Jenny Curtis: From CurtCo Media ...
Speaker 1: There's no place like Hollywood.
Jenny Curtis: Welcome to another special episode of Hollywood Unscripted: Stuck at
Jenny Curtis: Home. I'm Jenny Curtis and today, I'm virtually sitting down
Jenny Curtis: with an amazing director and an even friendlier person, Harry
Jenny Curtis: Bradbeer. Harry is a BAFTA and Emmy- winning director and
Jenny Curtis: producer. He's directed incredible shows that we're going to touch
Jenny Curtis: on today, such as Fleabag, Killing Eve, and Ramy, as
Jenny Curtis: well as the delightful new film Enola Holmes, coming this
Jenny Curtis: week on Netflix. Harry, thank you so much for joining
Jenny Curtis: us.
Harry Bradbeer: It's great to be here. It's exciting. I love your
Harry Bradbeer: podcast. I love it.
Jenny Curtis: You're in London right now. Is that correct?
Harry Bradbeer: I am, yeah.
Jenny Curtis: I'm recording in Los Angeles where it's a bit apocalyptic,
Jenny Curtis: because we have wild fires all over California, not to
Jenny Curtis: mention a pandemic. So it's definitely a week.
Harry Bradbeer: It's definitely been a week for you. I feel awful
Harry Bradbeer: for you. I mean, it's terrifying. It sort of changes
Harry Bradbeer: your whole attitude about our connections with each other. I think that's
Harry Bradbeer: the way this whole pandemic has affected us. We've started
Harry Bradbeer: to think differently about distance and intimacy, and these are kind of
Harry Bradbeer: my stock and trade in my work, so it interests
Harry Bradbeer: me a lot.
Jenny Curtis: I want to jump in and start at the beginning.
Jenny Curtis: So your parents were in medicine. Is that correct?
Harry Bradbeer: Yeah. My dad wanted to be a surgeon and he ended
Harry Bradbeer: up working with children. He was one of the people at the
Harry Bradbeer: forefront of deafness in children. He loved children, he was
Harry Bradbeer: a lovely man. It was said that no children ever
Harry Bradbeer: cried in his surgeries. He just had a very gentle nature. And
Harry Bradbeer: he met my mother when he was a medical student,
Harry Bradbeer: and my mother was in medicine at that point. She
Harry Bradbeer: dropped out of it after a while.
Jenny Curtis: So coming from that background, how did you find the
Jenny Curtis: arts and realize that you wanted to be a filmmaker?
Harry Bradbeer: I think for me, I grew up in Devon and it's a very distant place.
Harry Bradbeer: And, really, your connection with the exciting world is through
Harry Bradbeer: TV, and the occasional visits to the Odeon in Exeter.
Harry Bradbeer: So I loved the cinema. In those days, the films used to
Harry Bradbeer: run back to back. So you would go in, and
Harry Bradbeer: if you were late for the film, you'd watch the
Harry Bradbeer: end and then you'd watch the beginning, which I think scrambled my brain
Harry Bradbeer: in a way, but it used to help me to
Harry Bradbeer: understand how film narrative worked. I watched a lot of
Harry Bradbeer: television, but really what I wanted to be was an actor.
Harry Bradbeer: I was kind of obsessed with it as a child.
Harry Bradbeer: And one odd kind of incident really got me going
Harry Bradbeer: into the idea of going into television, which was at
Harry Bradbeer: Christmas, we used to go and visit my grandparents, and they never got
Harry Bradbeer: on. They fought a lot and it was a terrible
Harry Bradbeer: atmosphere. But there was one moment, after we had the meal, we'd
Harry Bradbeer: sit down and we'd watch the Morcambe & Wise show on
Harry Bradbeer: the TV. And the family that had been arguing and
Harry Bradbeer: fighting, all suddenly start to laugh, it was a comedy show,
Harry Bradbeer: and everyone was together. And there was such a warm feeling of
Harry Bradbeer: connection and how these entertainers changed the whole tenor and
Harry Bradbeer: atmosphere in the family. We found something, we linked, you
Harry Bradbeer: sort of joined together on. And on the way back,
Harry Bradbeer: I think I was about 8, I said, " When I grow
Harry Bradbeer: I want to be in entertainment." I went to school,
Harry Bradbeer: did tons of plays there. Went to university, tons of
Harry Bradbeer: plays there. And then someone offered me the chance to direct
Harry Bradbeer: a play in this little tiny theater in the round. Do you
Harry Bradbeer: know three quarters in the round, where the audience are
Harry Bradbeer: all about it? And there was something about the perspective
Harry Bradbeer: I had on the performances, and the control and encouragement
Harry Bradbeer: of actors into certain kinds of performances, that presented shapes
Harry Bradbeer: and frames for the audience that were so close to
Harry Bradbeer: them, that it took me to think maybe I should be
Harry Bradbeer: making films. I wanted to get close. I didn't like
Harry Bradbeer: the proscenium experience of the theater, I didn't like being miles away. I couldn't
Harry Bradbeer: stand going out for an evening and just spending an
Harry Bradbeer: hour and a half with people shouting at me. I
Harry Bradbeer: wanted to be there with the experience. So there was
Harry Bradbeer: a film society at my college, and I went down
Harry Bradbeer: there and I asked if I can make a movie. He said, " Well,
Harry Bradbeer: we can give you, " I think it was 70 quid
Harry Bradbeer: for 10 minutes of reversal film. Reversal film is like
Harry Bradbeer: a negative, you just get one shot at it. You
Harry Bradbeer: expose it, and then you develop it, and then you
Harry Bradbeer: cut with it. It gets cut into pieces, cut to
Harry Bradbeer: shit, and it's scratchy and awful, but you do get
Harry Bradbeer: your film. And I made that. And it was actually
Harry Bradbeer: a short film about a schizophrenic man who became a
Harry Bradbeer: rather famous murderer in London in the 1940s and 50s, called
Harry Bradbeer: John Reginald Halliday Christie. And the way I found a
Harry Bradbeer: way to tell the story was to have one actor play
Harry Bradbeer: all the parts and make the actor to then address the camera.
Harry Bradbeer: So that idea of breaking the fourth wall was right at
Harry Bradbeer: the beginning of all of my interests. So I made
Harry Bradbeer: that little film and thought, "Well, I want to be a filmmaker
Harry Bradbeer: now. So what do I do?" And I heard about this
Harry Bradbeer: exchange scholarship to the University of Michigan and no one else
Harry Bradbeer: knew where the Foreign Studies office was, so I got
Harry Bradbeer: it. And I picked shop at the University of Michigan
Harry Bradbeer: for a year and made some short films and some
Harry Bradbeer: TV, and it was my first impact of American culture of
Harry Bradbeer: making art, which was so practical and gloriously immediate. I
Harry Bradbeer: had friends who were in film schools or doing Media
Harry Bradbeer: Studies, they spent the first term studying Hitchcock, which is a
Harry Bradbeer: wonderful thing to do, but studying theory and gender specifics
Harry Bradbeer: in 60s French New Wave. And they just said, " All
Harry Bradbeer: right, we're making a commercial this week." I said, " I've
Harry Bradbeer: only just arrived!" And it was so inspiring. God bless
Harry Bradbeer: them, they taught me a lot about how to make
Harry Bradbeer: a film, how to put it together. I think so much
Harry Bradbeer: of filmmaking is organizing of your mind, in conjunction with
Harry Bradbeer: a clear idea of what you want. And I learned
Harry Bradbeer: early on that you don't need to do something complicated
Harry Bradbeer: but you need to do something complex, which starts with a
Harry Bradbeer: simple idea. And the things we made weren't tremendously good,
Harry Bradbeer: but I learned a lot from it and I had
Harry Bradbeer: a wonderful time. So then I came back and looked
Harry Bradbeer: for a job, and I started making tea in production companies
Harry Bradbeer: and post- production houses. I mean, I was just asking
Harry Bradbeer: them if I could do anything. And I was terrible
Harry Bradbeer: at it. I mean, I was bad at getting out
Harry Bradbeer: of bed. I didn't want to be a producer, I wanted
Harry Bradbeer: to be a director, but it was the only way
Harry Bradbeer: to start. And I soon ran into the ground and
Harry Bradbeer: got fired. I was not the best production assistant, I
Harry Bradbeer: think. I wrote to this one connection, and this was
Harry Bradbeer: John Schlesinger, the director who directed Midnight Cowboy, one of
Harry Bradbeer: the films that I'd watched when I was a boy and
Harry Bradbeer: transported me. And the only reason why I wrote to him was, it was a film
Harry Bradbeer: that changed my attitude to film and performance. Because if
Harry Bradbeer: you've watched that movie, you start off with a guy
Harry Bradbeer: with a fairly simple idea. He's arrogant and confident, he
Harry Bradbeer: wants to go to New York to be an escort. And he
Harry Bradbeer: doesn't get any of these things, his life collapses. And
Harry Bradbeer: he ends up on a bus with a dead man
Harry Bradbeer: in his arms, and it's the best thing that could
Harry Bradbeer: have happened to him. I was watching this film, everyone
Harry Bradbeer: else had gone to bed, and I realized that films
Harry Bradbeer: were about not what you wanted, but what you needed.
