RICHARD LONCRAINE on THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

MakingOf: Tell us about “The Special Relationship,” talk about how that all came together, how you got involved.

(Richard Loncraine): Well, it was very quick, I made, I worked for HBO many times before, from “Band of Brothers,” and then “Gathering Storm” with Albert Finney and then “My House in Umbria” with Maggie Smith. And they’re great to work for ‘cause you can make films that you can’t make for anyone else, really, or for the studios, really. And I worked with a man called Frank Dolger on two of those films and, obviously not the Spielberg, Hanks one, “Band of Brothers.” So I worked, Frank Dolger has become a really good friend and he’s a fantastic producer and he just rang me up and said, on a Thursday, I think he sent me an email and said, “Are you around, Richard?” To which I replied, “Yes, what is it?” “Could you read something really quick?” “Sure.” And that afternoon, went into the studio, and the next morning, started work. Um, just because, well partly, the script, you know Peter Morgan, amazing writer, very good script, fantastic actors and Frank, you know, who I knew, I knew that given the pressures, ‘cause we only had four weeks from the first day of principle…

MO: So you already had the talent attached?

(RL): Yes, uh, we did. Hope (Davis) joined us a little bit later, and I had to take on the crew that was already there. Which is an odd thing to do at my age, because you kind of have built a crew together, but it actually was very refreshing because I had to just go back to basics. And work with people I didn’t know and there’s some fantastic…it was a great crew. Young people that I had never worked…you know, not my contemporaries, but were obviously talented and great and it was a very good working experience.

MO: So tell us about what the movie is about to you?

(RL): What’s is about. Well, it’s obviously about Clinton and Blair, the special relationship which is a term coined by Churchill, maybe in the first? Must be in the Second World War and from that point on about the relationship between the American President and the British Prime Minister. Um, for me, I suppose, well when I read it and thought ok, this is good, but there wasn’t enough time to analyze it, I suppose it was a while because I was talking to Michael Sheen and Peter had left and I don’t really know Peter Morgan at all, he just left and left a great legacy for me to direct, which was a great script. Um, but I was having lunch with Michael Sheen, who I’d known from some years before and talking about, well obviously the film and the film is about the relationship and he said, “Well actually, it’s not just about that. It’s about how Blair got us into Iraq.” And I think that’s the subtext, if you like, that Peter wanted to put down, how this man could move from, seemingly, one place in political life to another place and was able to, probably make one of the great mistakes of, certainly my lifetime, in terms of politics. And how Clinton, you know, I think if Clinton, who I admire enormously, I think he was a wonderful president, but if he had kept it in his trousers, the world would be a different place. It was a real shame that…and also a real shame that America is a society where an indiscretion, a private indiscretion, can destroy a man’s political career. It wouldn’t happen in France, it’s not legal in France, you can’t even report it in France, it’s no ones business what you do with your private sexual life. It’s not, nor should it be, really, and I think it was disgusting the way he was hounded. He shouldn’t have lied, obviously that’s the thing, depends on what the definition of is is. But, on principle I think. Anyway, it opened up a can of worms I think, so the film is really about , I’ve just said, it’s about the relationship between these two men, it’s about how Blair managed to move from one political position to another, you know, how he cozies up to Bush, which was really, you know, a completely opposite camp. When Blaire started, it was a completely different, it was a very strange bed fellow for him to be involved with. Um, but it’s also about the relationship between the wives, it’s predominately about the men, but the wives feature very heavily and Hope (Davis) is playing Hilary Clinton and Helen McCroy playing Cherie Blair, you know, their relationship as well which is important. I think it’s really a film that the climate that we’re in now, people are more, you know I’m not a political animal, if you’d asked me political questions a year ago, I’d be even less informed. But I think the public generally, both sides of the Atlantic, are more interested in their politicians than they were some years ago, so it’s quite appropriate timing for the film.

MO: What were the challenges that you faced in having characters that live today, in the real world?

(RL): It was tricky. Obviously we wanted to, I mean Michael Sheen doesn’t look anything like Tony Blair, but someone said in an interview to me a couple of days ago that they kind of forgot what Blair looked like and they thought that when they saw a picture of Blair recently that it doesn’t look a bit like Michael Sheen! And of course not. And I think it’s the mark of a great actor when they can take on the persona of the actor and not do a “Saturday Night Live” version of it. It’s not wrong, it’s just different. I think Michael and Dennis (Quaid) were able to get the essences of those actors. Dennis knew Clinton personally, he’d stayed at the White House, they’d been out, they “hung out,” I believe the expression is, quite a lot. And Michael had played the part many times before. And we had to be very careful to, um, to not, I was a great believer in seeing the other side of any character in any movie. How can I explain it? If you have a murderer, a thug in a film, I would try and make them be really gentle and kind at one point, ‘cause it’s much more frightening when they’re nasty. ‘Cause the truth is, nothing is straight lined, you know? Mafia bosses have, sadly, died happily in bed and loved their children. And it doesn’t mean to say that bad people end up happy and good people…so, we try and break the other side of the coin. So in the film, we try and stay behind the scenes, with them playing golf and Tony Blair in a bath and Clinton eating corn chips in bed and with a little TV watching cricket, ‘cause he loved cricket as he was educated at the University of England. So I think, hopefully, that helped to digest the political things as well. So you had some counter point, it’s like being a fly on the wall I suppose.