Carey Mulligan, Tim Key & More on Filming 'The Ballad of Wallis Island' | THR Studio at Park City - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

'The Ballad of Wallis Island' director James Griffiths and stars stars Carey Mulligan, Tim Key and Tom Basden stop by THR's studio at Park City to talk all about their new film. The stars revealed what they loved most about filming, writing songs for the film and more.

Transcript

00:00Who would you hire for a private concert?

00:03Can they be dead?

00:04Yeah, sure.

00:05If you get some dead guys, I think I'd probably go,

00:07oh, straight down the line, Beatles.

00:09Oh, yeah.

00:10Well, they're not all dead.

00:11Well, I wouldn't kill them and bring them out.

00:13The ones that were alive I'd have, and then bring them.

00:15Yeah, bring the other ones back from the dead.

00:22We looked at a lot of islands off the coast,

00:24but most of them are just very, very difficult to get to.

00:27So we had, even the beach we chose was very, very difficult to get to.

00:31But we shot on the coast of Wales, and then the house is slightly more inland.

00:36So with the magic of cinema, we created our island.

00:39That was like where I grew up going on holiday.

00:42My family's Welsh, my mum's Welsh, so we were near Tenby.

00:46Tenby is where I went on all my summer holidays when I was a kid.

00:49And then the house, the big house that was Charles' house in the film,

00:52was in the town where my mum was born and lived until she went to university.

00:56So lots of family around there. My Welsh family are thrilled.

01:00It's a very magical part of the British Isles, that corner of Wales.

01:05Yeah, the coastline there is unbelievably beautiful, it really is.

01:08I mean, Dylan Thomas wrote all of his work in that,

01:11literally around the corner from the beach we were filming in.

01:13So it's a very sort of artistic kind of corner. It's very creative.

01:17I've been writing and recording songs for this film for quite a while,

01:20and some of the songs date back to the original short film that was 18-odd years ago.

01:24And then some I wrote...

01:26The short film we based it on was, we made a very long time ago.

01:31And some of the songs I was keen to reuse and some wanted to, you know,

01:34just come at it fresh and try new stuff.

01:38But yeah, I had to record them just on my laptop at home when the kids were quiet,

01:44and then kind of send them all to Carrie knowing that she listened to them with Marcus.

01:49I was quite nerve-wracking that. I was quite worried about how you'd respond.

01:53I think they're so brilliant. I watched the film for the first time yesterday,

01:57and I just kept thinking... I always loved them. I just think that you're such a good songwriter.

02:01Oh, thank you.

02:03They were both very, very lovely about it and very supportive.

02:06It's true that they're so good.

02:07They're so, like, in and of itself...

02:09They're quite good.

02:11Also, he's done such a good... Sorry.

02:13No, no.

02:14And I was saying he's done such a good job of kind of telling the backstory

02:17and filling all the gaps of what their relationship was musically.

02:21Because often, Carrie's playing kind of backing vocals into some of those songs,

02:25and then you can feel Herb move his music into a kind of more pop space.

02:29And just that journey is told through the music, the songs themselves, which is really clever.

02:34It's testament to how much I think James and the boys have made something amazing that I...

02:40How easy I found it to watch. Not myself, but the...

02:43Like, I was so... I just was in hysterics last night watching the film.

02:46I thought it was so funny. And then I cried.

02:48And I normally just...

02:49You cried during the singing.

02:50I did.

02:52Just my tone.

02:53No, but like, I...

02:55Yeah, I...

02:56I don't like it at all.

02:57But...

02:58And it's like listening to your voice in an answering machine.

03:00Everyone hates that.

03:01And your face that big on the screen is upsetting.

03:03But...

03:04But I just was...

03:05That all kind of went into the background because I was so...

03:08I just thought these guys were so incredible in the film.

03:10Griff had done such an amazing job.

03:12So it was nice for once to be like, oh.

03:14Yeah, that was quite funny.

03:15There's one bit in the film where it's a close-up on me.

03:19And so there's an enormous face on the screen last night.

03:21And then I know the next thing that happens is it zooms in.

03:24Yeah.

03:25I feel like I had the best view in the house, you know, because obviously you're there watching

03:34them live and doing it.

03:35And that, for me, was like the best.

03:37It was an amazing private concert because they had so much great chemistry with each

03:41other through the music.

03:42I mean, just generally.

03:44Everyone gets on, as you can see.

03:46Everyone, you know, gets it.

03:48But in those moments, it was just finding that connection.

03:51It moved the crew to tears when we were watching those scenes.

03:55The thing that I'm most proud of as well is that all of the music that's in the film

03:58is the live stuff we recorded on set.

