New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Then we met him in New York and he was kinda half asleep. He has this stoned persona. Everyone thinks he is stoned the whole time. He’s not. He’s actually sharp as a knife, but he has a façade he hides behind. His problem, if he’s got one, is that he is hyperactive. He’s the opposite. He never sleeps. He just reads books all the time. He does all these college courses and exhibitions. He’s just doing too much stuff. We met him in LA and he read a bit of the script for us and he was amazing. So I knew James was the one.

Did Aron collaborate at all on the script?

Yeah, we showed him each draft of the scripts and told him he was always welcome on the set, but I also said to him – very clearly – that this was going to be our version of his story. What I didn’t want was him being there the whole time overshadowing James, like saying, “Actually I did this. It the other shoelace I tied.” I said, we will be faithful and truthful, and by the time it’s finished, it will feel emotionally truthful. But I want James to go through it as well. The circumstances will be exactly what you went through, but I want James to go through it, rather than James copying you. We agreed that at the end of the film we would hand him back the story, which is why he appears at the end. Aron will be telling it the rest of his life. We won’t be; we will have moved on.

This is the first time you have a screenwriting credit; was this something you always wanted to do?

I like working on screenplays with the writers, but I’m not a writer. I asked Simon Beaufoy to write it. Simon is a climber, an outdoors guy; I haven’t hiked in 33 years. But he couldn’t see what I was talking about in the beginning. He said, “I think you’ve got to do a couple of drafts yourself and then I’ll see if I can come and help.” So I did and it was torture. It was great when I handed it all back to him, because then I could go back to my day job, really, which is criticizing screenplays (laughs). I do that better.

What made you want to reunite with a majority of the Slumdog Millionaire production team?

The problem with success, especially on the scale we had with Slumdog is that everybody kind of says “Yes” all the time. “You’re brilliant. Yes, yes, yes.” And it’s no good for you at all. One of the ways you go against that is you work with the same people or people you’ve known before and trust – who are not frightened to say things to you. That’s a big help. Also, you cut corners, because you understand each other. You can push each other quite hard really. So it was good like that. I try to work with a team. I am very much a team player. It’s important that the team feels equal. Obviously, you are the leader in the end, but I want them to be able to freely express themselves. You gain huge benefits from that.

Continued:       1       2       3       4       5