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Features
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M for McTeigue
After working for fifteen years as an assistant director on everything from Street Fighter to Star Wars, James McTeigue gets his own, $50 million shot.
Friday, March 17, 2006 at 7:15 PM
By Ian Spelling
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Warner Bros.
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McTeigue, on set with Portman
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James McTeigue makes his directing debut with this weekend’s pre-ordained box office champ, V for Vendetta. But it’s not like he came out of nowhere.
McTeigue had served as a second assistant director on Paradise Road and Dark City, first assistant director on Moulin Rouge and as assistant director on Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutionsa. Obviously, the Wachowski Brothers, McTeigue’s boss on the Matrix trilogy, considered him ready to take the next step, handing over the Vendetta director’s chair to McTeigue, a vehicle they co-wrote and co-produced.
“Not to sound conceited, but I guess I was ready,” McTeigue admits during a recent interview with FilmStew in New York. “I guess I was really ready to do something.”
“The machinations of how a film set worked, I sort of had in my back pocket already from all the work that I’d done,” McTeigue continues. “That freed me up to get the creative wheels oiled and go forth. I think what you want to try and do on a film, if you possibly can, is have repeat experiences because it gives you a certain comfort level.”
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Lester Cohen/Wireimage.com
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(l to r) Joel Silver, Andy Wachowski
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“The [Wachowski] boys were there as producers and creative sounding boards if I needed them. I also had Owen Paterson, the production designer from The Matrix. I had Dan Glass, who did some visual effects work on The Matrix. So you try to get a supportive group around you, and that’s what I did.”
McTeigue delivers the goods with V for Vendetta, a timely and socially relevant feature that’s generating both debate and controversy, a far cry from your typical Hollywood action flick. Based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V for Vendetta unfolds in England of the near future. The government rules with an iron fist, using powers given to its leaders by a fearful populace. One man decides to rise up, and it’s his aim to convince others to do so, too. And so V (Hugo Weaving), a black-clad, masked terrorist – and also a victim of the government – bombs one London landmark and promises, via a transmission seen across the land, to blow up the Parliament building in a year’s time.
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Jeff Vespa/Wireimage.com
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V number II, Hugo Weaving
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Over the course of the ensuing year, the government, led by the imperious and impatient Chancellor Sutler (John Hurt), races to find V and thwart his planned attack. V, meanwhile, isn’t acting alone. On the night of his first attack he saved a young woman, Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman) from certain rape at hands of the secret police who are supposedly patrolling the streets to protect the masses. And, over time, Evey becomes V’s ally and co-conspirator.
Alan Moore, as is his wont, has totally disassociated himself from V for Vendetta, though co-author Lloyd assisted the production and gave the finished film a thumbs up. McTeigue is OK with it all, suggesting that the film needed to be an entity unto itself, while still retaining the essence of the graphic novel.
“The source material is fantastic,” McTeigue exclaims in his thick Aussie accent. “It’s so rich and so labyrinth-like. You have a great seed to start with. I think it’s like a really great, literate piece of work, the graphic novel.”
“And then I think the Wachowskis took that seed and they really stayed true to the intent and the ideas and the question that the graphic novel asked,” he adds. “Then it became my responsibility to make it like a cinematic event, or something where you could go to the cinema without knowing the source material, and you could still watch [it] as a film unto itself.”
“I think it’s just a matter of striking a balance.”
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James Devaney/Wireimage.com
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Co-star John Hurt
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Aside from the obvious controversy V for Vendetta has stirred up – a $50 million movie in which the hero is a terrorist? A November 5th, 2005 Guy Fawkes Day release date delayed by real-life terrorism in London? – there was also a bit of internal intrigue during production. Three weeks into the shoot, James Purefoy, who’d been playing V, exited the project and was replaced by Weaving, who’d played Agent Smith in the Matrix movies and was reportedly everyone’s first choice to play V.
Purefoy, McTeigue explains, could never reconcile acting behind a mask. So, that begs the question, how much of the V we see in the film is Purefoy, how much of it is a stuntman and how much of it is Weaving?
“What I would say to that is that I used Hugo like I would use any actor,” McTeigue replies. “There are obviously pieces in any film where there are things he either can’t do or you don’t want him to do. James, he wasn’t there for very long. One or two things I re-shot. So there’s a cast of people that play V, a little troop, I guess. I’ve got guys throwing knives or doing stunts.”
“But for the most part, it’s Hugo, because all the big emotional scenes, you need Hugo,” McTeigue insists. “He’s an amazing actor and when you don’t have Hugo you don’t have the emotional intent that you want. That’s how I found it.”
V for Vendetta, even at the relatively modest cost of $50 million, is still a risky proposition for Warner Brothers. Again, it’s as controversial as controversial gets, plus it’s far more dialogue-driven than the studio’s trailers would suggest. It’s not, at the end of the day, for anyone with a short attention span.
“I ascribe to what [producer] Joel Silver says, that any movie is a risk,” McTeigue argues. “I think the worst thing you can do is second-guess audiences. They are so cinema literate now. It really was the art form of the 20th century. Everybody has an opinion about film now. I think you can tell on Monday morning, especially in this country. Everybody knows what the top five films have been.”
“So I think people are ready for V for Vendetta,” he predicts. “There is a lot of talking, but it is a superhero film. It plays on the convention of the superhero. I think people will be interested in that and I think that people will be interested in the questions the film asks. I hope people will want to come see it.”
McTeigue does not yet have a next project lined up. But he knows this much: he’s no longer a second A.D., first A.D. or an assistant director. “I’m reading a bunch of good stuff,” he says. “Blessing or curse, I started off with such rich material. For a first time director have a script based on an graphic novel like V for Vendetta and then to have Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving and such amazing British actors as John Hurt, Stephen Fry, Stephen Rae, Sinead Cusack, it sets the bar high.”
| “So I just want to take a moment, breathe and the next film that will come out from me will hopefully be something as complex. And I guess I’m a director now. There’s no going back.” | |
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