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HBO Online Exclusive Interview with Richard Loncraine
and Hugh Whitemore
HBO
Welcome gentleman. To begin with, tell us how you came to write the screenplay Hugh?
HUGH WHITEMORE
Well, it happened actually a long time ago, I mean about ten years ago that (executive producer) Frank Doelger, rang me and said, would I be interested in doing an adaptation of this thing called, "My House in Umbria."
And I read it and liked it very much. And said Yeah, that sounds a good idea. So he said fine, well hang on, I'll get the business affairs people and we'll be in touch. There then ensued a silence which lasted about eight years. [LAUGHTER]
HBO
[CHUCKLE]
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Something you said Hugh?
HUGH WHITEMORE
No, what actually happened was that Frank did get back to me and said that the rights were no longer for sale. I suppose it was about three years ago, Frank came back to me and said, Hey do you remember "My House in Umbria"? And would you like to do it now? So I said I would.
And, I sort of wrote a first draft. And then we were to have a meeting about it. And Frank arrived at the meeting, and he said, Now listen, I don't want to talk about "My House in Umbria" today, I want to talk to you about a project we have about Winston Churchill. How would it be if you put off doing a second draft of "Umbria," until we've done the Churchill film (which became HBO Films' Emmy® award- winning "The Gathering Storm.") And there came a time when Richard started editing, and I went back to "Umbria" with my list of revisions.
But what was so interesting is that we were all over in Hollywood, and Richard was editing "The Gathering Storm" in a hotel suite at the Chateau Marmont. And I went over for breakfast, and Frank Doelger was there and (producer) Julie Paine was there, and I suddenly felt rather embarrassed. Because I thought I shouldn't be there, because all three of them are talking about some other script which Richard had just read. And I heard Richard say, I think I'd like to do it. And this was going on, and I felt somewhat elbowed out into the cold, you see-
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Oh, Hugh-
HUGH WHITEMORE
I did. And it wasn't until much later on in the day that I realized that the script they were talking about was "My House in Umbria." [CHUCKLE]
HBO
It's so much of the same team as "The Gathering Storm."
RICHARD LONCRAINE
It is.
HBO
So Richard, you're in the midst of editing "The Gathering Storm," and now Frank is able to get the fires going again with "Umbria."
RICHARD LONCRAINE
It wasn't hard, truthfully. I'd enjoyed so much working on "The Gathering Storm" with Frank and Hugh and Julie. And it was the second thing I'd done for HBO, because I did "Band of Brothers." And truthfully, I think if they'd handed me the phone book I'd have said yes at that time. Because although they were complex films, it was the happiest creative process I'd been through in my life. So I really was very disposed to wanting to work with the team again.
HBO is a very brave company, I think. I know this is going out on their website, but sod it, I really mean that. Colin Callender does stick his neck out, he does do things that no one else will do. And this broke the mold, largely. I think they may have done it once before. But very cleverly, HBO has built its reputation on projects that are based on reality, making films like Churchill and many others, which are based on real events.
And this was really one of the few times they'd stuck their neck out to go for a completely fictitious subject. So because that was a bit of a departure, I think the feeling was that it had to be made very economically. I think I had to do about fifteen interviews to get this job, because I had to persuade everybody that I wouldn't be hurling money at it.
You have to be very careful how you spend money. But there are all sorts of things that HBO does, very intelligently, like keeping some money back to do additional shooting. When you've edited the movie, then you can spend a bit of money if you need to do some additional scenes. I don't know about you Hugh, but I thought that was incredibly useful.
HUGH WHITEMORE
I think it's amazing. I mean, it's so important.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
I never had that in my life before.
HUGH WHITEMORE
'Cause these films don't exist until they're finished, actually.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Not at all. It's a moving process. You don't know till you get there.
HUGH WHITEMORE
And you know, when I start off writing, the great thing about working with Richard, is it really is a sort of voyage of excitement, it's really a discovery.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Madness, my wife would say.
HUGH WHITEMORE
Well, I'm not married to you so I wouldn't know.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
I wouldn't recommend it.
HUGH WHITEMORE
[CHUCKLE] But the thing is, you don't know what you've got. It's rather like going to a photo shop and picking up your holiday photographs, and seeing if they've come out well. I mean, with Richard, one is always excited 'cause it always a surprise.
You know, when you write something like "Umbria," you have a very clear picture in your head of some movie. It's not a literary event. You watch the film going on inside your head and you just write it down. I always think that the film already exists, or the play already exists. You just write it down.
But Richard always supplants your idea, your vision of it with his own, which is always much more adventurous and more touching, more humane than anybody else I've ever worked with.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Hugh, you say the nicest things.
HUGH WHITEMORE
But the thing is, that in order for us to fulfill this thing, they give us an extra two or three days at the end of shooting, I mean, the difference it made to "Umbria," those little shots we took, Richard.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Yeah.
