The Huntsman: Winter’s War
Winter is coming... The snowy sequel leads the charge in our fantasy special.
Mobile phone reception has long since disappeared as Total Film enters into Stockwood, in deepest Gloucestershire. A sign, close to our ultimate destination, points the way, inscribed with the words: ‘The Secret Forest’. Rather apt, you might think, given we’re on the trail for The Huntsman: Winter’s War – the fairytale sequel-of-sorts to 2012’s Snow White And The Huntsman. Magic, mischief and a little bit of mayhem are in the air.
We’re just a couple of miles from the enchanting Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean
– which served as a setting for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the scene where Kylo Ren first meets Rey. Perhaps more importantly, J.R.R. Tolkien was a frequent visitor – with Puzzlewood said to be a major inspiration on the Middleearth of The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings. “It looks like a place that goblins would live in,” smiles The Huntsman producer Sarah Bradshaw.
As TF takes a golf buggy towards the set, the dozens of tracks, trailers and tents that make up the infrastructure of a blockbuster production gradually recede in the rear-view mirror. In front, clouds of smoke are filling the air and cables trail on the ground, leading towards a shady clearing where this morning’s scene is being orchestrated by the incoming debut director, the French-born Cedric Nicolas-Troyan. Welcome, then, to the lair of the Goblin King.
“I guarantee you,” says the excitable Nicolas-Troyan, sporting green jeans and a red baseball cap, “you will not have seen a Goblin like this.” In truth, the creature is nowhere to be seen – apart from on a nearby monitor where a pre-viz sequence is on permanent loop. CGI will fill in the blanks of this gold-horned Minotaur-esque beast. But that’s about the only thing not present on the set – a stunning temple filled with gold plates and other treasures, with Buddha-like statues sunken into the ground.
A cut above
Perched on a ridge above the set is the titular Huntsman himself, Chris Hemsworth. Dressed in garb familiar from the first movie – leather trousers, beige smock, and boots with silver buttons on – the Australian is looking as muscular as his Thor persona, albeit with an axe replacing that mighty hammer. “This is a bit easier to orchestrate some fancy moves with,” he explains, between takes, studying his weapon. “It’s a little more well-proportioned… The hammer’s pretty clumsy.”
For this particular shot, those ‘fancy’ moves require him to actually handle two axes. A red-haired stuntwoman, on wires, somersaults in front of him, performing a roundhouse kick towards the camera. One axe in his hand, Hemsworth pulls the other from behind his back, flips it in his hand and throws it off camera. Except that it doesn’t quite work out like that. Flipping the axe, he drops it on the leafy floor. “Fuck,” he says, grinning at his own cack-handedness.
By this point the film’s real redhead, Jessica Chastain, has arrived to take the place of her double. Brandishing a nifty weapon of her own, two interlocking horn-shaped knives, she rehearses her spin-kick in front of Hemsworth. One of the new stars of The Huntsman, she’s already spent five weeks in fight training – two in New York, three in the UK. But it’s her appearance that’s immediately striking: pig-tails (“I’ve got Mother of Dragons hair!”), daggers on her feet and a scar on her face – her idea. “I love scars!” she says. “[ It’s] beautiful when someone has a flaw.”
As anyone who has already seen the glossy trailer will know, The Huntsman: Winter’s War is really a spin-off from its predecessor, focusing on Hemsworth’s titular axe-wielder and Chastain’s Sara. Cast your mind back and you will recall that Eric the Huntsman was once married – to a selfless and brave warrior, the self-same Sara – until she was supposedly killed. Never seen in Snow White And The Huntsman, Sara’s death sent her husband into a suicidal, boozy tailspin. But what if she never died?
Chastain was immediately intrigued to play a character who was a ‘ghost’ in the original. “They sent me a picture of the character first –
‘It’s a bit easier to orchestrate fancy moves with an axe. Thor’s hammer is pretty clumsy...’ Chris Hemsworth
a sketch – and I’d never had that before. And she looked awesome!” In her mind, it transported her back to her childhood – and
Willow, the 1988 fantasy film she loved so much. “I remember that red-haired badass warrior, Sorsha [ played by Joanne Whalley]. And her and Madmartigan [ Val Kilmer]. I loved that dynamic, that relationship. When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up to be Sorsha. So I was like, ‘This is my chance!’”
