This week sees the cinematic adaptation of one of this decade’s great theatre productions, Blackbird, from writer David Harrower. The play, first performed in 2005, is the story of a young woman (played here by Rooney Mara) who sets out to find Ray, a middle-aged man (played here by Ben Mendelsohn) who fifteen years previous had sexually abused her.
Performed by such stars as Jeff Daniels and Alison Pill, the film version is called Una and is directed by debutant Benedict Andrews, an acclaimed theatre director who is currently directing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in London. Andrews already had many connections to the play from its origins and was eager to make this his debut feature, saying:
“I directed the original play in German in about 2005 and it had really stuck with me and my first response was that it was a phenomenal piece of theatre and it’s one of the best chamber plays of this century and it’s something that’s going to last. Both because of the moral questions, it opens up and the way it makes the audience judge and jury but also the way it’s kind of a verbal boxing match between these two characters and the way they strip each other emotionally naked, it’s riveting.”
The film version had been talked about for many years and even had a script but Andrews was keen to work with Harrower on bringing it to the big screen and set about making certain changes, namely expanding on the two characters history together and back story that they could show visually on film where it was only spoken about on stage.
“When I came to the project there was already a script that had been around but it changed a lot when me and David began working on it and that didn’t show the past. It had to become purely independent as a piece of cinema. I really wasn’t interested in filmed theatre, it had to become a unique piece of filmmaking. You feel the DNA or the root structure of the theatre piece in rooms and long-takes that makes it feel like theatre and I like that… but at the same time by opening it up, by showing her past and starting with her in the nightclub, by opening up the story with Riz and the party at the end it opened up other things and peek into other corners of their lives and we didn’t want to just make a well-made version of the play.”
Having worked with Mendelsohn before, Andrews knew he would be a great fit for the role of Ray for many reasons despite the fact that he is a little younger than the character as originally written. But with the fleshing out of the story and the changes, Mendelsohn was even more attractive. Andrews continues:
“A bit of both – with opening up the past it would have been tricky to have had a much older looking guy to make it credible that it was 15 years earlier and Ben perfectly straddled that. We were a bit more ambiguous with his age and have him in his early 50’s so it’s not that much different but knowing we were going to be in the past more opened up the exciting possibility that it could be Ben who could play it.”
Alongside him is Academy Award Nominee Rooney Mara, who’s recent body of work is becoming more and more impressive with each new project she takes on. After her stunning turns in Carol, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and, more recently, A Ghost Story, she was very keen to get involved and as a duo, Andrews says he lucked out:
“They are both just incredibly truthful and really brave – they are very different actors. ben can be really free and loose and very rough and he throws a lot of stuff at it and Rooney is really pinning it but by doing that they both get into that very volatile, very raw, very free state and it was that truth that attracted me to them in from their other films.”
Watch the full interview below:
Una opens in UK cinemas on September 1st.
