Q&A with Oliver Hermanus, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Bill Nighy

The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Living.

Can you talk about genesis of the film?

Oliver Hermanus: The genesis is a famous dinner party, so Ishiguro should talk about that. 

Kazuo Ishiguro: I can tell you about the origin story of this film, before the real work started. I can take credit for having the original idea, because it was kind of an obsession of mine for years. It was partly because I was a Japanese kid growing up in England and I was always very interested in any Japanese film that was shown in England. From the age of eleven or twelve, I was obsessed with the original Kurosawa movie, Ikiru. And as I got older, I had this idea that wouldn’t it be great if someone made a version set in England. I just thought it would be a very interesting effect to put that story, the Kurosawa story, into a British setting just after the second World War. I could see it would become much more than just a remake. This was an idea I had for a long time, but I’m not a screenwriter, and I just hoped somebody else would make it. It was really in that spirit that I talked about it half-jokingly at a dinner party three or four years ago. It wasn’t even a dinner party, it was a small gathering with myself and my wife and Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen, the two producers. We called Bill on the telephone after we finished eating—

Bill Nighy: I had fallen asleep on the sofa.

KI: He was supposed to be there for dinner but he never turned up, so we stirred him. He came along later, and that’s when I threw out this idea. And I thought someone else could go away and do this, and it would be great. Stephen persuaded me to at least have a go at the screenplay. For us, the crucial thing was that it started off not just as the remake of Ikiru, it was remake of Ikiru set in this period of Britain with Bill Nighy. The whole thing came together around the idea of Bill being at the center of the film, because we thought that would be the gateway to the particular film that we wanted to make. That was the start of it; I wrote the script, we had backing, then the real work started when Oliver showed up.

it really is about the recovery after the second World War

Oliver, how did you react when they brought the project to you?

Oliver Hermanus: I was asked ,do you want to make a remake of a Kurosawa film? And the answer to that should be no! But then they were like, well, we want to remake a Kurosawa film written by Kazuo Ishiguro, and I was like, okay, wow, that sounds stressful. Then they said, would you like to make a Kurosawa remake written by Ishiguro and starring Bill Nighy? And I was like, very stressed. I came to a meeting with Ishiguro at BFI and he had questions for me, and we spoke about movies, and it just seemed like something I couldn’t say no to because it would give me the opportunity to work with these two men. And then Covid happened, and we started the slow process of casting and thinking about it, and Bill was sitting under a tree for about a year in middle England. I was in South Africa, and we slowly started to move forward. I did all the casting for this film except for Bill via Zoom. Then before we knew it, we were all London to start shooting.

Why were the 1950s the right time period for this film?

KI: The original Kurosawa film was made at a time when Kurosawa and his team, particularly his great screenwriting collaborators, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni—they had no idea if Japan would recover, economically, never mind turn into this powerful liberal democracy. They had come through years of fascism and a militaristic regime. I think they were justified in having a pessimistic view when the Kurosawa movie was made. We had the benefit of hindsight, both about Japan and about Britain. Personally, as someone who grew up in Britain fifteen years after the second World War, I have a lot of admiration for Britain as well as Japan, and how that generation rebuilt those countries. And not just rebuilt the infrastructure, but made society something better. Britain became this more welfare state, the health system was introduced, the public school system was introduced, and there was the determination to restart the country as something much better. It was a really fascinating time, but we had the benefit of hindsight so we could see the kind of endeavor that Mr. Williams the character shows, just in his small world. He puts this effort into it, it might just be a tiny achievement, but we can see with the benefit of historical hindsight that it went into something profound and lasting. For me, it really is about the recovery after the second World War.

Oliver, can you talk about the camera movement and the composition? As a lover of still photography, the look of this film really spoke to me.

