I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with director/writer/editor Ben Wheatley, whose newest film Free Fire opens nationwide on April 21st. We had a lovely discussion about the filmmaking process and how Free Fire came to be. Enjoy!

Q: I saw that you recently tweeted out some screenshots of sets from Free Fire that you had built in Minecraft, and have read that you like to do set design in game. Where did that idea come from and when in the process do you do it?

Ben: It’s quite early on, usually. It’s not a new thing to make visualizations stuff in CG, but usually you need a team of people and it costs a fucking fortune. Minecraft is the only 3-D package that I can operate on my own. It’s easy, like working with LEGO. So you just build the sets in that and then you can walk ‘round it and share it with other people so they can see it as well. It’s just an easier way of doing things. It’s weird; I mentioned it once and everyone has gone fucking crazy about it, I don’t know why. 

Q: And were these Minecraft sets used for story-boarding, or was it there to help you initially visualize the sets?

Ben: No, it’s really just an initial thing. It helps that you can change the field-of-view of the camera, which can help replicate how different lenses will look in the space. That’s really useful and hard to do with drawings. But it’s not the only thing we do, we also storyboard. Paki Smith, who was the production designer on the film, did loads of paintings and sketches before we got there to get a real feel of the full situation. So the Minecraft stuff was just the beginning of the process.

Q: In terms of the genre mixing that you did for the film, combining crime, action and comedy, what was your goal with combining these genres and how does it differentiate Free Fire from other shoot-em-ups?

Ben: I guess the film initially comes from wanting to make something that was on a smaller scale, something that you felt like you could understand on a human level. I see these bigger action movies and feel like they are becoming too abstract. You know, you are seeing these incredible images but you don’t feel attached to what is going on. I remember seeing the DVD extras for Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the crew was really excited that they blew up a building in the film. And I remember watching it at the time and going “Oh fuck, they blew up a building!” You see a movie now and they'll blow up a city or planet and you just kind of shrug it off. I just started wondering why I so loved the movies in the 70’s and 80’s that were far more modest in comparison to today’s action. I think it’s because films are starting to lack action on a human scale. I felt like this was the right kind of story to drop into and really feel the more human element.

Now the comedy side of it comes from me wondering how enjoyable it is to be dropped into that environment and for can long can they stand it. In every film I have made, I try to give characters a sense of humor because the world of cross characters that never have a sense of humor doesn't feel right to me. But seems like a badge of honor for a lot of movies to be a punishing emotional fucking misery ride. And most people’s lives, even when they are at the harshest, still have an element of levity. I just tried to infuse that into the film.

Q: Was the idea of going after a more human action movie where you became motivated to use mostly practical effects?

Ben: I like that you can’t argue with the practical stuff. Actors naturally react to practical effects because guns are firing real blanks and things are actually exploding. The idea is to get rid of as much phoniness as possible, because the less phony material for the audience to sift through the better. You want to get the audience as close to the movie as possible.

Q: Did you have to use any CGI?

Ben: Yeah, bits and bobs, but hopefully you never notice. The muzzle flashes of the guns sometimes don’t show up and you have to edit those in. Which is really quite annoying when you spent all the time getting real guns and using practical effects.

Q: Every character brings something really special to the film and played an essential role in the story. How did you achieve that and was it hard to make every character important to the audience?

Ben: A lot of action movies seem to be about one white-hatted character who guns down a bunch of bad guys. The “good guy” will gun down 60 people and I’ll be sitting there going “shit, man, that would be one of the worst shootings ever.” and then that happens three or four times throughout the movie. If you changed the music, this guy would look like a horrible murdering psychopath.

So the idea of making all the small characters likable and knowable gives them humanity and gives the whole film a kind of empathy that you kind of feel sad for these people. We shouldn’t be in the position of wanting characters in a movie to be dead, so I tried to make every character able to be rooted for.

Q: You’ve worked as an editor on most of your feature length films. What part of the editing process is the most fulfilling and keeps you editing your own movies?

Ben: I think that editing is the final control of a movie, the engine room of a film, and I am not keen on giving away the reins on that. There are very few frames between a good cut and a bad cut, so I want to be sure that the movie is exactly what I want it to be. I think like an editor when I am writing and shooting as well, so I can be confident when I am shooting that I have whatever material I need because I am the one who edits the final product.

