Yeah, but again, it’s interesting. First of all, I really enjoy the opportunity of changing the kind of challenge. The film I had done just before this was “Cold Mountain” so the idea of kind of going from extreme locations, real locations, real temperatures, to a world in which we have to create everything and imagine everything was to me an ideal kind of way of learning [or] reinventing the process of what it is to create a character, what it is to complete a role within a whole piece. I always think experience obviously counts for a lot and success obviously counts for a lot, but at the same time, if you meet someone who is clear and collaborative and brave and talented then you want to work with them just as much as you want to work with someone who is a tried and tested genius, you know?
How close was the teaser trailer you first saw to the finished film?
Well interestingly enough, it’s kind of like the first six minutes of the film and very close, very close still. A lot of that first shot of the spinning clock, you know the clock with the two statues that kind of spiral in as the zeppelin comes in? A lot of that. Obviously it’s evolved from that but it comes goes right through. The initial introduction of Sky Captain, we stuck to the idea that [the voice you first hear] he is a friend of his, that’s why the first look is this hidden thing because he kind of liked the idea of [not wanting] to show who his friend was so it’s just a voice. We kind of stuck with that, so it was pretty close.
You also have a producing credit on this. What did you do in that capacity?
Well again, because it was such early days, Jon [Avnet] needed help rallying around a team, because obviously there was no involvement with Paramount at the time, to enable this vision to be realized. I’d been developing stuff on my own back for a couple of years, stuff that’s coming out or about to come out or about to be made. It was also something I was really keen to do because I felt it was a world that I loved very much. It was a world I recognized and felt I could put a lot into and assist with. Whether it was pulling in favors from cast members and friends like Gwyneth [Paltrow] and really making sure they saw the trailer and read the script, or whether it was just being able to sit with someone like Kerry [Conran] and throwing in ideas and know that I wasn’t throwing in ideas that were of a completely different genre.
It was basically my enthusiasm, to be honest, and I wanted to help out as much as I could. What was interesting though was that in the end the part I really played best, I think, as a producer was on set enabling Kerry to do what he needed to do to keep us all running. I think one hard thing with inexperience is recognizing a lot of it is energy. If you have done that sort of film, [then] everyone knows what’s going on and who’s doing what. And on this, of course, we’re all learning so I felt really the best thing I could do on it was to really maintain a kind of relationship on it with all the crew who were as naïve as I was as to what was going on. And making sure that equally Kerry felt everyone was behind him and with him and for him.
It must have been really hard to get the right tone because you’re trying to capture an era of innocence and lack of cynicism.
Well funny enough, first of all that was really in the script so the blueprint was there. Gwyneth and I knew from the get-go exactly what [that was like]. We just kind of got that tone the first time we read it through. And once we knew it worked, actually we spent the whole time just trying to embellish it. And Kerry kept adding little moments to that. Because we knew more was more actually in this case we could really run with this. The reason we went to Gwyneth was because we knew that she would get that tone and it was important, obviously, that the two of us get it and not fight to find it throughout the making of the piece. The majority of it was there on the page.
Any chance there will be a sequel?
I hope so.
