Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here. Where to begin…
Over the course of two days, I got to spend some quality time with three men who have made me laugh harder than just about anyone else in recent years. If you only knew their British television show "Spaced" and the feature debut SHAUN OF THE DEAD, you'd be good to go. But their latest project, the hyper-intensive cop actioner HOT FUZZ is sheer perfection. I'm talking about director/co-writer Edgar Wright, co-writer/star Simon Pegg and actor/sidekick extraordinaire Nick Frost. I was lucky enough to host the Chicago premiere of HOT FUZZ last Monday, and to sit down for a proper interview with the three the following afternoon.
Since my time with them was all-too brief, I tried not to re-ask questions from the Q&A the night before. Some of the details they revealed from the night before that you might find interesting include specs on the British vs. U.S. DVD features. Wright seemed to think the British release would be a two-disc set; the U.S. would only have a single disc. Edgar and Simon already have an idea for their next film together, but don't want to give any details for the simple reason that they might change their mind or come up with a better idea. They say they painted themselves into a corner during their press tour for SHAUN by telling everyone one that cop films would be the targets of their next film without having written single word of the script.
A small note two about the interview: in order to make sure every Chicago-area member of the press got a chance to talk to the guys, we had to do the interviews in pairs. Fortunately, I was paired with a guy whose questions are consistently almost as good as mine--Brian Tallerico of ugo.com. Where possible, I tried to distinguish all of the voices in the room, but there were five people, three of whom love to talk over each other. But I feel confident my attributions are right. I hope the humor and level of entertainment these guys provided us comes through. In the last years, both Harry and Quint have interviewed some combination of these three lads, so they know and like our work almost as much as we love their accomplishments.
Enjoy…
Edgar Wright: Did you stick around and watch it again last night?
Capone: Oh yes. It's definitely the kind of film that requires repeat viewing.
Simon Pegg: Absolutely.
Brian Tallerico: Did you guys watch it last night with the crowd?
C: They went to T.J. Clarke's [a bar and grill near the movie theatre where the HOT FUZZ screening took place].
SP: The only time we get to eat or "be" is when the film is on.
BT: Have you seen it with an audience?
SP: Yeah, yeah. A few times
EW: It's the same as with SHAUN, we couldn't watch it with an audience every single showing or Q&A event. We've seen it with an audience definitely, and we usually try to come back in time for certain bits, for the granny scene, for the last 15 minutes.
C: I guess the obvious first question is, How did you get all of these cool people in your movie? In addition to the carry-over cool people you had in SHAUN…
SP: I think it's because of the last one. If this had been our first film, we never would have managed to gather that cast. SHAUN OF THE DEAD was a handy calling card to have, and I think it made people keen to read the HOT FUZZ script and to collaborate. Because of SHAUN OF THE DEAD, Jim Broadbent and Paddy Considine both came to us and asked, “Would you be interested in working together?” To which the answer was, "Duh!"
EW: When you see comedy films, there is a temptation with the older actors to put them with broader comedy actors or stand up comics or an SNL-kind of person. With SHAUN OF THE DEAD, to have someone like Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton, like proper British acting institutions, it definitely inspires us. But this time around, because of the nature of the story, Simon's character is entering a complete other world, we have full license within the town of Sanford and its people to have an enormous killer ensemble. There is logic with that as well, but most of the comedic actors are playing the police service members, and the real British legends are playing the villagers in Sanford. Beyond that, a lot of people within the village--without giving too much away--have genre connotations. Even more specifically, they've been baddies in other films. So we definitely had fun with the casting and it was a great thing, like a dream or something.
C: I spoke with Bill Nighy a couple months ago, and we talked about the work he did with you. He made it quite clear that he would do anything you wanted him to do. Is there something about the way you work or the way you write that inspires that kind of fierce loyalty?
EW: That's nice. There was one review that said something really nice about the film and I really appreciated it, that given that HOT FUZZ has something like 50 speaking parts, it's amazing how generous the script is in giving funny lines to everybody. I certainly hope I pulled it off, because we really tried, to balance a 50-strong ensemble and make sure everybody has a killer moment. The film is kind of like Simon versus the scene-stealers. Attack of the Scene Stealers! from every fucking angle, beginning with this man here [points to Nick]. I think that's what people like, that with our writing, hopefully we're quite generous with the material. It's not like Simon and Nick are completely running the show. Everybody gets good stuff to do.
[Edgar notices an apple on the table that Nick has been fiddling with] What have you done to this apple? It's like you've ritually desecrated it.
SP: Low-level mutilation. It does look a little ritualized…
Nick Frost: I put these bits of metal right in, and then I realized that someone who came to clear the room might want to eat that half. So I re-emerged them.
SP: You're saving lives.
