Interview with Writer/Director Matthew Parkhill

Without giving anything away, was the ending of the film something you had in mind from the very start?
Yeah. I think what happened was I had a choice. I mean, I always knew where the film was going to go because the film was based on a short story I had written, which was based on an incident I witnessed. The incident at the restaurant in the beginning where the guy kisses the girl was something I witnessed when I was living Paris when I was younger. I had written a short story based on that incident, and what happened was in the short story the guy who kisses the girl was a writer. He pursued the relationship with the girl and ended up breaking up her marriage. He was writing a novel about her and she never realized it. And every time he needed a new chapter, he would do something to provoke a reaction out of her. That was the short story. Then many, many years later, when I was looking for a screenplay that I wanted to write, I came back to that short story [spoiler deleted].

I always knew when I first approached the idea, I knew where it was going to go. I mean, the very ending like the third act, which for me is slightly tongue in cheek, was something I toyed with. It could have had a much darker ending. But I wanted to have a bit of fun in the third act. I wanted to have that little bit of a roller coaster.

Was that because of how you thought the audience would react to the film, or was it just personally how you wanted the film to end?
I think it was me because when I was writing it, I was slightly reacting to a lot of films that I was seeing at the time in London, which were sort of very earnest and about the plight of the working classes and so on and so forth. I just wanted to make something that was more entertainment. That was a relatively intelligent popcorn movie. That was entertainment, but had some fun ideas and had a certain aesthetic to it. But I was also interested in shooting a movie in London that treated London different visually. So we had a different palate, a different soundtrack than a lot of English movies had.

It was more me saying I wanted to do something that had its feet in entertainment, which isn’t always the way I want to be or always the stuff that I do. But for this particular movie, that’s what I wanted to do there.

You have a really terrific cast in “dot the i.” In particular, James D’Arcy surprised me with his performance.
He’s great, isn’t he? The thing that cracks me up about it is that in the first half of the movie, the amount of people who will say to me, “My God, I just thought he was a bad actor.” And then, of course, you get to the second half and it all makes sense to them. I always wonder if you hadn’t had that second half, would they have said to me, “Man, I thought he was a bad actor,” or would they have just been polite.

I think all five of them – even the sidekicks – are strong. I mean the funny thing is when I think about this film, is that we’re very lucky to get Gael [Garcia Bernal] when we got him. It was before he sort of really exploded, so our timing was great on that. But so it was with Charlie Cox. That was his first film. Not only was that his first film, it was the first time he’d ever been on a film set. And yet he’s gone on to do “Merchant of Venice” with Al Pacino and he’s shooting the new Lasse Hallstrom movie. So I think there are a few faces in that that in years to come – obviously Gael’s the obvious one because he’s already there – but I think some of the other guys in years to come, I think it will be one of those movies that in a few years time you’ll go, “Oh my God! That was so and so’s movie?” I think we were just lucky with the cast all around.

You were lucky. When you shot this back in 2002, Gael wasn’t the sought after actor he is today.
When I first met him for this movie, I think “Amores Perros” hadn’t even come out in England. I’d been to a screening, that’s how I got to know about him, but it hadn’t come out. And “Y Tu Mama Tambien” certainly hadn’t come out. He’d made them but they’d yet to be released, or at least in England anyway.

I always find it amusing that there are people in London now from the film companies who are like, “How the hell did you get him into your movie?” I’m like, “Hang on a minute now. I came to you with him in the middle of 2001.” I was like, “We’ve got this great actor and we’ve got this script…” And they didn’t know who in the hell he was. So the same people now who say, “How in the hell did you get him?” are the same people who back in 2001 hadn’t heard of him.

I think that’s just down to timing. We were lucky. There’s no two ways about it because we didn’t know he was going to explode. I knew what an amazing actor he is but we had no idea how big he would become. That’s just the luck of the Irish I guess (laughing).

PAGE 3: Matthew Parkhill on the "dot the i" Screenplay