HUGH WHITEMORE
I mean it's colossal.
HBO
Tell us about the process of what you began with and what ended up on the screen?
HUGH WHITEMORE
Well, I've adapted lots of books in my life. And I learnt very early on not to sit here at my desk with a book open on page one, tapping into the computer. I always do it from memory.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
That's interesting.
HUGH WHITEMORE
I always do the first draft from memory, simply because, you make it your own.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Mm-hmm.
HUGH WHITEMORE
Which you've got to do.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Yeah.
HUGH WHITEMORE
The arrogant thing is that the writer, who adapts somebody else's work has got to actually convince themselves that they're the author of it. Otherwise it becomes lifeless.
What really excited me about this were the characters. William Trevor creates the most wonderful characters. So really, my job was to create a film in which these characters can live and develop.
HBO
How many drafts were there before Richard came on board?
HUGH WHITEMORE
Maybe there were four before Richard saw it. I think it's a very stimulating way of working, you know. He comes up with a stream of ideas, I yell at him and say it's all nonsense. And then somehow we find what it is we both want.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
I think when a director takes hold of the baby, you have to remember that the writer, if he or she is worth their salt, has sweated many dark long hours to get this thing to the stage where you want to do it. And so to stream in and take this thing and stamp all over it is very, very damaging and very hurtful, so-
HUGH WHITEMORE
But it's offset by the excitement of the writer. Okay, it's your baby, but then you want the baby to grow up.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Yeah, you do. And it is that handing over process. So I think that has to be handled gently. I sit down and go through the script. Restaging is one of the cheap tricks I use.
HUGH WHITEMORE
They're not cheap, it's not a cheap trick, it's what you are. It's what you do, the director stages.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Sometimes, restaging does help I think. Well sometimes helps, taking a scene that was written to be in a very, docile environment, and then put it in a more difficult environment. So dialogue written to be said quietly in front of a roaring log fire, and take it out in a snow storm, will take on a very different dynamic. But it sometimes makes it more exciting or more interesting or more emotive. So I always look at that when I'm going through a script.
HUGH WHITEMORE
If I can just say something about Richard.
HBO
Please.
HUGH WHITEMORE
He's got the most extraordinary visual sense. I mean, there are certain things in "Umbria" which take my breath away still. I mean, I must have seen the film god knows how many times, all the editing. But the images, some of the images that Richard has created are really astonishing. I mean, Fellini would've been thrilled by the dream sequences. It's wonderful stuff.
And so really as a writer, it is enormously exciting to see what you've tapped out on your computer taking life in these extraordinary images. And after all, movies are about images.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
It's always nice to sit here and listen to someone being nice about you.
HUGH WHITEMORE
I'm saving up the other bits for later.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Yeah, yeah, exactly, when I'm gone. (CHUCKLES)
HBO
So then Richard, after you've come in and taken the script to the next stage, then comes someone like Maggie Smith. What was that like, and how did she come on board?
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Even before I was going to direct it, Frank and I were chewing the cud. And he asked me who I thought would be the person to play it and I said, Maggie Smith. I'd shot two movies with Maggie in my distant past. And I felt she's a consummate actress, so I thought she was the right way to go. There's not that many great actresses out there. And so I'm sure she was on a very short list of people, from HBO's point of view, apart from mine.
HUGH WHITEMORE
A short list of one, I think.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Yeah.
HBO
She's pretty amazing.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
She's amazing. Maggie's a demanding lady, I have to say. A very bright woman, incredibly bright. And a consummate actress. One of the joys is to watch her act. But she tends to wait until she's there. Often until the day or two days before. It wasn't just that she was lazy or hadn't read it. It was that the scene, the acting had moved on. That the shooting had moved on. So she kept the balance of what was going on.
But she would say, this scene isn't right. And occasionally she'd say it about an hour before we'd shoot it. So there were a few frightening phone calls with Hugh at the end of a line...
HUGH WHITEMORE
Yes.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
...and me at the other end of the line. And then Frank, who I have to say, is a producer of an enormous number of talents. And so between us, working out how to make this a new scene or the scene that Maggie thought wasn't quite right. And I have to say, generally, she was not wrong about most of those scenes, was she?
HUGH WHITEMORE
No, she wasn't. But wasn't that a marvelous time when you and Frank were at some sort of puppeteers shop in some Italian village?
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Oh, that's right. We were.
HUGH WHITEMORE
And it was breakfast time here. I was waking up, having my coffee and they rang up from this puppet shop in an Italian village in the middle of nowhere in Italy. And Frank said, Well, Maggie is a bit unhappy about this scene. And she'd like to do something along these lines. And he'd tell me sort of a short thing. And I said, fine. Let me think about it. When do you want it? He said, in about an hour and a half.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
And then us waiting for an hour, probably. [WHITEMORE LAUGHS] So, she kept us on our toes, I have to say. But, she is remarkable and she doesn't put a foot wrong.
