Timur Bekmambetov burst onto the global film stage with the movie Night Watch in 2004 that enjoyed major success outside it’s native Russia.
This week sees the director make his first English speaking movie with the release of Hollywood blockbuster wanted starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.
I caught up with Timur to discuss his new project, working outside of Russia the success of his early movies.
You have directed your new film Wanted can you tell me a bit about the project?
Wanted is my first English language movie about a young boy who, like everybody, sits at his cubicle all his life dreaming about different life and then comes an adventure that I cannot tell because it’s a secret (laughs).
The film is based on Mark Millar’s graphic novel what attracted you to the project?
Only the graphic novel attracted me because the script wasn’t so exciting in the beginning and then I found the comic book and fell in love with the character and the story and found that it was an ancient Greek tragedy in a contemporary style?
And how influential was the original material?
It was only the comic book that made me make this movie because it has a very unique British sense of humour, full of self irony and almost sarcasm, and it was very good for and it was the only way for me to make a big Hollywood movie because it as a unique tone.
In ancient mythology there is a moment where the mentor is telling the hero about the different world and the hero saying yes and moving forward but this character, like any European man (laughs), refuses it immediately and during events that follow he is still thinking ‘am I right?’ and ‘is this real?’. And it’s this irony and this humour helps to make him human .
Like you say this is your big Hollywood debut why did you decide to move into mainstream American movies?
Because it’s something new and I like to move, maybe next time it will be Chinese movies and I will go to China or English movies and I will come here. But it was very important to me to move somewhere, I’m from Kazakhstan and the people there are nomads and theonly reason to live, for them, is to move forward, I mean who knows if it’s forward or backwards just to move somewhere. My family have a tag line, my family tribe, ‘go there where the grass is green’ and that tells you everything about me.
You are famous for the Day Watch and Night Watch movies how did shooting Wanted differ from woring within the Russian film industry?
When you have more than a $100 million you cannot do the same movie that cost $5 million it will be different in any case and then there’s the decisions on how to spend it. It was different as well because it’s a different culture, responsibilities but I never thought about the difference because it’s not a question for the creator, every creator will do something different and I cannot copy even myself because every day I’m different.
And you work with some big names in this movie Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman how did you go about the casting process?
First of all I picked James McAvoy becaue I saw him in a movie called Inside I’m Dancing, and it is still my favourinte movie of his. His character is my favourite character and when I saw this piece I decided that this was a Wesley, this is a person that everyone will follow and fall in love with. But then the studio said maybe we could find someone else and we spent almost a year before they said yes.
Then I found Morgan Freeman, the only Sloan I could imagine, because James McAvoy has to trust him and he’s very trustful and charming. When we had James and Morgan there was then the question of who could be our attractive woman who would help Moragn Freeman attract Wesley and at the same time she had to be a killer, it was a unique combination of very feminite attractive woman who was a killer and it had to be Angelina Jolie. I talked to her and she decided that it was perfect for her
How did the cast deal with their physically demanding roles was ther any special preparation, especially for James McAoy and angelina Jolie?
James was very skinny and then he spent like half a year to build his body and he became, when I met him before we began filming, he was like a Schwarzenegger he was big and heavy and ad changed his image.
Angelina she worked hard on her image too, there was a little discussion about her tattoos about her image and style, but everything was based on the ideas of the story and what we needed for the story.
What was the appeal of James McAvoy beacause he is not the first actor, and no disrespect to him, that you think of when you think action role and action hero?
That is why I decided o do it with him because it has to be a journey, if you know this actor as a superman or aperson who can be a superman then ther’s no transformation and there’s no chance to enjoy the transformation, that is why James was perfect because he had never done it before and nobody can imagine him doing this.
angelina Jolie attracts a lot of media attention how did this effect the filming process?
I never had a problem with her popularity, it’s her personal life, but itnever effected the process at all.
You made your name with the Night Watch and Day Watch movies, you also wrote the scripts, what was the inspiration behind the scripts?
The films are based on the book by famous Russian fantasy writer Sergey Lukyanenko and we adapted the scripts from his novels.
What was it about these novels that you thought would be great for the big screen?
