Congratulations on Out of Blue. How did the film come to you? My film before 'Out of Blue' was 'The Falling' STARRING MAISIE WILLIAMS, MAXINE PEAKE AND FLORENCE PUGH - the producer along with Cairo Cannon was Luc Roeg. His dad, Nicholas Roeg, the filmmaker who made 'Don't Look Now' and the David Bowie film 'Man Who Fell to Earth', had always wanted to TURN the MARTIN AMIS book NIGHT TRAIN INTO A FILM, but IT HAD NEVER COME TO FRUITION. Luc said that he had the rights to NIGHT TRAIN and did I fancy looking at it? So I did, and I thought THIS feels like a real opportunity TO EXPLORE the themes of cosmology and the female detective. But I did change a lot, including the title, which became OUT OF BLUE, and in particular, I changed the female roles. How did you change the female roles?
role. Every actor has a different approach. All the actors that I worked with on the film were looking for their own way into their character. And Patricia Clarkson? She is dedicated to her work. She lives it, breathes it, she goes inside herself to search for a character. She found Mike Hoolihan within herself. I mean obviously there's external work to be done on what a detective does and analysing the script, but she ultimately found Mike within herself. Patricia lives on her own; she lives with her dog, Isadora Duncan, she doesn't define herself through living with a guy. She's very uncompromising. She loved playing Mike because often she'll get a mother role or a wife or somebody that wants a man role. So for her, it was thrilling to play somebody that wasn't restricted by that – somebody that wasn't defined by a man, or by domesticity.
Well Mike Hoolihan, Patricia Clarkson's character in Out of Blue, has a boyfriend and you could interpret that he ultimately saves her - and I didn't want that! I didn't want her to need a man to get out of her situations. It felt at times like I was rescuing the characters from the book! Miriam the mother is barely in the book - so I thought I was putting more women at the centre of the story. And there are additional women characters that aren't in the book, like Stella Honey, the reporter. What was it like working with such accomplished actors? I saw them as my characters, so it enabled me to move away from being overwhelmed by all the stuff they'd done before. With James Caan who'd been Sonny in the Godfather, when I met him there was a moment of oh my god it's James Caan! I met him in the Beverley Hills Hotel, and he had never had avocado on toast, and I introduced him to it. It came, and it was really elaborate with grapefruit and he was quite alarmed but after that, we had a joke that any time he was going to cause me any trouble, I would say, Jimmy if you're not careful I'll grapple you to the ground and force you to have avocado on toast! He's got a great sense of, and that's the thing, you're always trying to look for your actor's way into their www.thefrankmagazine.com