The notion of bringing Sara into the fray came when Hemsworth met up with Joe Roth, the über-producer of both Huntsman movies, along with Maleficent and Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland. The talk inevitably turned to sequels. “Jokingly, we were like, ‘Yeah, cool, he can go rescue Cinderella or Rapunzel!’” chuckles Hemsworth. “Then we started thinking about it more seriously: what would that story be? And a lot of the feedback I got from people about the first film, as far as my character goes, concerned the scene in the church where he’s talking about his past and about his wife.”
Nicolas-Troyan, a visual effects supervisor who had shot second unit on Snow White And
The Huntsman, pitched early on to direct a Snow White sequel. “It was another script, another project, and that project didn’t really work out,” he says. Instead, in came director Frank Darabont ( The Shawshank Redemption) to take up the reins. When he pulled out, the Frenchman was back in. “They literally called me up – ding ding ding ding – and Joe said, ‘Hey Cedric, Frank is going to step down and I want you to direct the picture’. And that was that.”
While that sounds easy, scribes Craig Mazin (who penned sequels to The Hangover and Scary
Movie) and Evan Spiliotopoulos ( Hercules) had their work cut out to weave a coherent story. Why? Because the first film’s antagonist, Charlize Theron’s Evil Queen Ravenna, was left shattered into a million gold pieces. And then there was the little question of Kristen Stewart’s Snow White. She may have been the fairest of them all but, in real life, this was the film where her reputation took a battering, after her affair with its director Rupert Sanders became public knowledge.
It was a clandestine coupling that caused major headaches for the studio, as Stewart split from her Twilight co-star boyfriend Robert Pattinson and Sanders separated from his wife, actress Liberty Ross. Somehow, it didn’t dent the film’s box-office – $396 million worldwide
– though backers Universal must’ve been left wondering ‘What if…?’ It was decided that a fresh slate, without Stewart or Sanders, was the most sensible direction to move in – with Sara replacing Snow White as the figure at the front of Eric’s affections.
Back and forth
The result is a wraparound story that takes place before and after its predecessor.
“This is really like a sequel-prequel, which is really bizarre,” laughs Theron, speaking on the phone from Budapest, where she’s shooting Cold War thriller The Coldest City, when TF catches up with her earlier this year. The story promises to dip back into The Huntsman’s past, showing where he first met Sara, but also into Ravenna’s family tree. Yep, the bitch is back.
Assuming you exclude Mad Max: Fury Road – after all, she wasn’t in any of the predecessors – The Huntsman is Theron’s first sequel. “I love this character. I love creating her and finding her,” she says. “And I’ll probably never enjoy playing another character this much. She’s just such a nut-bag. You always go, ‘Yeah, yeah, let’s see how you’re going to work that one in there’ – especially with my character. But I was thoroughly surprised and impressed with how they weaved her back into the story.”
How do they do it? Well, that involves another new character, Ravenna’s sister Freya, played by Emily Blunt. Boasting an ability to freeze any enemy, Freya is the ultimate Ice Queen, left heartbroken and living in a selfimposed wintry exile, where she sets about raising a legion of deadly Huntsmen – including Eric and Sara. When the two fall in love, it breaks her one rule. “She’s my favourite kind of villain,” smiles Nicolas-Troyan. “She’s like Captain Nemo: a villain that does something because she made a choice.”
Blunt, speaking on the phone from New York, concurs: “Her heart has been turned cold against the world.” With the story promising to flesh out this backstory, it then flashes forward to the point where Freya learns of her older sister’s demise. “Like any sisterly relationship, it’s a complicated one,” says Blunt. “I think it’s quite accurate, in a way, to reality. Take away the crazy gowns we’re wearing and you’ve got fundamentally a relationship that is fairly conflicted and riddled with everything from love to heartbreak. They have a very strong sisterly bond, but it’s a corrupted one.”
