After the preview of Felony at Luna in Leederville (see earlier Felony post), actor, writer and producer Joel Edgerton and director Matthew Saville stayed on for a Q and A. Here are some of the things they discussed.
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| Felony Q and A Joel Edgerton Matthew Saville |
Joel described the movie Felony as touching on the topics of; consequences, whether the punishment fits the crime; and a mans attempts to re-join the human race after such a serious accident.
cont …
Director Matthew Saville was asked why this movie and he explained that it was because of Joel and the script.
‘It’s a very personal topic for me, not that I have been in that situation but the moral question … you see it a lot with hit and runs. I don’t know the answer myself about what I would do in his situation. We all fumble through life until something throws us a challenge.’
He was at pains to point out that the movie was not about police corruption, that the same dilemma could apply to any work situation.
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| Felony Q and A Joel Edgerton |
‘I’m not trying to say anything about the police. During the time I spent with the detectives I realised they are just people. Sometimes you have to put rules in the shadows, they spoke about creative policing.’
Edgerton also stressed that a movie was a collaborative process, particularly that the writing happens over three phases.
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| Thanks to Tony Bective |
‘Phase one is me in a room writing, phase two is shooting and things change on a shoot, phase three is in the edit room. Some big structural changes were made in the editing room on this movie. Sometimes you have to shoot to know what you didn’t need to write.’
After explaining that he is not a good typist, that he only uses two fingers, he further discussed his writing process, which included the luxury of having no deadlines and that he writes anywhere, anytime.
‘I have the luxury that it’s not a job it’s a hobby. My job is being an actor not a writer so I can write with no pressing deadline. I write anywhere anytime sometimes in between things happening on set, while the lights are being set up, there is a lot of downtime on sets.’
‘What’s easy for me is having the idea, the hard part is writing. I often sit on an idea for awhile because something is missing. I might have a short story idea about a dilemma, about telling the truth. The first stage of the writing is fast and messy, then the detail, for me that takes a lot of time. I worked on this for 6 years.’
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© The Ponder Room
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When asked the inevitable question about advice for writers, his answer was refreshingly simple.
‘Get to it, there are no excuses. The sooner you write something bad you will learn what’s bad and then you will get less bad. You get better by just doing it … and get together with like minded people.’
A highlight of the event was when a young girl asked if he ever felt like giving up, his response ..
‘You want me to give up? I feel that way right now, I need to take a break I have been away from home a lot ,away from family and friends. Look if you really want me to give up I will.’
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Director Matthew Saville was asked why this movie and he explained that it was because of Joel and the script.
‘I’d seen his work, and the script was honest, a deep character with a moral dilemma, and it looked at it in a way that wasn’t preachy. It also allows some of the audience to do the heavy lifting in telling the story.’
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| Felony Q and A Tania Chambers Joel Edgerton Matthew Saville |
When asked about working with an actor who was also the writer he described the experience as ‘like being invited into their world, it’s liberating, and fascinating.’
On working with Tom Wilkinson he said Wilkinson ‘doesn’t have to sell the line he just presents the line through him.’
‘You can assume he’ll be fine he’s got two Oscars … the kids got potential. With these actors it was like setting up the camera and then I make a cup of tea and watch the show.’
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| © The Ponder Room Joel Edgerton |
And the advice he gave was that ‘film making is a verb and a verb is a doing word … so go do it.’
So there you have it. What are you waiting for get out there and start writing.
See Trailer here … felony
So there you have it. What are you waiting for get out there and start writing.
See Trailer here … felony
For times go to … Luna
3 Comments
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