OH: My background is in still photography. They always say that directors have one other department that they really obsess about, and for a lot of filmmakers it’s apparently production design, but for me it’s definitely photography. The joy of coming into this film from South Africa, not being English, was that I was able to approach it with a certain freedom as an outsider that was not too bogged down by my own historical understanding of a lived experience of the UK. I was able to pour over images of photographers who I love and whose work I had seen, a lot of them Americans who had gone to England in the early 50s. When there was the great fog and there was this amazing work and I started looking at what were the elements of those things that I gravitated towards. One of those things was top shots and the loads of images of people coming out of buildings like ants and this very German Expressionism. Ishiguro was actually a big influence as well, sharing some films with me and that became a motif that I thought about for Living in terms of always wanting to show ways of Bill coming out of buildings and the building being the majority of the frame and really hugging these big cranes against our locations. Then I watched Ikiru, knowing that I was going to remake it, I watched it once and I told myself I’d just see what washes over me and take an essence out of it. And what really stressed me out was that it felt like every frame of Ikiru was like a magnum image. One, because that form was contemporary so it was shot at a time when they were going out into the streets of Tokyo and sort of capturing the real world. The pressure for me was how do I take that and make it into the graphic and photographic experiences of film without feeling like a failure if I don’t achieve a similar sort of photographic control. I had shot my previous film in a made-up aspect ratio I invented called 1.48:1. I wanted to do the same thing again and I was waiting for Film4 and Lionsgate to say absolutely not, but then they said yes, and that was amazing because that aspect ratio lends itself to portraiture. Then Jamie [Ramsay, the Cinematographer] came on and I shared all my images before we shot. We had worked together four times before. He understands my obsession and is very good at managing it. He looks at all references and says I get it, and then we go forth from that point. It was a joy to think very photographically. One of my other secret obsessions for Living was Edward Hopper. That scene in the café where we first meet Tom Burke was chosen because I felt I could put this man in black in a room that was very white and have a very washed-out window and have a lonely man in a hat walk by outside.

Bill, it takes a while before we are introduced to you on screen. How did you get into this character?

BN: Oliver and I met every Sunday for a few weeks, prior to shooting, and we went through the whole script very minutely. He wrote me a very long and detailed backstory, which is something I don’t personally do with my roles but it did help me a great deal. The script was beautiful and there was an atmosphere that persuaded me into a certain style of behavior. Beyond that, I don’t really know… I was there, at that time. It’s weird when you watch ancient footage and then you realize you were there. I would have been one of those kids playing in those dreadful shorts on the playground. But I have a sense of the atmosphere of that time and I know those kinds of figures and I know the class system. My father was a reserved person. I’m not playing my dad, but I know what it’s like to not really express anything at all of any great magnitude. From an acting point of view, it was fun, playing that degree of restraint. It’s kind of funny if you’re doing it, because you have to express quite big ideas without very much. It was right after the war and most people were suffering from trauma, including my family and the whole country. And there are parallels that have been made between the complex system of manners in Japan and the complex system of manners in England. But I am fascinated by it, and there is heroism in it. But when it gets to the extreme of having to apologize for dying, that’s nuts.

One of the moments that really resonated with me was when you took on the new hat.

BN: Now you’re talking! If anyone here has ever worn a bowler hat, it’s tough. They are the weirdest things; how they ever caught on, search me. It was a great moment when I was reading in the script that the hat got stolen, I was like, “yes!” and I got the soft hat and it made all the difference. It’s hard to relax under a bowler hat. It’s built like a crash helmet. If a house brick fell from a very high height, you’d be fine. But the clothes do make a difference for anyone, not just actors—the way you move, the way you think about yourself.

How did you work with your costume designer?

OH: Our costume designer is an artist, a very famous artist, Sandy Powell. One of the great joys of making this film was getting to work with Sandy. I was so curious to see what she does, and what Sandy does is she has about 75,000 people working for her. There were parts of her office I would go to, and they were like, that’s Sandy’s fitting room, cutting room, dressing room… 90% of her office is costumes. And it’s because she knows what she needs and she’s incredibly intuitive. The mandate from me to Sandy surrounding the production design is that we wanted to have this very controlled palette of black and white, and Sandy was like, fine as long as I can have some blue in there for the men that’ll be okay. For the office sequence, we bought a black set, black walls, and folded in the darkest charcoal gray suits. And then all the other men were in three shades of blue, and the darkest blue is on the character of Peter. And then the only accent color is Aimee [Lou Wood], who wears white. I was very nervous about giving her this really controlled palette, but I could sense for her it was really exciting. The idea is that Bill’s suit is so dark. And she found the perfect suit for Bill, which was a real suit. She was like, actually I found the perfect suit and you’re going to love it because it’s all dark colors but with the thinnest white striping to separate it from the black set. And I think he wore it every day.

BN: It was my one costume and I wore it every day. I always like having one costume. No more decisions.

Bill, can you talk about the scene where you sing?