Harry Bradbeer: A man seeking acknowledgement, validation, all these very Fleabag- y things,
Harry Bradbeer: acceptance. He wanted to make money but, in the end, he found
Harry Bradbeer: love. I have held that idea in my heart ever
Harry Bradbeer: since, and in my work. So that's why I wrote
Harry Bradbeer: to John. My connection with him was that his grandmother
Harry Bradbeer: came over from Germany with my grandmother, my Jewish side,
Harry Bradbeer: my mother's side. My mother hadn't seen him since they
Harry Bradbeer: were little children, playing together in the garden. And so she wrote
Harry Bradbeer: him a letter, I wrote him a letter, and he replied and he
Harry Bradbeer: said, "Come and see me." So on a snowy day in
Harry Bradbeer: January, I went up to see John, in this great
Harry Bradbeer: house in Kensington, a big house. And he was an
Harry Bradbeer: extraordinarily little man, and lovely, and warm, and asked me
Harry Bradbeer: what I was doing and what I wanted to do. I said I was a director, "
Harry Bradbeer: And I'm a production assistant and I'm making tea and
Harry Bradbeer: I'm not doing a very good job of it." And
Harry Bradbeer: he had this quite imperial voice and he said, " Well,
Harry Bradbeer: my dear boy, you must use your brain. If you
Harry Bradbeer: want to write, you must write a script." And I said, "Yeah, but I need to live." And he said, "
Harry Bradbeer: Well, I'll give you some pennies if you read these
Harry Bradbeer: scripts." So he wrote me a couple of scripts to read
Harry Bradbeer: and I became his script reader and his researcher. So
Harry Bradbeer: I worked for him, reading scripts, and I even researched an
Harry Bradbeer: opera for him. He also introduced me to David Puttnam
Harry Bradbeer: and Norma Heyman, and a number of other folks who
Harry Bradbeer: gave me similar work. So that kept me going for
Harry Bradbeer: a few years, while I wrote a script, which was
Harry Bradbeer: based on a short story I had written on a
Harry Bradbeer: visit to a friend in the country. And that turned
Harry Bradbeer: into a little short film called A Night with a Woman, a
Harry Bradbeer: Day with Charlie, that was, like all of the things
Harry Bradbeer: that interest me, it was a love story, but about two men
Harry Bradbeer: who had this unspoken love between each other. And it
Harry Bradbeer: was about a guy Harold, that was sort of me,
Harry Bradbeer: I suppose, who was abandoned in London and went to
Harry Bradbeer: see his old friend, who was played by Rufus Sewell,
Harry Bradbeer: in the middle of Wales. And it had a kind
Harry Bradbeer: of Hitchcockian feel to it, it was very emotional. It was
Harry Bradbeer: about two lonely people finding each other, which again is
Harry Bradbeer: something that seems to come through my work all the
Harry Bradbeer: time. And they end up dancing together. It's a funny
Harry Bradbeer: little film and Channel 4 saw it, back in the
Harry Bradbeer: UK, and they loved it and they bought it. And
Harry Bradbeer: that paid the bills for the film, and so I just made my money
Harry Bradbeer: back, and they put it out. And that way, I
Harry Bradbeer: got an agent and then I started working in TV.
Jenny Curtis: Before we move forward, I want to go back to the letter you wrote
Jenny Curtis: to John Schlesinger. Do you remember what you said, other
Jenny Curtis: than the connection between your mothers?
Harry Bradbeer: I think I spoke to him about how much his movies
Harry Bradbeer: had meant to me. And I didn't really know how
Harry Bradbeer: to approach it, it was so difficult because I didn't
Harry Bradbeer: know who he was. I did what you were supposed to do, which
Harry Bradbeer: was to say, " How do you do? Could you possibly spare me an hour of
Harry Bradbeer: your time? I've always heard about you since I was little boy, and
Harry Bradbeer: I love Midnight Cowboy and it's made a lasting impression
Harry Bradbeer: on me for many, many years." The fun thing about
Harry Bradbeer: John, I remember someone was asking me about him, they said, " Do
Harry Bradbeer: you have an anecdote about John?" It was a journalist,
Harry Bradbeer: yesterday. I said, " I'm afraid they're all filthy, all rude," because he was
Harry Bradbeer: very funny and very naughty. But he did have this wonderful way
Harry Bradbeer: of introducing me to people. When he wasn't in LA,
Harry Bradbeer: he would come into London and we'd go to the theater. And then
Harry Bradbeer: afterwards, we would often go to the IV, which was, in those days, the exclusive restaurant that you
Harry Bradbeer: could only get into if you were known to them.
Harry Bradbeer: And there was a table by the door, where Noël
Harry Bradbeer: Coward used to sit, which John and other notables would
Harry Bradbeer: take. And they took it because then people, as they
Harry Bradbeer: came in and out, would say hello. So you were kind
Harry Bradbeer: of on a production line, the grandest production line of
Harry Bradbeer: your life. Like the Queen, with people marching past and
Harry Bradbeer: saying hello. And I'll be sitting there, tucking into whatever
Harry Bradbeer: I could eat, because I was so hungry, because I
Harry Bradbeer: had so little money, and John would introduce me there. He would say, "
Harry Bradbeer: You know Harry Bradbeer," as though you can't possibly be
Harry Bradbeer: so ignorant to be unaware of this rising star. And
Harry Bradbeer: so they would always say, " Oh yes, of course. Yes, absolutely." He managed
Harry Bradbeer: to convince everybody that I was terribly important. It was
Harry Bradbeer: very sweet. So yeah, that's John. And we worked together
Harry Bradbeer: for about four years and then, eventually, I took wings.
Harry Bradbeer: So he sort of helped me in the nest and
Harry Bradbeer: he fed me like a little baby bird.
Jenny Curtis: I want to fast forward, just because there's so much
Jenny Curtis: I want to talk to you about.
Harry Bradbeer: Yeah.
Jenny Curtis: How did you get involved with Fleabag? And how did
Jenny Curtis: you meet Phoebe Waller- Bridge?
Harry Bradbeer: There was a pilot and I'd been shown it. And
Harry Bradbeer: Phoebe and the producer were looking for a director to
Harry Bradbeer: take it on and develop it into the series. I saw the pilot
Harry Bradbeer: and I saw her face, and there was a kind
Harry Bradbeer: of recognition. There was something in her that I adored,
Harry Bradbeer: as well as a mischief. There was a fierce intelligence and
Harry Bradbeer: a fury in her performance. There was an energy that
Harry Bradbeer: I hadn't seen in a while. So I said, " Well,
Harry Bradbeer: I'll meet you." And I didn't know this, but I
Harry Bradbeer: was one of about 35 directors, I think, they saw
Harry Bradbeer: because they couldn't quite get someone that quite met with
Harry Bradbeer: Phoebe's mind. Anyway, I walked in and she said, "Well, what
Harry Bradbeer: did you think of Fleabag?" And I said, " Well, I am
Harry Bradbeer: Fleabag," By which I meant that this character is so
Harry Bradbeer: relatable to me because she says what's in her mind.
