Cast a giant shadow
Clamber up the beanstalk for a tall tale with a high body count in Bryan Singer’s Jack The GiantSlayer.
FAIRYTALE-based movies are all the rage now. The thing is, movies like Snow White And The Huntsman, Red Riding Hood and the more recent, Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters are not exactly family-friendly as they are dark and adult-oriented. Leave it to director Bryan Singer to bring the fun back to fairytales with his take on Jack And The Beanstalk. His new movie Jack The Giant Slayer sees its flawed protagonist Jack going on a heroic quest; its beautiful and feisty heroine Princess Isabelle trying to make her mark outside castle grounds; its villain with bad hair and bad teeth demonstrating his really bad intentions; and of course, hungry giants (yes, plural) out to eat people and a cast that’s obviously having a ball throughout.
Mind you, there are some bits involving the giants that are kind of scary. Singer admits that this actionadventure feature has more dead bodies than all of his previous movies combined. (And this is the guy who has done thrillers like The Usual Suspects, action-adventures XMen, X2 and Superman Returns, and the wartime thriller Valkyrie.)
“I’ve counted,” says Singer at an interview in London, where he and the cast have gathered to talk about
Jack The Giant Slayer to both the English and international press.
“It’s a family movie, something that parents can bring their kids to; teenagers too. It’s fun. It’s absurd. But there is a body count.”
He explains: “I knew people were going to be stepped on, they were going to get eaten, and I felt that if that’s going to happen, I want kids to be afraid but I don’t want them to be upset. So I created a whimsical tone inspired by films like The Princess BrideBride. “The characters, Jack and Isabelle, are pretty traditional, but surrounding them with these heightened characters creates a fun world where young audiences know they are seeing a movie. That it’s an adventure. It’s a fairytale.”
This is echoed by Ewan McGregor, whose straight-arrow knight takes his job of guarding the kingdom and its royal family very seriously.
McGregor, a father of four daughters,ters, shares that he grew up with fairytales and reads them to his children.
“I remember when my first daughter was born, for her first birthday, my parents sent this anthology of fairytales and I thought it was a nice and meaningful present. The fact they are short stories, you can read them from start to finish before they go to sleep. And they deal with our fears as children.
“I mean, the real classic ones, The Grimm Tales, some of them are really violent and bleak, and you don’t want to scare the s**t out of your children before they go to sleep. However, they have always dealt with things that children have been afraid of, but in a safe environment, because the story starts ‘A long time ago, in a land far, far, away’.
“The child knows that this is not happening in their lives, this is something in the distant life. They can feel fear of the giants, but be in a safer place. And as human beings, it is part of the development to build those (mechanisms) so we can get on with our lives, I suppose.”
The story appealed to Singer’s filmmaking sense as he felt Jack And The Beanstalk is less of a fairytale and more of an adventure story. It has a very straightforward fable – a farmer becoming rich by killing a giant and taking the latter’s wealth – but Singer saw the potential of taking the story on a more exciting route.
As played by Nicholas Hoult, peasant farmer Jack does lead a mundane life but he wants more out of it. He does get his hands on magic beans, but more because they are forced upon him. And he is transported to the land of the giants (called Gantua), but there is a beautiful girl, a princess no less, involved
BRYAN Singer – who was instrumental in casting Nicholas Hoult as Beast in X-Men: First Class, which he produced – also wanted him to play the title role in his next directing gig, Jack The Giant Slayer. He wanted to make sure Hoult was the right choice for the role, so he saw many other young actors before getting back to the young man.
Their association looks set to continue with Singer down to direct next year’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past, with Hoult reprising his role as the furry blue mutant also known as Hank McCoy.
In an interview in London, Singer reveals why he thinks Hoult is so special: “He’s got an awkward vulnerability that makes you really want to root for him. You want him to succeed – find an adventure and get the girl. He reminds me very much of a young English Jimmy Stewart.”
The 23-year-old first made people sit up and take notice of him as Marcus Brewer in the 2002 film, About A Boy. After that he went on to do the series Skins on British TV. This was followed by films on both sides of the Atlantic like The Weather Man, A Single Man, Clash Of The Titans and X-Men: First Class.
This year, besides Jack The Giant Slayer, he is also in the main cast of Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies. Likewise, his co-star Eleanor Tomlinson also started acting when she was very young. She was just 13 when she played the younger version of Jessica Biel’s character in The Illusionist.
Eight years later, she has gained a resume that includes roles in British TV ( Dr Who) and films ( Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging and Alice In Wonderland).
The 20-year-old beauty – whose parents are both actors – is also patron of the charity Wheelchairs for Kids in her hometown of East Yorkshire, England.
Paired for the interview in London, the two demonstrated a similar sense of humour. Here’s what transpired.
What appealed to you about this film?
Hoult:
I love the story. The epic scale of it and the giants; now that they can do the motion capture and stuff, they can really create a character with giants. It’s also something I grew up with and thought it was a good time to make the fairytale into a film.
Tomlinson: What I really liked about the film is the twist. There is a princess. Bring it on!
Did you have to do a lot of climbing and training for the role?
Tomlinson: We did a good couple of weeks before we started shooting, wall-climbing, rock-climbing ... and they had a beanstalk in the studio that we could practise on. So we were really physically fit. And Nic trained with the stunt team and a trainer.
That was kind of part of it – to be in tip-top condition and able to take on the challenges our characters have to take. That’s a big part of playing Isabelle. She is adventurous and throws herself into everything.
Hoult: Including me.
Jack and Isabelle go out of their way to find adventure in their lives. How about you two?
Hoult: We’ve both done skydiving, haven’t we? I’ve done shark diving.
Tomlinson: Have you? Hoult: Yea.
Tomlinson: How was it? Hoult: It was good. There was a 5m one that was close. But I found skydiving scarier than the shark dive. So, yea, I did a bit of that. I like
the adrenaline rush, occasionally. If you had a magic bean where would you like it to take you?
Hoult:
Erm, I would go to the top of Everest, so I can say I have been there. I’d fly a little flag up there.
Tomlinson: Where would I go? Probably right to the bottom of the sea and I would fly my little flag there that says ‘Eleanor was here’. Yea. Something like that.
Nicholas, you have two movies that are back to back – JackTheGiantSlayer and
WarmBodies. How are you handling leading-
man status?
Hoult: I don’t have to deal with it (laughs). This is the first film we shot and then we shot Warm Bodies after. It’s great that the film has been successful. It’s been a treat making the movie and for people to be enjoying it and watching it. Hopefully the same thing will happen with this one, because we had a good time making it.
You once said that you are not comfortable with the attention acting brings you. Have you changed your mind about that?
Hoult:
You know what? I don’t really get that much attention.
Tomlinson: He wishes he has a lot more. Hoult: Yea. I wish I got a lot more attention (laughs). When Warm Bodies came out, we