Interview: Nash Edgarton (The Square)

See Tiger? Things could have gone worse for you. Sure, it’s no
picnic to [allegedly] be chased down’s one driveway by a club-wielding
spouse, but buck up buckaroo. There’s an Australian film titled, THE
SQUARE, that might put your life and past decisions in perspective.

THE SQUARE follows the story of a love gone wrong, focusing on an
adulterous pair, Ray Yale and Carla Smith, who just want to escape
their current lives, so they can live together happily ever after.
Unfortunately, their plans go horribly awry because as it turns out:
contracting out part of your escape plan to a professional arsonist
can cause some unexpected problems.

Since the film centers around ordinary people’s lives spinning wildly
out of control, who better to direct such a project than someone who
knows how to control [seemingly] out-of-control situations? Yes, Nash
Edgerton already has made a name for himself in the entertainment
world as a stunt performer working on such Hollywood films as THE
MATRIX TRILOGY, STAR WARS II and III, and SUPERMAN RETURNS. However,
his resume does not stop there. He’s also an accomplished editor and
actor, and he has directed award-winning short films and music videos.
But, THE SQUARE marks Nash’s directorial debut when it comes to
feature films, so I was happy to sit down with him for a Q and A.

Stephen McNamee: How do you think first being a stuntman shaped
your directing style, if it did shape your style?
Nash Edgerton: It probably did whether I liked it or not. Stunt
work for me is all about being adaptable, being able to solve
problems. You get asked to do a certain thing and you try to make it
look real and make it safe. So that whole problem-solving aspect of
it and being adaptable when stuff changes and thinking on your feet
and all that kind of stuff definitely feeds in to me when directing.
And, being a stuntman on film sets, I got to watch other directors do
their thing. You’re part of the process. You see what happens that
day. You see the end result. You see what works and what doesn’t
work. And when I started, I was like a sponge, and that was my film
school really.

McNamee: I read in the production notes that your brother Joel
wanted the movie to be about an “ordinary man who does something
completely out of his own sphere.” [Joel Edgerton wrote the story and
co-wrote the script for THE SQUARE]. We had little backstory on any
of the characters. Was that a decision made for this film because you
wanted people in the audience to feel like they could step into any
one of the characters’ shoes and say, “I could see myself making the
same decision in that situation”?
Edgerton: Totally. It was definitely about having all the
characters’ decisions that were being made being feasible and
accessible to people, so that they’d go, “I can see why he made that
decision” or “I can see how I’d make that decision.” Everyone has
their own limit on how far they’d go compared to how far Ray goes, but
I feel like Ray’s decisions are all justifiable decisions or feasible
decisions that under certain circumstances most people would say, “I
would maybe make that decision to see if it would work.” And this
[movie] shows you quite clearly how it doesn’t work [laughing]. It’s
like a “how NOT to have an affair” guide.

McNamee: Regarding the character of Lily [played by Hanna
Mangan-Lawrence], there’s a great scene where she’s trying to decide
whether to tell her boyfriend Billy [played by Joel Edgerton] whether
Ray called. There’s this sense of violence that is about to explode
if she tells the truth. Was that a difficult scene to shoot? Did you
try filming it a lot of different ways?
Edgerton: The whole film kind of hinges on that moment. I definitely
got her [Hanna Mangan-Lawrence] to say it different ways. She was
such a great find. That character, Joel had originally written to be
a lot older, and I tested about 100 girls about ten years older than
her [Hanna], and I saw lots of great auditions, but for some reason it
wasn’t working. Then, I was working on another film and in that film
there was a young actor who reminded me of Sissy Spacek in BADLANDS,
and then, I realized in THE SQUARE that the girl should be younger,
should be a teenager because then you believe she wouldn’t say
anything…and then I just auditioned younger girls and when Hanna came
in there was just something great about her. A lot of young actors
feel the need to always be doing something, and for a young actor, she
was comfortable doing nothing and being silent, so I was really
comfortable with her.

McNamee: I’m curious about Blue Tongue Films. From what I can
gather it’s a loose collection of filmmakers, actors, writers, etc.
So how does that work? When you approach a studio about an idea for a
film, do you try to create a united front?
Edgerton: Up until now, the features that have been made, mine THE
SQUARE, David [Michôd]’s film, Animal Kingdom, and Spencer [Susser]’s
film Hesher, they’ve all been independent films, and the next one that
Kieran [Darcy-Smith] is making is an independent film as well, so we
haven’t had to deal with that yet. We definitely all support each
other in whatever way we can. Everyone works on each other’s films.
It’s like a healthy competition where you push each other to make
something really good, so you then have to step up and making
something as good or better than the last person. [Note: David
Michod, Spencer Susser, and Kieran Darcy-Smith are all original
members of Blue Tongue Films.]

