The director of The impossible has happened in Madrid to present this stunning film about the tsunami that hit Thailand, based on real events and characters and starring Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor and Tom Holland. With him we talked about filming, directing actors, the refusal of the Academy of Motion to reward a child actors, comparisons with Steven Spielberg and other issues related to their work.
– What has been the most rewarding and the hardest part of filming for the impossible?
– The most rewarding as a director has been working with the actors, because they are delivered in a very intense way. It is also true that it was a very long and running away from home where it was very difficult to disconnect. You were in the same locations all day, going to dinner one night at a site and the owner of the restaurant I told the story of the disappearance of his father in the tsunami. That makes you go soaking and helps a lot to the actor. It also gives you a cloak of extra responsibility on what you’re counting. They are real emotions, and helps a little when screen carry everything you’re telling with respect. The hardest part was definitely all about the organization of the shoot. Film was very well prepared. But when you get to shoot, everything was the organization was tremendous. Just arrange the cars every day, with Thai chofes not speak English or Spanish … That team actually appeared in the location where they should be and really was a miracle. And as a director I realized that fact decide to pull to one side or the other hauling all that organization, and that was continuous wear and tension. Adding that the film was actually very complex, had to work with children and another language you can imagine what it has been doing the impossible.
– How did you choose Tom Holland to play the son of Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor?
– Tom Holland is not a child actor, is an extraordinary actor. He has worked since the age of eleven, with a work discipline and responsibility of the theater drinking. He spent three years representing the work Billy Eliott, being protagonist. A very demanding music on an emotional level. And obviously that has helped tremendously when working with it. From the first test test I did with it my head right off. He was able to get to the excitement of a very complex way. I remember the first take we did, not excited, but I did a year in which the emotion contained. So I realized that this guy, who physically had nothing to do with Naomi or with Ewan, was the perfect son of these characters.
– You spoke of respect for the subject covered in the film. I think there is a very defining scene that respect, and very subtle: the scene in which the mother’s breast is exposed and the child takes respectful distance and turns. Is that respect they’ve certainly worked with the actors has also referred to when planning the camera work and framing?
– There is a particular moment in which I remember in Tele 5 airs a TV movie about the crash of Spanair. I was not in Spain at the time, but I get the controversy because corpses are shown. I remember I was met with a person who had lost family members in the tsunami and asked his opinion on what he thought I showed corpses in the movie, because I have always sought the authority of those who were there. And he said, I would be very angry man if not mostrases, because basically the tsunami was death and destruction. That you realize that there are certain images uncomfortable because you have to show what these people want to see on screen is an accurate portrayal of what it was like, do not want a trivialized. And the faithful portrait includes those images. Then when you make a planning realize that there are many images that do not need to show that they are aberrant, breaking the connection with the viewer.
– Would rather morbid.
– Indeed. Then show the bodies at a particular time in history, that is, when the kid is able to see them, because at that point there, and at a distance. But this is the distance that I have allowed myself to take, because one of the conditions of the work I’ve done in this movie is that there is very little distance. As a director I am so over the characters. And when shooting the film I was also very close to people who have experienced the tsunami and have given me a very strong emotion which is what I tried to convey to the viewer. More like a messenger as a director. There will be people who think it’s a sentimental manipulation. But what I am doing is to convey the excitement that people have given me and try to live what the viewer to be aware a little of what was what, and at the end of the movie, when I come home, again like these people, give some thought to what he has seen.
– In the film’s intense emotional moments, like the scene with Ewan McGregor phone. What you have given instructions to the actors for the moment?
– Well, I’ve learned to direct actors a little progress and very intuitive. In the case of the sequence of the bus tried to Ewan was surrounded by real supervientes tsunami, volunteers, and one thing we did is that before Ewan tell his story, each of those people were counting his. And that creates an environment that helps the actor. I tried all the time to put reality in history. For the sequence tree with Naomi Watts was easier, because it is a very physical sequence and hence play the actors wear. There comes a time when players are really tired and can no more. In that sense I am very grateful to work with Naomi because she is a woman who constantly grateful to the limit. That made five shots in a row and another when she asked you almost could not speak is something that she loved because he took her to a limit as an actress she did not come alone.
– Do you think this movie makes or paves the way to choose to jump to work in the U.S.?
– I do not understand is that goal to reach Hollywood. I think for example that the system to do the impossible is perfect. To finance movies from your country, your team, and obviously competing in a global environment. It is a type of production that exists in Europe. Overall the Luc Besson produced films or rolling Lass Von Trier, who have an international casting and are financed with European capital. I think if I’m going to Hollywood is going to be a matter of requirement of the story that I offer, not the budget. I decide not to make a film for the budget you have. In The impossible had a big budget but it was very small compared to what Americans typically spend. Yet we went to shoot it, because it was worth the story. We thought it was a story that deserved to be told. I worry much more loss of freedom to have the luxury of having all the money you needed, because in addition it also has a little trick.
– You think you’ve shot the same film in Hollywood would have been the same?
– I think not. And that is a film that will premiere in the United States with a rating of PG-13, which is quite affordable. To me what interests me about this film are the strange things that have that structure so strange, that challenge the viewer launched not just tell a story right or wrong but just associating suffering survival, which are the type of things that make it special and the film are what make a system as conservative as Hollywood would be viewed with suspicion.
– What do you think that the bases have changed Goya Award and now children can not be nominated? This affects the interpretation of the three kids in The Impossible.
– I can understand the rule is that the Academy has released for very young children. But understand that Tom Holland, who has been the protagonist of a musical in London for three years, you’re asking for a level of responsibility and impressive effort, a boy who cried every day on set because the script demanded it and when said «cut» is going to play with the other two children, is an actor of race. That made the film because when I was thirteen now not be a candidate for the Goya because you can not vote until you are 18, do not understand. It is an argument that falls under its own weight. And I think the Academy should review these regulations, because it makes no sense that you’re an actor demanding that level of commitment and the effort and then not be able to repay. I can understand in very young children. I’ve worked with very young children and in the case of this film I think is more a work address interpretation.
– We are at a difficult time for Spanish cinema. What do you think of the latest measures that have been approved for the film in Spain?
– I particularly perplexing. For the reason that the measures are applied is clearly not going to give the result that the government expects. And a lot of concern, not for me but for the people I work with. Right now I can not help could be mounted in the same way, and surely would have to be fitted with a system of external funding and that will restrict freedom. But beyond freedom, because I at one point I can pick up a camera and start to shoot a film with ten people, what concerns me is the team of 200 people who worked on this film and they are people who pay their VAT, taxes, and they’ll be just as screwed that most Spanish are now.
– How do you like to be compared to Steven Spielberg?
– For me it’s a compliment to be compared to a filmmaker like Spielberg. I think cinematically, in matters of style, I owe a lot, obviously. And I think there are some issues similar sensitivities that arise naturally, instinctively. The fact that interest me that world of children and the concepts of maturity is what I get, not some kind of mimicry or assimilation, as I read somewhere. It’s just instinctive. This story gets me because I’m excited, and I conclude that it is for that mother-child relationship, what that mother is giving that child and what that child is returned to his mother. And that’s spielbergiano (laughs).
Miguel Juan Payán
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