From its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival to our naming
it one of the
best films of 2015
to this week’s theatrical release, Andrew Haigh’s “45
Years” has been one of the most-discussed and appreciated films of the last 11
months. Way back at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the work was
widely considered one of the best of TIFF, I had a chance to speak to the 42-year-old writer/director and one of his timeless stars, Tom Courtenay

In the film,
Courtenay plays Geoff, a man planning his 45
th wedding anniversary party
when he receives a letter informing him that the body of a woman who was once
his fiancée has been found. The discovery sends Geoff into melancholy
reflection, but it does something even more devastating to his wife Kate
(Charlotte Rampling, giving what I consider the best performance of the year in
any category). 

Haigh, Courtenay and I met in a crowded restaurant near the end
of TIFF to discuss back story, internal monologue, Rod Steiger, David Lean and
Nuri Bilge Ceylan. It was one of my favorite interviews of the year, for one of
its best films.

The first thing I’m
curious about is chemistry and history, and how you create that when you’ve got
such a limited amount of time to make a film. How do you as an actor create
believable history with your partner? And how do you, as a director, support
that?

ANDREW HAIGH: It’s a strange thing. Obviously, it’s the most important thing. If
people don’t believe they’re a couple, it’s not going to work. I think it goes
to the very beginning. You have to cast the right people. You have to feel they
make sense together as a couple. And then kind of outside of that, it’s little
decisions you make in the script—that you feel that kind of chemistry is
embedded into the script. There are routines of long relationships in the script—who
takes the dog for a walk, who picks up the post, who drinks out of a certain
cup. It’s all these little things that speak to the truth of a relationship.
And then you just start hoping for the best a bit. [Laughs] We didn’t
rehearse. We didn’t do any rehearsals. None at all.

Did you know
Charlotte?

TOM COURTENAY: I met her briefly once. We had one day. We
read our scenes with Andrew there. I went off. And that was it. And then we met
up. Obviously, we were both of us, thinking, we’ve got it.

AH: And I met up with Tom and Charlotte beforehand and we
talked about the characters. Who that person was. The back story. And all that
kind of thing.

How much history and
detail do you two create for the back story? How much do you know about the last 45
years?

TC: You just respond to the words that they give you. That’s
always what I do. I found the words very informative. And the words I wanted to
speak. It was easy. I couldn’t wait to learn. I love that. I find by learning
the words so they’re in you, it’s most of the work. What you say; what he doesn’t
say. The little things. Listening. Andrew shoots in this very naturalistic way.
There aren’t many close-ups. Often, they’re a hindrance. If you have a two-shot
and two singles, it’s not the same. You don’t have the same relationship. Rod
Steiger told me a famous story. In the back of the car in “On the Waterfront
with Brando—“I coulda been a contender.
They did the two-shot. Then they did the single with Brando. Then he went home. I said, quite honestly, “Rod, I think you were better off without
him.
” [Laughs] Close-ups can be artificial.

Andrew, how much back
story do you develop as a writer?

AH: I think what I do is not so much back story in terms of
they did this, they did that, but I always work out what music people love,
what films they like, what books they read, their political views. I work on
those philosophical things that define a person more. I do come up with some
key events that may have happened in their relationship—how they met, what they
did, key conservations. I put that away, but it’s in the back of my mind when I’m
writing. It’s helpful. I know what book she’s going to read if she grabs a
book. I know what Geoff will take off the shelf to re-read. It’s just helpful when
writing.

But a lot of it is
unspoken—you don’t say it to your actors?

AH: I think we talk a little bit about it. In the end, you’re
just capturing what happens in the moment when you turn the camera on. I think
sometimes analyzing the details of deep emotional things can over-do it.

TC: I just did this television series which was good stuff.
And the collaborator said that his main job on the set is to forget all of his
homework. Forget it.

AH: You prepare. You over-prepare. And then you forget it
and just try to respond to what’s happening.

I’m sure you’ve been
asked this before but it feels unavoidable. How does someone your age write this story?

AH: I’m actually 70. [Laughs] It’s so funny. People do ask
it a lot. It’s interesting. When I read the short story, it really affected me.
And when I started thinking about it, I didn’t think I needed to imagine what
it was like to be 70. I thought, how would I feel in this situation? I’m only
43 but I still have doubts, regrets, fears, concerns. I think your body gets
older and you change, but your core concerns and beliefs remain the same. This
could have been two 20-year-olds or two 40-year-olds. And then when these guys
read it, I double-checked to make sure it sounded right to two people that age.

