Paul King Talks Bunny And The Bull

by Helen Earnshaw | 29 March 2010

Paul King is best know for directing the hit comedy series The Mighty Boosh but he has stepped into the world of movies with his feature directorial debut The Bunny and the Bull.

I caught up with the filmmaker to talk about the movie, his transition into the film world and what lies ahead.

- Bunny and the Bull is about to be released on DVD so can you tell me a little bit about the movie?

Well it’s road movie set in a flat, which is a slightly pretentious way it’s about a guy who has got stuck in his flat, never goes outside and is having a bit of a breakdown. He starts remembering this ill fated trip he went on with his best friend Bunny, who is an out there gambling addicted; womanising alcoholic, and their adventure around Europe and tells us why he ends up trapped in his flat being a miserable sod.

- It was your feature film directorial debut so how did you find it stepping into movies? Did you feel under any pressure?

I felt enormous pressure (laughs) it was like having a building on top of my head most days. It was really tough for me; the Mighty Boosh was great because Noel and Julian were such great writers, great visual writers, so there was always a lot to hang on.

We didn’t really have too much money for the film, hopefully it doesn’t look like it, so in production terms it wasn’t a big stress but in terms of being the first thing that I wrote yes I was suddenly felt like I was putting my heart on the line and it was a learning curve.

- Did it help having a hit show like The Mighty Boosh behind you?

Well I think it helped a lot in terms of how it looks quite strange to Boosh, because of the places that he goes to are made up of objects in his flat so there are clockwork worlds and newspaper worlds. I suppose those things are quite hard to read in a script when you go ‘I want to make a world out of bits of newspaper and clock parts’ and they go ‘Ah ha’.

But if you sort of go ‘I know how to do this because I have made this show’, they don’t make worlds out of odd things in The Mighty Boosh but it’s very stylised, and I think it gave people confidence that I could do it on a budget.

But in terms of everything I don’t think it helped at all, it sort of gives them a bit of confidence that you might not be completely hopeless, but for a first time filmmaker they were pretty supportive.

- Did you find yourself modify or change your directorial approach or was it a natural transition from your TV work?

I think it is quite different really it’s got a different tone, the Boosh is psychedelic and surreal comedy, this is a little bit more gum I suppose a bit more tragic/comic with an earnest dark heart, it’s about somebody who is really having a tough time and going through some severe metal issues; which you could argue The Mighty Boosh are too.

But it’s about balancing these great comic set pieces, there are laughs along the way, but it’s coming from a different place.

- The movie is visually very distinctive so how did you go about creating the look? Did you use any other movies or directors as inspiration?

Definitely used other movies as an inspiration, the obvious fantasy choices such as Gilliam, Burton and Gondry. But what I really wanted to do was have the looks of the film reflect the main characters psychological status, when he starts the film he is very naive and he is just learning to process his past and tell a story so it kind of looks like a children’s animation and is very simplistic; but as the film goes on and his memories get a bit more dubious and confused then the look of the film becomes more of a mish mash of lots of different things. So there were lots of influences.

- Everywhere you hear about this movie The Mighty Boosh is mentioned how frustrating is that?

I think it’s good and bad. I’m really proud of the Boosh and I’m really glad that they are in it and I wouldn’t change that for anything. But it’s a little frustrating that it feels that it has to be compared to it, negatively or positively, you get some people saying ’ I don’t like The Mighty Boosh but I love this film’ and other people say ’ I love The Might Boosh but I didn’t like this it was a real disappointment’.

But this is a different project, and it’s different writers, and I was a little surprised at how much that was focused on, although I suppose there wasn’t much else to focus on (laughs) so people were always going to compare them I suppose. Given I don’t write the Boosh I feel bad at the implication that they are from the same creative mind.

- How did you go about casting the film had you always had Ed Hogg and Simon Farnaby in mind?

I didn’t have Ed in mind because I didn’t know him at all, and In fact I didn’t particularly have Simon in mind even though I had worked with him before. Then we did a day of auditions and we didn’t really find anyone and then I started thinking about Simon and he came on board.

We had written this play about gambling and it sort of all came together that I was doing something that was inspired by Simon. Then we started reworking the character quite a lot, he was quite different character when we started, he was a bit more posh and annoying and you can’t really pull that off with Simon with his gritty Yorkshire charm.

So it really became about Simon and his grandfather so it became very personal to him. Every so often I would ring him and say ‘I’m going to nick this story from your life for the film is that ok?’ And he would go ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah that’s fine’ but I still wasn’t sure if I would be able to cast him as well I was wondering if people were going to want established stars.

But the fact that Warp, the production company, and Channel 4 didn’t care at all they were like ‘Yeah we love him he’s great’ it wasn’t like ‘You have to go out and get a Hollywood A-lister, not that we would have got one (laughs).

- I read that you shot the movie in five weeks, that’s very quick, so how difficult was it working under those tight constraints?

I mean it wasn’t easy because it’s very visual and so we had to shoot a lot of models and then process those images before projecting to be backgrounds for other things so it was quire convoluted. It was really tight and we didn’t want it to look like it one of those British independent films that look like they have been shot on a camcorder in a mates bedroom we wanted some visual style there.

So there were some long days, we would shoot main unit all day and then do another six to eight hours at sleep for about three hours. It was quite tight but we got there in the end.

- And how did you develop the script did you go into the shoot with it all locked down or did it evolve through filming?

It did evolve a bit through filming but it did evolve a lot in rehearsals, we did a lot of rehearsing, and it changed a lot them once we got Ed, Simon and Veronica on board we did loads of work.

Most of Veronica’s stuff changing, I think she’s great, but the way she speaks and the way she thinks is very personal to her and her character changed loads and a lot of her slightly strange and quirky stuff, like imaginary friends and shadow people, all came from her and was improvised by her.

But once we were up and running it was pretty much set down, until Noel turned up and he just made up whatever he wanted to say.

- You went to university and studied English so how did you get into directing?

I met Richard Ayoade at university, and Alice Lowe, and when we all left he was writing Garth Marenghi's as a stage show as Matt Holness and asked me to direct it, he had seen some quite pretentious plays that I did and wanted to spoof them. That went quite well and I ended up doing comedy work and met the Boosh, so I was very lucky that I new him and he turned out to be a comic genius.

- You have worked in both TV and film so how are they similar and different? Do you have a favourite?

I don’t really have a favourite, I haven’t done much of either so I’m probably the wrong person to ask, but as long as you are doing a project that you enjoy and believe in I’m happy doing anything from fringe theatre to big budget movies. It’s got to motivate you because it is hard work and it’s quite a perilous profession it’s really hard to get a TV show or a movie mad.

- Did you ever expect The Mighty Boosh to go on and become the huge cult success that it has gone on to be?

I kind of hoped that it would because when we were going to Edinburgh with Garth Marenghi's they were doing their live Edinburgh shows at the same time, we did quite well on the awards front but they always had massive queues and were doing two shows a day while we were playing to about forty people.

So people loved them from a very early start but you always worry that you will lose something when they go on TV because they are such a live act, they are so spontaneous. But yeah I’m pretty pleased that we managed to pull it off.

- Finally what’s next for you?

I’m writing an adaptation of Paddington Bear at the moment, which is very exciting and all of my childhood dreams come true. But I’m also writing something more fantasy based for myself.

The Bunny and the Bull is out on DVD now.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw