Intervju med regissören Roger Spottiswoode

Av: Anders Frejdh

Publicerad:
2004-09-06

Roger Spottiswoode, regissör för Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) diskuterar inspelningen, vad som klipptes bort och hur "Lies" blev "Dies". Vår man i Frankrike, Kevin Collette, rapporterar.

I en sista minuten beslutet valdes tidigare Bondregissören Roger Spottiswoode till president för 2004 års Cognac Thriller Film Festival. Förutom Tomorrow Never Dies inkluderar Spottiswoodes filmografi den klassiska thrillern "Under Fire" och den inte så klassiska komedin "Stop or My Mom will Shoot".

Kevin beviljades nådigt en lång intervju med Spottiswoode som talade öppet om filmindustrin, president Bush - och Bond!

Om Roger Spottiswoode:
Född i Kanada, Spottiswoode började sin filmkarriär som klippare av reklamfilmer och dokumentärprojekt. Han flyttade sedan till USA och arbetade som klippassistent med Sam Peckinpah på "Straw Dogs", "The Getaway" och "Pat Garret & Billy the Kid". Han arbetade sedan med Walter Hill på "Hard Times" 1975.

1980, efter skräckfilmstrenden som skapats av "Friday the 13th", regisserade han sin första långfilm film, "Terror Train". Alldeles nyligen avslutade han inspelningen av "White On White" i Storbritannien Det är en thriller baserad på en roman av Patricia Highsmith.

[Kevin Collette:] When did you learn that you were selected by Eon Productions to direct the second Brosnan Bond, and how did you react?
[Roger Spottiswoode:] Well, I tend to balance “commercial projects” with more intimate ones. With Bond, I knew it would probably allow me to pursue my TV series further. So I signed. I was thrilled of being picked up. Actually, after the release of the Bond film, the producers came back to me to offer me another one, but I didn’t have any juice left for an immediate encore.

[KC:] Were you involved in the pre-production writing of the script?
[RS:] Yeah, for instance, that was my idea to have at least a strong woman in the story -- not just an “oooooh James“ bimbo. So I cast Michele Yeoh with that idea firmly in mind.

About the script, what happened was that MGM had a script by January 1997. It was revolving around Hong Kong being returned to the Chinese. Of course, we couldn’t use that for a movie due to open by the end of 1997, so we started almost from scratch at T-minus zero!

[KC:] What’s the real story behind that title?
[RS:] Well, the script revolves around a media mogul. The Tomorrow paper is really The European. And Carver is Rupert Murdoch. So, we had a list of 5 to 10 potential titles, amongst them “Tomorrow Never Lies.” It fit perfectly. A newspaper cannot tell lies… So we went for it and faxed MGM in Burbank, and on went with other things. But at the other end, the guy who received the script must have misread it because the next day we had a phone call from MGM, telling us “We love your title ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’! That’s going to be it.” Nobody dared to tell them the truth!

[KC:] The pre-credits sequence was supposed to be a bit different from what we finally saw on screen - a bit like 007 meets Stallone’s “Cliffhanger.” What happened?
[RS:] We did all the pre-production work on that mountain climbing bit indeed -- storyboard, scenery, etc. We had experts etc. But it the end it was simply too dangerous to shoot, so we decided to drop it.

[KC:] We heard many horror stories during the shooting of “Tomorrow Never Dies.” Any truth in that?
[RS:] Really? It has all been made up. The mood was great, the Broccolis very friendly. Nothing important really went wrong.

[KC:] Were you asked to come back as a director for another go?
[RS:] As I said, I was asked by the producer to direct a second Bond movie (TWINE), but I was too tired.

[KC:] You just finished shooting “White On White.” What’s next?
[RS:] Actually, I’ll be back on the set a little bit more after the festival. I also did a Kinder Chocolate TV ad with Claudia Schiffer. The funny thing is we couldn’t shoot kids actually eating the stuff . Merely suggest it! The exec went crazy about that rule…

I’m also working on a project of mine, called “Cathedrals,” about the big Salisbury or Amiens Church builders -- based on a William Goldman novel. It’s not really on religious topics, but more about the men behind those magnificent constructions. I would love to cast Jean Reno in the lead.

Intervju © Kevin Collette/MediaBis 2004. Alla rättigheter reserverade.

Bild ovan:
Pierce Brosnan, Michelle Yeoh och Roger Spottiswoode under inspelningen av Tomorrow Never Dies. © 1997 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

För mer information om Roger Spottiswoode, kolla in hans profil på IMDB:

www.mgm.com/view/movie/2029/Tomorrow-Never-Dies/

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Intervju med regissören Roger Spottiswoode

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