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00:00We actually sealed the deal here in London, I believe, subconsciously, when I ran into him accidentally in the sauna.
00:08Beads of sweat dripping down his torso. I couldn't say no.
00:12That's how the sweat found its way into the movie. He's very sweaty in the film.
00:18You are, Colin. In the movie, you are. Let's be clear about that, everyone.
00:30We've got a wonderful film that we're going to be talking about from Netflix called Ballad of a Small Player.
00:37It's the latest film from director Edward Berger, who you will know as being the visionary filmmaker behind Oscar-winning titles All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave.
00:49The film sees Colin Farrell play a high-stakes gambler who is laying low in Macau, spending his days and nights on casino floors,
00:57drinking heavily and gambling what little money he has left.
01:02Struggling to keep up with his fast-rising debts, he is offered a lifeline by a mysterious casino employee,
01:09played by Fala Chen, with secrets of her own who might just hold the key to his salvation
01:14as the confines of reality start to close in for him.
01:18Meanwhile, in hot pursuit is a private investigator, played by Tilda Swinton,
01:23who is ready to confront Doyle with what he is running from.
01:26Please welcome to the stage director and producer, Edward Berger.
01:36Stars Colin Farrell and Fala Chen.
01:43And the film's director of photography, James Friend.
01:47This film is so fun, so great, so bombastic.
01:58It's a little different from what you've worked on before, Edward.
02:01But do tell me, you and Colin have been in discussions for this project for a while, I believe, before All Quiet and Conclave.
02:09Can you tell me a little bit about when you read the novel and when you decided you wanted this to be a project you would work on ultimately?
02:17And tell me about those conversations with Colin and how it all kind of moved forward.
02:22I started about eight years ago with Mike Goodrich, our producer, who gave me the book and I read it and I thought it was fantastic.
02:30It was a great basis for a movie.
02:33I loved the place, Macau.
02:35You know, I thought it would be interesting to shoot there and to bring images to our screens that we don't see so often.
02:42And this character fascinated me, this person in an environment that has so much to offer, who's so fragile inside.
02:54And when you think of fragile, I thought, like, the best person to express that with eyes is Colin Farrell.
03:02And so we had lunch one day in L.A.
03:06And it was a wonderful, but it's sort of like a dance, you know, you get to know each other.
03:10Colin has to decide, is this going to, he was interested, I think you were interested in the script, at least you pretended to be.
03:16And then, you know, it has to, you know, it has to sort of all come to fruition at the same time for him, for me, for Farla, for the time, you know, it has to be the right time.
03:31And then it all ended up being the same.
03:34And then we met, we actually sealed the deal here in London, I believe, you know, like subconsciously, when I ran into him accidentally in the sauna.
03:45He was here.
03:46No to any press members in the room, if you bring up a story enough to a person, they'll end up starting to bring it up themselves.
03:52That's what just happened.
03:55Exactly.
03:58So I, we were both here for the BAFTAs.
04:01He was Banshees, James and I were all quiet and, you know.
04:06Beads of sweat dripping down his torso.
04:09I couldn't say no.
04:10That's how the sweat, how the sweat found its way into the movie.
04:14I mean.
04:14He's very sweaty in the film.
04:15You are, Colin, and it's, we've, we've, we've spoken, I mean, in the movie, you are.
04:23Let's be clear about that, everyone.
04:25If you haven't seen it, watch it, you will know.
04:28We've talked a little bit about this before, but it is, it feels like such a physically demanding role because he's, he is sweating all the time.
04:37He is on the edge.
04:38He's got a heart, you know, condition.
04:40Tell me a little bit about the, maybe the toll that took, or how did you kind of prepare to put yourself in that space of this kind of gambler on the risk of losing everything?
04:51We all have a heart condition, don't we?
04:53Really?
04:53Essentially.
04:54Every single one of us, 8 billion humanoids.
04:58Yeah, it was, it was, I loved the read.
05:01I loved the script.
05:02I had seen Edward's work with Benedict Cumberbatch and James, who photographed and lit, Patrick Melrose, about 8, 10 years ago, and I loved that.
05:12And there's a lot of kind of cross-referential themes explored in Patrick Melrose, as there is, I mean, a person who's making a beeline because of unanswered emotional or psychological issues,
05:23and they're making a beeline towards their own demise without fully being aware of the kind of heft of disintegration that they're experiencing until it's almost too late.
05:33And then you find out that it's never too late.
05:34It's never too late to course correct.
05:35But it was a really physical role.
05:37I think for everyone, including the crew, it was an incredibly intense shoot in a really good way that fed into the work because the story just starts very, it starts loud.
05:47It starts in that bombastic way.
05:51You get a sense of opera from the opening frame, really, which Macau, generously enough, just visually lends itself to that kind of sense of the operatic.
05:59And from the first, it's a short enough film, it's an hour and 41 minutes, but it's just a very quick descent into madness and then an ascent out of that towards a kind of redemption
06:10with all sorts of extraordinary work done by Fala, who plays Dao Ming, who's, for my money, kind of almost the moral conscience at the center of the piece.