Q: Why did you choose not to have any explicit details about the setting of Boston, though the movie is set there?

Ben: It was a kind of respect for Boston and a knowing that (chuckling) I’d eventually have to face people who were actually from Boston. I thought it wasn’t important to be overly reliant on details about Boston. There is a bit of historical detail about the guns being moved to Ireland, but I didn’t want the film to end up being diluted by the actual history of Boston in the 70’s. The film doesn’t even have a date or location stamp, so it really doesn’t matter to the film. It can become a sideshow, and I didn’t want that. 

And also, we know that there are plenty of films that have taken place within Boston with Bostonian actor and the fucking accents are still wrong. We didn’t want to get into that whole issue, so we avoided it all together.

Q: Why did you pick the time period of the 70’s? Was it specifically for the subplot of the guns being for the Irish?

Ben: Yeah, it was pretty much specifically for that. On the practical level, it is also about getting rid of the issue of mobile phones. The mobile phone has kind of screwed over the thriller genre. If the movie took place in modern times, they’d all just phone for ambulances and it’d be over before it really started. 

I also wanted to make sure the movie didn’t get to tied up in the characters being part of the mafia or Whitey Bulger's gang or whatever. These things have kind of become used too much, so having the two sets of criminals turn up to buy these guns with the context of the IRA behind it, they seem less off-the-peg. It also makes the film seem more refreshed with more characters from abroad. 

Q: Who was your favorite character and why?

Ben: This is a difficult one to answer because the actors are all very active on social media, so they’ll find out and give me hell. The more I think about it, the more I realize my favorite is Steve-O, the Sam Riley character. Whether or not you believe the heinous things that are said about him throughout the film, he seems to just like the chaos of dragging everyone down. Even though it's absolutely unhealthy, to him it a hell of a lot of fun.

You can read Eric Tatar's full review of Free Fire here.

​Best known for his writing/acting/general tomfoolery on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Charlie Day is taking on a new role: star of a high-budget studio film. He plays English teacher Andy Campbell in Warner Brothers’s new release Fist Fight, directed by veteran Always Sunny director Richie Keen. Although Fist Fight is Keen’s first feature film, he was more than willing to take on the challenge. “In television, as a director your job usually is to support the showrunner,” Keen explained, “But in making a movie, especially a movie of this size, I had a take on everything. The lighting is very specific, the casting is very nontraditional, the way we did the fight… So every little thing was something I had thought about, decided on, and executed.” 

Although Fist Fight is undeniably a comedy, Keen and Day made it a priority to make the film feel grounded and high-stakes. “If Will Ferrell’s the school’s principal, then you don’t feel the stakes of getting fired in the same way you feel them when it’s Dean Norris,” Day said. The serious players allowed the comedic ones to stand out more. As director, Keen kept this same principle in mind when working behind the camera. “The cinematographer I hired was a dramatic cinematographer… But then we also had fun, where we’d do things like snap zooms and, you know, weird pullbacks,” Keen explained, “We wanted to keep it grounded so we allowed ourselves, when we wanted to go for it, the opportunity to go a little crazy.” 

Having already worked together several times, Keen and Day’s working dynamic was a huge asset to the film. “When you have a partner like Charlie tell you something’s good, you go forward,” Keen said of working with Day. Keen consulted Day on things from script edits to music choices. The two were able to closely collaborate on most aspects of the production. “For me, it was great to work with Richie because I got to make this movie a lot more closely to the way I make It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” Day commented, “And just the amount of input that we shared, before we even started rolling the cameras, helped me feel as though we really got every scene, every sequence, every piece of casting to a place where I felt comfortable to then just step back and watch Richie take over and really become the great director that he became over the course of this movie.” 