EW: It's like a biohazard.
BT: Let's start at the beginning: Why action movies?
EW: Aside from them obviously being a favorite genre and a genre I have loved, both action films and cop films, because there are no British action films. And no, James Bond does not count, because James Bond is never in the fucking UK. He's in the Bahamas. And it's not British money anyway, as much as everybody claims, Oh, the great British film of James Bond. No, Sony. There is no equivalent of these films, and there are definitely no cop action films. For the last 30 years, no cop films at all. In the '70s, there are only about three or four films you could name with a cop in the lead.
C: Aren't they all procedural dramas?
EW: There are not that many of those, and what there are are TV shows. There are even very few procedural films, weirdly. Nearly all the British crime films are gangster films.
SP: Then you get a film like THE OFFENSE [1972, starring Sean Connery, directed by Sidney Lumet], which is very procedural, but there's a lot of TV, loads of TV. It's more "Prime Suspect," "Touch of Frost," cracking a case over a long period of time. And it's never about gunfights and car chases.
NF: There's a psychological profiler brought in, that kind of thing.
SP: Yeah, yeah.
EW: You would find that the depiction of British cops would be that they were comic relief in other films or completely corrupt.
SP: They'd be the ones holding up the tape to allow the detectives walk under to get to the crime scene.
EW: So our idea was to portray them as corrupt, then bumbling, then they kick ass. The kick ass bit has been conspicuously left out for the whole of British cinema.
C: Do you think it has anything to do with--and correct me if I'm wrong because my knowledge of British police structure is a little weak--the fact that the police can't carry guns?
EW: That has everything to do with it. The gun is the number one icon of film. How many films revolve around the fact that people have guns? Seventy-five percent, if not more. That's why there are loads of gangster films because gangsters have guns. British bobbies with guns, in reality, maybe we have armed response teams, we do have armed officers. But the average beat cop does not have a gun. You have to call to get guns. I think sadly that will probably change within the next five years, because things are getting really bad, gun violence.
SP: I don't know. The whole things of having a side arm, of having this thing on your belt, we've resolutely stayed away from that. I think you do get an emotional reaction when you see someone with a gun because they really do have the power to kill you. You don't know who they are but they do, even if it's someone in a uniform who is supposed to be there to protect and serve. They have armed officers in Greece and Italy, fairly peaceful places…
NF: Sweden.
EW: Lapland [laughs]
SP: They're mad there. [laughs]
NF: Police have been killed and murdered, but as many police get stabbed to death as shot to death, but you don't see the police carrying knives.
SP: Apart from Machete Force.
NF: Apart from those who carry machetes. I think a lot of the crime at the moment is gangster on gangster and drug on drug. Touch wood, if more officers were to get shot, I think things would change, but at the moment the crime is between the baddies.
SP: It makes that thin blue line a lot less oppressive in a way. A lot of the cops we met in the countryside in our research were beat policemen who had been out there walking the same beat for 30 years, they knew everybody. And part of the functionality was being friendly and part of the community. But the minute you give that policeman a gun, the whole balance of power shifts and changes, and I think that's what they're worried about in the UK.
EW: To go back to you question, I think that's why there aren't any British cop films. The potential for on-screen muscle and bad-assery is zero. So when we first pitched the film to Working Title, they asked us, "Are they uniformed cops?" And I said, yeah. And they said, "But they're so uncool on screen." And I said, that's exactly why we should go for it.
SP: It seemed like a great central joke, in a way, not that the police in the country are a joke, but the notion they're bad-asses.
BT: Right, what you guys are talking about, the community cop. Taking what is considered a very American aesthetic of POINT BREAK and BAD BOYS 2, bigger, louder, faster and grafting it onto that is the main concept of the film.
EW: That's it. That's the whole thing.
BT: So why POINT BREAK and BAD BOYS 2?
EW: Because they are the quintessential popcorn films, in the sense that they are very unpretentious, kind of favoring spectacle over everything else pretty much. They're just big dumb entertainment. That's why we picked those two. They aren't the two best cop films of all time; they completely hit the button with a particular thing. POINT BREAK is brilliantly directed, wildly implausible both intentionally and unintentionally. BAD BOYS 2 is the naughty FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, the most expensive on-screen carnage you've ever seen.
SP: Almost disgusting.
EW: Disgustingly expensive!
SP: If there is a message in HOT FUZZ, it's about that kind of entertainment, which is pretty much tantamount to fireworks going off--intellectually it's a light show--and there's nothing wrong with that. Just because it doesn't have an nutritional value doesn't mean it shouldn't exist, as long as you temper it with watching good cinema. As long as there's high art, there can be always be low culture, and you can enjoy it.
