’s most famous creation, Sherlock Holmes, have filmed within its Italianate walls. Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), Guy Ritchie’s 2009 reboot starring Robert Downey Jr., and Will Ferrell’s comedy interpretation, Holmes & Watson (2018), have all used the rarefied setting for a touch of historic British glamour. True to the Conan Doyle tradition, the spirited spin-off featuring Sherlock’s kid sister, Enola Holmes (2020), also paid a visit.
The Reform Club has also hosted a broader variety of screen spies, from both the big and small screen. Two generations of 007 movies have visited the Club’s gilded interiors: Pierce Brosnan’s Die Another Day (2002) and Daniel Craig’s Quantum of Solace (2008). Brosnan even had a fencing match with Madonna in the building, which probably contravenes several guidelines in the Club’s strict rulebook. Operation Mincemeat – which features Ian Fleming as a character – also filmed here.
Spies flock to the Reform Club like moths to a flame, for reasons that aren’t particularly complicated. Situated on Pall Mall in the heart of St. James’s, minutes from Buckingham Palace, it’s at the heart of London’s most influential district. Politics and decision-making are entwined in its legacy, and the building itself has a rare grandeur and exclusivity (spies needing to be more mindful than most of the company they keep).
When the Reform Club was established in 1836, its initial membership brought together the Radicals and Whigs, progressive factions that would later merge to form the Liberal Party. Requiring a grand hub in which to hold their meetings, the Building Committee invited several prominent architects to submit ideas, and Sir Charles Barry – notable for his work on the Houses of Parliament – won the job of designing the political headquarters. The Committee was seeking a home that would ‘excel all other clubs in splendour and convenience’.
Barry had studied in Rome and was inspired by the Italian Renaissance, a notable shift from the gothic style of the ‘Palace of Westminster’. Of particular inspiration to Barry was Rome’s Palazzo Farnese, completed in 1859 by Michelangelo. Running over budget, the clubhouse cost £82,000 to build, and has remained largely unchanged since then, save for careful restoration. The symmetrical Portland stone facade boasts nine bay windows over three floors, and the Italianate door case, at the top of a steep flight of stone steps, is an almost-modest entryway into such a grand and imposing building, which received Grade I-listed status in 1970.
Jules Verne chose to start and end Phileas Fogg’s globe-trotting journey Around the World in Eighty Days, published in 1872, at the Reform Club; and where Michael Palin bookended his celebrated TV show following the same route and deadline
The politics of the Reform Club are not what they once were. It now regards itself as a politically neutral, albeit progressive, space. As early as the 1920s, it had become a purely social spot, though it did still attract important political figures (Churchill resigned after a spat in 1913). It was the first of the traditional gentlemen’s clubs to welcome women as members, which it did in 1981. Though its political leanings may have changed, elsewhere the insides are preserved in time, which is why it’s such a popular spot for filming – used as often for its intricate period detail in the likes of The Four Feathers (2002), Nicholas Nickleby (2002) and Miss Potter (2007) as it is for modern espionage thrillers. And its popularity in fiction is nothing new: Jules Verne chose to start and end Phileas Fogg’s globe-trotting journey Around the World in Eighty Days, published in 1872, at the Reform Club; and where Michael Palin bookended his celebrated TV show following the same route and deadline.
After entering through the main door, the so-called ‘saloon’ is palatially impressive, rising up above to a spectacular atrium, overlooked by the gallery and covered by a glass roof comprising 750 lead crystal lozenges. The mosaic tiled floor of this wow-factor room is hued blue and brown, recalling the Whig political colours (the tones now seen in the club’s signature tie). Though the Club dress code is particular (gentlemen must wear a jacket and shirt with full collar, ladies are required to dress with similar formality), Paddington Bear’s signature duffel coat and hat were allowed through the doors when he arrived there (the building played the Geographers’ Guild) looking for answers to his past in Paddington (2014). The grand room required little dressing to play such a learned institution; viewers can spot former members and founders on the walls as Paddington wanders through. Today, Queen Victoria’s bust presides over the real fire warming the place. For olfactory time travel, the smell of old-fashioned coal smoke permeates throughout this centrepiece space, which leads off to several other key areas in the building.
The restaurant – still known as The Coffee Room from days when a cup of Joe first became fashionable – runs the entire width of the building and overlooks the garden. At the time of the clubhouse’s creation, the kitchens were a priority. Barry designed them in collaboration with noted Victorian chef Alexis Soyer, a French expat who still inspires the restaurant today. His signature dish – lamb cutlets Reform – remains on the menu, its sauce a secret recipe passed down for posterity. Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi twist on a Bond movie, Tenet (2020), saw John David Washington’s protagonist meet Michael Caine for an intel briefing over a (rushed) lunch, with the establishment formality a signifier of the previously hidden strata our hero now has access to. For a more casual dining option, the so-called ‘Strangers’ Room’ offers a buffet lunch most of the year round. Or for that extra indulgent touch, there are bells on the walls that members can press for waiter service for food and drinks.
