INTERVIEW with The Square director NASH EDGERTON: "I didn't want to do action for the sake of action"

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INTERVIEW with The Square director NASH EDGERTON: "I didn't want to do action for the sake of action"

POSTED: Friday, April 23, 2010, 10:30 PM

Filed Under: Interview | Movies

Nash Edgerton makes an auspicious feature film debut with The Square, a gleefully nasty neo-noir about Ray (David Roberts) a married man hoping to run away with his lover Carla (Claire van der Boom) and the bag of money she has stolen from her husband, Smithy (Anthony Hayes). Of course, nothing goes as planned. Edgerton met with City Paper to talk about his film, and how he, well, planned it. City Paper: You started your career in film as a stunt man. Can you discuss how you got into that profession? Nash Edgerton: I don't know, it just kinda happened. Me, my brother Joel [who co-wrote and has a part in The Square] and my friends started making films on the weekends to try to put new stuff in our show reels to try to get work as stuntmen and as actors. This whole interest in filmmaking was born because we really enjoyed the process of what we were doing more so than what the intention of it was for. We got the bug, and kept making films. I still do stunts. CP: Was directing always your goal? How did working in front of the camera prepare you to direct films? NE: When I was a kid, my dad had a video camera and my brother and I would play around with it in the backyard, always making stuff. We never thought of it as a job, or a career. We filmed ourselves jumping off the roof of the house. When I went away to school, I had to decide what I was going to do and I went to university and studied electrical engineering — because I was good in math and science — and it seemed like the right thing to do. But it felt like school again, and as much as I was good at it, I did not, could not, imagine myself of being an electrical engineer. I got the idea one night to be a stunt man. CP: Are you fearless? NE: I find it challenging. I don't know... It was this lightbulb moment. I was at a high school formal with this girl I'd met. Her best friend's partner was telling some story, and he said the word "stunt" in a sentence, and I thought, that's what I'm going to do — I'm going to be a stuntman. I went home, looked up stunt in the phone book, found an agency that represented stuntman, and called it. I came in at a good time when a lot of very big films were coming to Australia. [e.g., The Matrix]. That became my focus for a long time, and through that, I became interested in filmmaking at the same time. I taught myself how to edit. I like working on films, the collaborative nature of it, the nomadic nature of it. CP: Your brother Joel has been quite successful as an actor, appearing in everything from Kinky Boots to Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Is there any sibling rivalry between you? NE: No. I love my brother; we get on really well. We used to fight when we were kids, but we stopped that when we were 10 or 11. At some point, we just became really good friends. Like everyone, we still argue and stuff, but I feel like we have skills that complement each other, but it's never a competition. I know he is a better actor and writer than I am, and he finds more interest in that than I do. We learn off each other. CP: You gave him a part in the film as Billy the arsonist. But other than a Spider-reference cameo, you don't appear in this film. Was that because you were directing? NE: I didn't think I was right for any of the roles. I wanted to concentrate on directing. If it feels right for me, I'll do it, but my interest in acting is more... I find acting challenging, and I'm interested in it because I find it challenging, whereas my brother has a real passion for it. That's not to say I wouldn't appear in something else—as long as it is the right thing. CP: David Roberts, the actor who plays Ray, isn't a conventionally handsome hero. What prompted you to cast him? NE: I set out to cast an ordinary looking guy, a relatively unknown actor. And I think because I did that, it took longer to get the film up. But I knew if I could do it with a guy like that, it would be more engaging, and intense, because you didn't know what he was going to do. If I cast someone typically a hero, and everything works out for him, that's what you think was going to happen, or if I cast someone who usually plays bad guys, you think, he has the potential for evil and is going to do bad things. I wanted to cast an ordinary looking guy. I wanted to set the film in a realistic tone. CP: What other decisions did you make? NE: I didn't want to do action for the sake of action. CP: Or sex for the sake of sex, for that matter... NE: I wanted to play against the convention that the femme fatale is all sexy and [their relationship] is all based on sex. It's set in real life, and in real life, people aren't black and white. It's not like his wife is a nag and he's trying to get away from her for that reason, it's that they have fallen out of love with one another. Carla and Smithy — Smithy is not a wife beater. He's not overtly bad to her, they just don't communicate. He's a little bit controlling, but it's not sort of hyper-real. I wanted to start in the middle of the affair. It's not all about hot steamy love affair it's just like these are two strangers who found each other, and have a connection, and they try to get away. Any affair is going to get mundane, and the sex is not going to be like this spectacular thing and I just wanted it to feel real. CP: Do you think the characters deserve their fates? NE: YEAH! Totally! My films are very much about karma, whether I like it or not. All the characters are gray. Every little thing [the characters] do kind of affects other people, and that's what happens in our lives. We do stuff that affects other people. CP: What kind of problems did you have on the production? NE: I'm pretty good at figuring out what I need to get. CP: Your mathematic skills at work! NE: [Laughs]. Yeah, I came from making short films with no budget, so I'm realistic about what I can achieve with the amount of money I have. No major problems, just weather and time—the odd thing goes wrong here or there—but it was relatively smooth. CP: Everything was contained—your economy is to show as much as you can while revealing as little as possible. Was what your secret to constructing the film? NE: It was totally like a jigsaw puzzle. I like to be treated intelligently when I watch a film, so I like to do the same thing. I like to make the audience feel part of the movie, in terms of the way it's shot, and how the characters are experiencing what they are experiencing. All the clues are in the film, but I didn't want to bonk people on the head with it. As long as it's in the frame of what's being said or talked about...[you] learn it as the characters are learning it. That to me, made it feel more tense. In terms of being economical, I did my homework, and figured out how I was going to shoot it. Especially the more complicated scenes, like when Carla first sees the bag of money. I wanted there to be tension pretty early on...I planned that out and figured it out with a video camera. I did that for a lot of the scenes. I can't draw, I can't do storyboards, so that was my visual, moving storyboard. CP: What is your personal stamp on this film? What makes this a Nash Edgerton film? NE: The way I shoot things. The way I reveal stuff is all very me. I definitely guided the script in to the shape I wanted it to be. We changed scenes—took things out, moved things around—I don't know. People who see my shorts think it's always me. CP: You have a Hitchcockian cameo. Is there an in-joke you have in your films? NE: There's a reference to Spider in the film—in the hospital. I always reference something. Me and my friends, there's something we try to put in everything we make... A word. CP: Will you tell me what is it? NE: [He says, off the record]. It's a nickname of something from something that happened years ago. We always put it in there. You can see it at the start of Spider. In Square it's harder to spot. It's in a bit of graffiti. © 2010 Gary M. Kramer

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