EW: That's basically what Danny [Nick's character] is saying to Nicholas Angel [Simon's character] when he says he can't switch off, and Danny says, "I can show you how to switch off." The central message of the film is that it becomes a sort of tribute to those dumb popcorn films. And as the film goes on, it gets less and less articulate. If you notice, in the last 20 minutes it becomes monosybalic…
SP: It's "Monosyllabic."
EW: I keep saying it wrong. Monosyllabic. If you notice, HOT FUZZ for the first 90 minutes is incredibly wordy and very, very dense. By the end, Nicholas Angel is going, "Idea." [laughs] It totally boils down to Marvel Comics dialog, think bubble dialog.
SP: I even post-synced all of that as well, so it added more punch.
EW: After Nicholas sees the DVDs in the bargain bin in the gas station, from that point on Simon's performance is totally ADR. If you watch it again, it's the line where he goes, "This is something I have to do myself." From that point on, it's all dubbed all the way, just to make it sound a bit more like COBRA.
SP: People have been really coming down on the dumbing down thing, and we thought we'd defend it.
C: Once you decided this was the genre you were going to tackle and you immersed yourselves in how many cop films…?
EW: We worked it out that it was 138.
C: And were they all American films?
EW: No, it was a bit of everything. And it wasn't just cop action films. We watched all the usual suspects and then all the bad ones as well. So we were very okay with DIRTY HARRY, FRENCH CONNECTION, BULLIT, SERPICO, then all the DIE HARD, LETHAL WEAPON ones. Neither of us were totally okay with Seagal and Chuck Norris, but we are now. We had to spend an afternoon watching OUT FOR JUSTICE, which isn't entirely unentertaining.
SP: We watched a lot of films about small communities as well, DEAD AND BURIED, WICKER MAN.
EW: In and afternoon, we might watch a double bill of LOCAL HERO and DEAD AND BURIED.
C: HOT FUZZ reminds me a lot of WICKER MAN in certain places.
SP: It was at the top of the pile of 138. It was number 1. We're big fans of that film anyway, and as a curio really and a brilliant movie, it's a strange sort of musical in a way. With a wonderful, wonderful central performance from Edward Woodward, who is the grandfather of Nicholas Angel really, this fastidious, absolute by-the-book, humorous, blowhard spoilsport almost. Except there's no Danny.
EW: He's the villain in the film, that's the thing. That's the thing the remake completely fucking missed the point of. What we loved about the original WICKER MAN--and there's an element of this in HOT FUZZ--is that the cult, they are kind of in the right. Within their religion, they are entirely justified as far as they're concerned. They aren't portrayed particularly…even though it's the quintessential creepy village film, from their point of view, they're right and Edward Woodward is wrong, and he dies for that. I love that about it. And that's where the remake loses it immediately; it plays it overtly creepy. Apart from the fact that if you have a character that's allergic to bees, don't go to an island that makes honey. There's a bit at the beginning where he's looking at a website for the island…the fact that Summerisle has a website is weird enough, the fact that the website logo is a fucking bee should be enough to convince any man who is fatally allergic to bees to not go there.
The thing that put me off immediately, and I love Nicholas Cage and Neil LaBute, but I read an interview with Neil LaBute and he was saying that the original was very dated and there were some things he was not going to retain, like the music score in the original film is really lame, and I was like "Aghhh!" That's one of my favorite soundtracks ever, you fucking idiot.
C: Obviously with SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the person you wanted to most impress was George Romero. Are there certain filmmakers or certain actors, you were hoping you would like to see the film and feel somehow honored?
EW: I would love Tony Scott to see the film. The people who've seen it already. Obviously, Quentin [Tarantino] and Robert [Rodriguez] have seen it. Shane Black came to see it in L.A., which I was really excited about. And I met him between SHAUN and this, and I told him we were writing this. He asked, "What's next?" And I said, "Well, funny you should say that. We're writing a LETHAL WEAPON-esque cop film." And he said, "Ah, get out of here." I said, Honestly, the film probably would not exist without some of your films. He's a very modest man, and he played it all down. I'd love Joel Silver and Jerry Bruckheimer to see it, to see what they make of it. I hope that they would see that it was affectionate. With SHAUN OF THE DEAD, obviously, it was a very specific love letter to one film, and this is a bit wider. Hey, I want fucking Clint Eastwood to see it. I doubt he'll ever watch it.
SP: [to Nick] You were trying to impress Catherine Keener, weren't you?
NF: Yeah, just cuz she's cute.
C: Were they are actors who's reactions you're curious about?
NF: I want Will to see it.
SP: Will Smith, yeah.
EW: And Keanu Reeves.