04:00You know, we did go back and we record things in the studio and spent quite a lot of time

04:05like getting it all exactly to time, thinking we might use that and we'd kind of like polish

04:10it afterwards.

04:11But actually, when we were watching it in post, it was just so clear that the live performances

04:17just had a kind of, they had a reality to them.

04:20They had a sort of a slight roughness to them, a slight kind of like, you know, just

04:24an authenticity that just felt really right for the way the music is presented in the film.

04:28Which is how it should be, really.

04:30Because there's a scene where they sing to me and I hear them for the first time.

04:34And yeah, it should feel like I'm hearing them in my living room rather than, or dining

04:39room, rather than a polished track.

04:41Yeah, played over the top of, you know, the picture.

04:44So it, and it was kind of very moving experience, as Griff says.

04:48But yeah, I was in the same boat as the cast and, as the crew really, where I'm just,

04:53I don't have any lines, I'm just watching them.

04:55And it was really, yeah, it's very beautiful.

04:57I just wanted to be in the film in any way, you know.

04:59So, singing was, was, and it's so fun to be in that world and to sort of, you know,

05:06if it's not your world.

05:08But yeah, the onus was on him.

05:11And I was like, backing vocals for me.

05:14Don't make me say on my own.

05:16It was great.

05:17That was, that was what it was.

05:18I was never as, you know, she's, and she's meant to be the kind of keys player backing.

05:23She's not like the front man of a, of a thing in that sense.

05:26So, it was.

05:27And wrote all the lyrics, didn't she?

05:28In the backstory, she writes a lot of the lyrics and to all that.

05:31Yeah.

05:32So it's a kind of wordsmith.

05:33First time I starstruck, I met, uh, uh, Cliff Richard.

05:38Really?

05:39Yeah.

05:40When I was like, when we were living in Germany, when I was a kid, my dad was a hotel manager

05:44and Cliff Richard came to stay.

05:45Wow.

05:46And I had a Fanta with him.

05:47Wow.

05:48Yeah, with, with my family.

05:49We had a Fanta.

05:50Yeah, because we had a Fanta.

05:52We had a Fanta.

05:53We had a Fanta.

05:54We had a Fanta.

05:55I remember having a Fanta.

05:56Wow.

05:57And we didn't probably have a Fanta.

05:58Yeah, that's big.

05:59Cliff's big.

06:00It's huge.

06:01Yeah.

06:02But I was, I was six or seven and I was like, fairly sure this was a big deal.

06:05Yeah.

06:06I was 48 when I met John Murray.

06:07Yeah.

06:08So I could keep my, keep my shit together.

06:10There's, there's a guy called, um, John Murray.

06:13I don't know if he's, how big he is here, but he's a radio football commentator in England.

06:18Yeah.

06:19Yeah.

06:20Don't I?

06:21Well, there's John Murray, Connor McNamara, Cornelius Slicer.

06:24None of them are big here.

06:25No.

06:26Cornelius Slicer.

06:27This thing, no.

06:28And Jonathan Overend.

06:29But basically, I always listen to sport all the time.

06:32And about two weeks ago, we were in a bar and there's four people and my friend recognized

06:37one.

06:38You never, you never see these people.

06:39I was listening to one an hour ago on the radio, but you never see them.

06:42And they're always the most, and I love these people.

06:44And we introduced ourselves and met the, the, the sports commentators.

06:48Oh.

06:49Because the thing is, you meet a lot of people doing what we do.

06:51And actually you, we're all doing the same thing.

06:54So kind of, it has to be from another field for me, where a particular sport, where you

06:58just are, it's just insane that you're talking to this person.

07:01I mean, yeah, I've had some sports people that I've met, which have always, as you say,

07:06outside your field, like Johnny Wilkinson.

07:08He's one of my all time heroes.

07:10Um, but I think John Cleese was fun.

07:13Wow.

07:14Like I grew up on all the Python.

07:16My dad educated me in a lot of radio comedy around the horn and, and then Python.

07:21Life Prime, literally one of my favorite films.

07:24And so I did a zoom with him when he was in Dubai and we had a full chat for a good hour.

07:28Wow.

07:29Um, while he was eating some scrambled egg.

07:31Yeah.

07:32And I, and I couldn't tell him he had some egg on his, on his, but it was like, Oh God,

07:35it's John Cleese.

07:36Now I've got to tell him he's got egg on his face.

07:37He's got egg on his face.

Carey Mulligan, Tim Key & More on Filming 'The Ballad of Wallis Island' | THR Studio at Park City

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