00:00I'll tell you what, London Film Festival with a seven-week-old baby at home is no joke.
00:03Oh, I'm so sorry.
00:04It's no joke.
00:05Congratulations.
00:07You'll never sleep.
00:08You'll never sleep.
00:09I'm looking forward to the hour-and-a-half sleep.
00:10Yes.
00:11You're going to sleep?
00:12You mean sleeping through films?
00:13No, no, not through this one.
00:15That gets us onto this nicely.
00:19The Pope is dead.
00:21The throne is vacant.
00:23The conclave begins now.
00:26What a thrill it is to do these on these days when the film is brilliant.
00:32For me, it's the best film I've seen all year.
00:35It's the first time I've stepped out of a screening still exhausted from having a baby
00:39at home, but I would have been willing to watch that film again later on that evening.
00:45So congratulations, first and foremost, but it does make me wonder.
00:49So much of good filmmaking is in the pacing and the shot choice and cinematography, and
00:55I've asked actors in the past, you know, how much was on the pages, it's all in the
00:59good writing, but there must still be an element of surprise for you guys when you see the
01:06finished product because there's so much effort from so many different people and so many
01:10minds that makes something as good as this has turned out to be.
01:14Well, I think, yeah, I think what you're saying is right.
01:16I mean, I think there's the script and the director, Edward Berger, in this case, brings
01:21together his team of designers, cinematographer, and his cast, I mean, and they all, you don't
01:28know where, I don't think any director knows where it's going to land, and having got to
01:35know Edward a bit, he's very aware that, you know, however prepared he is, and he's very
01:39prepared, he has to sort of trust the energies will work, and then again, I guess, going
01:45into the edit, you still don't know what you have, and then you, so there is a question
01:50of a degree of luck, I think, or even the, I mean, we know, we can think of great, there's
01:56directors like Stanley Kubrick, who are master sort of control freaks, but that doesn't always
02:04guarantee the magic, I think, so I think if you feel that, that's great, I think we're
02:10lucky, I mean, I think it's, there's some magical element, I think, that comes to play,
02:15you just don't know.
02:16You guys must have all been involved in projects in the past where you've finished on set and
02:20you've thought, this thing is, it's very good, I'm expecting this to be quite a game
02:24changer, or even the opposite effect, leaving on that was all a bit chaotic, you know, let's
02:29see what happens there, and then the finished product is so different to what you had in
02:33your mind.
02:34Was this one of those experiences, or did you finish on set of Conclave and think, now
02:38that is a piece of work, let's see, let's see what comes of this?
02:42I think you never know, I mean, you know, the, what's the, I forget, I can't remember
02:49the expression, but the, I think that you can have an idea of what you might have achieved,
02:56but like Rafe said, you never know.
02:58There are three different movies, there's the movie that's written, there's the movie
03:01that is performed and filmed, and then there's the movie that's edited, and there are a lot
03:06of voices around all of those aspects, particularly the final aspect, and so you may well have
03:14had something, but there could be voices from studio heads, there could be voices from
03:20wherever, from, you know, groups that, you know, what do you call them, groups who look
03:26at films and…
03:27Focus groups?
03:28Focus groups, yeah, that alter things, maybe not for the better, so you just, you just
03:33never know.
03:34It makes you wonder how many potentially incredible pieces of work are out there that were sort
03:39of finished off in a different way, and could have gone left instead of right, there may
03:43have been the films we still talk about today as kind of legendary.
03:46And the music, the music is always so surprising, the music is so powerful in this film, you
03:50know, that was always an element of surprise when you finally see the film put together.
03:55You make a very good point, because there are films like this that are kind of character
03:59driven and it's about the kind of the conversations and the dialogue, rather than, you know, explosions
04:06and all sorts of other incredible things we see in movies, and they can really irritate
04:11me with how they become overindulgent in the use of music to build suspense, or they stay
04:16on a shot for so long and you just think a little bit, okay, somebody's just become
04:21a bit obsessed with this.
04:22And the pacing of this film, it never kind of drops that beat every moment, it's just
04:28perfectly kind of judged for me.
04:31Speaking of perfectly judged, I introduced my stepson to Merlin with you and Sam Neill
04:36recently, one of my old favourites, another legend of the screen.
04:41You guys were sequestered away on this one together.
04:44How much of a joy to kind of work shoulder to shoulder with the kind of level of actor
04:50and actress that has been on set, Isabella, what has the experience been for you?
04:53It was a delight.
04:54We were all staying in the same hotel, I can say sequestered because we were in Rome, Rafe
05:00was sequestered because he was in every scene.
05:03I had, you know, I worked two or three days a week and the rest, I was free to be in Rome,
05:09which is the city where I was born, to see family, friends, and also take a lot of touristic
05:15tours, because the production has organised for us to go see museums, the Sistine Chapel,
05:22the Vatican, so that was also very informative.
05:25This is a conclave, it's not a war.
05:27It is a war, and you have to commit to a side.
05:34With the quality of a film like this, there are kind of the irritations of kind of the
05:39buzz of awards and, you know, adulations and things like that.
05:43When you're, it makes things easier when you're promoting, but when you've done something
05:47and you put it to one side, is there a sense of kind of early gratification or a bit of
05:52frustration when those sort of murmurings begin?
05:57Does it take something away from the celebration of a film to have to talk about it?
06:00In Italy we would go like this.
06:01Right.
06:03Because it brings bad luck.
06:04It brings bad luck to say award and all this, you go like this, you say, well, you know,
06:08don't say it.
06:09I feel like that.
06:10I always feel.
06:11Look, I mean, obviously it's lovely to get on it in any way, but I think to sort of,
06:15I mean, if it happens, it happens.
06:17I think otherwise, I see Isabella, I see that, it's bad luck to go, just enjoy the present
06:25moment.
06:26Be in the present.
06:27Here we are.
06:28Hollywood is obsessed with, you know, garnishing itself with awards to the point where the
06:35award season is longer than just about any other season that we have.
06:40So it's great.
06:41Like Rafe said, like if it happens, it's great, but you can't, you just have to enjoy what
06:46we made.
06:47That's it.
06:48Well, I hope people completely ignore that and just let themselves be sort of taken by
06:52this film and hopefully films similar to this that will come out through London Film Festival
06:56and things.
06:57Because I thought it was really one of those just indulge the pleasurable experiences to
07:01sit down.
07:02I think this is, this is like as Scorsese would say, this is cinema.
07:07So congratulations, guys.
07:08Thanks.
07:11Have an awesome London Film Fest.
07:13You too.
07:14Get some sleep.
07:15Yep.
07:16Yeah, that's not going to happen, is it?
07:17And I'll see you on the next one.
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