06:20And, of course, Tilda Swinton and stuff.
06:22But, yeah, I was a bit raw by the end of it, but we had a blast in Macau.
06:27That's totally right.
06:29I mean, Fala, your character in this kind of does give Colin's character a route to redemption.
06:38Can you speak a little bit about kind of what attracted you to this role and about your character and that journey she takes in kind of giving him that kind of chance he so needed?
06:50This is also a chance that I so needed to play such an interesting character.
06:57So I'm forever grateful to Edward for inviting me onto this journey.
07:02But it was really such a – it's really personal to me to play this character because she's a Chinese woman, but someone I also come from a world I don't really know.
07:15So I learned a lot about women who grew up in rural China and moved to a big city and finding work and struggle all their lives.
07:24And it's a story about women who didn't get much opportunity and life didn't give them a pass.
07:30So she's just – you know, we talked a lot about the contrast in this film in each character as well.
07:36And for Dao Ming, she has this quiet strength and resilience in her, and she takes agency in making her own decision.
07:44The hardest decision that she made was surrendering.
07:47But also she has this deeply sad and alone and full of shame and all of the other side of her.
07:54So it's a really complex but fun character to play.
07:58And I didn't find the character until I step on set with these wonderful gentlemen and, you know, in Lizzie's costume and all of it.
08:07So it all comes, you know, together at the end.
08:10James, can I ask you about those initial conversations you had with Edward about what you kind of wanted to get on screen, how you wanted to approach it from a cinematographer's point of view?
08:26And how much – because Macau, as you've all touched upon a little bit, it's almost like its own character in this film.
08:33And I wonder how did those initial conversations go and then kind of what – how did that transpire to what we see in the end result of the film?
08:42I mean, obviously, we all start with the script.
08:44But the first thing Edward and I did is go to the place.
08:49And it was nothing like I had in my mind.
08:53Nothing actually quite prepares you for how crazy the place really is.
08:58Like, and, you know, day and night is – I mean, I've been to Vegas and it's, like, crazier than Vegas.
09:06So – but it's also got some, like, areas to it that are kind of full of beautiful character.
09:15And, like, a lot of these locations, I had to sort of recalibrate my brain into thinking what is beautiful and what's not.
09:22Because, like, the wallpaper, the carpet, everything's like this sort of assault.
09:29And when we first went out there, to be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed.
09:33Almost like I was going to have, like, an anxiety attack.
09:37But we were living in the hotels, which are lovely sort of luxurious places.
09:45You know, just to go out to go to work in the morning, you walk past a Chanel and a Cartier.
09:51But at the same time, you become completely desensitized to it.
09:55So I think Edward and I just threw ourselves into the environment and just tried to sort of understand it.
10:03And one thing that really hit us both the first time we went out there was the humidity.
10:09And it's something that Edward was very keen on sort of capturing.
10:13So, yeah, tried to sort of make this a kind of four-dimensional kind of opera.
10:22That was the other word that he kept on saying to me, opera, opera, opera.
10:25And, you know, coming from all quiet, which obviously is a quiet sort of muted, I mean, obviously very different.
10:34Weirdly, I'm not a sort of very colourful cinematographer.
10:37It's not something that I learned a lot from Edward over the years of, you know, especially in the grading and the lighting.
10:45He would always say, let's go a bit more colourful.
10:47Let's go a bit more technical.
10:48And it pushed me out of my comfort zone.
10:51And this was totally out of my comfort zone.
10:54So I really had to kind of embrace it.
10:58And, you know, it was, I mean, we prepared by simply just throwing ourselves into the madness.
11:04That's all I can really say.
11:07I mean, Macau seems to have had a deep impression on all of you.
11:10And I understand that you guys were shooting on live casino floors.
11:14And at any point, if a high rolling gambler came in, you had to be prepared to get up and move.
11:24I would imagine that adds enormously to the anxiety when you are shooting on set.
11:30Maybe can you tell me a little bit, each of you a little bit about that?
11:34It kind of feels like you must be...
11:35I mean, I think we're like as we're all kind of anxious people.
11:39And especially when you make a movie, you're kind of anxious.
11:43Am I going to get the day?
11:44Am I going to get the shot?
11:45I'm actually afraid of every shot.
11:47I think, oh my God, the next shot we're not going to get.
11:51Something is going to go wrong.
11:52Colin is going to screw it up.
11:55James is going to screw it up.
11:58I'm going to screw it up.
12:00One of us is going to screw it up.
12:01And then we somehow make it.
12:03And I'm so relieved.
12:04And then suddenly, oh God, we have to do another shot.
12:06And the whole thing starts over again.
12:11So my main job was besides like trying to, I tried to calm myself down by grabbing a hose on set
12:18and like spritzing the trees so that they would drip constantly.