SP: I worked with Thandie Newton recently [on RUN, FAT BOY, RUN] and she was going out to do press for PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, and said to her, "Tell Will Smith that he's in our movie." And I haven't spoken to her since she got back, because I think he'd really appreciate it, as would Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves and Martin Lawrence, who also get noticed in the film. I'd kind of like Robert Patrick to see it, because I based Nicholas almost entirely on him in TERMINATOR 2.
EW: I'd like Clint Eastwood to see it but I worry that Clint would think there were more cuts in the film than his entire output.
SP: [in his best Eastwood impersonation] I'd probably be really pissed off. Too much editing in that film. Too much hard work on my eyes.
NF: What about Clyde the Monkey? [everybody laughs]
SP: And in the next film as a closer, he could do an impression of Nick and the whole thing would come together in a wonderful circular end.
EW: I'd like William Friedkin to see the film or any of the great cop directors.
NF: I'd like Paris Hilton to see it.
EW: You'd like the Bang Bros. guys to see it, wouldn't you Nick?
NF: Yeah, I'd like my mom to see it.
SP: I saw a thing in the National Enquirer, it was a "Spotted..." thing, and it said "Spotted…Paris Hilton in Malibu Beach going in to see SHAUNT OF THE DEAD."
EW: Really?!
NF: She was probably going in to use the toilet.
SP: Or use the film as a toilet.
C: The key element in most of the film you're referencing here is their homo-eroticism. Thank you for not downplaying that in HOT FUZZ. There were a few scenes in the film where I thought you guys were going to start making out.
NF: That's because I look at his lips.
C: I thought that was more a drunk person's thing, although that scene on the couch you are drunk. But if you're drunk and you watch someone's mouth, you can understand better what they're saying.
NF: It's a body language thing. If you're talking to a woman and she's looking at your lips that means she wants you to kiss her. [Nick repositions himself on the couch next to Simon] We sat like this and that, that shape is very seductive shape.
C: I know in that scene you're slightly slouched, so he's over you looking down.
EW: That's the shot that cracks me up. The line that seals it is just before that outside the house where Nick goes, "Well, this is me." The end of the first date. [laughs]
SP: And then the promise of coffee. When we did it, obviously we knew what we were doing, but when we had the cast and crew around, the sphincters of the audience was clinching…
EW: And some of them relaxing.
SP: With the promise of, Oh my god they're actually going to kiss.
NF: I don't even remember shooting a kiss.
SP: There's one on tape.
EW: On the outtakes of the DVD, you'll see the ends of takes and sort of, Ugh [mimics kissing], just going for it. We said this last night, that in first draft of the script, there was a girlfriend character, which we then ditched but we gave all of her dialog to Danny.
C: Once Nick buys Danny flowers, I knew something was up.
EW: Exactly. I thought it was funny, we did a test screening in Long Island and there was one girl who really liked the film, and we asked, "What was the one thing you didn't like about the film?" And she said, "Sometimes the music and the scenes between the two guys was a bit faggy." That's exactly it. I said, That's the music from MAN ON FIRE.
BT: So what's next?
EW: Lots of thing in the pipeline. Simon and Nick are writing something together. Simon and I are writing something together. We all have separate projects as well. We're kind of keeping our cards close to our chest about what's the next in our work. The only link we can put to our films is the "Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy." The next film will have blood and ice cream, that a dead certainty. All the other variables will change.
NF: That's the box set title.
EW: "Three Flavors: Strawberry", "Three Flavors: Original." The next one will be Mint.
C: Will it be another genre that isn't typically tackled in British cinema, like zombies or cop action films?
EW: I don't know. Maybe. We like doing the genre films. That's how we approach it. But we hope that nobody thinks of us in the same breath as the makers of EPIC MOVIE and DATE MOVIE. It's not like we pull things out of a sorting hat and go, "Oh, Merchant-Ivory, let's do that." It's literally the films that we don't make in the UK, unfortunately. Unlike the '70s, there isn't a great tradition of British genre films anymore. And that's what we're trying to do, fly the flag for that.
NF: I think I've been lined up for the John Goodman biopic. [everybody laughs] Pass that rumor around.
EW: The Chris Farley story?
NF: Virtually any fat, dead comedian, I'm around to do that.
C: You said last night, that you'd finished another season of "Hyperdrive." They just played those on BBC America, so I finally got to see those.
NF: Oh yeah, great. Season 2 starts on the 21st of April.
C: Who knows when we'll get it here, but I'm sure they'll play it eventually.
NF: Sure.
SP: Did you enjoy it?
C: Absolutely.
SP: I really liked it. I just love seeing Nick commanding a spaceship. He's so fucking proud of it.
EW: And thanks for helping out with the Hot Fuzztival thing as well. I appreciate that. Nice to meet you finally.
[A round of "Cheers, mate." follows.]
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