The Library, Smoking Room and Card Room all also lead off from the Gallery. The gold-leaf-accentuated library is home to over 85,000 books, and offers a sanctuary for quiet repose with a book. Many of the members are authors and their latest works are contributed to the shelves. The Library, established in 1841, will be one of the most recognisable parts of the Reform Club for cinephiles, its mirrored fireplace overmantels boosting the scale and drama of the room. Among the scenes shot here is a moment from the first season of Bridgerton that would no doubt make the founding members blush. In the corner of the Library is a red velvet seat that belonged to former prime minister H.H. Asquith. No one is allowed to sit in it. And be sure not to scale the Victorian library steps that wheel around the room to reach higher shelves. These aren’t the only rules you have to follow, should you ever find yourself inside.
No mobile calls or laptops are allowed, apart from in designated areas (the Study Room is recommended for undisturbed work). The original rules dictate that ‘the open transaction of business is forbidden’. Also a no-no? The games of Hazard and Chance are blacklisted, although for the competitive-minded the Reform Club does have an active bridge and chess club that operates out of the Card Room. In Men in Black: International (2019), Agent H (Chris Hemsworth) finds himself in a high-stakes card game with some unsavoury extra-terrestrials. If golf is more your bag, there are clubs for those too; just don’t go asking for a snooker room, as it’s strictly billiards only here. In the book-lined Smoking Room, there’s a secret door hidden in the bookcase that a waiter will emerge from when delivering drinks, and small lockers are a throwback to where members would store their cigars. The Committee Room continues to be the place ‘where decisions affecting the Club’s affairs have been made since 1841’.
Today, the Reform Club has around 2,900 members. There are 46 bedrooms upstairs for any members and their guests requiring a lengthier stay (Henry James lived at the Club in his final years). Any non-members wanting to peer inside can do so either via the Club’s charitable arm, which offers pre-booked tours to private groups, or via London’s Open House Festival, which runs in September. So if you do want to snoop around it yourself, you don’t have to join the secret service just yet…
Photographs by MARK READ
Words by MATT MAYTUM
The Reform Club
104 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5EW
www.reformclub.com
Words by BEN WHEATLEY
Writer/director Ben Wheatley tells Hollywood Authentic how Ridley Scott’s game-changing sci-fi made an indelible impression on a young future filmmaker – and an industry.
BLADE RUNNER (1982)
The first time I encountered Blade Runner was as a Marvel comic adaptation. I read the comic first, and then I read the book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? As a kid who was really into film, I’d heard talk about Blade Runner but at that time I couldn’t see it – once it was out of the cinema, it was gone. I’d heard adults talk about it, and I was very excited about it. But it was too high a certificate to go and see it on a big screen at that point in my life. Back then, I felt starved for science-fiction; if you’d seen Star Wars, Silent Running and 2001, and made your way through Star Trek and Forbidden Planet, you were looking for more. So it was really amazing to see any kind of science-fiction. But to see this sci-fi… I finally saw the film as a teenager on VHS in the mid-’80s – the original version with the voiceover. Blade Runner was a gateway for me to the likes of Metropolis, noir movies and French comics like Métal Hurlant. In that respect, it was a fundamental education for me.
Part of why I kept going back to it as I got older, is that I appreciated it more and more in terms of the technology of it, and also the way it’s a film that, above all others, bears repeat viewing because it’s so visually dense. The imagery is very hard to take in on one watch. I’m watching it now, years later, and I’m still seeing new things. The way the sets were totally unapologetic – you don’t have to make any excuses for them, they just felt real. The model work, the flying spinners and all of the world-building was incredible. But then add to that the depth of the designs – it’s something that gives it long legs, because you can keep looking at it. Within every frame there’s so much incredible, thought-through imagery. That surely comes from Ridley Scott’s background of doing adverts in the ’70s, and this absolute command of the mid-ground and foreground and background. He’s using the parallax and planes of imagery to really impact on the viewer as they’re watching it. It’s taken me decades to unpack what he’s done, and understand it.