It was a story of mythology the conflict between good and evil but the difference is there is an agreement between good and evil. Many thousands of years ago the two sides sign a contract on how they will live together to kep the balance of the world, because the outcome of either side winning the war would be too bad for the world.
It’s a great story because each human being can decide everyday what needs to be done, it’s very huministic there’s no prediction everything is in your hands and you can decide what’s good and what’s bad.
How surprisd were you by there success as they now have a strong cult following, particuarly the first one?
Yes I was surprised, Iwasn’t surprised in Russia I felt that I had made this movie for Russia and I knew my audience and knew that they would like it, but I was surprised that it became an evet outside of Russia.
And finally what’s next for you?
Who knows the audience will decide and we will make it for them because we are working for them.
Wanted is release in cinemas 25th June
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Timur Bekmambetov burst onto the global film stage with the movie Night Watch in 2004 that enjoyed major success outside it’s native Russia.
This week sees the director make his first English speaking movie with the release of Hollywood blockbuster wanted starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.
I caught up with Timur to discuss his new project, working outside of Russia the success of his early movies.
You have directed your new film Wanted can you tell me a bit about the project?
Wanted is my first English language movie about a young boy who, like everybody, sits at his cubicle all his life dreaming about different life and then comes an adventure that I cannot tell because it’s a secret (laughs).
The film is based on Mark Millar’s graphic novel what attracted you to the project?
Only the graphic novel attracted me because the script wasn’t so exciting in the beginning and then I found the comic book and fell in love with the character and the story and found that it was an ancient Greek tragedy in a contemporary style?
And how influential was the original material?
It was only the comic book that made me make this movie because it has a very unique British sense of humour, full of self irony and almost sarcasm, and it was very good for and it was the only way for me to make a big Hollywood movie because it as a unique tone.
In ancient mythology there is a moment where the mentor is telling the hero about the different world and the hero saying yes and moving forward but this character, like any European man (laughs), refuses it immediately and during events that follow he is still thinking ‘am I right?’ and ‘is this real?’. And it’s this irony and this humour helps to make him human .
Like you say this is your big Hollywood debut why did you decide to move into mainstream American movies?
Because it’s something new and I like to move, maybe next time it will be Chinese movies and I will go to China or English movies and I will come here. But it was very important to me to move somewhere, I’m from Kazakhstan and the people there are nomads and theonly reason to live, for them, is to move forward, I mean who knows if it’s forward or backwards just to move somewhere. My family have a tag line, my family tribe, ‘go there where the grass is green’ and that tells you everything about me.
You are famous for the Day Watch and Night Watch movies how did shooting Wanted differ from woring within the Russian film industry?
When you have more than a $100 million you cannot do the same movie that cost $5 million it will be different in any case and then there’s the decisions on how to spend it. It was different as well because it’s a different culture, responsibilities but I never thought about the difference because it’s not a question for the creator, every creator will do something different and I cannot copy even myself because every day I’m different.
And you work with some big names in this movie Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman how did you go about the casting process?
First of all I picked James McAvoy becaue I saw him in a movie called Inside I’m Dancing, and it is still my favourinte movie of his. His character is my favourite character and when I saw this piece I decided that this was a Wesley, this is a person that everyone will follow and fall in love with. But then the studio said maybe we could find someone else and we spent almost a year before they said yes.
Then I found Morgan Freeman, the only Sloan I could imagine, because James McAvoy has to trust him and he’s very trustful and charming. When we had James and Morgan there was then the question of who could be our attractive woman who would help Moragn Freeman attract Wesley and at the same time she had to be a killer, it was a unique combination of very feminite attractive woman who was a killer and it had to be Angelina Jolie. I talked to her and she decided that it was perfect for her
How did the cast deal with their physically demanding roles was ther any special preparation, especially for James McAoy and angelina Jolie?
James was very skinny and then he spent like half a year to build his body and he became, when I met him before we began filming, he was like a Schwarzenegger he was big and heavy and ad changed his image.
Angelina she worked hard on her image too, there was a little discussion about her tattoos about her image and style, but everything was based on the ideas of the story and what we needed for the story.
Tagged in Timur Bekmambetov