BN: Singing is not something I’m entirely confident about and that was the one thing on the schedule that I was worried about. There’s always, on every film, certain days you don’t look forward to. But on this film, it felt different. I didn’t just have to just sing the song, I also had to indicate that he was opening up. It’s like at funerals… you’re fine at funerals until they ask you to sing. You get through the second line of Hey Jude and you fall apart. There’s something about the act of singing that does unlock you in a way. I have a friend who is a professional singer and I asked him about it, how do you do that when a song is sad and powerful? And he said, it’s really hard. You have to fight it back. In reality, I was in a room with a lot of people while singing that song. So you’re kind of singing for the crew, since that’s the audience. It was very moving and I tried to get out of my own way. I wanted to do it with as much humility as possible.

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW ANNOUNCES 2022 AWARD WINNERS

THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW NAMES 2022 HONOREES

NBR Awards Gala to Take Place on Sunday, January 8, 2023 in New York City

New York, NY (December 8, 2022) – The National Board of Review announced today their 2022 honorees, with top awards including Top Gun: Maverick for Best Film; Steven Spielberg for Best Director for The Fabelmans; Colin Farrell for Best Actor for The Banshees of Inisherin; and Michelle Yeoh for Best Actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Top Gun: Maverick is a thrilling crowd-pleaser that is expertly crafted on every level,” said NBR President Annie Schulhof. “Tom Cruise, Joseph Kosinski, and the entire filmmaking team have succeeded in making an incredibly popular film that brought audiences back to theaters, while at the same time being a full-on cinematic achievement.”

Established in 1909, the NBR recognizes excellence in filmmaking. This year 269 films were viewed by a select group of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals, academics, and students, many of which were followed by in-depth discussions with directors, actors, producers, and screenwriters. Ballots were tabulated by the accounting firm of Lutz and Carr CPA.

The National Board of Review’s awards celebrate the art of cinema, with categories that include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Best Original and Adapted Screenplay, Breakthrough Performance, and Directorial Debut, as well as their signature honors the Freedom of Expression Award and Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography.

The honorees will be feted at the NBR Awards Gala, hosted by Willie Geist (NBC News’ Sunday TODAY and co-host, MSNBC’s Morning Joe), on Sunday, January 8, 2023 at Cipriani 42nd Street, in New York City.

Below is a full list of the 2022 award recipients, announced by the National Board of Review:

Best Film: Top Gun: Maverick

Best Director: Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans

Best Actor: Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Actress: Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Best Supporting Actor: Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Supporting Actress: Janelle Monáe, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Best Original Screenplay: Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Adapted Screenplay: Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, Ian Stokell, All Quiet on the Western Front

Breakthrough Performance: Danielle Deadwyler, Till

Breakthrough Performance: Gabriel LaBelle, The Fabelmans

Best Directorial Debut: Charlotte Wells, Aftersun

Best Animated Feature: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Best International Film: Close

Best Documentary: “Sr.”

Best Ensemble: Women Talking

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Claudio Miranda, Top Gun: Maverick

NBR Freedom of Expression Awards:
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Argentina, 1985

Top Films (in alphabetical order):
Aftersun
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
RRR
Till
The Woman King
Women Talking

Top 5 International Films (in alphabetical order):
All Quiet on the Western Front
Argentina, 1985
Decision to Leave
EO
Saint Omer

Top 5 Documentaries (in alphabetical order):
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
All That Breathes
Descendant
Turn Every Page – The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb
Wildcat

Top 10 Independent Films (in alphabetical order):
Armageddon Time
Emily the Criminal
The Eternal Daughter
Funny Pages
The Inspection
Living
A Love Song
Nanny
The Wonder
To Leslie

ABOUT THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW
Since 1909, the National Board of Review has dedicated its efforts to the support of cinema as both art and entertainment. Each year this select group of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals and academics view over 250 films and participates in illuminating discussions with directors, actors, producers and screenwriters before announcing their selections for the best work of the year. Since first citing year-end cinematic achievements in 1929, NBR has recognized a vast selection of outstanding studio, independent, international, animated and documentary films, often propelling recipients such as Peter Farrelly’s Green Book and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road into the larger awards conversation. In addition, one of the organization’s core values is identifying new talent and nurturing young filmmakers by awarding promising talent with ‘Directorial Debut’ and ‘Breakthrough Actor’ awards as well as grants to rising film students. With its continued efforts to assist up-and-coming artists in completing and presenting their work, NBR honors its commitment to not just identifying the best that current cinema has to offer, but also ensuring the quality of films for future generations to come. 

