ALIEN NATION

Only number five?!” laughs producer James Wilson. “I’m kidding. I’m proud that we beat Tree Of Life. I’m proud of a lot of things about Under The Skin. It didn’t make a lot of money when it came out but it’s been such a thrill to see the impact it’s had over time.”

Attached to the project since its early days during the filming of Jonathan Glazer’s debut, Sexy Beast, Wilson spent 12 years watching the script develop from a straight adaptation of Michel Faber’s novel (complete with furry alien farmers and a starring role for Brad Pitt) to the strippeddown version that made it to the screen in 2013. “It was like peeling away the layers of an onion,” remembers Wilson. “I think Jonathan was working out what story he actually wanted to tell. In the end he realised that he just wanted to look at our world through alien eyes, almost like a documentary, over the shoulder.”

But with Scarlett Johansson in the lead, shooting over one of the most famous shoulders in the world wasn’t exactly easy. Building fake shop fronts in the middle of Glasgow, hiding cameras in suitcases and having runners ready to chase down pedestrians to sign release forms, Glazer insisted on filming “real people” wherever possible.

“I often doubted that it would work!” laughs Wilson, recalling the elaborate setup for the film’s driving scenes – where Johansson drove around Glasgow in a real van rigged with eight hidden cameras and a film crew crouched in the back seat, trying to pick up men. “Scarlett was understandably reluctant to do it at first, but there were two things that were really surprising about those scenes. Firstly, no one refused to sign the release form. Secondly, it was amazing how few actually wanted to get in the van. Most men just faced that kind of sexual forwardness and instantly wilted.”

Prompting everything from love and hate to queer theory and feminist readings, the film seems to have burrowed its way into the collective subconscious since it came out in 2013. “It’s a film people talk about as having had an impact on them – especially other filmmakers,” says Wilson. “It’s also a film that had its own very idiosyncratic atmosphere. There’s something in Under The Skin that plants both feet in a language of pure cinema. Above everything else, I think we made a genuinely cinematic experience – and that’s all we ever wanted to do.”

UNDER THE SKIN IS AVAILABLE ON DVD

AND BLU-RAY.

Producer James Wilson on the making of a sci-fi film like no other.