Fist Fight flaunts a cast of diversely talented actors, ranging from stars of Mad Men and Breaking Bad to regulars on Workaholics and Silicon Valley. A comic actor himself, Day recognized how to play off his fellow comedians, as well as the more dramatically experienced actors. “Even Jillian [Bell], Tracy [Morgan], and Kumail [Nanjiani] all have very different styles of comedy. So with each person, you kind of dealt with their style,” Day mentioned, “You react differently to what each person brings.” Keen went on to say that casting actors with such a wide variety of styles was important to the final product. “My goal as the director was to find the funniest people on the planet and put them next to the people you didn’t know were the funniest people on the planet, to have this very surprising mix of people,” he explained. Keen clearly reached his goal, with the film’s cast boasting stars like Day, Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan, Christina Hendricks, Dean Norris, Jillian Bell, and Kumail Nanjiani. This unexpected combination of actors works together to make comedy magic in Fist Fight, so catch it in theatres now.

​Haley Emerson: So you’re a newcomer to Hollywood -- how has it been treating you? Do you feel like you’ve been welcomed? Do you feel like it’s been kind of a culture shock?

Sasha Lane: I mean, I’ve definitely gone about it my own way and luckily, it’s been received very, very well. It’s...yeah, like I don’t really...I’m experiencing things that are still like “woah, okay” but luckily I’ve kind of just been able to do as I do, and they’ve taken that and that’s great. 

Tim Jackson: I’ve got a process question -- I know Andrea doesn’t like to talk about her process much, but it sure seems like you guys are partying. I mean, I’m just wondering, are you guys really drinking and smoking pot? I mean, was all this just to sort of...did you have to act it all? I think it would be easier a bit inebriated, especially with the naked guy. (laughs) He’s really out there…

SL: [laughs] We were just in it, feeding off of the energies, you know?

HE: [laughs] Yeah, that was sort of one of my questions. Like, was it as fun as it seems? And I’m sure that it was.

SL: Yeah, but it was also way more emotionally exhausting and scary than it shows. So there’s a flipside, too.

HE: Right. So what was your biggest challenge in shooting the film?

SL: I think it was having to be very vulnerable in certain things, and it’s hard for me to open that up and to know that everyone’s going to be...that’s like spilling my soul out. And so it was really hard to have to get to certain places and bring back up memories and experiences and put that out there, but it just helps to think that I was representing a lot of people, too, and a lot of different things, and so it was worth it. And Andrea [Arnold, director] is very...you want to do anything for her. You know she has you. She knows that there’s, like, this trust and this connection and a purpose.

TJ: But not everyone can do that. What do you think it is about you that enables you to kind of access that. I mean, you know, it’s amazing performance. Everyone is saying it’s an amazing performance. You may not want to hear that it is, but it is.

HE: It really is!

SL: [laughs]

TJ: You know, not everybody can access that stuff and focus like that…

SL: Empathy. You know, I think I’m very, very empathetic. I’m very...I listen to what’s around and I have a love for people and certain things, and I think all of that just fed into all of it. You’re able to go to these certain places and to push out an energy that gets across the screen because I feel everything so hard.

TJ: Yeah, and that’s what Andrea saw in you, obviously. She can see that in a person.

SL: Yeah! She’s another one of those people. She just gets that feeling, like, “this is right,” which makes you feel really good about yourself.

HE: Do you think that kind of contributed to your natural ability as an actor? Was this something that you ever considered as a career path, or even as a passion? Or was it kind of just something, like this project, that just fell in your lap? 

SL: I mean, I’ve always had thoughts like, “I would like to be able to portray that and make people feel that” and “I wonder if I could,” whatever, but the industry and the fact that I’m really uncomfortable and all of those things...and you don’t think, as a Texas girl, you don’t think that can happen. So, yeah, I didn’t want to pursue it, and it wasn’t something that I even thought that could happen...but it was funny, like I always said “if someone randomly picked me up, maybe I’d do it.” 

HE: And here you are!

SL: [laughs] Yeah, and there comes Andrea. Yeah, but I feel like everything happens for a reason and I very much feel like that was meant to happen and, you know, it was meant to be. So I don’t even take it as, “oh, lucky me” and “this was all…” It’s like, no, you stuck to who you were and everything that’s happened in your life is what’s got you here.

HE: And it’s because you stuck to that.

SL: Yeah! And it all, like, kinda comes back together.

TJ: The other people who were cast, have you stayed friends with them? Are they sort of on the same page, I mean, do they want to be actors? Has this affected their lives? Have you talked to them? Or are they just done with this?

