Guy Ritchie follows up his twisted drama Revolver with RocknRolla starring Gerard Butler, Thandie Newton, Idris Elba and Tom Wilkinson. RocknRolla will hit theaters in October 2008 and, according to the filmmaker, won’t be anywhere near as complex as Revolver. “That's not such cerebral stuff,” said Ritchie of his recently completed film. “It's fun. It's kind of a commentary on how London is now and it's all to do with Russian oligarchs [bumming] up the city and stuff, and the shenanigans that take place in the underworld because of that. So, it's fun and it's easy.”
Ritchie wrote and directed RocknRolla, an action film that revolves around a Russian mobster who sets up a crooked land deal. All of London's criminal underworld wants in on the action, with everyone doing whatever they can to get their hands on the cash.
In Los Angeles to promote P.S. I Love You, Gerard Butler spoke briefly about his role in RocknRolla and the plot. “[My] character’s name is One Two and I guess it’s Guy back to his kind of classic Lock, Stock and Snatch days. We are like a bunch of, I’d say, small time crooks, but not everything we do is nefarious and illegal. But we are forced more into that world because we do a deal that goes wrong. We’re actually screwed over by one of the other villains in the film. But as a result, we have to screw over somebody else who then accuses the other villain who screwed us over. So, of course, it becomes very entangled. But it’s really clever and very funny, and it was just a chance for me to get involved in a cool, funky comedy which I had such a great time doing. I saw some scenes last night and I’m really happy. I think it’s going to be good.”
Butler wasn’t sure going in what to expect of a Guy Ritchie project, but he came away impressed with Ritchie both as a filmmaker and a person. “There’s something about being involved in that London darkness and violence and humor that I always expected him to be, I think, probably pretty damn tough, and you’d have to watch everything you said with him and that he could be incredibly ironic and sarcastic. And I’ve never met a more gentle, considerate human being - the nicest guy. Even at first when we started talking on the phone, because when we first talked I wasn’t with him, we were just on the phone, and even then when he was being so nice I was thinking, ‘Okay, well, this is obviously just because he wants me to do this job he’s saying this.’ Then when I met him, we really, really hit it off.”
“He allowed me a lot of input into the script and some changes and stuff,” said Butler, “and I just had a blast with him. He was such a good guy. We got on like a house on fire, never raised his voice with anybody. He was just nice to everybody. Considering the craziness that was going on, it was a very easy-going and gentle set. He has this great thing that he does, really keeps things moving along, which is he just starts counting. No matter what is going on, by the time he gets to 1 you have to be filming. So everybody’d be moving around and he’d be like, ‘5, 4, 3…’ And you know what? Every time by 1, ‘Action.’ I felt like 20% of the excess time was taken off by him doing that. Since then I think I’ve told every other [director], ‘By the way, you want to get a move on just start counting. Guy Ritchie does.’”
Butler lit up the box office in 300 and then segued into the romantic comedy P.S. I Love You with Hilary Swank. After finishing up P.S. I Love You, Butler tackled the role in Ritchie’s RocknRolla as well as a part in the family-friendly film Nim’s Island.
Nim’s Island was shot in Australia and stars Butler, Jodie Foster, and Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin. “That’s almost like an epic fantasy, family, children adventure,” explained Butler. “It’s a really unusual idea, actually. A little girl that lives on an island with her father who’s a scientist and lives half her life, half her life is lived in a kind of fantasy through the characters that she reads in books like Alice in Wonderland and Huckleberry Finn, and half is regular life. But she’s friends with the animals and stuff on the island, so there’s a reality and then a fantasy element to it."
"Her father goes out, he’s a marine biologist, and he gets into trouble at sea. She’s already lost her mother at sea, which is why we live out there kind of in the middle of nowhere. And [she’s] communicating with this adventure writer who’s Jodie Foster that she confuses with the adventure hero himself of the books, and thinks that’s who she’s talking to. Jodie finds out that she’s on her own stuck on this island and has to go down to rescue her. And, of course, she’s a recluse, neurotic lady. She writes this great action hero but she won’t leave her house. She eats the same soup every day and all that. So it’s kind of following the lives of all of them. Her, trying to survive on this island and the father out to sea. I play two roles in it, actually. I play Alex Rover the adventure hero and Jodie plays Alexandra Rover the writer. It’s a lot of fun and it’s a really nice idea.”
Nim's Island was directed by Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin and is scheduled for release on April 4, 2008.