Harry Bradbeer: I just have logorrhea, I'm kind of a victim of
Harry Bradbeer: an inability to be a very good liar. I tend
Harry Bradbeer: to tell you the truth. And it's also that the truth is much
Harry Bradbeer: easier to remember as well, I find. So there is that
Harry Bradbeer: honest truthfulness to her which I related to. And I
Harry Bradbeer: asked her about what she planned for it. I said, "
Harry Bradbeer: What happens at the end?" And she said, " Well, the truth is that
Harry Bradbeer: her friend Boo, it turns out that she slept with this guy, that
Harry Bradbeer: caused her suicide. So in effect, she killed her." And
Harry Bradbeer: I said, " My god, that's Greek. That's rich, that's dark."
Harry Bradbeer: I said, " There's a wonderful, dark sadness to this comedy." And what I didn't
Harry Bradbeer: say before was that I'd never ever met for a comedy before,
Harry Bradbeer: I'd just done drama, that my agent had said, " Why do you want to
Harry Bradbeer: do a comedy?" And I said, "Well, I don't really see this as a comedy. I see it
Harry Bradbeer: as something else. Because it's funny, all of that works, it's stumbling
Harry Bradbeer: on the apt with its tail wagging. I love it.
Harry Bradbeer: But we must go like an (exudate) ." I said, "
Harry Bradbeer: I will go like an exudate for every ounce of vulnerability and pain
Harry Bradbeer: in your character, because this story could be of epic
Harry Bradbeer: proportions." There is something rich, universal, and very deeply meaningful,
Harry Bradbeer: I felt, just from the little that I had seen.
Harry Bradbeer: But there was no series written. So what I ended up
Harry Bradbeer: being was a kind of partner in the telling of that
Harry Bradbeer: story, and the structuring of the series. And it really worked
Harry Bradbeer: with a lot of me asking her questions about her
Harry Bradbeer: experience. And she had such a clear understanding of that character. And I had a very clear understanding
Harry Bradbeer: of how the story could be shaped. And so we
Harry Bradbeer: worked beautifully together. It was an amazing meeting of minds.
Jenny Curtis: A Moment of Your Time, a new podcast from CurtCo
Jenny Curtis: Media.
Speaker 4: Currently 21 years old, and today I'm going to read a poem.
Speaker 5: I felt like magic extended from her fingertips down to the base of my spine.
Speaker 6: You have to care of yourself because the world needs
Speaker 6: you and your voice.
Speaker 7: Trust me, every do- gooder that asked about me was ready
Speaker 7: to spit on my dreams.
Speaker 8: Her fingers were facing me.
Speaker 9: It can feel like your purpose and your worth is
Speaker 9: really being questioned.
Speaker 10: Ain't going to stop me from playing the piano.
Speaker 11: She buys walkie- talkies, wonders to whom she should give
Speaker 11: the second (crosstalk) .
Speaker 12: Pets don't love humans. We never did, we never will.
Speaker 12: We just find ones that are more (crosstalk) .
Speaker 13: The beauty of rock climbing is that you can only
Speaker 13: focus on what's right in front of (crosstalk) .
Speaker 14: And life. And so, our American life begins.
Jenny Curtis: We may need to stay apart but let's create together.
Jenny Curtis: Available on all podcast platforms. Submit your piece @ curtco. com/ amomentofyourtime.
Speaker 16: [ singing].
Jenny Curtis: I love that in your Emmy acceptance speech, you thanked Phoebe
Jenny Curtis: for coming into your life like a glorious grenade.
Harry Bradbeer: A glorious grenade, she was.
Jenny Curtis: I would love to hear more about your collaboration with
Jenny Curtis: her.
Harry Bradbeer: Well, we are ruthless with each other. She cares completely
Harry Bradbeer: about comedy, I care completely about pain, and the two
Harry Bradbeer: things are necessary in life. It's like life is tragedy
Harry Bradbeer: and humor together. When we first got together for that
Harry Bradbeer: first cup of tea, I asked her lots of questions
Harry Bradbeer: about what the experience was for Fleabag. I think the
Harry Bradbeer: reason why it works is that I asked her a lot of
Harry Bradbeer: questions. Directors often will tell people what to do. I'm
Harry Bradbeer: interested in what an actor feels about a character, because
Harry Bradbeer: an actor is their first storyteller. And in this case, the
Harry Bradbeer: storyteller was also the writer. So I tended to sort
Harry Bradbeer: of use her like a sponge, I sucked all of her story
Harry Bradbeer: out of her and then I interrogated everything for truth.
Harry Bradbeer: She calls me her truth hound. I will listen to
Harry Bradbeer: any pitch, but I will interrogate it ruthlessly. And that's
Harry Bradbeer: why I say we have a really helpful fighting relationship.
Harry Bradbeer: It's like a sister- brother relationship. I call her my sister, she
Harry Bradbeer: calls me her sister. That's one of our jokes. We
Harry Bradbeer: are sisters. Because she thinks that there's a woman inside me,
Harry Bradbeer: which probably there is. I mean, Jung would say there
Harry Bradbeer: was. She's just like another bit of me. My mother was
Harry Bradbeer: going to have another ... a little sister, and she couldn't,
Harry Bradbeer: and I've always wanted one. And, somehow, Phoebe became that
Harry Bradbeer: sister. But more practically about how it works, she would
Harry Bradbeer: write a draft and I will encourage, criticize, build, and
Harry Bradbeer: shape. Sometimes we role- play. In the second series, we
Harry Bradbeer: had Jenny Robins with us, we met on Killing Eve.
Harry Bradbeer: She's an amazing story producer. So it's really the three
Harry Bradbeer: of us all working together. I stand by the wall,
Harry Bradbeer: and as ideas come up for scenes, I put them
Harry Bradbeer: on Post- its and I stick them up, and I
Harry Bradbeer: move them around and I try to find a shape.
Harry Bradbeer: So, in the making of the second series, I remember
Harry Bradbeer: how the midpoint became really important to me. The point
Harry Bradbeer: when the priest recognizes that she is talking to someone
Harry Bradbeer: else. That always had to be ... It's like a tent pole
Harry Bradbeer: in a movie. And this was a movie in six parts,
Harry Bradbeer: remember. That tent pole of discovery was there in the
Harry Bradbeer: middle. So, first thing that and then allowing the story
Harry Bradbeer: to build around it. Phoebe had many extraordinary ideas, some
Harry Bradbeer: which just never made it in there. We tried so
Harry Bradbeer: hard to bring in the Tube Rodent. We love Jamie,
Harry Bradbeer: but we couldn't find a way to put him in.
Harry Bradbeer: In many ways, it's like just being in a writers room, except the director and the writer are working together, rather than a group of writers.
Jenny Curtis: So since the beginning, you've liked breaking the fourth wall,
Jenny Curtis: as you said.
Harry Bradbeer: Yeah.
Jenny Curtis: And this tool develops from season one to season two,
Jenny Curtis: to where the priest acknowledges us. It felt like us,
Jenny Curtis: as the audience, was more a part of the story than being told
Jenny Curtis: the story.
Harry Bradbeer: Do you mean the priests knows that she's talking to
Harry Bradbeer: us? That notion?
Jenny Curtis: Yeah.
