MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
Behind the scenes of Kenneth Branagh’s new film of the Agatha Christie classic.
A ll aboard! And we mean all aboard! A goodly portion of planet Earth’s most famous residents have gathered today at Longcross Studios outside London to shoot a scene set at Stamboul (now Istanbul) train station for director Sir Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express (in cinemas on Nov. 9). Branagh, who also plays Christie’s famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, is present and properly dressed in 1930s-era attire. So too are Star Wars heroine Daisy Ridley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe, Hamilton star Leslie Odom Jr, and British acting royalty Dame Judi Dench and Sir Derek Jacobi. There’s more. In one corner of the soundstage, Josh Gad and Olivia Colman ( Broadchurch) are discussing the Police Academy franchise; Penélope Cruz is gliding past the re-creation of a vintage train talking on her phone in Spanish; and Johnny Depp is ruminating to a reporter about the likelihood of his character’s long brown coat being made of leather. “I’m feeling like it’s fake,” he says—incorrectly, as the film’s Oscar-winning costume designer, Alexandra Byrne ( Elizabeth: The Golden Age), will later attest. But the most eye-catching sight is not a person but a thing: the fake moustache sported by Branagh. The item is so extravagantly outsized it almost seems more alien face-hugger than facial fuzz. “When I saw it I was like, Holy moly!” says Ridley. “But this is a larger-than-life story, so why not make the moustache larger, too?”
Poirot is always well-groomed, whether on the page or the screen. The Belgian’s care over his appearance reflects an obsessively meticulous nature, which enables him to investigate the most complex and horrific of crimes, including the brutal attack at the centre of Murder on the Orient Express. First published in 1934, and inspired by Christie’s journeys on the reallife luxury locomotive, which
then ran between Istanbul and Paris, the book finds Poirot investigating a fatal stabbing. With the Orient Express marooned in a snowdrift and the murderer trapped on the train, Poirot interrogates a dozen or so suspects before gathering them together to hear him solve the case. The book’s large number of supporting characters allowed Branagh to cast stars keen to take roles that were chunkier than cameos but did not demand too much of their time. Even so, putting together a schedule capable of catering to the collective calendars of Depp, Pfeiffer, Cruz, et al. was no easy feat. “It was a tonne of planning, I’ll tell you,” the director concedes. “A delicate web of availability.”
A period murder mystery feels like an outlier in this era of comic-book heroes and giant robots, but the film industry has enjoyed a long history with Poirot dating back to 1931’s Alibi, released just 11 years after Christie debuted the character in her very first novel, The Mysterious Affair at
Styles. Most famous is director Sidney Lumet’s star-studded 1974 version of
Murder on the Orient Express, which starred Albert Finney as Poirot and won Ingrid Bergman her third Oscar.
It is true, however, that over the past 25 years, the detective has exercised his “little grey cells” (as he calls his brains) mostly on the small screen. Agatha Christie’s Poirot, starring David Suchet, ran for 13 seasons on British television (as well as on the ABC) until November 2013 (though, as a testament to its popularity, Season 7 re-runs are now
airing on 9Gem). The month after it ended, it was announced that Twentieth Century Fox had acquired the rights to adapt Orient Express as a film to be produced by Simon Kinberg (the X-men franchise), Mark Gordon ( Saving Private Ryan) and Ridley Scott. “It’s proved its worth in years past and it’s a worldwide brand,” says Emma Watts, Fox’s president of production.
Meanwhile, Branagh had graduated from directing Shakespeare to big-budget hits ( Thor and Cinderella) in recent years. He was attracted by the script, written by Michael Green ( Logan), which he says captures both the fun and the fear of Christie’s novel. “The screenplay unleashed something very primal,” Branagh says. “I think we’re making a scarier film than people might imagine.”
Green also dragged Christie into the modern era. “Christie had a tendency to fill her books with 60-year-old English white people, which only takes you so far in terms of interest and casting,” the writer says. Cruz’s missionary has been changed from Swedish to Spanish, for instance, and an Italian character has become Cuban. Most notably, the character of Colonel Arbuthnot was updated from a white English soldier to an American doctor of colour (Odom).
“He’s a black doctor in the early 20th century,” Odom says. “What kind of injustices might he have endured? What would that man have had to be made of to get to where he was?” And how would other characters react to Arbuthnot being in a relationship with Daisy Ridley’s character, Mary Debenham? “Obviously, that would have created a lot of trouble for them at that time,” Odom says.
Further proof that this is not your granny’s Christie: the train in the
“We’re making a scarier film” —Kenneth Branagh
film is stalled by an avalanche rather than a snowdrift, with the passengers stranded on a perilously high bridge—and Branagh’s detective is far more physically fit than his predecessors. “One of the earliest thoughts was to imagine Poirot not at the tail end of his career but still honing his craft,” Green says. “That left us with the possibility of a man who still has some vitality, who is perfectly capable of hitting back if someone accused tries to hit him.”
Shooting began last November, with early arrivals at Longcross including Gad, Odom, Ridley, and, obviously, Branagh. “I don’t mean it in a disparaging way to myself,” Odom says, “but the famous people didn’t really come until after the New Year.”
Gad recalls being particularly intimidated by Dench. “At first, none of the young cast members felt enough confidence to approach her,” he says. “I, of course, being the idiot that I am, went up to her on probably Day 3 in the makeup trailer as she was reading her lines. I tapped her on the shoulder and I said, ‘Dame Judi Dench? More like daaamn Judi Dench!’ That could have been the last time I ever worked in Hollywood, but from that point forward, the two of us had this amazing rapport.”
Branagh is cagey when discussing just how closely the plot of his film resembles that of the source material. In the book, and every previous filmed version of it, the murder victim would be Depp’s Mr Ratchett, a rather odious American antiques dealer. But is he this time?
“I would have to kill you if I told you quite how long Johnny Depp was [in the film],” the director says. “What I would say is that Johnny Depp makes such a strong and powerful impression that you feel he’s there for a significant part of the movie.” And, in general, the director shrugs off concerns that Christie aficionados will be able to anticipate some of the movie’s twists and turns. “I spent last summer directing Romeo and Juliet [on stage],” he says, “and everyone knows how that ends.”
The Bard’s star-crossed lovers never got a sequel, but Branagh is hopeful that his Poirot will have further adventures. “I’d be absolutely delighted to do more,” he says.
He’s not the only one looking forward to that possibility. “As Judi Dench was leaving, she said, ‘I’ve had such a good time on this, you have to cast all of us in the next one and we’ll all play different parts,’ ” Branagh says. “She said, ‘I’ll wear the moustache next time, if you want.’ ”