SL: I mean, I think everyone was changed in some way through this, but the thing about it which is beautiful in its way because they’re so unapologetic. We’re all very much ourselves and have our own things. Like this is what I was meant to do, and a lot of them are like, “I’m good where I’m at, I don’t want that. This was an experience, cool, I’m gonna go back and do what I do,” you know? And they’re good. A lot of people are like, “oh, sadness, you should do this,” and it’s like, they have their little family that they’ve created, they have a beer, and they have their porch, their truck, whatever they love, and they’re good. 

HE: Yeah, I feel like the assumption is that whenever someone gets a taste of the spotlight, they just need to grab onto it and just climb up. But it’s really cool that it’s just these people that had fun with the experience and leave it at that.

SL: Yeah, and they’re cool. And the way I’ve taken, it’s not like, “let me be in this world.” It’s more like, I feel this is a pathway for my purpose and that’s why I’m in it. And then you have people, like the guy who plays J.J. (Raymond Coalson), he wants to do, like, reality TV and you’re just like...you were meant for something like that, because you just wanna listen to him and you can’t take your eyes off him and he has that about him. So that can be his path. And the rest...yeah, they are good where they’re at. Like, “cool, we did that,” but going back to, you know, Virginia. 

TJ: What’s amazing is that that’s also the theme of the movie. I mean, when you walk into the water, I said, “okay, this is going to be the last shot, it’s gotta be the last shot. You’re gonna go down and then come up.” But then the firefly that lights up...it’s like, “okay, you’re gonna keep going.” And that’s an amazing image. And it speaks for what the whole film is about and about what you’re talking about with the process of the kids, for all of them. They’re confident in what they are. 

SL: Yeah, they’re unapologetic. Like they are very much who they are, and no one is gonna stop that. No one is gonna tell them they can’t be, you know?

HE: Absolutely. So after getting into acting, do you have any interest in other aspects of filmmaking, like writing or directing? Have you dabbled in any of that yet?

SL: I was working with a friend of mine, and we were trying to, like, make something. The idea of directing, like once I’ve gotten in a little bit, been on set and been a part of getting things done, that’s a really cool feeling. And I write a lot of poetry, I want to do something with that. And it’s so weird to think that you literally can do anything, and your mind just starts spinning. Like I wish I knew how to actually get it all together ‘cause a lot of it’s just in here and I can’t put it out, but it’s cool to kind of figure all of that out...to see it, to visualize things. Yeah, who knows.

TJ: I should ask the inevitable question -- it’s directed by a woman and it’s about a woman, and there is a lot of risky behavior in it. Did you ever feel that kind of hovering sexual threat through the whole movie? Did you realize that’s what you were creating? I mean, when you get in the truck with that guy...it’s like, everybody’s going, “just don’t do it. Don’t do this, don’t go with that guy.” You keep saying to the movie, to you, “come on, something bad’s gonna happen.” 

SL: Yeah, there’s no way not to feel it. Even if I would see the side of that day and know that this is how it’s gonna end, I’d still have a feeling of, like, “are you sure?” But yeah, I liked that either it doesn’t go the way you think it’ll go.

TJ: And you knew it was not gonna go to a bad place, ‘cause you had the sides. But you still commit yourself

SL: Yeah, but still, because it’s a natural fear. It’s a natural thing, but it made me look at myself and be like, “Sasha, that person who seems scary can be sweet, and the one who just wants to help you out in a really weird way.” That’s kinda the point, and even with the other scenes, it’s like, “you think that you’re using me, but I have a purpose. I’m here to get this done. It’s like a transaction, so I can go do this for the person I care about,” you know? 

HE: It’s more of a mutual thing, more than being used.

SL: Yeah! And never once is she completely victimized.

HE: Yeah, and you never really know who’s going to benefit. But it ends up being both people. I feel like a lot of people, in today’s society, tend to see the worst in people and just assume that if you look at someone and think they’re up to no good…

TJ: One of the sweetest shots in the movie, when you’re all singing in the car, [Q.T.] turns around and she smiles at you. 

SL: That gets me every time, because those connections are so real and we really were just looking at each other, like…

HE: Like “we’re here, we’re doing this.” 

