There have been few cinematic creations quite like Dom Hemingway this year, a character portrayed by Jude Law by such intensity, convulsion and effervescence – making it a real joy to meet the man behind him, as we caught up with Dom Hemingway’s writer and director, Richard Shepard.
The American filmmaker discusses his moulding of such an explosive role, and the challenge in taking Law, and stripping him of his inherent charm and good looks. He also speaks about Law’s role behind the scenes, striking the balance between comedy and tragedy, and explain that opening scene…
So I’ll start by asking about the very first scene…
What about it?
Well, it was somewhat surprising, a quite in-you-face introduction. Can you tell us the reason for starting your film so boldly?
When I was writing my script, I almost didn’t know what the movie would be about, I wanted to create a character who had just come out of jail, but I didn’t know who or what. It took me a while to figure that out and I had various aborted openings I was working with, and then finally I just started writing that scene, and it kind of came out of me. I thought, oh, this guy is interesting – I wanna spend some time with him. In a way it opened up the floodgates and writing the rest of the movie was quite simple after that, because I had conquered this mountain. Then I started to wonder, can we actually do this as an opening of the movie? It’s all well and good being the first page on a script, but can it actually work? But you know, the thing with Dom is, he puts you off and it’s hard to know whether you like this guy at first, and I think by the end of the movie you do. That’s a great journey for people to go through, so maybe that opening scene is great because it is funny if you look at it in an amusing way, and it’s also shocking, but very much who Dom is, it’s very of his character. I said to the editor, if this scene came at the end of the movie people would be laughing from beginning to end because they know Dom, and they would love it. But in the beginning they don’t know what to make of this guy. I was always like, that’s okay, we’re not making a TV show where people can turn the channels. People have sat down and paid their money and they’ve got their popcorn and they’re watching, and now this is the beginning of a ride really.
It’s a real testament to yourself and to Jude that Dom is endearing, as you can’t help but grow to like him. That must have been a real challenge considering the type of person he is?
Yeah, I said to Jude, this is not going to be a situation where instantaneously the audience are like, oh we love him, let’s follow him anywhere! That’s one of the reasons why I hired Jude, because I believe he’s inherently likeable. If you take an actor who is inherently cold it would never work in this movie, because Dom pushes you away and Jude has a way of bringing you back in. He’s very surprising in the movie and he’s never played a role like that, but I knew it would be okay to push the audience because we’ll get them back. I knew that scene on the train when he’s hungover after his three day sex and drug orgy that sort of whining in a funny sort of way about the pain he was in, I knew then people would start to like him because we can all relate. Maybe we can’t all relate to a three day sex bender, but we can relate to being hungover, so I knew people would see Dom as a real person. One of the things Dom does constantly is fail and suffer, and in a way as he suffers and shoots himself in the foot and is such a mess, we start liking him more and understanding that all that tough stuff is just one part of his personality.
Jude Law is famed for his good looks and charisma, and suave charm he has. You had to strip him of all of that – he has to be a very ugly human being. That can’t have been easy?
Yeah that’s right, but Jude understood from first reading the script that this was a really juicy part and one of the things we talked about early on was that this was a guy I wanted Jude to gain weight for, I wanted him to have his receding hairline and I wanted to fuck up his nose a little bit. Dom may have been good looking when he was younger, but now he’s 40 years old and fucked up, and he looks it. So Jude had to do that, he had to let himself go. For an actor that’s always a scary thing, but I think Jude always saw Dom as sexy, and I also did, there is something kinda sexy about him. Even when he’s just a mess. Jude was very happy to show everyone that there was more to him than what people marginalise him for because of the way he started and how pretty he was. He’s almost not regarded as highly because of that, and this was an opportunity to say, fuck you, actually I’m a really good actor – you’re going to be charmed by Dom and you aren’t going to expect it.
Was there ever anyone else in mind for the part?
Jude wasn’t in mind, but he was my first choice. The list was actually very short because I didn’t want anyone who had ever played a gangster before, so in London that cuts out like 80% of the actors. So my list was incredibly short, but I needed someone who was the right age but also who has got that sparkle in his eye. For whatever reason, and it’s always luck in these instances, it just came about at the exact right moment and we caught him when he was really interested. Then it took some wooing to actually convince him to commit, and he did, and he was an amazing partner.
