FOOL FOR LOVE
James Corden makes a dramatic comeback for a TV comedy of crisis and romance.
Mammals
Jez Butterworth (writer): I wanted to write about the difficulty of monogamy and relationships, but to have nobody ever talk about it, and to give it the motor of a thriller where there were reversals and cliffhangers and reveals at almost every turn. Once I decided to do that, I realised I’d set myself a real job because you’ve got to burn through so much plot to do that.
How did come about? What appealed about the project?
James Corden: I like the idea that, when we first meet Jamie, he is sort of peak happiness. He’s on a kind of babymoon with his wife Amandine [Melia Kreiling] in Cornwall, the weather’s amazing and he feels like he’s winning in life. Then five minutes later, his entire world changes thanks to two catastrophes [when Jamie discovers Amandine has been having an affair and then she has a miscarriage]. I love the idea of somebody trying to keep a lid on this thing that’s constantly tightening his chest, building up and up, while at no point does he even consider his own behaviour. I’ve never felt more energised doing something or more like I knew exactly how to play someone.
Mammals
Is it fair to say that has a jaundiced view of marriage?
JB: I don’t think its heart is in that place at all – I think I have a wonder-filled, thrilled and baffled view of the whole thing. It’s trying to play on the edge of the magic and the difficulty of it, the promises we make and the promises we try to keep in a universe that hasn’t got our best interests at heart.
Melia Kreiling: I’ve never really had the mum-dad-from-startto-finish situation [in my life].
There have been divorces and halfsiblings in my family, so this felt like a natural kind of story to tell. There’s so much room to start exploring lives that are not necessarily those that have been pushed on us by various norms. I wouldn’t call it jaundiced, I would say that it’s healthy. At least these characters are dealing with things.
Has working on this caused you to reappraise your own relationships?
JB: I haven’t reappraised anything, really, although I learned a lot about craft, how much you can do dramatically with so few bits. It’s a bit like landing Apollo 11 with some Sellotape and a biro.
Does that make you Neil Armstrong, then, James?
JC: Yeah, I think that’s evident in the whole thing. If you don’t come away from the show seeing Jamie as Neil Armstrong, you’ve missed it all really.
a Hollywood movie where we just made stuff up. The producers and the writing consultants are from Cebu and Manila, as are the cast. Chai is from the island of Cebu, so it’s her cultural background.” He ponders. “Also, we play on that trope, and into people’s racial prejudices. The idea with the film was to do a placebo/nocebo on the audience. We think the character is one thing at the beginning, because we’re seeing it from the point of view of this rich, neo-colonialist family. And then the tables get turned, and their allegiances change.”
A movie that messes with your heads? We shouldn’t have expected anything else from Finnegan.