A Conversation with "Boudica: Queen of War" filmmaker Jesse V. Johnson.

Elements of Madness

In this edition of EoM Presents, Senior Interviewer Thomas Manning speaks again with filmmaker Jesse V. Johnson, discussing his latest feature, "Boudica: Queen of War." Johnson talks about his passion for sharing the story of the titular Celtic queen, and the incredible work from Olga Kurylenko in the lead role.  In theaters, on VOD, and digital October 27 2023. #Boudica #QueenofWar  Official Synopsis: After her family is slain and her land stolen, warrior queen Boudica (Olga Kurylenko) leads a fierce rebellion against the Roman Empire, inspiring her people to fight for freedom.  Directed By: Jesse V. Johnson Cast: Olga Kurylenko, Clive Standen, Peter Franzen, Lucy Martin, Nick Moran, Leo Gregory  Official Trailer: youtu.be/8N_HOkm021c?si=W3QqIDPDbTsKQo1i

Transcript

00:00Hi, and welcome into EOM Presents. This is Thomas Manning, Senior Interviewer for Elements of Madness.

00:05And recently, once again, I got a chance to speak with writer and director Jesse B. Johnson.

00:10I've previously interviewed him about his films Hell Hath No Fury and One Ranger,

00:15and today we're talking with him about his latest production, Boudicca, Queen of War.

00:20This is a story that Jesse has had a lot of interest in over the course of his career,

00:25and earlier on, years ago, he had actually written a portion of the script

00:30but couldn't quite figure out how to take it to the next level

00:33until, years later, he collaborated with Olga Karolinko

00:38and realized that she was basically the missing link

00:41and she was what was needed in order to bring this project into fruition.

00:45And now, Boudicca, Queen of War will be releasing on October 27th,

00:49and Jesse is delighted to finally see this come into being.

00:55And it's always an absolute treat to talk with Jesse about his passion for filmmaking

01:00and just his zeal for this art form.

01:03So, thank you all so much for watching and listening.

01:05I hope you enjoy the conversation as we talk with Jesse B. Johnson

01:08about Boudicca, Queen of War.

01:12Thanks, Jesse. Yeah, yeah, it's great to see you again.

01:15How are you doing, man?

01:16I'm doing wonderful.

01:18It's always a pleasure to chat with you, and I appreciate your time again today.

01:21My pleasure. My pleasure. It's great to be here.

01:23For sure. And I'll head right into it.

01:27From what I understand, you had worked on the script years ago,

01:30but you couldn't crack the second act until working with Olga Karolinko

01:35later in your career inspired you to come back to it.

01:38So, was there a particular moment in working with Olga

01:41where it clicked into place for you,

01:44that it was time to return to the story of Boudicca,

01:46or was it more of a series of small moments in your collaborations?

01:50Small moments. Small moments.

01:52I worked with her on a film in Tifton, Georgia, called White Elephant,

01:56and I was just really impressed by her work ethic,

01:59by the sheer commitment to it.

02:01She got off the plane after 21 hours of flying.

02:05We had a big day of stuff to do.

02:07I don't think she had a chance to look at the script properly.

02:11And she looked at me, and she's like,

02:12OK, give me the script. Let's see what I've got to do.

02:15Have you got anything with a lot of caffeine in it?

02:17Let's get going. And this is, for me, this is Olga.

02:20This is fantastic. So, we brought her Red Bull and coffee

02:23and whatever else, and she slammed it and got down,

02:27went through it, disappeared, came back,

02:29and we did the scenes, and they were fantastic.

02:31And I really, really enjoyed working with her.

02:34I got to know her very well in that picture.

02:37Chatted to her a little bit afterwards, backwards and forwards,

02:39as the film was coming out.

02:41We were doing a little bit of publicity on that one.

02:42And, you know, it was round about there I realised I had an asset

02:46with knowing her, and that if I had anything for her,

02:50it would be really good.

02:51And I realised I'd been developing the script,

02:55sort of soft developing at the back of, you know,

02:57it was in my slush pile of scripts.

02:59I could not lick.

03:00I could not get through this.

03:02You know, I'd written the first half of it as the mother

03:05and the queen, and I was fine with that.

03:07The historical aspects were great,

03:08and I figured all that part of it out.

03:10But what I couldn't work out was how to show this hideous,

03:14awful, beyond-description act that the Romans committed

03:17on this woman and her children,

03:19and how to then take the story into the second act.

03:22It was just eluding me.

03:23And by meeting her, I realised I had the asset.

03:26I had the potential to bring her on,

03:28to put this film together and to get it going.

03:31And so I looked at this problem, and, you know,

03:33as things do, your brain solves it.

03:36I said, I can't, you know, I read an article on these Vietnamese mothers

03:41who, during the war, had seen such terrible, terrible things

03:44that they went blind, psychosomatically went blind.

03:48Their own nervous system forbade them to see anything more.

03:52Doctors looked at them, and it's too, this kernel of sort of fact

03:57and information, I slept on that, and I realised that there was a way

04:01of doing this.