Harry Bradbeer: That was Phoebe's idea. That was the moment, I think
Harry Bradbeer: for her, when she thought that she could do a second
Harry Bradbeer: series, because the first series had completed in a kind
Harry Bradbeer: of catharsis. She was someone who wasn't owning up to
Harry Bradbeer: the terrible things she'd done. She owns up to it, it brings about a
Harry Bradbeer: catharsis and a crisis for her, but it ends in
Harry Bradbeer: friendship with the bank manager. So that felt like a beginning, and a middle, and an end. And we went
Harry Bradbeer: off to LA for the TCAs, and I remember sitting in this
Harry Bradbeer: Brazilian restaurant, talking about the possibility of a second series and
Harry Bradbeer: there was nothing that could get either of us excited. And then,
Harry Bradbeer: we went off into Killing Eve together and in the
Harry Bradbeer: process of that, I think it was all ticking along in her head and, eventually, she
Harry Bradbeer: came up with this idea of a priest. I think she felt there could be a love story
Harry Bradbeer: and who harder to pick as a companion than a
Harry Bradbeer: priest? And the moment religion entered the story, that higher
Harry Bradbeer: powers entered the story, special powers, and there was something
Harry Bradbeer: about a priest who spends his life talking to god,
Harry Bradbeer: recognizing someone who also talks to someone secretly, and who
Harry Bradbeer: is, in some ways, metaphysical (inaudible) . So when that
Harry Bradbeer: came to her, that gave her the hope. And that was the thing that she
Harry Bradbeer: pitched to me when we met for dinner, way before we
Harry Bradbeer: started prep on Fleabag. She just pitched me this idea
Harry Bradbeer: that it was going to happen right at the end of the first episode, that she met this priest,
Harry Bradbeer: who at that point had Tourette Syndrome, actually, which I
Harry Bradbeer: think was one of the things that I shot in the head. She met him in
Harry Bradbeer: his service and he started to eff and blind, and
Harry Bradbeer: then she gets to talking to him. It wasn't quite
Harry Bradbeer: clear how she was going to get around to talk to him,
Harry Bradbeer: but she knew that relationship was going to come together. That
Harry Bradbeer: existed. She knew that it began with a bloody nose
Harry Bradbeer: in the restaurant and she knew about the priest recognizing
Harry Bradbeer: her, and chatting away, and she turns to us and the
Harry Bradbeer: priest says, " Where did you just go?" And when she said
Harry Bradbeer: that, a tingle came down my spine. Because we had
Harry Bradbeer: agonized a lot as to whether we could ever do a second
Harry Bradbeer: series and that seemed to be a starting point. I
Harry Bradbeer: was very keen that we follow the love story aspect
Harry Bradbeer: of it. I think that it was probably, this is again,
Harry Bradbeer: me being very heartful and her being very funny, coming
Harry Bradbeer: together, because I pushed her towards the love story with
Harry Bradbeer: the priest, I think. I'm very soppy. I'm a very sentimental
Harry Bradbeer: man. And when I said to her, at one point, "
Harry Bradbeer: I think this is a love story and I think it's about her
Harry Bradbeer: falling in love with herself," she could have said, " I
Harry Bradbeer: almost vomited, but I think you might be right." In
Harry Bradbeer: fact, it took her a while to accept that. It's about
Harry Bradbeer: a sort of yin and yang between her and I, in
Harry Bradbeer: terms of structure and sensibility and support, something I loved
Harry Bradbeer: as a director. I'd come in and out of TV,
Harry Bradbeer: and here was the opportunity to really build and shape
Harry Bradbeer: something with someone, and it was an amazing experience. As I said
Harry Bradbeer: in the speech, it was a perfect storm of love
Harry Bradbeer: and trust.
Jenny Curtis: So for those of us who are huge fans of
Jenny Curtis: the show, we're obviously really sad that it's not coming
Jenny Curtis: back for a season three, but I understand that it
Jenny Curtis: ended perfectly.
Harry Bradbeer: Yeah.
Jenny Curtis: Is it hard to let it go, though?
Harry Bradbeer: No. No, because that ending is so perfect. It's really hard to not
Harry Bradbeer: finish something properly. That's how. To walk away from a job thinking, "
Harry Bradbeer: I could have done that better," that's the hardest thing.
Harry Bradbeer: I think because the ending, in terms of her letting
Harry Bradbeer: us go ... And again, that changed in various ways. At
Harry Bradbeer: one point, we were going to pass on to another
Harry Bradbeer: Fleabag. We had to cast someone else who could be that
Harry Bradbeer: Fleabag. In other words, she had left us behind and
Harry Bradbeer: we had to go and find someone else to follow. And that sort of
Harry Bradbeer: dissolved in the development process, in the Post- it process,
Harry Bradbeer: that whole thing. The idea of her saying goodbye to the
Harry Bradbeer: priest, it being the worst possible thing, but the best
Harry Bradbeer: possible thing was that she had some understanding of herself.
Harry Bradbeer: She loved herself. That's the ending of Midnight Cowboy, by the way.
Harry Bradbeer: This guy loses the person he loves, dies in his
Harry Bradbeer: arms, on a bus instead of a bus stop, and
Harry Bradbeer: then he walks off into the distance a stronger person.
Harry Bradbeer: That's the thing. She's strong enough to stand on her own
Harry Bradbeer: two feet. And that's how Enola Holmes ends, by the
Harry Bradbeer: way. It's all the same, you end up telling the
Harry Bradbeer: same stories over and over again. There's nothing more beautiful
Harry Bradbeer: than helping a character to love and understand themselves, to
Harry Bradbeer: accept themselves. Those are the best stories. They're called education
Harry Bradbeer: plots in the McKee storybook. They might be redemption plots
Harry Bradbeer: or rites of passage stories. I love those. But that
Harry Bradbeer: was a rite of passage story of epic proportions, Greek
Harry Bradbeer: proportions for her. And she ends up with her mother. The statue
Harry Bradbeer: was a lovely idea. I love that statue. Talk about collaboration, that
Harry Bradbeer: statue was I think, initially, at the end of series
Harry Bradbeer: one, she was going to throw it in the Thames
Harry Bradbeer: and managed to bring it back. We found a way
Harry Bradbeer: to bring it back. This is where we're structuring, we were
Harry Bradbeer: as inventive as possible, " How do we get that statue back?" It turned out
Harry Bradbeer: to be through Claire. And then, at the end of
Harry Bradbeer: it, she gives the statue to the ... as the wedding
Harry Bradbeer: was always going to be the last episode, and that
Harry Bradbeer: statue then became the wedding present. And then we were wondering
Harry Bradbeer: how we deal with that. Because now this statue, this
Harry Bradbeer: precious statue, is now back in the hands of the godmother, which
Harry Bradbeer: felt so right. Fair enough. But then Jenny had this
Harry Bradbeer: idea, Jenny Robins, " What if the statue was actually modeled
Harry Bradbeer: on the mother?" We'd never thought of this. This was
Harry Bradbeer: like a week before we shot it, which is on
Harry Bradbeer: the last week of filming, " Ah!" So then that became
Harry Bradbeer: the scene when the godmother sticks one last saber right
Harry Bradbeer: inside her and says, as she takes the statue, " Of
Harry Bradbeer: course, I modeled it on your mother." I now hold this
Harry Bradbeer: person that you treasure above all things, and I'm going
Harry Bradbeer: to take it away as I've taken your father. So
Harry Bradbeer: then, the ending. Again, that was a relatively late idea, that
Harry Bradbeer: the statue comes out of the bag. So she walks off
Harry Bradbeer: with her mother at the end. And it's a organic way
Harry Bradbeer: in which these things come together. But you can't make
Harry Bradbeer: a better ending than that. So, it may reappear. I think
Harry Bradbeer: Phoebe said, at one point, in the press, so I
Harry Bradbeer: can repeat it, that she thinks she might come back when she's 50.
Jenny Curtis: Yes.
Harry Bradbeer: Because the menopause is so very interesting to us.
Jenny Curtis: Between Fleabag season one and season two, that's when you and
Jenny Curtis: Phoebe went and shot the first and second episode of Killing Eve.
Jenny Curtis: Is that correct?
Harry Bradbeer: Yeah. At the end of the first series ... I need
Harry Bradbeer: to say series. We say series over here, not season. Dogs get
Harry Bradbeer: in season. I'm going to make you say series from
Harry Bradbeer: now on, sorry. No season.