There’s an incredible moment where Deckard (Harrison Ford) shoots the replicant that falls through the window of the shop, and then suddenly it’s snowing. It took me about 10 years to work out that the snow is actually inside the shop. And these elements of snow, reflections and blood are all happening at the same time. Scott doesn’t skimp on giving the viewer things to look at. What’s happening directly within a few millimetres of the lens and 50ft away from the lens at the same time are equally complex – it’s part of the magic that just pulls you into the movie, that you can’t escape from. I don’t think you see it in many other films – the command of the images is across all his movies (Gladiator has it, and so does Black Hawk Down), but Blade Runner is the most intense. Perhaps it’s the connection to artist Moebius (aka Jean Giraud); when you see Scott’s storyboards, you see the connection between his – drawings and Moebius’ drawings such as those in comic story The Long Tomorrow, written by Dan O’Bannon, which heavily influenced the look of Blade Runner and Star Wars. You start to join all the dots. Moebius is a very important character in all of this, and also in the unmade version of Dune by Jodorowsky, the main creative team of which would end up working on Alien. It’s heavily French-influenced, but also Japanese-influenced. If you look at Miyazaki’s work, there’s a direct line back to Métal Hurlant. There’s this amazing cross-pollination of culture going on.
It’s difficult to choose a favourite moment but some of the scenes in Deckard’s apartment… there’s something about that scene where he’s poking around in his mouth, and he takes a shot, and a little bit of blood goes into the vodka. As a viewer you’re thinking, ‘I’m in his apartment. I feel like I’m totally there. This is in the future.’ It’s also the light coming through the window and Ford’s performance. He has this particular position of being a massive movie star, but totally naturalistic. As an actor, it seems like he’s always in a documentary about the film that he’s making. Over time, I’ve looked at his performances, and I really appreciate his hand acting. And he always looks really pained when he’s doing action. It’s part of why you empathise with him. You believe in him, and you want him to survive.
The scene where he gets taken to the police station is a good example of Ford’s naturalistic performance. He’s a man in a police car, driving somewhere; he’s eating some food, and looking out the window, looking bored. In most science-fiction, everybody’s really amazed about the world that they’re in, because it’s the future. But Ford is bored with this future because it’s his world. There’s nothing to see there that’s interesting. That feels so real. You feel totally immersed. A lot of that immersion is Vangelis’ score, which sounds like nothing else. There’s something about that sweeping electronic sound, which feels like the future. To me, it has never dated. It’s the grandeur of it. The sound is thick. It’s like a syrupy, electronic, unnatural sound. It’s being created by one man, but it feels like a thousand people. The locations are also key to the real-world feeling, too. Scott grounds his story and action in physical locations like the Bradbury Building and the Ennis House in LA. Both buildings have been used in numerous movies, but the way Scott shoots and treats them within the frame makes them feel tangible and unique.
The behind-the-scenes story of the film not being quite finished, and then coming back in this special director’s version helps to keep it intriguing for each new generation to discover. I was talking to someone the other day about the film, and they were saying it was a failure at the time it came out, but I don’t believe that. The box office is one thing, but in terms of cultural impact, it was huge. When I started making movies, Ridley Scott seemed totally unobtainable and mysterious – the mastery of what he’s doing seems so far from what you can achieve. It almost seems like magic. I felt that about Michel Gondry, Spielberg and Scorsese. You can’t get a purchase on what they’re doing. But then, over time, you start to understand a little of what they might have done, how they’re thinking. I’ve been given the opportunity to work on a big scale in films like High Rise. Once you graduate out of ultra-low-budget, and you can actually afford to have an art department, then you get a taste of what it could be like to work like Scott. It’s a massive difference between shooting on location where you’re dressing locations, and then being able to control the colours of rooms, the design aesthetic, the story… I can’t imagine the massive pressure he was under as a big studio film, but at the same time to be so singular. It’s still possible, but it’s a set of circumstances that you need to have. To do something so singular now, the studio has got to trust you, and you probably need to have had a string of projects that have made money for everybody.
I’ve fanboyed about the film and over the years I’ve tracked down storyboards and memorabilia, which is fascinating. I remember having a meeting at RSA Films once, and on the table there was this silver thing that was really familiar. And then I started to realise it was one of the plungers from Alien that Ripley has to push in to blow up the Nostromo. But I’ve not met Ridley. It can’t be underestimated what an influence he’s had on modern cinema. Modern action cinema owes him a massive debt. There are certain factions that suggest that directors don’t get better as they get older, but I don’t believe that. He’s as vital now as he was then. There’s no ‘new Ridley Scott’ working now. He’s it.
All images © Warner Bros. Pictures
Blade Runner (1982) the original theatrical release
Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut (1992) released after a strong response to test screenings of a workprint
Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2007) Ridley Scott’s definitive Final Cut, including extended scenes and never-before-seen special effects
Ben Wheatley’s Bulk is available to buy on disc. Normalis in US cinemas now and 15 May in the UK