SL: Yeah! It was a really beautiful moment. I’m happy it’s in there. 

TJ: Yeah, that was a great choice. With the hundred hours of film, to take that one glance is really smart. She is so smart.

HE: We have to wrap it up, but I do have one last question. If you had never met Andrea, if you had never gotten involved in this project, what do you think you’d be doing right at this very moment? 

SL: This was meant to happen, so there is nothing else. It’s a blank wall, like this was all meant to happen. All the studying, all the things I’m interested in, how I am...it’s flowing through this. When I think, “what would you be doing at this second,” it’s so blank because everything happens for a reason. I wasn’t meant to have another option. I can’t see anything else. 

I had the honor and pleasure of speaking with Wiener-Dog director Todd Solondz recently. The conversation was incredibly interesting and enlightening, hope you all enjoy it! ​

​Q: Obviously it must’ve been incredible to work with Richard Linklater. Did you ever think that you would get to a place in your career where you would have that opportunity? Because he’s so known for launching careers, so is that something you were hoping for?
 
Blake Jenner: Yeah, going from, you know, first moving out to Los Angeles and like working at a Burger King and a parrot shop (laughs), and auditioning for Best Buy commercials that you get cut out of… It’s pretty incredible to be able to say along with these guys, working with these guys alone, like you never think you’re gonna work with such an awesome group of people, but then you add Rick to the mix, and it’s like a dream. It sounds cheesy, but it’s like a dream come true, one hundred percent. To be able to say that we worked with that director who’s easily one of the greatest directors of our country and time in general…
 
Will Brittain: Totally, I mean, it’s a myth really. It’s a myth to be able to work with directors like that.
 
BJ: Yeah, you always hope, like hopefully I’ll get to work with somebody like that. That would be a dream. But you have no expectations so when it happens, it’s that much sweeter.
 
WB: For me, too, growing up in Texas, Richard Linklater’s THE guy from Texas, you know.
 
BJ: He’s the unsolicited mayor. (laughs)
 
WB: (laughs) One hundred percent. And you know, you look at McConaughey…every Texas actor that’s a male and reasonably athletic, I think, looks at McConaughey and says, “Oh man, that’s what I could do! If only someone found me, I could be the next McConaughey.” And then you get found by Richard Linklater, and you’re like “Fuck! Alright!” So it’s cool. 

Q: So what was the overall atmosphere of being on set? Because the movie was very free flowing and loose and everything.
 
WB: Yeah, probably exactly what you’d expect.
 
Tyler Hoechlin: Yeah, what you see in the movie. We felt like the hard work, if you can really call it hard work because it was so much fun, the hard work was done in the rehearsal process beforehand when we spent a couple weeks with Rick on his property.  We stayed in a bunkhouse, so every morning it was breakfast together, and then we’d do rehearsals for dance or practice for baseball, or we’d do a read-through of the script, some days sticking closer with the script and some days kinda throwing in ideas and thoughts. And we played with that for so long that by the time we actually started shooting, we kinda felt like we had already made the movie. We had done the scenes enough and we knew what, as Rick would call them, our ‘greatest hits’ were, so we knew what we were gonna do. So at that point it was just having everyone else show up, give us the clothes, do the hair, and actually having cameras set up to capture it, so on set it was just fun. 

Q: In terms of the preparation for these roles, I feel like with a big cast like this it could’ve been easy to kind of lose a face in the crowd. But everybody has such a distinguished personality which I found really great. Was that there immediately with the script, or was that in the rehearsal process and you got to bring parts of yourself to it?

WB: Absolutely the latter, and that’s a tribute to everybody. Not just to the guys who didn’t have that many lines, which were many because there were probably only four or five characters that were like bigger characters, but also a tribute to the guys who were the bigger characters who were wise enough and generous enough to realize that their lines would be better served if someone else said them. Or that their moment would be better served if someone else were included in it, which really speaks to the humility of everyone involved.

BJ: And everybody understood when a line was given to somebody else, or when something was cut down...everybody was there for each other. There’s not one person in the whole rehearsal process that was like, “That’s mine! I want that, that’s gonna be my line.”