Jenny Curtis: I'll say series from now on.
Harry Bradbeer: So we were finishing up and, again, it was around that time, the TCA's, and then I went off, I think, to ... Oh god, I can't remember what I was doing. I think I
Harry Bradbeer: was recovering, probably. And we were chatting around Christmas time,
Harry Bradbeer: and I had heard that she was doing the script for Killing Eve
Harry Bradbeer: and that it was green- lit, and it was an award ceremony. And she sat and said, "Would you
Harry Bradbeer: like to come to see us?" And I said, " What?
Harry Bradbeer: Come to your writers room," and I guess hang out.
Harry Bradbeer: And she was like, " No, like direct it," and I said, " I
Harry Bradbeer: think maybe I would." She said, " You won't like it, though." And she
Harry Bradbeer: was very nervous of talking about it, because she said, " You
Harry Bradbeer: won't like it. It's a thriller." And it was like
Harry Bradbeer: when my agent said, "You are not going to want to do this. It's a comedy." And when
Harry Bradbeer: I said, " Well, no. I really do like thrillers and I
Harry Bradbeer: am obsessed with Hitchcock. So just send me the script."
Harry Bradbeer: And it was very different, the script, from what you
Harry Bradbeer: actually see on the show and that quite a few
Harry Bradbeer: things changed. But that first scene in the ice cream
Harry Bradbeer: shop is, word for word, the same. And I'd got to the end of
Harry Bradbeer: that scene, and I knew I wanted to do it. And I knew
Harry Bradbeer: what it was, I knew exactly what it was. It
Harry Bradbeer: was about a woman studying the world while we studied
Harry Bradbeer: her, and seeing the world through a very particular point
Harry Bradbeer: of view, and that was be focused and clear. And
Harry Bradbeer: the encroaching camera, the probing camera. The idea that we
Harry Bradbeer: could make what people talked about, but very rarely did,
Harry Bradbeer: which is a psychological thriller. Overused word. Not often that
Harry Bradbeer: greatly executed. But this was about a psychopath. And then you had this
Harry Bradbeer: DNA of these two women, of very different ages and experience
Harry Bradbeer: and attitude. And that, again, I thought, "Well, I can see the love story in this," which, again, I tended to push and
Harry Bradbeer: so, we embarked on it. And so, I met the producers and I
Harry Bradbeer: told them what I thought, and we made the usual
Harry Bradbeer: thing you do in a directors meeting. You have to come very
Harry Bradbeer: clearly with your ideas and maybe a few images, and
Harry Bradbeer: explain why you think this would work, and what to
Harry Bradbeer: watch out for. I always think when you go into
Harry Bradbeer: a meeting, as a director, say to people what you
Harry Bradbeer: love and then say to people what it needs. And tell people,
Harry Bradbeer: because you have to work it up yourself, what you got to
Harry Bradbeer: watch out for. It's like three things. And I tried to do
Harry Bradbeer: so with that, and we went ahead and we started
Harry Bradbeer: casting. And there was a moment, a terrible moment when
Harry Bradbeer: there was a possibility that we might have the Sandra
Harry Bradbeer: Oh part, Eve might be younger for her age because it
Harry Bradbeer: could have been maybe sexier. But I was appalled by
Harry Bradbeer: that. I remember that was the one moment where I lost
Harry Bradbeer: my shit and I said, " The DNA of this film
Harry Bradbeer: is of this woman, who is going through the menopause,
Harry Bradbeer: who forms this extraordinary relationship with this woman who's kind
Harry Bradbeer: of at the other stage of her life." It's deeply
Harry Bradbeer: sexual, deeply confused, and it's deeply empathetic. And Sandra was ...
Harry Bradbeer: I wouldn't necessarily immediately have thought of her, but she
Harry Bradbeer: was perfect. That was Phoebe's idea, it was a brilliant
Harry Bradbeer: idea. I can't remember who told thought of Jodie. But
Harry Bradbeer: it was our first encounter with Fiona Shaw, who I
Harry Bradbeer: now try to work with all the time, as does Phoebe.
Jenny Curtis: She's in Enola Holmes, isn't she?
Harry Bradbeer: She is, yeah. She plays a character, which I actually invented for
Harry Bradbeer: her to be in it.
Jenny Curtis: So, I'm curious to talk about directing a pilot versus
Jenny Curtis: directing later on in a series.
Harry Bradbeer: Yes.
Jenny Curtis: You're basically setting the tone for what subsequent directors will
Jenny Curtis: follow, is that correct?
Harry Bradbeer: That's correct. Yeah, it's a big responsibility. I did one
Harry Bradbeer: in America, in New York, Ramy. I just did the pilot. Just setting it up, is what we say.
Harry Bradbeer: That doesn't mean that people can't take your ideas and make them better. They should,
Harry Bradbeer: they should take what you've laid down and be smarter
Harry Bradbeer: with it, really, ideally. But the basic casting, the tone, the
Harry Bradbeer: design, all those choices ... There was one professor who said
Harry Bradbeer: to me once, " Every single thing is a choice. Every
Harry Bradbeer: color, every tiny detail," which I think is why I've
Harry Bradbeer: become so obsessed with detail. All of the details of that initial
Harry Bradbeer: episodes, they establish the tone and feel. Particularly the tone, of course. That balance of
Harry Bradbeer: comedy and tragedy, comedy and drama.
Jenny Curtis: Jumping into Ramy, which, again, great show, but it's definitely
Jenny Curtis: a world far outside of yours. So how do you
Jenny Curtis: get into the head of the character and the head
Jenny Curtis: of the writer when you're directing a show that is
Jenny Curtis: so different from what you know?
Harry Bradbeer: Well, I was just wrapping up on cutting Killing Eve
Harry Bradbeer: when the Ramy script arrived, and the reason I loved
Harry Bradbeer: it so much was it was a very different world.
Harry Bradbeer: Brilliantly written. But, when I got on the phone to him, it's this
Harry Bradbeer: thing, I have this obsession with pulling all the information out
Harry Bradbeer: of the actor. Just sitting and listening, just listening. I said, " If you
Harry Bradbeer: want me to do this, then the first thing I'd like to do is
Harry Bradbeer: to come out and hang out with you for two weeks and go
Harry Bradbeer: to the mosque with you. And meet your family," because
Harry Bradbeer: these characters were clearly influenced and colored by his family and
Harry Bradbeer: his friends. So, that's what we did. I think that's
Harry Bradbeer: a pretty important reason why we worked together, because I
Harry Bradbeer: clearly needed to do that research. So I go and (inaudible) in
Harry Bradbeer: New York, we arrived, he picked me up from the plane,
Harry Bradbeer: and we went to the mosque straightaway. It was a
Harry Bradbeer: Friday morning, and we actually went to two prayer meetings.
Harry Bradbeer: So, that was quite extraordinary. And then I met his
Harry Bradbeer: family. And just as I predicted, it was a very
Harry Bradbeer: informative few days. You have to understand the world you're working in
Harry Bradbeer: and there's only one way of doing it, by diving
Harry Bradbeer: in.
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Jenny Curtis: Enola Holmes is coming to Netflix, September 23rd, this week,
Jenny Curtis: and it is a delightful mystery about the younger sister
Jenny Curtis: of Sherlock Holmes, played by Millie Bobby Brown, who is
Jenny Curtis: just awesome. But this is a film, where it appears
Jenny Curtis: most of your work is in series. So, what was
Jenny Curtis: the reason you were drawn to do this project?
