Autumn FILM SPECIAL
THE DARDENNE BROTHERS Belgian i lmmaking brothers Jean- Pierre and Luc Dardenne spoke to us about their new release, Two Days, One Night, which stars Marion Cotillard (pictured) as a factory worker trying to keep her job
THE STATE
WE’RE IN
Stuart Murdoch’s pet musical project God Help the Girl gets its fi lm release this month. Hannah McGill chatted to one of its stars, Game of Thrones’ Hannah Murray, about
working with the Belle and Sebastian frontman
Y ou wouldn’t necessarily expect auditioning for a modestly budgeted British indie i lm to be an intimidating prospect for an actress who has chalked up roles in huge British and American drama series, as well as performing on the West End stage. But God Help the Girl was no ordinary project for Skins and Game of Thrones star Hannah Murray. Writer and director Stuart Murdoch and his band Belle and Sebastian already had particular signii cance in her life. ‘Especially when I was around 14, 15, they were very important to me,’ she says. ‘If you’re a weird, lonely adolescent, they help you out! So it was a very, very exciting thing to be sent this – and even meeting Stuart at the audition was quite overwhelming.’ Murray wasn’t alone in having a history with Murdoch’s writing; her co-stars, Emily Browning and Olly Alexander possessed ‘the same level of geeky fandom – although we all tried to be really cool’.
Murray plays Cass, a breezily eccentric private school girl whose coni dence provides the trigger for her two friends, fragile Eve and nervy, nerdy James, to turn their vague dreams of musical self- expression into an actual band. The i lm’s gentle story of friendships forming, emotions wavering and inspiration l ickering in and out of focus is framed around Murdoch’s songs, sometimes with dance routines attached – another prospect that excited and alarmed Murray. ‘I’ve always loved musical i lms. I i nd them really thrilling; it was part of what made me want to be an actress, that feeling of being really transported. But it always seemed like a fantasy, because I’m not a trained singer or dancer.’ Nerves struck before i lming – ‘I dei nitely felt like the weakest link’ – but Murdoch encouraged Murray to keep her own fears out of the process. ‘Stuart was really helpful in reminding me to just think about the character, who is so coni dent, so loving it – it might even be a bit rubbish, but she doesn’t care!’ It’s the same freedom that Cass offers to the other characters in the story: her bullishness helps them to transcend their issues and get up onstage. ‘She’s not at the same level of ability as Eve,’ Murray explains, ‘but without Cass, Eve would never be able to do it. It’s no good being a tortured genius, if no one ever hears what you write.’ God Help the Girl existed as a musical project
and album prior to the making of the i lm, and contains a thinly veiled autobiographical element; Murdoch, like Eve, battled extended health problems (chronic fatigue syndrome in his case; anorexia and depression in hers) before i nding an outlet by forming a band. ‘It’s a story with a huge amount of heart in it – it’s very personal and very close to him,’ says Murray. This sincerity of purpose created a unique on- set ambience. ‘I’ve never been on a set where there was such goodwill from the crew – everyone just really, really wanted it to happen, and it was just such a warm, exciting atmosphere.’ Even Murdoch’s inexperience as a director had a positive impact. ‘Because Stuart didn’t really know the rules,’ Murray laughs, ‘he was really open to ideas. Sometimes we would just suggest something as a joke, and he would be like, “LET’S DO IT”. He had a lot of respect for our input.’ Meanwhile, a true friendship was forged between the cast members, resulting in a shooting experience that was clearly dei nitive for Murray. ‘It was just . . . the best thing ever,’ she sighs. ‘I was in Glasgow for seven weeks and just had the time of my life: living in Glasgow, discovering Glasgow, and all getting on so well.’
The i lm’s release provides an opportunity for these kindred spirits to see one another again – and Murray i nds herself less nervous than she might have expected to be about critical and audience reception. ‘The experience was so wonderful in and of itself; and I just love the i lm so much that I think if people don’t like it . . . they’re wrong! So I can sort of relax . . . except that I want Stuart to get the recognition that he deserves for it.’ And has the experience left her with the yearning to keep up her musical endeavours? ‘It did, it does . . . but I think it’s a bit silly when actors do that. Unless you can write your own material, which I never, ever could, it’s a bit of a dream. To have had a tiny taste of it through this i lm is a great way of trying it. It’s what’s amazing about acting as a job: it takes you outside of your comfort zone, you have to be a bit brave.’ Playing the pop star hasn’t even been Murray’s most demanding gig. ‘I once had to learn to knit for a role,’ she reveals. ‘That was terrifying.’
What was the inspiration for the i lm? Luc: The original idea came 12 years ago, when we read about a real-life case in a big French factory. There was a worker whose production output wasn’t good enough for the other workers to get their bonuses, so that person was let go. We heard about similar cases in Belgium, Italy and the USA, and they all raised the question of solidarity. Right from the beginning, we thought the story would be about a woman who has been shunted to one side, and who doesn’t believe that other people would help and support her. And we decided to set it over one weekend and use the dramatic mechanism of her having to contact her co-workers to see if they would forego their bonuses. Why did you choose Marion Cotillard in the lead role of Sandra? Luc: Previously we’d worked with lots of not very well-known actors because we were casting people to play youngsters. This time round it was a 30-year-old mother. We’d met Marion on the set of Rust and Bone and we wanted to work together. We knew she was a great actress but what interested us was transforming her body, familiar from her other i lms and from her advertising for Dior, and instead creating a character we’d never seen her play before on i lm.
‘Put yourself in my place’ is a recurrent phrase in Two Days, One Night. Jean-Pierre: We wanted the viewer to put themselves in the place of Sandra and also of her colleagues, who really needed the money from the bonus. A friend once said that the main character in all our i lms is actually the viewer, who puts themselves in the place of our i ctional characters. (Tom Dawson)
God Help the Girl is on general release from Fri 22 Aug. ■ Two Days, One Night is on limited release from Fri 22 Aug. See review, page 60.
21 Aug–18 Sep 2014 THE LIST 15