{"id":363,"date":"2016-05-30T05:49:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-30T05:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rmwhittaker.com\/?p=363"},"modified":"2016-06-18T21:14:00","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T21:14:00","slug":"interview-yorgos-lanthimos-on-the-lobster-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rmwhittaker.com\/index.php\/2016\/05\/30\/interview-yorgos-lanthimos-on-the-lobster-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Yorgos Lanthimos on The Lobster<\/i> (2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Colin<\/a>
Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz in The Lobster<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yorgos Lanthimos is arguably the most important and well-known modern Greek director. His Oscar-nominated Dogtooth<\/i> is a hideous and hilarious dark parable about families, and its follow-up, Alps<\/i>, further refined his highly stylized but heartfelt insights into how humans deal with life events – in this case, the grief of loss. His latest, the deeply surrealist but still thoughtful The Lobster<\/i>, casts Colin Farrell as a man with 45 days to find true love – or be turned into an animal. <\/p>\n

It sounds like a fairytale, but Lanthimos digs deep into what it is to be single and in a relationship, and the pressures that we place on ourselves, and that society places upon us.<\/p>\n

It’s also Lanthimos’ first English-language film: with the nascent modern Greek film industry caught up in the economic slaughter that has hit the country, he found international funding and shot the movie in Ireland.<\/p>\n

(Parts of this interview previously appeared at www.austinchronicle.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

RW<\/b>: Who was the first person you cast?<\/i><\/p>\n

Yorgos Lanthimos<\/b>: That must have been Colin. It was very early on that I had discussions with Rachel Weisz, because we had met before I had even finished the screenplay. She had seen my work, and she reached out, and we met, and we both conveyed how much we liked each other\u2019s work, and were thinking of working together. She was one of the first people that actually read the screenplay, but it took some time for it to work out for her to be in the cast. So first was Colin, and then it was Rachel.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RW<\/b>: If he\u2019s going to be the core of it, and his casting affects who you\u2019re going to cast, what was it you felt Colin was going to bring?<\/i><\/p>\n

YL<\/b>: I just find that he has very many different qualities, both as an actor and as a person. I try to look as much as I can at other material by actors. I see their work, but I also try to see interviews they have done, and photographs throughout their life. I just felt that he had so many different qualities that he would create a very complex character. He\u2019s very smart, but very funny. He has a great sense of humor, he\u2019s very charming, he\u2019s awkward at times. He has so many different qualities that I felt would add to the character we had written.<\/p>\n

RW<\/b>: He\u2019s a very under-rated actor. His performance in the adaptation of Strindberg\u2019s <\/i>Miss Julie, not enough people saw that. But then the other component is, when the characters talk about the animals into which they would like to be changed, it gives you a perspective into who they are and who they want to be. When did the lobster become the lobster? Was there a point where he would be the quail?<\/i><\/p>\n

YL<\/b>: It\u2019s funny, because that was there from even writing the treatment, which had bits of this story in there. Because it was in the short format at that point, we made the decision for a lobster. In the end of that treatment, the main character was actually turned into a lobster and was eaten by his ex-wife at dinner. Well, we weren\u2019t sure that it was him, but she ate -a- lobster at dinner. It was there from the beginning, but then the whole screenplay evolved, and it became many other things, so that wasn\u2019t relevant any more. But the lobster just stayed, because it seemed to be the right choice for him.<\/p>\n

RW<\/b>: There\u2019s the occasional animal that just walks through the background. When they\u2019re just inconspicuous, like a rabbit, you think, well, it\u2019s just an animal. But when the camel walks past, that\u2019s different. So what was the practicality of having animals on set, and even finding a camel in Ireland?<\/i><\/p>\n

YL<\/b>: It\u2019s crazy, because we did it the other way round. It was a relatively small film, and we didn\u2019t have at our disposal anything that we wanted, so we just tried to discover what kind of animals existed in Ireland at the time. We just made a choice of an animal that would feel odd being in a forest in our situation and story. And apparently camels were in Ireland at the time.<\/p>\n