TOTAL FILM INTERVIEW
Aaron-Taylor Johnson on working with Nolan, the Avengers and his other half.
From Kick-Ass and Godzilla to Christopher Nolan’s next movie, British star Aaron Taylor-Johnson is firmly in Hollywood’s crosshairs. But after shepherding searing addiction drama A Million Little Pieces to fruition, he wants more than just a career on screen. Total Film meets the 29-year-old who can’t help getting creative.
The last time Total Film met Aaron TaylorJohnson, the actor was caked in mud and blood in a field outside of Glasgow. The set was for the “relentless” Outlaw King, David Mackenzie’s historical drama that saw Taylor-Johnson roar across the screen as Sir James Douglas, ally to Scottish freedom fighter Robert the Bruce. Today, TaylorJohnson is less gunk-splattered but still dreaming of Scotland. “In a couple of weeks, I’m going to go back to the Highlands,” he sighs. “I miss it.”
Before he can plan his holidays, though, he’s got the little matter of A Million Little Pieces to contend with. Based on James Frey’s controversial memoir (he admitted it was part-fabricated), TaylorJohnson plays Frey in what is a harrowing look at addiction, rehab and sobriety. While Frey’s journey is anything but easy to watch, for Taylor-Johnson it’s been a “beautiful joy”, co-scripting and producing with the film’s director, his own spouse, Sam Taylor-Johnson.
While they’ve been together for the past decade – and had two daughters – the
Taylor-Johnsons haven’t worked on a movie project since 2009’s John Lennon bio Nowhere Boy. By that point, Johnson – as he was then, before they coupled up – had already spent over a decade in showbiz. Born in High Wycombe, the son of a civil engineer, early small roles included Shanghai Knights (as the young Charlie Chaplin) and The Illusionist (as, er, the young Edward Norton).
A brief flirtation with teen heartthrob status in 2008’s Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging notwithstanding, TaylorJohnson’s breakthrough as the Beatles’ Lennon was huge. Aside from introducing him to his future wife, artist Sam TaylorWood – as she was known then – it also set him up as an actor of serious intent. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he also had Kick-Ass in his back pocket, playing the green-costumed wannabe at the heart of Matthew Vaughn’s boot to the bollocks of the superhero genre.
Since then, Taylor-Johnson has managed his career expertly: blockbusters such as Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla and Avengers: Age Of Ultron (he was Quicksilver) have nestled neatly alongside edgy fare such as Doug Liman’s war-time drama The Wall and Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, which won Taylor-Johnson a Golden Globe and a Bafta nomination for his turn as Ray Marcus, the sadistic Texas gang leader who tears Jake Gyllenhaal’s writer’s life apart.
His commitment to the role went above and beyond. “Thank you for putting up with me… it wasn’t very pleasant,” he said, to his watching wife, during his Globes acceptance speech. But this is what you get with Taylor-Johnson: absolute immersion. He manages the same in A Million Little Pieces, bearing skin and soul as a character who gradually finds community in fellow addicts (Billy Bob Thornton, Giovanni Ribisi, Odessa Young) around him.
While celebrity isn’t on TaylorJohnson’s to-do list – in person, he’s sincere and honest – that won’t stop him committing to the big guns when they come along. Case in point: after a reunion with Vaughn on Kingsman prequel The King’s Man, he’s now working on Christopher Nolan’s hushhush espionage project Tenet. It might be the perfect marriage for an actor like him: a blockbuster with a planetsized brain…
How did A Million Little Pieces start for you and Sam?
It’s always been a book that Sam’s wanted to make into a movie. For the last 10 years at least. It’s something we’ve talked about and we loved reading James Frey’s books. And it’s such a visceral story, A Million Little Pieces. It was set to be made a bunch of times. I guess she just followed it, the project, as it was going from one filmmaker to the next. Constantly feeling envious – why doesn’t anyone hand it to her because she had a great vision for it? And it went on that way for a while until one day the rights reverted back to James Frey. We wrote him an email from both of us, and he literally wrote back in less than a minute. We jumped on the phone with him and said, “Are we right in thinking the rights are back up for grabs?” He said, “Yeah, sure – do you want to do it?” And we were both like, “Yeah, yeah, we do!” And he said, “Great, it’s yours! Go make art with it.”
What was it like adapting the book with Sam? It’s your first time as a screenwriter…
It was beautiful – it was one of the best experiences I’ve had in a long time. We spent 18 months writing the script together. We pulled the book apart completely, and then broke it up into a three-act structure and wrote on three-by five-cards, and covered the studio wall [with them], and took characters out and made three characters into one. And then we just studied. It made me learn a lot more of the craft as a whole: the whole filmmaking process, the acting side of things, how scenes are broken down, how the structure of a film is put together. It was just a great experience.
How much did you know about addiction? Did you use James himself as a resource?
It became 18 months of relentless studying. That’s how I attack my roles in acting anyway. You need to know the ins and outs. You need to know everything in order to just use a small piece of it. I’d text James and he’d text me back within minutes. He was very accessible. I could get pictures and photos of him. I could get in touch with his friends, family. I took a road trip with him. We went back to the treatment centre that he went to at the time in Minnesota and I spent time with his brother. It was hugely influential to the writing of the script. This was a year before I’d started to think about how I was going to portray James.
There were a lot of accusations of Frey’s book being fabricated. How did you deal with that?
We were totally aware of the controversy and ultimately we wanted to stay true to the soul and spirit of the book, and the story there, and take it from the point of view of an addict trying to find hope and redemption and light at the end of the tunnel. And the support of this community, and pushing through the barriers of shame. I think that in itself was enough to feel like it was a relatable story or an empathetic journey. Those are all the traits we wanted to try and capture. There are people who love the book and remember moments from it, so there are certain events that you had to keep – like the opening shot on the aeroplane or the dentist’s chair. Some of those things were just monumental and we needed those. But we changed a few things around. The controversy… I felt it gave us an artistic licence to go, “OK, we’re going to try and be abstract and show a more cinematic version of it.” I felt it gave us that freedom to be bold.
It’s been 10 years since you worked with Sam on You’ve been
Nowhere Boy.
together ever since that film, but was it different coming back for a second directorial experience?
We’ve done a few projects together through the years anyway. We did a music video for R.E.M. [ÜBerlin]. We did the Givenchy campaign… so I think we have a voice that we do together. We definitely bounce off each other’s energy and we definitely are creative and bold. The major thing is, Sam is a fantastic director because she’s instinctual. It’s magic to see her work. And I feel comfortable in that realm, too. Plus I also have such trust with her that it means we can just explore and play and experiment, and that’s where we were able to push each other in the boundaries. Because it’s scary – you’re vulnerable and you’re doing things that I wouldn’t do in the hands of other people.
You mean like the film’s nudity?
I’ve done nudity with other directors in other films but obviously there is a lot more on show in this film. But we felt [we had] to show James literally stripped naked, of his inhibitions, his vulnerability… he’s lost his soul. He’s spiralling out of control in his addiction. The funny thing is, we shot it on day one
WE WANTED TO STAY TRUE TO THE SOUL AND SPIRIT OF THE BOOK