For those of us who haven’t had the chance to read the book (it’s not even 300 pages, we really have no excuse) will finally get to find out what the heck it’s actually about. The extremely vague trailer, when it was first released, left those of us who weren’t “in” on the story, spinning.
The film showed back in October at the London Film Festival to much critical buzz, and we were fortunate enough to get some answers from its three big stars.
Andrew Garfield had nothing but praise for Ishiguro’s novel and the adapted screenplay by Alex Garland saying:
“I think it’s very rare that you find a script that is so full of what it is to be alive, to be human, the struggles that we collectively go through, and this massive existential question mark. I think as actors, you search that kind of meaningful material and when it comes along, you feel it immediately.”
He then added:
“There are terrible scripts, there are good scripts, and there are scripts and stories like this one. I think that none of us hesitated in being part of such a beautiful story.”
Carey Mulligan discussed feeling the extra pressure of having the original creator of her character (Ishiguro) alive and well, saying:
“Keira and I have done lots of adaptations of Dickens and Austen and things where the author’s sort of not around to tell you ‘Oh, that’s rubbish.’
So this was sort of doubly intimidating because we have Kaz here, and you want to be everything that he imagined when he wrote it. So there’s more pressure. But from reading the script and knowing who else was going to be in the film, I always felt like we were all on the same page and we were going to make the same film. ”
Miss. Knightley had a somewhat different relationship with the book:
“I hadn’t read the book,” she admitted somewhat guiltily. “The first thing I knew about it was the the script that came through my door. I thought it was a completely unique piece. I’d never read anything like it.
I then started talking to friends and saying ‘I might do this film, I think it’s really interesting,’ and they said, ‘This is my favorite book in the entire world!’ Then obviously once I’d said yes, I read the book and thought that it was completely astonishing and it’s very exciting to be a part of something like that.”
As all three actors have careers that range from small independent films to big blockbusters (Mulligan was recently in ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ alongside Shia LeBeouf, Knightley rose to international fame with her role in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise, and Garfield is the next ‘Spiderman’), we wondered whether or not they approach these projects differently.
Garfield answered eloquently for everyone:
“No, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure we approach every job as if it was our last and our first. You know, it’s the first day of school and the last day [of filming] is the last day of school, and we’re all never going to work again. I just think you work harder for what you care about. Carey and Keira I respect greatly because they do projects that mean something to them. I’m pretty sure we don’t discriminate in terms of size. I don’t think that’s an issue.”
Carey and Keira?: “That was very well said.”
The film deals with some intense subject matter so we asked how difficult it was to be so emotional all the time.
Garfield explained:
“I think it’s easier to cry than to make people laugh.”
Mulligan agreed saying:
“For us it was really about trying not to cry all the time. I cry all the time, it’s sort of my modus operandi. We all wanted to hold back. We were watching each other a bit like ‘Now don’t drop a tear!’ We didn’t want to portray tragedy or observe our circumstances. We just wanted to live in the world that we were in.”
Uh oh. Sounds like we’re gonna need to bring some tissues! Tragic or not, we’re sure this film is a must see!
Source: Brit Films
"Never Let Me Go" interview with Brit Films
Big thanks to jassma who posted this article to the garfieldlife LJ community! Here's the old/new interview of Andrew talking about "Never Let Me Go" for Brit Films:
