{"id":7351,"date":"2009-12-21T18:35:36","date_gmt":"2009-12-21T17:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=7351"},"modified":"2010-08-23T15:45:49","modified_gmt":"2010-08-23T14:45:49","slug":"interview-neil-gaiman-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/news\/interview-neil-gaiman-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Neil Gaiman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gaiman-headshot\"<\/a>TV viewers looking for something a bit different might want to check out Sky1\u2019s 10-Minute Tales, a series of silent short films running over the holidays. Written and directed by some of the industry\u2019s top talent, they feature something for everybody, from an epic snowball fight to a wartime view of the Nativity. And Christmas Night at 10pm marks the debut of Statuesque, written and directed by award-winning fantasist Neil Gaiman. Starring Bill Nighy and musician Amanda Palmer (former lead singer of the Dresden Dolls), it\u2019s a magical love story about a middle-aged \u2018statue spotter\u2019 and a unique pair of living statues. In this exclusive conversation, Gaiman talks to SciFiNow about the challenges of writing and directing his latest project, as well as drops a hint about his possible involvement with a certain well known genre series.<\/p>\n

How did your idea for Statuesque become one of the 10-Minute Films?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known [producer] Hilary Bevan Jones for a decade, and we\u2019ve always wanted to work together on something, so that was really where it all began. I didn\u2019t know what it would be, but we like each other and have various things that we\u2019re sort of doing together very slowly in the background. But back in May, I got a phone call from Hilary saying: \u201cI think I\u2019m going to do a series of ten-minute-long silent films and I would love it if you would write and direct one.\u201d I didn\u2019t have any kind of idea for a silent film \u2013 I was completely, utterly, irrevocably blank, but then I was at the bookstore Housing Works in New York, who had asked me and Amanda Palmer to do an event together. They had been doing a series of events where they combine authors and rock stars, so I think they had one with Augusten Burroughs and Tegan of Tegan and Sara, and they\u2019d just had one with Salman Rushdie and somebody else and then me and Amanda.<\/p>\n

So we were in the middle of our event \u2013 she had been playing songs and I had been reading and in the middle we did a Q&A with the audience. People had handed in some questions and I had just read a short story that I had written and we were talking about some of the coincidences in knowing each other, in that Amanda had been a human statue and I had written a very creepy short story about a human statue. It\u2019s a story that got picked up in Best Horror and stuff like that so it was definitely not heart-warming, about a human statue that essentially begins stalking somebody. We were just talking about things and there was one of those weird moments when words come out of your mouth and you\u2019re barely even listening to the words that come out of your mouth. You\u2019re just talking and I found myself saying: \u201cI wonder if statues have bird watchers? People who go and look at them and people who tick them off and have statue fanciers?\u201d And there was a certain moment when I realised that I had a movie in my head and I had this short film, so I said: \u201cExcuse me,\u201d and I pulled out my notebook and wrote it down, because I knew it wouldn\u2019t necessarily be there if I didn\u2019t. So that was really where it all began.<\/p>\n

What I loved about the idea was this whole little triangle of a man in love with a human statue, and another human statue in love with him and I thought, it\u2019s a silent movie, because nobody has to talk. For me, the driving thing in all of these things is, why is this a whatever-it is? I\u2019ve occasionally had fallings-out with film producers who want to do an animated movie and I\u2019ll say, \u2018Why does it have to be animated, and why does it have to be the thing that it actually is?\u2019 In this case, the thing for me was, why does it have to be silent, and just the idea of a story in which nobody ever actually talks to anybody, that they\u2019re all silent suddenly made me incredibly happy.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been talking about directing again ever since you did A Short Film About John Bolton. This project was suddenly green-lit \u2013 was this a way of jumping back in the pool to see if you could swim?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not really. There is stuff that you never hear about, so since I did the John Bolton film, I probably get offered movies to direct a couple of times a year. I\u2019ve said no to an awful lot of things and one of the reasons why I normally say no is because I know how tight my time is and how tight my life is. And sometimes I\u2019ve said no because there were things that I wanted to do instead and a lot of the time with film, it\u2019s such a huge commitment and when somebody says: \u201cWould you like to direct this low-budget film?\u201d I\u2019ve never wanted to direct just to direct, any more than I\u2019ve wanted to write a novel just to write a novel. There has to be something there that goes: \u201cOkay, this is something that\u2019s going to be worth giving up 18 months of my life for.\u201d When you\u2019re writing a script like this, do you specifically see Bill Nighy playing Mr Jellaby in your head, for instance, or does a character remain more or less unformed until the actor is cast?<\/p>\n