TH: Coming from baseball, I can always throw a baseball metaphor in there (laughs), but it’s kinda like that. It’s like everyone wanted to be the role player, and no one wanted to be the guy to come up and hit the homerun, like everyone was happy to be the guy that put down the sacrifice.

BJ: It was just as satisfying to help someone shine as it was to shine yourself. 

Q: Did any of you play sports in high school or college, and did you have a similar experience to what you showed in the movie? Did it reflect what you actually experienced or was it different in any way?

TH: I played baseball through college, so this was kinda going back to the glory days for me and reliving it, and having a little bit more fun than I had in college. I was the very, very focused athlete. You know, I would party on my one party day that we had, but I was also like okay, if I don’t have class, I’m in the batting cage. So this was time for me to do that with a little bit more fun. 

WB: I was a pretty good football player in high school and a pretty good track athlete, but I was a terrible baseball player (laughs), so I stopped playing that around the age of fourteen. So it was nice to like come back in and play baseball, and also get taught baseball by guys like Tyler...because he could have [played pro ball].
Q: For each of you, what do you think the movie is sort of, at its core, about?
 
TH: I think it’s not being afraid of being who you are. My favorite line in the movie is Willoughby’s line to him (points to Jenner) when they’re shooting pool, which is just like, “Be weird!” He’s like, you know, (All three of them recite in unison) “Always bring who you are, never who they want. That’s when it’s fun.” I thought that’s such a great, new way of saying “be yourself,” because it is, it’s so much more fun when you embrace who you are and what you are as opposed to trying to fit into some box that somebody else might put you in. You thrive that way. So to me, that’s the theme that always hits me the hardest when I watch it.
 
BJ: Yeah, I completely agree with him. It’s like, you know, life is much, much more fun and you get more out of it when you’re not just watching yourself and monitoring what you’re saying or how you’re being or where you want to fit in… And I also think, there are two things I always say and I could be completely wrong but this is what I get out of it: It’s just so timeless and it shows that all the external things change, clothes change and music changes and all that stuff changes, but growing up and finding out what you love, finding out who you are, having a good time with your friends, that never changes. And also, I always say, ‘cause I think everyone here has their times when they’re like focused about the future or thinking about something they regret from the past or something. And what’s cool about this movie is that there isn’t such a huge plot, there isn’t like a car crash coming down a waterfall and there’s mermaids that are gonna catch you and like make out with the dudes in the car… You know, it’s like a slice of life where you just can’t help but be there with the guys, so it’s really like a testament to how important it is to live in the now nowadays with how connected we are and how easy it is to get distracted. 

I had a great time talking to these guys - the three of them are immensely kind and talented. Go see Everybody Wants Some!!, in theaters now!

NUFEC writer Gabrielle Ulubay recently got the chance to interview Nick Orsi, one of the artists at Walt Disney Feature Animation responsible who worked on their new feature Zootopia!

GU: First, thank you so much for meeting with me!
NO: Thank you for having me!

GU: To start off, which characters did you play a part in designing?
NO: Let's see: Judy, Nick, Bogo, Gazelle, the Tiger Dancers, sheep, polar bears.... Those are the big ones. A lot of different people work on these characters though, so it wasn't just me.

GU: What was the most difficult animal to animate?
NO: The giraffe, definitely. You have to make the animals distinct, even from far away, so a giraffe couldn't be this long, blurry form. The mice are a good example of that too, actually.

GU: Yes, I figured that. I was impressed during the movie because during the mice scenes there were so many of them, but it wasn't just this indistinct cloud of shapes. You could tell it was just masses of mice.
NO: Exactly. There were a lot of those crowd characters in this movie.

GU: What was character design like for scenes of that scale?
NO: It was a challenge. Crowd characters like are tricky because they need to complement the main character and make him or her stand out, but they also need to be distinct. We use a lot of tricks like motion blurs, camera tricks to move them, clear silhouettes, clear shapes, shape identifiers, arching--tricks like that. It's fun, but challenging.

GU: I can imagine! And what was designing Gazelle like? How does one make a long, skinny animal like that look anything like Shakira?
NO: [laughs] When Shakira expressed interest in playing Gazelle, we had to give the character more hips and make her more like Shakira. Shiyoon [Shiyoon Kim, one of Disney's animators] had the task of making a sexy gazelle while still keeping it a gazelle, which is a tough line to tread. It's hard enough to make the gazelle stand upright because of how weird their joints are, and it's even more difficult to give it curves! Shiyoon has been there a long time and was definitely up for the task, though.

