In addition to speaking to Amanda Seyfried about her role as Valerie in Red Riding Hood, HeyUGuys recently caught up with the film’s director, Catherine Hardwicke. Not only did Hardwicke discuss the film in great detail, but she also spoke about how hard it is to get films made, sexism in the film industry and how that affected her attempts to get in the director’s seat for The Fighter.
On the influences behind the film
I’m not so much of a person top go back and look at other movies as much, like when I did 13, I didn’t look at other teenage movies, I looked at a couple of Martin Scorsese and Cassavetti’s to get that gritty reality, so actually in this movie I looked more at paintings, I looked more at paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, from that time period, and try to find the spirit of the people, and the dance sequence you see in there, and The Garden of Earthly Delights, and Bruegel and other painters of that time.
On the screenplay
The screenplay, that was written by David Leslie Johnson, that was developed by Leonardo Di Caprio’s company, had these interesting elements in it. They took the sexuality, which is in the story of Red Riding Hood, if you look at Bruno Bettelheim’s analysis, The Uses of Enchantment, a beautiful book, analysing fairytales, written in 1975, he talks about how Red Riding Hood, the little girl, goes down the path. Her mother tells her ‘go straight to Grandma’s house, don’t talk to strangers’, she stops and picks the flowers. She’s in touch with her own sensuality, and the wolf comes up and talks to her and says ‘where are you going?’ She tells the wolf where she’s going. She basically invites the wolf, the darkness, into her life.
So it is, when you’re maybe, five years old you read the story and you just get scared about the wolf in the dark woods, but maybe when you’re twelve or thirteen, you start noticing there are other layers to this story, and it’s not that simple as it seems on the surface, there is the sensuality, so I think that’s what the screenwriter did: ran with that, ran with the older versions of the tale; before The Brothers Grimm there was a werewolf in the tale. So he ran with those elements, which I thought were fascinating, like the paranoia, the darkness inside you, the darkness inside other people, those other ways to look at things. That was pretty much in the screenplay when I got it.
On her influence on the screenplay
That’s the thing, you usually have this whole process with the studio where they give notes, and the director works with the writer, and you work on the budget, how can we afford it? All those different layers, and how can we make it?
One thing in there, the grandmother was kind of a very old, grandmother, but I think she would have a lot of life if she had to live in the woods by herself. She’s got to be tough enough to live out in the woods alone, and take care of herself, and probably collects herbs, and gets her own food, so I wanted the grandmother to have more vitality than that. She had a lot of lectures in the first script like, ‘you shouldn’t do this’ I was like ‘nah’. I didn’t really like the lecture part.
So the idea, with having a character like Julie Christie, a beautiful character like that, I liked her to be more bohemian, and if you looked at her one way, she could think she’s a witch, if you look at her another way, she’s cool, and interesting, and ahead of her time. That idea that each person has different layers, and depending how you are looking at someone, you could be suspicious of them or you could love them.
On Casting
Well, I loved Amanda, she’s beautiful, soulful, sexy, fun, and I’ve always believed since my first movie 13, that the lead actress needs to have chemistry with the people she’s supposed to have sparks with, so I’ve always involved the lead actress. Evan Rachel Wood met Nikki Reed in my house, and they had to audition on the bed, and the same thing with Rob and Kristen, and so I wanted to see if Amanda felt comfortable, and liked and sparked with any of those guys. The top eight guys came out there and she did scenes with them.
On the music and dancing in the film
Strangely enough, if you look at the paintings of Breugel and Bosch from that time period, from the fourteen hundreds, I studied those two for the dance, they are wild. This is before the Victorian age, this is when people actually had spirit and life and kind of cut loose. Burning Man, which has roots in medieval festivals was, in a way, the inspiration, but it’s old/new, it’s circling back. And the Swedish band that did the music, Fever Ray, used all the beautiful old instruments, the Hurdy Gurdy, all the things that were pictured in Bosch’s garden of earthly delights, they were recorded, and then processed again in the music.
On being in demand
Every movie is a huge challenge to get made, and every director, you have to do a lot of work to get the studio to say yes. I had dinner with Ridley Scott last night, and even for him, it’s a challenge. Even if you’re Sir Ridley Scott, they have to believe that this will work, on this financial level, with this person. It’s tough. This is a tough business.
On why she chose to make Red Riding Hood
Well, let’s see, Leonardo DiCaprio’s company came up with this idea, and as has been reported, I had a several other projects I was trying to get made: Hamlet, I tried to get on the fighter (I couldn’t even get an interview for that), but this is the one the studio said, ‘yeah, let’s make it’ finally, so then you get excited about it, and think, ‘how could I make a whole world? A magical fairytale world?’, and jsut start building it, and turning it into something.
On sexism in the film industry
I think this story, the studio knew, it’s an actress as the lead, and it’s Red Riding Hood, that it’s primarily for girls. So that has a limit. They knew they weren’t going to make it a giant action slam-bam, smash up the world, it gets every boy in there. I think they had to look at it economically, and say, traditionally, how many girls will see the movie. I guess they have to balance. It’s a business.
On the fighter
I couldn’t even get an interview for it. I love David O’Russel, he’s a friend. I did a movie with him, Three Kings, but I read the script before he’s attached and I thought, it’s like my first movie, like 13, it’s this intense family drama. I called up, ‘I really want to meet’, and I knew the producer, and they were like, ‘we’re not going to meet you. We need a man for this movie. A guy’, and I was liek ‘OK’.
They wouldn’t even have an interview. I couldn’t even go in and give my feelings on it. That time they told me straight up. Many times, they don’t say it that blatantly, but you know it’s there. I hate to say it, but there’s a reason there are only 6% movies directed by women, and that’s not even studio movies. I think it’s half that for studio movies.
It’s tough. I think it’s tough for everybody. Every director and every studio has to believe that it’s going to be magic, that that film will be somehow profitable, and they have to run all their projections, and if it makes this much here, here and here we can afford to spend [this much]. I know it’s a business, and that’s why they stay in business.