Harry Bradbeer: I go for the script, I go for the character, and I was ready to dive into film. That's fair to say. But I dived into this because I loved the script I
Harry Bradbeer: was sent. I was looking at TV scripts at the time, and this script came along
Harry Bradbeer: and it was remarkable. Jack Thorne writes with a kind of elan, a kind of chutzpah that had
Harry Bradbeer: so much energy and confidence and eccentricity. And this little character, Enola, she grabbed
Harry Bradbeer: you by the scruff of the neck and she just dragged
Harry Bradbeer: you through this period. It was about Sherlock Holmes, but
Harry Bradbeer: it was about the Holmes family. It was a prism
Harry Bradbeer: into him, from the sister. And it was clearly her
Harry Bradbeer: film. I love the scale of it. I mean, you asked
Harry Bradbeer: about movies, I've enjoyed the scale of this movie so
Harry Bradbeer: much. I've loved building the world, of which there are
Harry Bradbeer: many in this movie. It's challenging in a number of
Harry Bradbeer: ways. I loved the challenges of the train sequence, the
Harry Bradbeer: fight sequences. The fight was particularly interesting to me, because
Harry Bradbeer: I get very impatient with fight sequences in movies, because
Harry Bradbeer: they don't have enough story in them. A bit like sex scenes,
Harry Bradbeer: actually. They don't have enough story in them. It's just
Harry Bradbeer: stuff going on. People moving and grinding around. And fight
Harry Bradbeer: sequences can be the same, it's just the escalation happens
Harry Bradbeer: in terms of whether we can have a bigger explosion or
Harry Bradbeer: whether you can fall out of a higher building. The jeopardy
Harry Bradbeer: is very much kept within life, death until you reach
Harry Bradbeer: the end and someone who gets away with it. The
Harry Bradbeer: fight sequence here gave me an opportunity to tell an
Harry Bradbeer: origin story in the middle of a fight. You've got her facing
Harry Bradbeer: this apparently unstoppable foe in the form of Linthorn, the man
Harry Bradbeer: in the bowler hat. And he's just coming to her, to tear
Harry Bradbeer: her throat out, and she turns the camera and says, "Did I tell you
Harry Bradbeer: about how a day's education worked with my mother?" And
Harry Bradbeer: she starts to get ready to fight him, she talks
Harry Bradbeer: about physics, and she talks about science, she talks about history, and
Harry Bradbeer: then we had fight combat. And then you cut to
Harry Bradbeer: the mother challenging and beating the hell out of this little six
Harry Bradbeer: year old girl, and we intercut that fight with the
Harry Bradbeer: childhood fight. So you're seeing what she learned as she's
Harry Bradbeer: practicing it with Linthorn. And that struck me as being
Harry Bradbeer: a really fun way of telling a story and keeping the
Harry Bradbeer: stakes high. But, also, it being more nutritious in terms
Harry Bradbeer: of narrative and story and comedy, because you've fed them
Harry Bradbeer: plenty of opportunities for humor. And the moment it gets
Harry Bradbeer: serious, I'm always trying to make it funny. And the
Harry Bradbeer: moment everything gets funny, I'm always trying to make it serious.
Jenny Curtis: You brought up breaking the fourth wall again, which, of
Jenny Curtis: course, is a huge part of Enola Holmes. Did you
Jenny Curtis: bring that to the project or was that written into
Jenny Curtis: the script?
Harry Bradbeer: No, it was there in Jack Thorne's script. It was
Harry Bradbeer: his idea, again, because back to Fleabag, he had been
Harry Bradbeer: given the books to adapt by Millie's sister, who with
Harry Bradbeer: Millie had found the books originally. Jack Thorne, who you
Harry Bradbeer: will know from his various films that he's been writing,
Harry Bradbeer: but also, very famously, the Harry Potter play on Broadway,
Harry Bradbeer: that has kind of broken all these records. Jack is so
Harry Bradbeer: particular, he was wondering how he was going to tell this story,
Harry Bradbeer: because this character had such a lonely adventure. And he
Harry Bradbeer: was watching Fleabag and he thought, " Well, why doesn't she address
Harry Bradbeer: the camera?" So he put it in. And then, when I read
Harry Bradbeer: it, my first thought was, " Oh my god, if I do
Harry Bradbeer: this movie, Phoebe is going to kill me. She's going
Harry Bradbeer: to think that I've stolen her idea." In fact, I met
Harry Bradbeer: her very shortly after and I said to her, " So it's
Harry Bradbeer: about Enola Holmes, Sherlock's kid sister." She said, " Yeah." "And it's going to be
Harry Bradbeer: great fun. And she talks to the camera." She said "
Harry Bradbeer: Oh what, like Shakespeare?" And I kind of relaxed and
Harry Bradbeer: I thought, " Yeah, I mean, this has been going on for years."
Harry Bradbeer: And the more I looked at it, the more I realized
Harry Bradbeer: their own reasons to address the camera. But we're actually
Harry Bradbeer: more in tune with Amélie. Her character is a lot
Harry Bradbeer: more sort of disarming and slightly innocent and confused than Fleabag,
Harry Bradbeer: and I felt that was a better reference for us.
Harry Bradbeer: There was something about this poor girl having no friends
Harry Bradbeer: but us. And I love the idea that younger audiences, in
Harry Bradbeer: particular, would feel like they were being invited to participate
Harry Bradbeer: in this adventure and be complicit in it, and maybe
Harry Bradbeer: in some of the decisions. So I felt for a family film, it
Harry Bradbeer: had something very special. And I also love the fact
Harry Bradbeer: that it's a brave woman, because she is like a
Harry Bradbeer: woman, pretending to be fine, when in fact she's drowning.
Harry Bradbeer: So her kind of bravura works against the awful things she's
Harry Bradbeer: going through, and that's a contradiction I love.
Jenny Curtis: It is a family film, but it's so enjoyable because it's not one
Jenny Curtis: that talks down to your audience and like you said,
Jenny Curtis: she's a role model for kids to look up to.
Jenny Curtis: But also, she's a role model for all of us
Jenny Curtis: to look up to.
Harry Bradbeer: Yeah.
Jenny Curtis: I love, about 20 minutes in, and you're about to
Jenny Curtis: move into your second act, and she looks at the
Jenny Curtis: camera and says, " Our future is up to us," and
Jenny Curtis: then off she goes on this grand adventure.
Harry Bradbeer: I came up with that line, I'm proud to say.
Harry Bradbeer: Because the mother didn't have much of a message for her before, apart
Harry Bradbeer: from the money. And I thought, " There has to be something that
Harry Bradbeer: sums up what the mother wants her to get out
Harry Bradbeer: of this journey." But nothing too sappy. I like the
Harry Bradbeer: idea that she was giving her a challenge. Everything the
Harry Bradbeer: mother does is about making her stand on her own
Harry Bradbeer: two feet. So, it's up to you. It's up to you to
Harry Bradbeer: make this work. And I think, if this is what
Harry Bradbeer: you're driving at, all of us, particularly those who are voting this year, have
Harry Bradbeer: the future in our hands in the form of the
Harry Bradbeer: vote. And that's why every vote counts is in there,
Harry Bradbeer: somewhere, I think.
Jenny Curtis: Yeah. I mean, they're really powerful messages for the modern
Jenny Curtis: day, but told in a period piece.
Harry Bradbeer: Great. Thank you.
Jenny Curtis: You mentioned your first short was a period piece. Have
Jenny Curtis: you done period pieces since then?
Harry Bradbeer: Yeah, I've done quite a bit of TV that was period.
Harry Bradbeer: I did The Hour, which was about the early days of the BBC, that was set in the
Harry Bradbeer: 1950s. The near past, I think is great. I love the
Harry Bradbeer: near past because we see some elements, like early television
Harry Bradbeer: in that case, we get to understand our own culture
Harry Bradbeer: through an origin story, origin of TV, which is this
Harry Bradbeer: thing that fascinates and controls us. But I've also done
Harry Bradbeer: stuff in the 19th century. I did Grantchester, that was
Harry Bradbeer: set in the 50s. I've done a few others. I read
Harry Bradbeer: History at university, so I sort of know a bit
Harry Bradbeer: about the 19th century. And the detail of that period is
Harry Bradbeer: interesting, it was the first ever consumer culture. So there's so
Harry Bradbeer: much stuff and detail, it makes design a joy. But
Harry Bradbeer: it also makes storytelling a joy because, of all the
Harry Bradbeer: things, like the cryptic instruments that she has, that we
Harry Bradbeer: researched, and that car, that three- wheeled car, that was a
Harry Bradbeer: detail of the period that spoke of progress. And in
Harry Bradbeer: a world where the country is mainly a place of
Harry Bradbeer: refuge, there's quite a bit in that film in which
Harry Bradbeer: progress and mechanics are a threat. So, seeing Miss Harrison,
Harry Bradbeer: Fiona Shaw, coming on that car felt like the future
Harry Bradbeer: was coming. And that future is not the future that
Harry Bradbeer: Eudoria, Enola's mother, wants. It's a future that's sharp and controlling and
Harry Bradbeer: demanding and defining and confining, particularly for women.