GU: Right, I would assume that sexy gazelles aren't exactly intuitive. In your artistic process, do you often watch people in real life and use their gaits, mannerisms, and so on to create characters?
NO: For me and what I do, it was more of the overall character. I don't focus much on movement. I focused most on how they look, how they're shaped, and what that says about them. They're animals, so I try to find the personality and design more of that person and what makes them special, what makes them a character. I try to pull that inner character out and sort of write it on their forehead.

GU: The animals' ages and genders were also pretty clear just from how they looked and behaved, which is interesting because they weren't always wearing clothes that clarified those things. How did you manage to accomplish that?
NO: There's all kinds of animation tricks that help with that, actually. Usually broader characters look more masculine. If you streamline drawings, give the animals more subtle curves, and soften their features, it makes them more feminine. On the other hand, there are specific chiseled features that make a character appear male.

GU: I saw Zootopia in 3D. It's not jump-out-at-you, 3D, though. Now, 3D seems more about realism--there's nothing flying out of the screen at me. How does animating for that sort of depth compare to animating for 2D features?
NO: Everything has a 3D option now, so we just take that into account regardless. It's definitely more about depth rather than being in-your-face. It's not about having something pop out at you. From a broad sense, lighting and modeling are effected the most in 3D animation. Lighting has to do with how everything is colored and textured, and modeling is more about the actual construction. In other words, the character has to look good from all angles. Most character design--which is what I do-- has to do with rigging, modeling, and animation.

GU: Finally, there's definitely a social message in this film.
NO: [smiles] Yes.

GU: During your presentation earlier, you mentioned that you began working on this movie four to five years ago, and that's before a lot of the civil rights issues that are garnering a lot of attention today. Was it frightening this year to release Zootopia in the midst of so much social unrest?
NO: It wasn't frightening because these issues were still a problem then.

GU: Right, they just have more visibility now.
NO: Yes. Disney has such a huge audience, so doing a film like this with such a strong message will reach both the average little kid and their grandma and grandpa. These families are then going to go have these conversations at dinner with the kids, and we think it's really important that these messages reach these varied audiences and that these conversations happen.

GU: Thank you so much for taking the time out to speak with me!
NO: Of course! Thank you!

You can read Gabrielle's full review of Zootopia here.

I was able to ask a few questions to the director of The Witch, Robert Eggers, as well as the film’s lead actress, Anya Taylor-Joy, during a roundtable discussion at the Eliot Hotel last Thursday, and while the other two reporters alongside me had much more to say, I got the answers I was interested in, which you can find below. ​

Roundtable: I really enjoyed your movie last night. It was really… brutal and intense.

Will Poulter: It’s an intense watch, yeah, that’s for sure. Did you guys feel like- because the run time is two hours 37 [minutes]- did it feel that long?

Roundtable: It felt long but in a good way. Like some movies that are two and a half hours just fly by but this one paced the way it was felt really good, like it fit the scale of the film.

Roundtable: Well, first off, how did this part come to you?

Will Poulter: I read the script probably… five months prior to shooting, or at least the start of the rehearsal. And there was a lot of excitement around it for various reasons, you know with Leo [DiCaprio] and Tom [Hardy] attached and Alejandro [Iñárritu] set to direct. As far as I know the script had been around for several years but hadn’t been made because it was such a big undertaking and the task of making it was so difficult and there were few people who were talented and/or crazy enough to attempt it. What first struck me was how emotionally engaging it was on the page. I mean, even just from reading it I could the sort of intensity you were talking about, it was visceral on paper you know. And in my mind there were no doubts that I wanted to be involved- with Alejandro involved and this sort of cast it can only get better from here. And I certainly certainly wanted to be involved and I sent in a tape and my tape was ok, I wasn’t super happy with it, but I was lucky enough to get a meeting with Alejandro in London and we just had a chat and I was immediately struck by what a compassionate and intelligent man he is and when I got the role I was just really excited and keen to get started.