12:23Or spritzing Colin with a little water bottle so that he would drip constantly.
12:29That would calm me down.
12:30I self-drip, by the way.
12:31I just want to be clear.
12:32But the other thing I would say is when we were scouting for the locations,
12:39all the locations that we fell in love with within these like five-star hotels,
12:44we were like, oh, this lobby is fucking great.
12:46And this entrance and this staircase.
12:49And they're like, well, actually, that's the high roller lobby.
12:53And we're like, but we want to shoot there.
12:55And when you're making movies, you're so laser line focused.
12:59And they're like, but you can shoot in this other lobby.
13:01We're like, no, we don't want to shoot in that lobby.
13:02We want to shoot in this lobby.
13:04And so we made it kind of hard for ourselves, but in a good way,
13:08because obviously you have to be ambitious.
13:11But, you know, we had to film at the sort of dead of night.
13:15And, you know, when the high rollers were least amount like to rock up.
13:21But then we had to tear all the lights down for the, you know,
13:25when they wake up in the morning, it doesn't look like a bloody film set.
13:29And then reinstate it all.
13:31So it was logistically extremely challenging, but fun, you know, at the same time.
13:37But as Ed says, the most anxiety-inducing experience.
13:42I just have one final question.
13:44I know we're running out of time, but I really want to ask about this.
13:46There's one scene in particular, which is the scene in the hotel room
13:50when Lord Doyle is gorging on all of this food.
13:54You know, he's insatiable for these eating lobsters.
13:58He's eating, you know, and drinking champagne.
14:00And I want to, could you maybe speak a little bit to the significance of this scene
14:06and technically how you approached it
14:10and how it speaks to the themes of the film overall?
14:14That's actually a big question.
14:15Well, it became a very, it became basically the central scene of the movie
14:20when we shot it.
14:23It was significant on the page, but when you see Colin do it,
14:28suddenly you go, oh my God, this is going to be like the turning point.
14:32Because basically what he does, he tries to feed himself on all these,
14:35you know, lobsters and sticks.
14:37And he can finally realize that none of that is going to fill him.
14:41None of it is going to make him happy.
14:42And that's basically also the theme.
14:45James was talking about Chanel and Cartier.
14:49Those are wonderful things.
14:51Or steak and lobster.
14:53But they're not going to make us happy, you know.
14:55And that is what Lord Doyle is going to have to realize during this film.
14:59And I think for Colin, I mean, maybe Colin can speak to the shooting of it,
15:04but we made sure, James and I made sure to maybe just do one take of each thing
15:09because otherwise he'd have to eat too much.
15:12And we started with the close-ups.
15:14And it's a wonderful collaboration between James and Danny,
15:18the operator and I, and Colin.
15:20And I think Colin was pretty quiet that day.
15:23Usually he's like very, you know, like embracing everyone.
15:26And this day he was like really laser focused and quiet.
15:30And so you kind of also, as a crew, you're aware of that to make sure that he,
15:36we don't disturb him in that, you know.
15:39And he guided us through what he was going to do.
15:43And Danny and James then captured it in the film.
15:48Yeah, I just messed up with my intermittent fasting that day.
15:51So that's why I was quiet and sullen.
15:56No, as Ed said, it was kind of a turning point for the character
15:59or the story or his journey.
16:01It was kind of the moment where he realized that he was bereft of any answer
16:06or any context to where he was in his life.
16:08He had had a conversation with Phala's character, Dao Ming,
16:13at a certain point where she spoke about Naraka,
16:16the hungry ghosts of Buddhist hell and how no matter what they eat,
16:19they've got long faces and wide mouths.
16:21And no matter what they eat, they can't fill themselves.
16:23And he's beginning to suspicion that he actually is possibly in a literal hell.
16:27So he's trying to prove to himself that he's not, that he can fill himself,
16:31that he can gorge to the point of fullness and he can't seem to.
16:35So it was kind of an aggressive culmination to a free fall that he had been in
16:41up until that point, I suppose, the scene.
16:43And yeah, I was 10,000 calories in by lunch.
16:45It wasn't much fun, even though the buffet was extraordinary.
16:48And there was, as you said, lobster tails and gatto cakes
16:50and all sorts of lovely French bread with salted butters and things.
16:54But they kept it.
16:56Again, it was like James is saying, though, the chaos of the film,
16:59every day there was a certain amount of chaos.
17:01It was either logistic or it was performance or it was emotional or psychological
17:04or it was interpretive because we were various different cultures
17:07trying to communicate together and come together with different languages.
17:10And it was, yeah, the whole thing was an exercise in,
17:14as film tends to be, very organized chaos.
17:18But it was a lot of chaos this time.
17:19And it was kind of wonderful because it fed into the film.
17:21Well, it certainly delivers.
17:24It's a wonderful film.
17:25Thank you, love.
17:25Thank you so much, everyone, for being here.
17:27Congratulations.
17:28Thanks, everyone.
17:29Thank you so much.
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