McNamee: Do you make sure on a film to utilize Blue Tongue talent?
Edgerton: Totally. David and my brother and Kieran are definitely
the strongest writers, and if someone else is writing, you might pass
it to those guys to see what they think. And Luke, Spencer, and I are
probably the stronger editors, so everyone makes sure those guys see
stuff when editing, and Kieran and Joel are good actors and I do
stunts, so everyone offers whatever they’ve got to help out on films.
It feels really good to have your friends around when you’re making
stuff, and the fact that they can contribute to stuff is even better.

McNamee: Do you have a vision for Blue Tongue going forward?
Edgerton: We want to keep making films together. I feel like we’ve
been doing it for a long time, and everyone knows everyone’s strengths
and weaknesses, so we want to keep making films. I don’t know if
we’ve ever had a set goal or anything like that, but David and I just
wrote another short together, and Joel and I are writing another film
together at the moment. David’s film and Spencer’s film are both
coming out this year. And Kieran’s making a film, and I think my
brother will be in that, and everyone will help out in whatever way
they can.

McNamee: I read somewhere that you often badger people in Blue
Tongue to keep pushing their own ideas and doing their own thing as
well as working on each other’s projects.
Edgerton: Yeah. I definitely “encourage.” [laughing] Because any
time my friends’ make something, it makes me want to make something,
so I guess it’s just a roundabout way of pushing myself.

McNamee: I assume you’ve seen the South Park cartoons where in the
first few seasons, the character, Kenny, dies a horrible death in each
episode. Do the Blue Tongue members worry that you’re giving Brendan
Donoghue [who appears in THE SQUARE and Blue Tongue’s 2010 Oscar
Nominated Live-Action Short Film, MIRACLE FISH] a “Kenny complex”
where with each new Blue Tongue project he’s going to worry about
how’s he going to violently die?
Edgerton: [Laughing] I don’t think he has that complex. Probably, if
I pointed it out he might start to worry. I think he’d be more
worried if we started doing snuff films. Brendan’s great; he’s such a
nice guy. It’s funny, often when we’re making stuff, we cast against
type, and when you meet Brendan, he’s one of the sweetest guys. He’s
a good church-going boy, and we make him play these bad characters,
these evil guys.

McNamee: Tell me about the long road that it took to get
distribution for THE SQUARE?
Edgerton: Yeah, it was about a year and half. Basically, Louise
[Smith], our producer, and I, we came here at the end of 2008, and we
showed some distributors and Bob Berney [head of Apparition, the
company that is distributing THE SQUARE in North America] was one of
the people we showed. At the time, he had just left Newmarket [Films]
and didn’t have a place, but he responded really well to the film. He
really liked it, and he kept checking in with us. From his reputation
and what we knew of him, we knew “that was the guy,” so we held out
until he had a company and had some way to release it. It was a
conscious decision to wait for the right person. I felt like other
people who were interested in the film were interested more in doing
my next film rather than releasing THE SQUARE properly. You spend all
this time making a film and you want it to go out with the right
person in the right way.

McNamee: I read that Bob Berney also really liked SPIDER? [SPIDER
is Nash Edgerton’s award-winning short film which will be shown in
theaters before THE SQUARE]
Edgerton: Yeah, when I came over here, I put SPIDER at the beginning
of the film, so people got a sense of my humor and what kind of film
they were in for, and he [Bob Berney] responded really well to having
SPIDER being on the front of it [THE SQUARE]. I tried to do that in
Australia as well, but no one really went for it. But, Bob embraced
the idea of having SPIDER play in front of the film. I feel like
SPIDER really sets up the tone of THE SQUARE for people. Pixar does
it with their animations; they have the shorts in front. And they
[the film industry] used to have shorts in front of films all the
time, and it’s nice to bring that back, and especially with SPIDER.
SPIDER has had a good run for me, and it’s nice to see it finally
found a home theatrically as well.

Apparition releases, The Square this Friday, April 9th in NY and LA, nationally in May. You can watch Spider on Blue Tongue Films’ Youtube channel.