For Mr Jellaby, I had no idea who they were going to cast. I think I said in the script \u201che\u2019s somewhere between the ages of 35 and 60,\u201d because I didn\u2019t want him much older than 60 and younger than 35 seemed wrong. I wanted you to feel that he was definitely living this strange, sad little bachelor existence alone. But no, I just wrote a script. I was very fortunate to get Bill Nighy. My understanding is that he was offered two of the other silent movies, one of which apparently was written with him in mind and said no to them. Hilary had just mentioned the story of Statuesque and Mr Jellaby to him and he said: \u201cThat\u2019s the one I want to do!\u201d He just loved the story, and I didn\u2019t rewrite it at all once he said yes; I was just honoured to have him. I also knew that I wanted Amanda in it and was thrilled when I was told that I could cast her. But I wanted her mostly because I knew she could pull it off. Back in March, Amanda had done this wonderfully weird thing after her last rock tour. She had finished her last world tour, and instead of doing whatever it is that rock stars normally do when they finish world tours, which I suspect involves swimming pools and things like that, she went back to Lexington High School where she grew up, and worked with them on one of their school plays. She wrote the music and took a small part in it, and I got to watch it on the internet. And I was absolutely fascinated by this weird Buster Keaton-esque quality to the way that she moved and I thought I could really use that.<\/p>\n

How did you end up using Dave McKean\u2019s son, Liam, in the film?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known Liam since his birth and love him. He\u2019s an amazing kid, so bright and funny and whenever I go and see him, he performs for me just as he performs for everybody. Liam has been a working actor now for three or four years; he\u2019s been in Les Miserables and now in Oliver [in the West End], and I\u2019ve seen him do stuff in films that Dave was doing. And one of the things that he does really well is this hip-hop dancing kind of stuff, body popping, which looks really cool when it happens with an 11-year-old boy doing it. I wanted one of my statues to be somebody who would do things like that, so I thought it would be really cool to have a boy and then just knowing that I could have Liam, I wrote that scene with him interacting with all of them and he was absolutely amazing.<\/p>\n

Next:<\/strong> More on Statuedque, Death: The High Cost Of Living and possibly working on Doctor Who.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What are you happiest about with Statuesque now that you can look back at it with some degree of objectivity?
\n<\/strong>
\nThere is no objectivity, absolutely none. It was all madness and all joy. Have I said it was enormously fun? It was really fun making that movie, but it\u2019s also really good. It was so much fun working with Sxip [the composer] on the score and I think it\u2019s just beautiful. The good side for me was that we had three days of shooting and I got everything I needed to get in the can during those three days, even though I would have killed for a fourth day. It\u2019s only when you\u2019re actually in the editing room that you start thinking: \u201cI wish I had that shot!\u201d or, \u201cIf I had a fourth day, we would have got that coverage!\u201d but that\u2019s okay. I had an amazing team, so it\u2019s one of those things where I can happily say that everything good about it is good because I had such amazing people. I had wonderful actors, a fabulous camera team, great set designers, the makeup is glorious, the costumes are amazing, plus I had Hilary Bevan Jones who honestly is one of the most amazing producers. She kept the atmosphere light and the people happy and everything going and there were no crises. Of course there are a thousand little things that go wrong as they go wrong on every film set, but we made our movie and all was good.<\/p>\n

Has this project whetted your appetite for more directing work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What I love is storytelling and this is such a delightful way to tell a story. Honestly, the next time I have a story in my head where I think, \u201cThis is a story that has to be told in film, and I want to do this!\u201d I\u2019ll do it.<\/p>\n

\"Picture<\/a>There was talk for some time about you directing an adaptation of your comic book story Death: The High Cost Of Living for New Line Cinema. Did that pretty much bite the dust when the studio collapsed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The horrible thing was we had got to the point where we had a flashing green light at New Line, so the giant ship was just moving down the slipway and into the ocean when New Line went away. I had a conversation yesterday with a journalist who wanted me to try and explain the whole thing and I said: \u201cYou have to understand, I do not control any of this.\u201d That\u2019s the hardest part of it. Coraline got made because I loved Henry Selick\u2019s work, so when I finished writing Coraline, I sent it to Henry and I stood by him and there was even a period when I wound up giving Henry an extended option for free, so a lot of it was just believing in him and hanging in there. If DC Comics had owned Coraline, it would never have got made, or it wouldn\u2019t have been done like that.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s coming up next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mostly books. Writing books is the official thing that I can say right now. Of course there is other stuff but that I\u2019m afraid is off the record.<\/p>\n

Presumably that includes one well-known British science fiction series \u2013 Doctor Who. But at this point, can you at least acknowledge that you\u2019ve worked on it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hypothetically speaking, was I in any way involved with the next season of any long-running science fictional television series, hypothetically speaking were that true, it would also be true that as far as I know until the second of January nothing is being said\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The acclaimed author talks about books, movies and a possible trip into the Doctor Who Universe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":7355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[1624,7,140,3],"tags":[68],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/gaiman-headshot1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}