Join the conversation @NBRfilm

Press Contacts:
Andy Gelb / Shawn Purdy / Lindsey Brown – SLATE PR
andy@slate-pr.com / shawn@slate-pr.com / lindsey@slate-pr.com

THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW TO ANNOUNCE 2022 AWARDS RECIPIENTS THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2022

NBR Awards Gala to Take Place on Sunday, January 8, 2023, in New York City

New York, NY (November 10, 2022) The National Board of Review will announce the 2022 NBR Award Recipients on Thursday, December 8, 2022. Their Awards Gala will take place on Sunday, January 8, 2023 at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City.  The annual Gala will be hosted by Willie Geist; host, NBC News’ Sunday TODAY and co-host, MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

The National Board of Review’s awards celebrate excellence in filmmaking with categories that include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Original and Adapted Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Performance, and Directorial Debut as well as signature honors such as the Spotlight Award, Freedom of Expression and the NBR Icon Award.   

ABOUT THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW
Since 1909, the National Board of Review has dedicated its efforts to the support of cinema as both art and entertainment. Each year this select group of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals and academics view over 250 films and participates in illuminating discussions with directors, actors, producers and screenwriters before announcing their selections for the best work of the year.  Since first citing year-end cinematic achievements in 1929, NBR has recognized a vast selection of outstanding studio, independent, foreign-language, animated and documentary films, often propelling recipients such as Peter Farrelly’s Green Book and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road into the larger awards conversation. NBR also stands out as the only film organization that bestows a film history award in honor of former member and film historian William K. Everson. In addition, one of the organization’s core values is identifying new talent and nurturing young filmmakers by awarding promising talent with ‘Directorial Debut’ and ‘Breakthrough Actor’ awards as well as grants to rising film students.  With its continued efforts to assist up-and-coming artists in completing and presenting their work, NBR honors its commitment to not just identifying the best that current cinema has to offer, but also ensuring the quality of films for future generations to come.

Join the conversation @NBRfilm

# # #

Press Contacts:   
Andy Gelb / Shawn Purdy / Lindsey Brown – SLATE PR
andy@slate-pr.com / shawn@slate-pr.com / lindsey@slate-pr.com

Q&A with Kathryn Ferguson

The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Nothing Compares.

This is a somewhat personal film for you— and it’s your first feature. Can you discuss how you came to make this film?

Kathryn Ferguson: I grew up in Northern Ireland. My father, actually, was a huge fan of Sinéad’s in the late ’80’s, when The Lion and The Cobra came out, [Sinéad O’Connor’s] first album, and he introduced me to her then. I then became a bona fide fan on my own two feet in the early ’90’s, and in my early teens, and as soon as I felt that I had discovered her properly, and loved her, and appreciated everything she stood for… I was then very demoralized to witness how she was treated. So it made a huge dent, on me, as this young teenage Irish girl, thinking, “good God… this is seriously depressing!” This person that meant so much to me, and all my friends, is being treated in this way… it certainly wasn’t a great example of how things should go. And so, it made a dent. And then, in 2011, I was doing my masters at the Royal College of Art in London, and I had to make a graduation film. And I made a film called “Máthair,” which is Irish for “mother,” and it was starting to look at similar themes of control, of Catholicism, and of female identity in Ireland. And I reached out to her managers at the time, and said, “is there any way in hell I might be able to access the steams of Sinéad’s music?” Because I wanted to deconstruct them and to create a score from them. And — amazingly — they agreed! I made the short, and I sent it to them (which they liked), and then two years later they came back to me (in 2013), and asked me to direct the music video for Fourth and Vine, which I think was her first music video in fifteen years. So I then got to meet her, and I got to work with her, and with them… and that was really a very positive experience. And then, I suppose, this idea for this film… well, you know, the seeds were definitely sown in the ’90’s, when I was a young teenager, but then I just carried this with me throughout my entire 20’s and 30’s. And, basically, by 2018 I just felt an urgency to try and think about how I could bring this film to life. And the stars aligned, and I met the film’s co-producers and co-writers, [Michael Mallie and Eleanor Emptage], who were equally as passionate about her story as I was, and together we wrote a one-pager which I then brought to Sinéad’s team that I had already established a relationship with, and I think it was just that the timing was right, when I approached them. The world was kind of on fire in early 2018, we’d had to many things around women’s voices, and oppression, that had been in the news… from #metoo, to Trump being in power, and then — even in my own country — we’d had the equal marriage referendum, and we were gearing up for the abortion referendum. So much was happening at that time. And I think her team just agreed that it was an urgent story, and that it was absurd that her voice, and the recognition of her, of everything that she’d done, hadn’t been talked about, and wasn’t being talked about, particularly in Ireland.

