Part
1 of set visit / Part
2 of set visit
Interviews: Tilda Swinton / Producer
Mark Johnson
In late September, I (along with four other web-journalists)
was whisked off to the cities of Aukland and Wellington, in New
Zealand, to visit the set of and write about Disney’s film
adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ childhood favorite THE CHRONICLES OF
NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. I was a
little apprehensive at first to visit this great land, you see, if
the people there were anything like Jake Heke in the superb ONCE
WERE WARRIORS, I wouldn’t last a day there. Hell, I can barely
survive in the streets of Montreal. Fortunately, the only
threatening thing there was the vegemite that some among our party
spread on their sandwiches when we breakfasted – yech! To read my
coverage of the Armageddon Pulp Convention that featured the
filmmakers from LWW click
here, and for my extensive report on all the sets and
happenings I witnessed during my 5-day tour of LWW, click the
links above.
Now on to the interviews…
We weren’t scheduled to have an interview with Tilda
Swinton (The Deep End, Vanilla Sky), who won the coveted
role of the evil White Witch Jadis, but as we were hanging out in
the production offices, drinking pop and talking movies amongst
ourselves, she happened to walk by, spotted us and stepped in to
introduce herself. She came off as a very humble, self-deprecating
and approachable woman. We took the opportunity to ask her some
quick questions (we are a pesky breed, aren’t we?). I kept my lips
buttoned as I probably would have just shot off incessant questions
inquiring about her experience working on one of my all-time
favorite movies – Adaptation. The following is the quick
and informal interview we had with Ms. Swinton (the movie’s unit
publicist, Ernie Malik was also there and fielded some
questions as well).
TILDA
SWINTON
Malik: Tilda’s going to go through 7
transformations through the film; the outfits that they’ve got for
her.
Swinton: Disney must be pretty pleased
about there actually being seven dolls now. (laughter)
Malik: Well, they’ll all be Barbies.
Swinton: Yeah, me as Barbie, that’s quite
a leap. I’m trying to work out a punk make-up.
Do you have to do a lot of make-up?
Swinton: There’s not much make-up, no.
Which of course is SHOCKING! The most shocking thing you can think
of. It’s not very Disney to not have a lot of make-up, is it? Eye
liner and red lips. But it’s all good - it’s certainly Narnia.
These children [the actors playing the Pevensie siblings] are
toiling away.
Had you read the books long before the movie?
Swinton: No, I read the books this very
year.
Malik: I’m finding the majority of
people I’ve asked say the same thing. I didn’t read them as a
child.
Swinton: I don’t what it was; I think the
world is divided between those who read it and those who didn’t;
or had it read to them. But those were the days before Disney’s
marketing machine actually got a hold of Narnia, you see. It’s not
like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings now, which are
pushed down everybody’s throats. In those days people kind of
discovered it. Let’s hope children will still be able to discover
it.
It’s much more accessible to children than Lord of the
Rings.
Swinton: Yeah. Well it’s about a
children’s world. Lord of the Rings isn’t really. I think the
real question, and I speak as the mother of two six-year-olds, the
real question is “What do the parents want to read?” And it’s
lovely to read the Narnia books to children. I’m not taken to the
idea of reading The Lord of the Rings to my children. I’d
be interested to know if most people discovered The Lord of the
Rings by reading it themselves or whether people read it to
them.
Malik: And when did they discover
it?
Swinton: I think most discover it when
they’re thirteen or something; they get a bit nerdy about it. (laughter)
Have you seen the BBC production of the movie?
Swinton: No, I’ve never seen that. I saw
the American cartoon. (laughter)
It doesn’t give you much to go on.
Swinton: Well, you
know at the very beginning, this American kid says: “We’re going
to stay with the professor.” And you’re going: “NO, you
didn’t go stay with the professor, you were English and it
was the blitz and you were sent away from your family…” (laughter)
Slightly different. And that’s going to be great in this
film; we’re really laying that down nice and hard.
Malik: Yeah, that’s less than a
paragraph in the book and I think it’s about the first ten or
twelve minutes of the film.
Swinton: It really does set the tone.
It’s something that people need to be told about. It’s
sixty years since the blitz.
Malik:
We’ve seen the footage because the scenes are all done and it’s
amazing, within three minutes you get – now understand, we’re
subjective because we’re here but I’ve worked on as many films
where I don’t give a damn and I’m sitting there for two hours
saying I’m not involved with it, you know – but within three
minutes you get it right here (points to his heart), and it’s the
faces of those kids, it’s the moments that Andrew [Adamson]
chose…
Swinton:
I think it’s the labels on their clothes; I think that’s what
does it. You put a little child in a forties coat on a railway
platform, with a label on their – it’s tricky, you know.
Stay
tuned to JoBlo.com for more Q&A’s we conducted with the cast and
crew of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE in the coming weeks and
months.
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