04:02There was a way of telling the story by not telling it,

04:04by not showing the audience, by letting them discover in real time

04:08with the lead actor what had happened had been so awful

04:12that her mind had blacked it out and played a trick on it, you know.

04:16And I've seen this.

04:17I've seen this in real life.

04:18I've seen it happen.

04:19I've worked in stunts and being around soldiers and police

04:22and people like that.

04:23I've interviewed so many over the years and had them

04:25as technical advisors and done my own stuff.

04:28But it resonated with a truthfulness that showing that act

04:34or even attempting to show it in a small way would diminish it,

04:40would make it less than it actually was.

04:42And I wouldn't want to see it anywhere.

04:44Frankly, I don't want to film that kind of thing.

04:45I have no interest in that.

04:46It's just, it's not because I'm squeamish.

04:49I just, you know, I make films that I want to entertain,

04:52that I want to elevate, that I want to...

04:53I don't know, it just doesn't work.

04:55It doesn't belong in my pantheon.

04:57Perhaps other directors can make that type of film

04:58and make it work.

05:00But by meeting her, it triggered that and we got it done.

05:02And, you know, the film broke very quickly.

05:05And various things happened on this that really were,

05:08you know, I don't believe in massive amounts of luck,

05:11but I think they were very fortunate.

05:12And it was one of those rather special experiences.

05:15Whether people liked the film or not, I don't know.

05:17And I have no control over it.

05:18But I put everything into this one, man.

05:21So it'll be interesting to see what people do think.

05:23But I can't let it affect me too much.

05:26For sure.

05:27And I'd love to talk more about your decision

05:30to shoot this film chronologically,

05:32or at least for the most part.

05:35So was that something that you had in mind

05:37from the very beginning?

05:38How did that narrative choice come into play?

05:42And so, Bells, again, I mean, I'm in Rancesso in Italy,

05:47by American Rage, so I put the church bells in.

05:50I knew, there's a couple of things.

05:53It's practicality, because I knew the makeup was a monster.

05:56You know, shaved eyebrows, missing teeth, broken nose, hair, wild.

06:01I, you know, I knew that was going to be.

06:03So you wouldn't want to do that, you know, the same day.

06:07You wouldn't really want to go one way and then the other way,

06:09just out of pure logistics and pragmatism.

06:15But that led into the fact that I felt we all wanted to shoot,

06:21you know, the happy part of her life first and have that done.

06:25because the weight, because understanding that

06:27and understanding how happy she was in that life

06:30and how content and how green and bucolic and facetious

06:34and, you know, sort of wonderful that life was,

06:40and then taking it all away,

06:41not only would it help the cast understand where their characters were

06:46and who they were, but it would help the crew.

06:49It would help everyone involved understand, you know,

06:52this story that she's on, you know,

06:53and that, you know, what, you know,

06:56you can become very trivial and everything becomes a task on a movie,

07:00or you can create an environment that helps people sort of

07:03do the best work imaginable.

07:05And I think things like that, you know, working,

07:09I mean, we didn't shoot chronologically.

07:10We shot the first half of the movie, you know,

07:14as her and then the second half, but it wasn't,

07:17neither one was, I would love to have shot chronologically.

07:20But that wasn't possible on this one.

07:22But we did, we did shoot all of her makeup one way.

07:25And then second part of the movie was all of her makeup the other way.

07:28So in that respect, it was semi-chronological.

07:30But yes, I thought it was wonderful.

07:32I think that's the best way to make movies.

07:33It's how I did Hellback and No Fury as well.

07:35And it's, it's wonderful for the cast.

07:37It gives them so much more to work with, so much more, you know,

07:42especially when you're doing a trial by, via tribulations and sort of action

07:48sequences and, you know, the actors are going through the ringer.

07:52Absolutely.

07:53Anything you can do to help them, you know, achieve that goal.

07:55And I think, I think it really did.

07:57It was helpful to everyone involved.

08:00And I know you've worked with your cinematographer, Jonathan Hall,

08:04multiple times across your career and in recent years.

08:08Including, I think, Hell Hath No Fury, as you just mentioned.

08:11But I guess the scope and scale of this production was a bit,

08:14a bit different than what y'all are used to working on.

08:17So can you discuss that creative partnership this time around and how it

08:21compared to your previous collaborations?

08:26As you get bigger, you draw the camera further back.

08:31Doesn't change much beyond that, to be honest.

08:34You know, you still keep it very personal.

08:37You don't let the size of scope or anything change much.

08:41You've just got to really focus on the human element of the story,

08:44the characters, the actors, you know, what makes them tick, what's going on.

08:48You watch Lawrence of Arabia.

08:50It's a human story about a man, you know, about a man and the guys he runs into

08:57and these incredible characters.

09:00The action sequences are beautiful to look at, but it's simply a matter of the camera

09:05has come back a long way.

09:06So you can see this, you know, but the story, the strength of the story

09:11is the characters and the people you're dealing with.

09:16That is the epic nature of it, told against the great backdrop, you know.