I wanted to give her the platform that had been withheld from her previously

What were your initial conversations with Sinéad like? How did you gain her trust?

KF: I think it was very much to do with the organic process that we’d already had, leading up to the film. So it was to her team that I took the initial idea to, and they obviously they were very happy for me to go ahead. It took a few years, actually, to work out if we even could, given the funding and backers, given that I was a first-time feature director! I had a lot of people to convince that they could trust me with their money and with this story. So it took a long time, but by the time we got to do the interview with Sinéad in 2019, we were set. Everything was ready to go. Yeah, it’s bizarre (for something that should have been extremely impossible)… everything kind of just fell into place.

There is a tremendous amount of archival material in the film. How did you get your arms around such a huge amount of media?

KF: We watched and listened to hundreds of hours of media before we even got started, to be honest. Radio, television news, interviews, articles… everything. We really did a lot of research before we went near actually filming. And to be honest, we probably could have made the film without having a key interview, but what became apparent was that we just really needed a contemporary point of view from Sinéad herself, looking back on what had happened. So, we were really delighted to be granted that interview with her. I just think, really, for someone like her, whose voice has been so reduced in the past… it felt like a very strategic reducing of Sinéad’s voice across the media at the time… for me, having her tell her own story in a contemporary interview was just essential. I wanted to give her the platform that had been withheld from her previously. And the audience would just have to sit in a dark room and listen to her, because I feel that, so often, that’s what was taken away from her throughout the years. Whether through ridicule or reduction of what she’s saying. So it was important just to hear her. And that’s why using talking heads was never a question for me: I don’t want to see contemporary imagery that’s going to drag you out of her story and then throw you back into the time again. I wanted you [the audience] to be there, in 1987 to 1993, to be guided by what she was saying.

THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW ANNOUNCES NEW AWARDS GALA DATE: Sunday, January 8th, 2023

Annual Awards Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street, to be Hosted by Willie Geist

New York, NY (October 19, 2022) The National Board of Review announced that they have shifted their Awards Gala to Sunday, January 8, 2023.  The evening will be hosted by Willie Geist; host, NBC News’ Sunday TODAY and co-host, MSNBC’s Morning Joe. The Awards Gala will return to Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City.

The National Board of Review’s awards celebrate excellence in filmmaking with categories that include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Original and Adapted Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Performance, and Directorial Debut as well as signature honors such as the Spotlight Award, Freedom of Expression, the William K. Everson Film History Award and the NBR Icon Award.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW
Since 1909, the National Board of Review has dedicated its efforts to the support of cinema as both art and entertainment. Each year this select group of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals and academics view over 250 films and participates in illuminating discussions with directors, actors, producers and screenwriters before announcing their selections for the best work of the year.  Since first citing year-end cinematic achievements in 1929, NBR has recognized a vast selection of outstanding studio, independent, foreign-language, animated and documentary films, often propelling recipients such as Peter Farrelly’s Green Book and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road into the larger awards conversation. NBR also stands out as the only film organization that bestows a film history award in honor of former member and film historian William K. Everson. In addition, one of the organization’s core values is identifying new talent and nurturing young filmmakers by awarding promising talent with ‘Directorial Debut’ and ‘Breakthrough Actor’ awards as well as grants to rising film students and by facilitating community outreach through the support of organizations such as The Ghetto Film School, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, and Educational Video Center. With its continued efforts to assist up-and-coming artists in completing and presenting their work, NBR honors its commitment to not just identifying the best that current cinema has to offer, but also ensuring the quality of films for future generations to come.

Join the conversation @NBRfilm

# # #

Press Contacts:   
Shawn Purdy / Lindsey Brown  – SLATE PR
shawn@slate-pr.com / lindsey@slate-pr.com