Am I right in thinking he played a role in the casting process for other characters as well?
He did. I wrote one part for Richard E. Grant, so he was actually cast before Jude was. But yeah, Jude sat in on auditions for all the smaller roles, or most of them, and was very much part of the process, and even came into the editing room and was involved in the choice of music and all this stuff. I found him to be the only other person in the world who truly understood Dom other than myself. So although all the other people involved in this movie cared and worked their asses off to make this, I always knew that Jude was my bullshit detector on Dom and vice versa, and that was actually a really nice working relationship. Sometimes you just never want the actor in the editing room because they’re only looking at things that have nothing to do with the movie, but their hair is in the wrong place or whatever. Jude was able to come in and say we needed more Dom-ness and stuff, and it was really helpful and fun.
Is that quite rare? For an actor to get that involved behind the scenes?
I think it depends on the filmmaker. Some people are, by their nature, protective, and sure to point out what is their job and what is the job of others. “We’ll meet at the premiere”. But I’m not part of that, I like working closely with actors. Well, the right actor. I made this movie The Matador a few years ago and I truly believe that Greg Kinnear saved the movie in the editing room. I would not be sitting here talking to you right now if Greg had not come in the editing room and saved the movie. Since then I learned a valuable lesson about certain types of actors who are very smart and are able to see past their own performance, because they know the movie we’ve just shot as well, if not better, than me sometimes.
Were you tempted to bring in Greg Kinnear as an editor on Dom Hemingway too?
He actually came to an early screening and gave me notes [laughs].
The film is so inherently British, in a caricature way – but has shades of Withnail & I, Bronson too. Are you just naturally in tune with British sensibilities, or did you have do some research into the culture?
I didn’t have to do any research, but my movie going life was a lot of research. Withnail was always an enormously important movie to me and Sexy Beast and The Hit and The Limey. These films are ingrained in my DNA. I find them funny and I don’t find it to be British humour, I just find it funny. So I was able to say what felt funny to me, and what felt right to me – and I was helped when we made the film over here, by people leading me a little left or right to see if I was getting certain things right, changing words here and there. But not a lot of it, just enough to make sure it was legitimate as we could get it.
Even though you fully believe in the characters, the film is quite fantastical and the dialogue isn’t exactly naturalistic, it’s all very eloquent and theatrical. To an extend, coming from an outside point of view – from a cultural perspective – helped in that regard?
I think it’s always very interesting when somebody outside of a culture makes a movie and somehow captures it in somehow, as I may be able to look at things in a slightly different way because it’s not something I’m used to. A certain street might seem really interesting to me that you’ve seen a million times, but for me it’s new. But I wrote Dom with a theatricalness about him, I always wanted him to be grounded, but I was curious about how big we could make him and still keep him real. That was always the question, and I said to Jude that we can’t have one minute where it seems ridiculous, but at the same time this is going to get pretty big and some silly things are going to happen. You know, we’re gonna Richard E. Grant losing his hand, and so on, but to get that big we had to be grounded while doing it, and that’s not so easy, but thankfully I had a lot of people helping me.
Just finally, the film strikes a perfect balance between comedy and tragedy, and there are funny moments and then those that are highly uncomfortable. How did you go about striking that balance?
I’m glad you said that because I am a big fan of mixing tone and I think that sometimes it can be just a comedy, or just a drama, and I feel like life is a combination of the two. This is going back to the idea that I think people are going to care about Dom, even when they think in the beginning they aren’t going to. But Dom has had some serious stuff happen to him and stuff he inflicted on himself, but I think it’s always cool toggle those tones and as you’re editing the movie you have to be careful. If it’s too funny you may lose the drama, and if it’s too dark they’re not going to laugh, so that’s part of the process of putting the movie together. So it’s just balancing that tone, and it’s not guarantee you’re going to get it right. In a drama, there can shitty, bad filmmaking and you’re not going to notice because it’s dramatic. In a comedy, if you’re not laughing, it’s not funny. But when mixing the two that’s what makes it interesting and I like movies that mix tones – most of my favourites do. Withnail & I is a classic example of a film that is very dramatic and human and heartfelt, and yet is obviously brilliantly funny, and silly as well.
Dom Hemingway is released on November 15, and you can read our review here.