TC: When I met this kid,
I thought, “Wow, where did that come from?” It’s speaking for me at my age.

AH: I’ve always looked back, and I’ve always been very
concerned about things I’ve done and my life choices. Even when I was five, I
was such a melancholy kid. It’s always just been part of my nature to want to
think about things too much.

Did you write it with
either of them in mind?

AH: I don’t write with people in mind. You get fixed. There’s
a likelihood they’ll say no. We finished the script, sent out drafts, and we
had our lists. We went to Charlotte, and she said yes. And then finding the
perfect person for Geoff, nwe sent it to Tom. I think when people started
reading the script, they thought, “Oh, it’s going to be about an angry man.”
And, no, there’s something much more vulnerable about this man. Something more
sensitive. A lot of actors don’t have that. I do think that Tom as an actor has
that. There’s a quality he has that a lot of actors don’t have. And against
someone like Charlotte, who has a lot of strength and power.

It’s an interesting
film in terms of interpretation and conversation. Just the other day, I argued
with someone who thinks “she’s crazy.” And I said “no, no, no.” So, have you
heard interpretations that surprised you?

AH: Oh yeah.

TC: It started in Berlin. There was the lady yesterday who
asked if I was crying for my lost child. That’s a new one. That’s the furthest
out. There was the man who was drunk in Norridge. [They both laugh.]

AH: It’s so weird and I love it. I always knew that some
people would think that Kate was crazy. For me, it makes total sense. For me,
it’s not as simple as jealousy. It’s about something so much more profound and
weird and internal and strange.

And impossible to
verbalize.

AH: Exactly.

That’s part of the
key. It’s something that tears you up emotionally that you can’t explain.

AH: Yeah.

She can’t be
traditionally mad about it.

AH: Nope. And she knows that. She knows she can’t be cross
about something that happened before they existed as a couple. And that’s the
key. If you look at your life, and you’re forced to focus in, it can crumble
and dissipate. And if things appear that you didn’t quite understand, and
revelations. “That’s not what I thought. That’s not what I know.

TC: There are a couple of things. First, is the timing. The
timing is not good. And there’s also the intensity. It’s not the girl in the
ice, it’s her effect on him that gets to her. That surely must be it.

And there’s the idea
that choices you thought you made as a couple, you weren’t fully informed, and
that would be devastating.

AH: Exactly. It’s two key things to me. It’s that—you didn’t have all the information
when you made key decisions. And then there’s the more existential question of, if that woman hadn’t died and Geoff had married her, what would Kate be doing
with her life? That’s scary. For me, it’s those two key thoughts that would
throw me off balance.

TC: My wife pointed out that she turns away from him. Why
did she turn away? She said it’s because he’s put her through it but he can’t
help it.

That’s why it’s so
devastating.

AH: She can’t do anything. And the tragedy is that they do
love each other. They’re a good couple. It’s the influence of the past to hurt
something that’s really quite good.

What were the
influences on this piece? Either in writing or cinematically while shooting?

AH: I’m always a big fan of naturalistic and realistic—film and
photography. There was a Jurgen Teller book of photos in Suffolk near where we
shot. Any kind of naturalistic film. There’s a filmmaker—Nuri Bilge Ceylan. “Uzak”
is one of my favorite films. It’s so naturalistic, but also so drenched in
melancholy, isolation. There are wind chimes in our film that I basically stole
from “Uzak.”

That’s great. How
important are film festivals for a movie like this?

AH: Amazingly important. Berlin, TIFF, Telluride. It makes all of the difference. It’s a small
film. It’s an English film. Just to get people talking about it is amazing.

Tom, how is Andrew
different from others as a director?

TC: He said in the outset that he would like long takes. And
his naturalistic two-shots. Not many close-ups, something he shares with David
Lean. He didn’t want what he would call talking heads. He didn’t like it. And,
David Lean, like Andrew, was an editor. I remember with “Doctor Zhivago,” it
came out not long after it finished shooting, which is unheard of. It’s just
natural. Also, he’d written it, so we could change a word or two if we needed.

AH: The main direction that you do is in the preparation and
meeting with them and then letting them do their thing. You’re employing an
actor because you know they can do the job. You want them to come up with it
themselves. I see some directors who are very hands-on, and that’s not the way
I like to work.

TC: The way he writes is so effective. It’s so compelling.
Almost nothing to it but so expressive.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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