HUGH WHITEMORE
And I think she's also terrifically brave. Because, you know, it is a film about aging and loneliness and painful things, really. And she doesn't shy away from it.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
No.
HUGH WHITEMORE
She lets us see in her face, there's a fear of, of approaching old age, which is extraordinary. And I don't think I've ever seen it more vividly expressed than by her.
HBO
Let's talk about Chris Cooper for a minute. It seemed like he and Maggie had these wonderful opposites going on. The tension between the two of them was so palpable.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Chris is a quiet, gentle family man who doesn't make a lot of noise, and is a Southern gentleman, to say the least. And he just became the character. I can't imagine anyone else doing it now. He has to just listen to Maggie a lot, rambling on. And that requires a level of skill that people sometimes don't understand.
If you just watch him, his nuances, his humor. Where he first arrives, and he goes and sits on the swing in the garden, they're having a drink. And he bumps his head and then musses his hair up. It was all his idea. It had nothing to do with me. He just created this - the uncomfortable man. (His character) was, you know, an academic. He wasn't comfortable being in Europe, or outside his own world. And Chris is a very quiet, thinking actor.
HBO
What do you think you were you trying to capture in the writing and direction?
HUGH WHITEMORE
Well, somebody once said when asked about this - he said, If I could tell you in a sentence what I wanted to do I wouldn't bother to write the play. And you know, I feel this is one of the richest things I've ever been involved in. And it's not about one thing only.
What is so terrific about William Trevor and also about the wonderful actors we've got - Chris Cooper is so marvelous, and Ronnie (Barker) - everybody is so terrific that you get an incredibly wide range of human emotion: fears, hopes, relationships. You know it's impossible to say. And I wouldn't want to sum up what it's about 'cause it's about the experience of living, I think.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
I think for me, the film does not fit into a pigeonhole. That's one of the things that attracted me about the movie, and I have to say was a danger about the movie. Because the entertainment business does not like doing things that haven't been done before. It really doesn't. And that's why I think HBO was so brave in making this movie.
But what it does do I think is give you hope as a human being. I think for me it's largely about how human beings find a way through almost everything -- in fact, anything, really -- one way or another. And of course there's pain, of course there's suffering. But somehow I think it's a film about hope.
HBO
Um hmm.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
But I think the film to me says, you've gotta look behind every door and every unturned page of a human emotion to judge somebody. You can't judge a book by its cover. And I think...
HUGH WHITEMORE
I think the thing about hope is very important, Richard.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Um hmm.
HUGH WHITEMORE
The thing about the hope at the end. It's terribly important.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
I think it's a difficult film - cause it's such an odd movie, you know. You basically start this film and it looks wonderful, cause we had a great team of people making the film, visually. And the actors are good. And you think, where is this film going? You know, what is it about?
And then there's an explosion, which we tried to do in a way that was fairly hypnotic. I didn't want it to be a kind of brutal blood and glass kind of explosion. It didn't seem to be right for the film. And then there's some point in the movie where you realize that you're completely involved with these people's lives. And you have no idea of the point that you get suckered in.
I think it's a very odd film that you can't put into a compartment. Films grow, you know. They do. They grow. When you start you have a plan of what you're going to do. And then if you're really lucky, and you work very hard and you're surrounded by talented people, it might just all come together.
But I mean, one of my hobbies is cooking. And I have to say, everything can be perfect. You've got the best ingredients, the best recipe, a lovely day, plenty of time - and it's just not there. Just doesn't work.
Then you rush back from work, throw some things on the pot, bring them out, and you think, wow, you know, I should do this for a living. So, I think filmmaking's a bit like that. There's an awful lot of luck involved.
HUGH WHITEMORE
Well, I think that applies to almost everything, really...
RICHARD LONCRAINE
It does, a bit. Yeah.
HUGH WHITEMORE
Painters or novelists...
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Yeah.
HUGH WHITEMORE
You can work hard, and put things together, but you can't give it life. It has to come from, I suppose, that mysterious thing called talent.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Well, but you see, you picked on painters and novelists, and they usually work on their own. And the thing about filmmaking is that it involves hundreds of people.
HUGH WHITEMORE
Yeah, it does...
RICHARD LONCRAINE
And so, the square root of mistakes is enormous.
HUGH WHITEMORE
It is, you're right.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
The chance of a movie working when you start is... very, very slim, I think.
HUGH WHITEMORE
Well, certainly, the chances of a movie having that extra quality of its own life...
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Yeah.
HUGH WHITEMORE
You can't calculate for that.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
No, you can't.
HUGH WHITEMORE
You can't put that in the budget.
RICHARD LONCRAINE
Nope.
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HBO Store
Own MY HOUSE IN UMBRIA on DVD. Buy it now in the HBO Store!
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