Theron has her own take on their sibling rivalry. “Well, if they were wolf-pups, I’d eat all the food. And have kicked her out of the den a few times. She’s definitely very manipulative towards her sister – she abuses her power to get what she wants. But deep down inside, it was important for me and Emily to ground it in something that was real. There’s a common bond there, and they have a real love and appreciation because of that. But then their nature is – maybe my character more than hers – to survive no matter what. And my character does it quite viciously.”
Two villainesses for the price of one, “They are double the trouble for Chris Hemsworth!” laughs Blunt. “This will break the mould of the first film.” Setting out to resurrect her sis, Freya can only do so with Ravenna’s allpowerful Magic Mirror – currently missing in action. While Freya is searching for the looking-glass, so is the Huntsman, on the orders of Sam Claflin’s returning King William, which is what brings us to today’s scene in the Goblin Kingdom. “Ravenna’s mirror is here,” says Nicolas-Troyan, gleefully. “It’s been stolen and it’s here, and they’re trying to get it. They have to fight this Goblin King and a lot of other creatures.”
Accompanying the Huntsman are two dwarves, half-brothers Nion (Nick Frost) and Gryff (Rob Brydon). “We’re debt collectors. That’s how we rub up against Chris,” explains Brydon, sitting in a nearby tent in red quilted trousers, a green-sleeved top and two hours’
‘I’ll probably never enjoy playing another character this much. She’s just such a nut-bag’ Charlize Theron
worth of forehead-expanding make-up. “When the king says we need you to get this mirror, I mistakenly think, ‘There’s a reward in this – we’re going to tag along with you.’ So the two of us, these out-of-their depth characters, follow Chris on our little ponies, because we think there will be a reward.”
A little practice
Frost is the only returnee ‘dwarf’ from the original – which cast the likes of Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Eddie Marsan, Toby Jones, Johnny Harris and the late Bob Hoskins. This time, in keeping with the casting of Chastain and Blunt, The Huntsman has two new female dwarves, the feisty Mrs. Bromwyn (Sheridan Smith) and the naïve Doreena (Alexandra Roach), who takes a shine to Nion when the two meet. “You may or may not see some dwarf-on-dwarf lovin’,” grins Frost, his hair styled into a Mohawk.
While some green screen/CGI will be used to shrink the actors, many of the shots are being achieved in-camera. Each has an actual dwarf double, who wear facial masks resembling their full-sized counterparts. “If the shots are wide enough, you never know that it’s not us,” says Frost. “I think Cedric’s theory is that the human eye can be fooled pretty easily.” Sometimes, it can be as simple as lowering yourself. “I thought it would be really technical,” laughs Roach ( Utopia). “But most of the time it’s like, ‘Do you mind getting on your knees?’ I’ve spent most of my time on my knees!”
Apart from Frost, who could draw on his experiences from the first film, the others all had to go to ‘dwarf school’ to learn how to move like those of a smaller stature. “The movement training was so hard to start with,” says Roach. “It was really alien to us. I’d have to go home and practice. One time, I went to Sainsbury’s doing this walk. My boyfriend was like, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I’ve got to get it in my muscle memory!’ He was like, ‘Really? Here?’”
Smith found it equally amusing – a whole month of dwarf practice. “Oh my god, it was hilarious!” she chuckles. “It’s amazing, really. Things you don’t think about. You can’t just bend down and pick something up. You have to put one hand down and pick it up with the other.” By the end, Smith, Roach and the others went out for a walk in the woods, with their doubles, by Shepperton Studios. Did they burst into a chorus of ‘Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go’? “It was very tempting,” nods Roach.
As a big roar goes up around the set, it’s evident that The Huntsman has more levity than its predecessor. True, Ravenna is “still as evil as [ in] the first movie”, according to the director, but it’s balanced with more laughs. “We wanted to make it lighter,” says Bradshaw. “It was definitely intentional.” With Frost and Brydon well versed in improvising, their very presence has kept the others amused. “It’s been hard, being able to keep a straight face,” says Chastain, admitting she’s tickled by the Frost-Brydon “shtick”. “Chris and I die laughing.”