Jenny Curtis: I want to talk a little bit about Millie Bobby Brown, because she
Jenny Curtis: does such a phenomenal job as Enola. What was it
Jenny Curtis: like working with her? And is there a difference working
Jenny Curtis: with a younger actor?
Harry Bradbeer: What I want in an actor is someone who can be alive
Harry Bradbeer: and real in the moment, who doesn't get caught up in
Harry Bradbeer: technique. I've always loved working for younger actors for that
Harry Bradbeer: reason, because there aren't some of the habits that some people
Harry Bradbeer: can have. Some people can do it all. You watch
Harry Bradbeer: Helena Bonham Carter, she is technically astonishing and also, on
Harry Bradbeer: the turn of a sixpence, completely in the moment and will fire
Harry Bradbeer: out her feelings through her eyes and expression and come
Harry Bradbeer: to tears, as she does in the film. Millie just came
Harry Bradbeer: as something that was still quite raw, but with a
Harry Bradbeer: good deal of technical understanding. And she's like a force
Harry Bradbeer: of nature. She is spontaneous. Strong opinions, which I like.
Harry Bradbeer: I love strong opinions from all my actors. I want
Harry Bradbeer: to hear what they have to say and I want to hear
Harry Bradbeer: what their ideas are, because I take a good idea
Harry Bradbeer: from anybody. Her particular skill, I think, is her bravery
Harry Bradbeer: and her aliveness. She's tremendously courageous. Even if you're throwing
Harry Bradbeer: her into a bucket or, in particular, the way she shared
Harry Bradbeer: her emotions in the film. Again, I think rather like I work
Harry Bradbeer: with Phoebe, I did encourage her to leak out her
Harry Bradbeer: more sensitive fears than she might not ordinarily have done. Partly
Harry Bradbeer: because Jack's script, initially, she was almost like Superwoman. She
Harry Bradbeer: was pretty Teflon. She was almost indestructible and performing quite
Harry Bradbeer: extraordinary physical feats. I reduced that to somebody who nothing
Harry Bradbeer: she did could not plausibly be done by someone. This
Harry Bradbeer: isn't a film about magic and wands, it doesn't have that
Harry Bradbeer: kind of glory like Harry Potter. This is about real
Harry Bradbeer: people with their feet on the ground. So it's a long-
Harry Bradbeer: winded way of saying that I think she had a lot of the things that
Harry Bradbeer: I want in every actor, but I also discovered she
Harry Bradbeer: can improvise. There's a few lines in there, like when
Harry Bradbeer: she suddenly would turn to the camera and say, " Do
Harry Bradbeer: you have any ideas?" She's bringing us in, like she
Harry Bradbeer: does in the boarding house. She's remarkable. And of course,
Harry Bradbeer: it allowed me to have someone on the set who's also
Harry Bradbeer: 16, the same as the character, because it had to
Harry Bradbeer: come through that prism, that understanding. I was very interested,
Harry Bradbeer: in terms of how we were going to explain this
Harry Bradbeer: character to all of our younger audience. She was my channel into that
Harry Bradbeer: and I often checked things with her.
Jenny Curtis: And this was her first real leading role. In Stranger
Jenny Curtis: Things, she's the beloved Eleven, of course, but she's part
Jenny Curtis: of a strong ensemble. And it appears in Godzilla, she
Jenny Curtis: was similarly a strong part of an ensemble. So, this
Jenny Curtis: was her first time really stepping forward and leading a cast.
Harry Bradbeer: Mm- hmm ( affirmative).
Jenny Curtis: What was the experience like for her?
Harry Bradbeer: I think there were times when she was quite tired.
Harry Bradbeer: I don't think that she'd expected quite that level of
Harry Bradbeer: work, at times, though her days were restricted by the
Harry Bradbeer: fact that she was still under 16. She was still 15. Only just 15,
Harry Bradbeer: which is remarkable. So her days where she only had seven
Harry Bradbeer: hours on camera but, of course, there's everything on either
Harry Bradbeer: side of that. And she's still a young person who's
Harry Bradbeer: not used to that kind of workload, which is much
Harry Bradbeer: greater than Eleven. I think that from the moment we did
Harry Bradbeer: the read- through, she controlled that run in that read-
Harry Bradbeer: through. She was on it, she just dived in. And
Harry Bradbeer: she had a view on Louis, and she was very clear, the
Harry Bradbeer: moment she met Louis, that he felt right to her. These things are
Harry Bradbeer: really important for us, because we need to know how
Harry Bradbeer: that chemistry is feeling. So I'm glad that she wasn't
Harry Bradbeer: a retiring violet.
Jenny Curtis: I want to jump over to the animated paper pop- ups.
Harry Bradbeer: I love those.
Jenny Curtis: They're really fun and bright, and they give the film
Jenny Curtis: this different type of energy from your other projects. Where
Jenny Curtis: did they come from?
Harry Bradbeer: They came in the cutting room. I had this amazing
Harry Bradbeer: editor, Adam Bosman, who is just one of the hardest working and
Harry Bradbeer: most lovely people in the business. I can't remember whether it
Harry Bradbeer: was his idea. It sort of grew from graphics onwards.
Harry Bradbeer: The pop- up characters you see at the opening of
Harry Bradbeer: Basilwether, that came out of ... I started to play with graphics, because
Harry Bradbeer: we needed ways of telling story that weren't really there.
Harry Bradbeer: Like for instance, the initial first six minutes, you didn't
Harry Bradbeer: see very much of Eudoria at all. She was a completely
Harry Bradbeer: mysterious figure. And so, you see a girl saying, " My
Harry Bradbeer: mother's gone. Here are my brothers," and off they go. And then the brothers
Harry Bradbeer: looked like they were having a real go at her and we couldn't
Harry Bradbeer: quite work out why. It was like before you understood
Harry Bradbeer: the extraordinary nature of her upbringing, you couldn't understand what
Harry Bradbeer: her problem was, what their problem was, and what was kicking this story
Harry Bradbeer: off. Why this girl was facing such issues with her
Harry Bradbeer: brother about conformity and behavior. So, we tried to do
Harry Bradbeer: some voiceover by taking pictures of Helena and the boys,
Harry Bradbeer: and we stuck them on some old black and white
Harry Bradbeer: photos, and we stuck them in front of a picture
Harry Bradbeer: of the house. We did this sort of in the
Harry Bradbeer: most basic way, Adam did it, and he made a very basic markup
Harry Bradbeer: of this, and it had her voiceover underneath. And I thought, " We still need to
Harry Bradbeer: see the father." So, we got some basic stock footage, but you got
Harry Bradbeer: the father. And it hit me, it reminded me of
Harry Bradbeer: a Terry Gilliam, from Monty Python's Flying Circus, the idea
Harry Bradbeer: of a little cowboy character falling on his side and dying. "
Harry Bradbeer: My father died when I was three," bang. Then we
Harry Bradbeer: put a bell over it. You can see how it
Harry Bradbeer: developed. So, it started off with just a very formal
Harry Bradbeer: image and idea with her voiceover, and then we started
Harry Bradbeer: to move the characters around and it developed organically like
Harry Bradbeer: that. And so then, when it came to introducing Basilwether,
Harry Bradbeer: we came up with this idea of the family and then all their
Harry Bradbeer: servants. So we gave that to our graphics guy, and
Harry Bradbeer: he went from there.