09:22So you can't let that, you know, sort of overwhelm you.

09:28You go in there and you're like, okay, what's the story?

09:30What's going on here?

09:30Who have I got?

09:32Who's she like?

09:33Who doesn't she like?

09:33What's her, you know, what's her task?

09:35What's her, what's the conflict?

09:37What's she got to, you know, take on here?

09:39Where are the human elements I can add to this?

09:41What can I do to help these guys get, you know, what they want out of the scene?

09:46And, you know, you try and create an environment that the actors can,

09:50where what they need to do comes as easily as possible

09:52and they can experiment and sort of take risks

09:55and not have to use their imagination too much, you know?

10:01Right.

10:02But yeah, you know, there's some things that are different.

10:05Well, the biggest thing with John and I on this one was we didn't want a copy from other movies.

10:09You know, we didn't want it to look like this movie or that movie.

10:12And so very, very concerted effort to look at the works of, you know,

10:16the pre-Aphalite painters or the Orientalists,

10:18which was a movement that shot off from the pre-Aphalites in the Victorian era.

10:22And they flew, they didn't fly themselves, they would have shipped themselves to Africa

10:27and Italy and Egypt and painted there and put their pictures together and brought them back.

10:33And at the time, they were quite outrageous.

10:35You can get them now, they look like beautiful, beautiful cablos that were wonderful.

10:39But so that was, you know, I put a booklet full of those kind of images together.

10:44I said, this is what we're going for.

10:45This is what it's, you know.

10:47So that helped with some of the bigger scenes and making sure everything was backlit

10:51and light coming through the trees looked beautiful.

10:53But Jonathan's very, very good.

10:55And, you know, we worked very well together and it was a, you know, a really good collaboration.

11:01You know, again, nothing, nothing motivated for the sake of showing off.

11:07I don't ever want someone to watch my film and say, wow, that was some really good direction.

11:12Oh, wow, that was some really good camera work.

11:15You know, no drones.

11:16I don't want to see a drone in sight.

11:18I absolutely loathe them.

11:19You know, it's like, oh, let's see the overhead shot again in a film.

11:21And it's, you know, trying to remove all of that stuff that we've become accustomed to.

11:27You know, the camera moves when a person moves, you know, not unmotivated, not trying to spice

11:34up an otherwise boring scene by moving the camera backwards and forwards or unnecessarily

11:38shaking it when you have an action sequence because the performers are too uninteresting.

11:42You know, trying to be as invisible as possible and give them what they need to make them look

11:50fabulous.

11:51And for people around the world who are watching this movie and, you know, perhaps learning

11:57of Boudicca's story for the first time, what does that mean to you, not only as a filmmaker,

12:03but personally as an individual who is telling the story in cinematic form and honoring that

12:09memory?

12:11Well, I have no control whatsoever over what people like and what they don't like and whether

12:17they like my films or not or whether they hate them.

12:19I have no control over that.

12:21I can't stay up too late at night worrying about that.

12:24What I can do and I have control over it is making the film that I feel is the best film

12:30possible.

12:30And I've just put every, every ounce of my effort into a picture.

12:35And this one I did.

12:36And ultimately, on this film more than any other film I've been on, I felt a sense of responsibility

12:46with this woman's reputation.

12:49I didn't want to cheapen it or her and I did everything I could not to do that.

12:55And if it's come across as flagrant exploitism or a genre picture or gore for the sake of

13:03gore's sakes, then I've failed.

13:04And maybe I have failed and who knows.

13:06But I did my very, very best to make a film that presented her character as honorably as

13:12possible.

13:13The interest, you know, we shot, as you probably saw in the notes, we shot completely by happenstance

13:22in a area in Suffolk and Woodbridge, which was less than 20 miles away from where she burnt,

13:29you know, the Temple of Claudius 2,000 years ago.

13:32So the fact that she may have galloped in that area and been privy to it just added to the sense

13:38of the burden of responsibility while we're out there.

13:41It was really, really quite interesting.

13:43I've never had it before.

13:44Even dealing with Marie's character in Hell, Half My Fury, I felt a sense of purpose and

13:49responsibility for her, but nothing like this one.

13:52And it just, and I think it was self-inflicted.

13:55It was, I don't, you know, I'm sure there wasn't any spiritual thing there, but it was like,

14:00don't mess this up, treat her well, you know, treat her with the respect and admiration that

14:06she deserves and don't, you know, don't cheapen it, don't use little gags and cheap sort of

14:13techniques that you've learned over the years.

14:16Try and be honest with it.

14:18And so I hope that comes across.

14:20That would be the one thing I'd really love people to take away.

14:23And if they don't, then hopefully on my next film, they will.

14:26I did it.

14:27Well, Jesse, it's always a privilege to chat with you about your love for filmmaking and

14:33congrats on Boudicca and looking forward to the next one and looking forward to chatting

14:38again soon.

14:39Would be my honor.

14:40Yes, sir.

14:41Y'all have a great day.

14:42Thank you, Thomas.

14:43All the very best.

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