Roundtable: You mentioned the difficulty of the undertaking- what was it like filming in such remote, inhospitable locations?

Will Poulter: I think we were lucky to shoot it in such inhospitable conditions because it reduced the acting challenge, in a way. There was less to act because in most situations we are very cold and very tired and the terrain really is tough and the gear is heavy. So all of that helped us I think with the performance side of things. And it was really cool to have the environment be so natural not fabricated in any way. Not having to interact with- I didn’t have to interact with any CGI, ever. Other than pointing out the cubs, post-bear attack, I didn’t interact with any CGI whatsoever. That’s a really rare opportunity I think these days. So it was like taking part in the filmmaking process of a bygone era, like the film stylings of old where you would shoot on location with natural light and all real weather elements. And I think that was totally necessary because you wouldn’t get that visceral experience we’re talking about in a studio with a green screen and a wind blower, it just wouldn’t have been the same.

Roundtable: It was obviously a very physically demanding film from what I saw and what you’re talking about- was there any kind of preparation that went into the role before you went out there?

Will Poulter: There was some initial weight-loss stuff and that was something that developed throughout the film because by the end I had to lose quite a lot of weight. There was some bootcamping, where we familiarized ourselves with weapons and the sort of basic tools they would use for survival, and that was fun. But really the best preparation was the rehearsals we did that occurred months before we started shooting.

Roundtable: So you mentioned the shooting with natural light- what’s that like compared to shooting with [artificial] lights?

Will Poulter: It really does redefine the whole film-making process for everyone. Rather than using electricity to light each individual frame and separate and compartmentalize the scene into different moments which you can do over and over again and make adjustments, we were operating in a very small window of time where we would actually be shooting. So that meant rehearsing all day long up until this point and then perform almost a like a live piece of theatre. And every single movement from where you’re standing in the scene to the angle of your head turn to the timing of you picking up a prop like every single thing had to be meticulously planned because there was no “Well we’ll get that from another angle” or “We’ll cut that together with another bit” or “We can adjust the light so you can do that…” I mean, the light was the sun or the moon, so there was no adjusting to that. We adjusted to nature. 

Roundtable: The way that film was shot, because it sounds like it would add a lot more pressure to you and all the other actors because, since you were using natural lighting stuff had to be shot at a certain time of day, and then if people kept messing up their lines or their timing you might have to wait until another day.

Will Poulter: Yeah, it did absolutely add a certain amount of pressure. And I think we did come up against a couple of scenarios where we had such a limited window of time where it would be like we’re on take two or three and be like “We have maybe… one or two takes left and if we don’t get it we’re coming back tomorrow, or we’re coming back on Monday [if it’s the weekend] and this is gonna push the shoot back”. So those pressures were there but for the most part we got them. I think there was one day where we had to come back and finish something off… or maybe that’s me being really forgetful. There’s one big scene that sticks out for that reason. But it did add in a certain amount of pressure, but it gave us a focus too, it gave us fuel and more of a target to aim at even if the target was smaller.

Roundtable: Did Alejandro was his Oscar [for Birdman] while you guys were shooting?

Will Poulter: Yes. You know it didn’t really change anything, it didn’t change anything in him, at least publicly that he expressed. It really just meant a long weekend for us and that was pretty much it. He came back to work an Oscar winner but we already knew how talented he was and how great Birdman was and it was great to see him win and get what we felt he deserved, but he was still totally focused and immersed in The Revenant. Alejandro has been working really hard the last few years on Birdman and on this and he probably already has his next project planned out. He’s a force of nature- pun intended. 

Roundtable: Do you think you would to be in other movies where you were in these remote locations? Did you enjoy doing that or was it just really hard?

Will Poulter: No I did, I found it a really great experience. Now don’t get me wrong, after eight months its tough and it takes its toll. But I did just because it made the process easier from an acting perspective. As much as his approach is difficult, at least from an emotional perspective, it feels real and there’s less to invent. It’s such an experience, such a treat to be able to work in such real conditions. At times when the camera was wider you’re in these huge expanses of wilderness and you can’t even see the camera but you’re just free to act, that’s awesome. For as many times as it’s like THIS close there are times when it was miles away and that was just great.