Jenny Curtis: This film was so much fun. You've got stowaways in
Jenny Curtis: luggage and fighting in the streets and pyrotechnics. Was there
Jenny Curtis: a particular scene that was a real blast to shoot?
Harry Bradbeer: I think I love when that fight goes into the
Harry Bradbeer: bomb factory and she almost gets stabbed by Linthorn, and the
Harry Bradbeer: corset saves her, because that was a kind of lovely
Harry Bradbeer: microcosm of the movie. We had action, we had a moment where
Harry Bradbeer: we really thought she was going to die, and this
Harry Bradbeer: glorious reversal that involves, ironically, a piece of restrictive female
Harry Bradbeer: clothing. And her address to camera, which I think she says, "
Harry Bradbeer: I knew this would have a better use." I think that was the one
Harry Bradbeer: of the funnest things to shoot. I love the building
Harry Bradbeer: of the worlds and I was surprised at how much I
Harry Bradbeer: enjoyed the London street sequences, for instance. I mean, they
Harry Bradbeer: all started with this idea. My designer found a picture
Harry Bradbeer: of London in the 1880s and it was astonishing how
Harry Bradbeer: crammed everything was together. We imagine it being so polite,
Harry Bradbeer: but there were all these omnibuses, these like double- decker
Harry Bradbeer: buses, where people sat on them precariously, they could have
Harry Bradbeer: fallen off. I thought, " I want that." And we went
Harry Bradbeer: everywhere. We got every possible horse- drawn, large vehicle that
Harry Bradbeer: we could find all over the country. We found these
Harry Bradbeer: curious automobiles and other contraptions. It was an enormous day,
Harry Bradbeer: building that world of London, because, ultimately, it has a little bit of
Harry Bradbeer: CGI to add to it. But it brought to life
Harry Bradbeer: the idea of when I first went to London, when
Harry Bradbeer: you're this little person and you're looking up, and people
Harry Bradbeer: are staring down at you. This was the idea that
Harry Bradbeer: I had fixed in my head from very early on,
Harry Bradbeer: that this smaller person felt oppressed by it. I wanted
Harry Bradbeer: it to be scary and I loved building that. It
Harry Bradbeer: was hell to do, but I think we pulled it
Harry Bradbeer: off. So, it's those little challenges I love. I love
Harry Bradbeer: the train sequence, even though it was on green screen.
Harry Bradbeer: Because people ask me this, they say, "In television, you work in
Harry Bradbeer: this small- scale Canvas, and then you work on this
Harry Bradbeer: larger canvas," and that's absolutely true. I didn't find embracing
Harry Bradbeer: that difficult, I loved it. But if anything, if I
Harry Bradbeer: had to watch out for anything, it was becoming too in love
Harry Bradbeer: with unnecessary pyrotechnics. That crane shot that you spent half
Harry Bradbeer: the morning putting together, that you don't use? That's the danger.
Harry Bradbeer: That's where you waste your time, because you've got to get
Harry Bradbeer: to the heart of every scene. And if there isn't
Harry Bradbeer: a heart to the scene, then you probably shouldn't shoot
Harry Bradbeer: it. It's just a piece of theater. It comes back to
Harry Bradbeer: when I was in the theater, thinking, " I just want
Harry Bradbeer: to be with these people." So, that's why in the
Harry Bradbeer: London sequence, really, while there's a lot of exciting atmosphere
Harry Bradbeer: and scale, really, if you look at it, most of
Harry Bradbeer: the time, you're either preceding and following her in a
Harry Bradbeer: wide lens, either a 25 or 35, mostly a 25, so
Harry Bradbeer: that you wrap her up in that environment. I mean,
Harry Bradbeer: there I took a lot of cues, in some ways,
Harry Bradbeer: from Kubrick, who liked to keep his background and his
Harry Bradbeer: subject in the same focal length so that we felt that
Harry Bradbeer: we were experiencing the entire world. It allows the world
Harry Bradbeer: to wrap around the character and the face. I'm always finding
Harry Bradbeer: myself doing that, " I have to make a choice, what am
Harry Bradbeer: I going to do?" I just want to make that character take me
Harry Bradbeer: through that world. I want to sit in the driving
Harry Bradbeer: seat of their mind.
Jenny Curtis: Is there something that landed on the cutting room floor
Jenny Curtis: that you really wished didn't have to?
Harry Bradbeer: There was a relationship which was deeper, which, if there's
Harry Bradbeer: another movie, we'll look into, between her and the housekeeper,
Harry Bradbeer: which was a shame, it was a sweet scene between them, which
Harry Bradbeer: had to go. It was a beautiful scene, it was well
Harry Bradbeer: put together, but the story didn't need it. You've got
Harry Bradbeer: to get on with your story, you've got to be
Harry Bradbeer: quite ruthless. The fireside scene where she talks with Tewsbury, while he's
Harry Bradbeer: cooked the mushrooms, that was about three times the length.
Harry Bradbeer: And we cut that down. When I first showed the
Harry Bradbeer: movie to Mary Parent, who is our studio boss at
Harry Bradbeer: Legendary, wonderful, extraordinary woman, no nonsense, we showed her the movie
Harry Bradbeer: and I remember, at that point, she was scribbling like
Harry Bradbeer: mad on her pad. I could tell I was going to get
Harry Bradbeer: into trouble for this. Because there were moments that dragged,
Harry Bradbeer: we needed a bit of cuts there. It was beautiful
Harry Bradbeer: stuff between them, but it had to go.
Jenny Curtis: I do want to wrap up on my favorite question
Jenny Curtis: to end these with, what does it mean to you
Jenny Curtis: to have a life in storytelling?
Harry Bradbeer: Immensely lucky and privileged. I think not only is it a great responsibility, but what I really love about it is it never gets
Harry Bradbeer: any easier. Telling a great story in screen is one of the
Harry Bradbeer: hardest things. I'm wrapping my head around something that we're working
Harry Bradbeer: on together, Legendary and I have another movie, Séance on a
Harry Bradbeer: Wet Afternoon, that we're working on together. And I'm just
Harry Bradbeer: straining my brain to work out how certain elements of it
Harry Bradbeer: work. And it never gets any easier, which I hate.
Harry Bradbeer: I really want it to be easier. But I love the
Harry Bradbeer: fact that it's difficult. A story is a very sophisticated
Harry Bradbeer: and demanding element, which is, in some ways, very full
Harry Bradbeer: of things that have to be unique. But if it's going to
Harry Bradbeer: work, it has to be universal. And so, the best
Harry Bradbeer: stories are so simple. They're more complex than complicated. They
Harry Bradbeer: are simple stories that are complexly told. And this challenge
Harry Bradbeer: of delivering the audience something that they wanted all along
Harry Bradbeer: but, in a way they never expected, is the hardest damn
Harry Bradbeer: thing. And I love the fact that in movies, as a director,
Harry Bradbeer: I get to be at the heart of that storytelling
Harry Bradbeer: process and the heart of that development.
Jenny Curtis: Harry, thank you so much for joining me today. I
Jenny Curtis: have loved talking to you.
Harry Bradbeer: Thank you very much. It was great fun.
Jenny Curtis: Everyone should definitely go watch Enola Holmes. I smiled the
Jenny Curtis: entire way through the movie.
Harry Bradbeer: Oh, great.
Jenny Curtis: Thank you, Harry, and thank you for giving us so
Jenny Curtis: much insight into what you do.
Harry Bradbeer: Thank you for looking after me.
Jenny Curtis: Hollywood Unscripted was created by CurtCo Media. This special episode
Jenny Curtis: of the Stuck at Home series was hosted and produced
Jenny Curtis: by me, Jenny Curtis. With guest Harry Bradbeer. Co- produced
Jenny Curtis: and edited by Jay Whiting. The executive producer of Hollywood
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