Accentuating the idea that this is more of a family film than the first, Theron reports that Hemsworth brought his three children to the set, who hung out with her son, Jackson, and daughter, August. “There was just a moment with all of our kids – I think Chris shot video of it – just running around in a circle chasing each other, five of them, with axes in their hands, and my son just chasing after Chris’ daughter, ‘Get her! Get her! Get her!’ It will probably be very formative for our children, this movie.” Maybe it’ll turn them into actors? “Or axe-murderers.”
Theron admits Jackson is “not a fan” of his mother playing the Evil Queen. “He does not like Ravenna! He was convinced that Emily Blunt’s character was Elsa from Frozen because she looks like the Frozen character, so he was so in love with her. On the days I had to sit on her throne, he would come up to me and tell me to get out of Elsa’s throne! So Emily was really relishing in that too, using it against me every single day! At one point, he just looked at the monitor and I was screaming or something, and he just went, ‘Mama – spicy!’”
Back on the set, the afternoon is setting in and a light rain is dusting the fields. Chastain is up, in a scene where Sara slides down a hill into the leaf-strewn clearing towards an immovable boulder. Mid-slide, she spins around, impressively. Hemsworth, standing close by, can’t help but marvel over his Oscar-nominated co-star. “There’s nothing
passive about what she does with her character,” he says. “She’s probably the strongest one in the film. Or out of the two of us, she certainly has the fire and what have you, and that’s great.”
Hero shot
Indeed the film may be called The Huntsman, but Hemsworth is outnumbered by the female leads three to one. “He is surrounded by so much vagina on this movie!” cackles Theron, wickedly. In the year of Theron in Mad Max, Chastain in Crimson Peak and The Martian, and Blunt in Sicario, it seems apt that they should all unite here for one female-driven smackdown. “If I was just fronting it on my own I’d be a lot more nervous and apprehensive,” admits Hemsworth. “But once they all signed on, it was game on.”
As for Hemsworth, he’s in full hero mode. “He reminds me of Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon,” says Chastain, echoing the positive sentiments that reverberate around the set. “He’s really charming,” adds Blunt. “He can be very funny. He’s not just Thor. He can do a lot of stuff!” She admits it’s just what a film like this needs. “This is a fantasy and there’s a certain element of all of us knowing what genre we’re in. So you can explore that and have fun within that territory. It’s not like we’re making Remains Of The Day!”
If there’s a missing element, of course, then it’s Kristen Stewart. While Snow White is referenced in the story – Nicolas-Troyan alludes to “another parallel story that’s happening” with the character – there will be no cameo. “I had a great time with Kristen, and I missed her just based on that,” reflects Theron. “But as a story, she feels very much alive in it. We talk a lot about her and she drives a lot of the story.”
With the crew just six days from finishing the shoot, it’s been a long journey – one that’s included weeks at Shepperton filming the climactic battle across three stages. While Bradshaw is coy on the budget, she admits it’s “significantly lower” than the $170 million cost of its predecessor. “I think we’ve managed to get the same scale,” she argues. “I don’t think anyone is going to be disappointed.” From Colleen Atwood’s dazzling costumes to Dominic Watkins’ sumptuous production design, it’s hard to disagree.
How audiences, particularly the Twi-Hards, will react to the story – without Snow White or Stewart – remains to be seen. “I know the first one had great female characters,” says Chastain, “but now we’ve got my character, Emily, Charlize, Alex and Sheridan… [ We] are all completely different. There’s not the trope of girlfriend.” Her mind suddenly rewinds back to an earlier day on set. “I had a scene where Charlize was right in my face playing the Queen. She’s so badass!” As a star of the very male-centric
Avengers franchise, Hemsworth agrees. “I think the balance has been tipped heavily in the men’s direction – seven or eight male superheros and one female. This is the opposite. It’s exciting to be a part of something like that. I don’t think we’ve quite seen it to this level before.” Three wonder women throwing ice, kicking butt and casting spells? Hemsworth looks excited. “Why the hell not?!”
The Huntsman: Winter’s War opens on April 8.