Q&A With Francis Lawrence

The former music director talks about taking on a comic book franchise and making his debut with a big-budget blockbuster.

Mar 18 2005

Do all music video directors want to be film directors?

I don't know if they all want to be. I think a bunch do. I know that I wanted to beforehand – I just sort of lucked into doing music videos. I thought I was going to go to film school, make a movie and win an Academy Award. I didn't realise how ill-prepared I was at the time. I had a friend who had a music distribution company, he asked me to work on a video, I did, I used that job to get the next job and then it just sort of went from there. I always saw it as a really good training ground.

How do you jump from being a video director to making your debut with a big-budget blockbuster?

Well, as my career progressed, and I was working with bigger artists and bigger budgets, you get an agent and a manager and you start reading scripts. Then you go through that battle of all the stuff that I knew I could get, like stupid teenage skateboarding and music-driven movies, which I didn't want. And everything that I really liked was getting nabbed by all the A-list guys. Then I found this script, which was really cool and unique, and in perfect shape when I found it. I saw that the character and the possibilities for the world were really unique so I went after it. I spent six or seven months trying to get the job and finally I got it.

Was that first day on set very daunting?

No, that wasn't daunting. I have to say that the scariest part was having to go in and meet with the studio, stand in front of them and pitch them my ideas for the movie.

Was it difficult to get the project going because Constantine is such a dark character?

No, the studio was always behind it. The fight that we had was that the studio thought it was lighter fare. They never understood the tone that I was going for. Luckily, the producers were very supportive and the studio just let us do it. It was sort of a battle, but once they saw the footage they really got behind it.

Why do you think Keanu Reeves (who plays Constantine) keeps getting cast in these saviour-like roles?

It's interesting – I think this role is so different for Keanu, but we keep getting this 'Matrix' comparison. I don't see Constantine as a messiah though – he's just into saving his own ass. He does things for his own selfish reasons and that's it. He's so different to Neo, who's a real hero. Constantine's not - he's a prick, an anti-hero.

In the comic books Constantine comes from Liverpool. What prompted you to relocate?

This project existed for six or seven years before I came onboard. At some point before me, it was almost made with Tarsem and Nicolas Cage. I don't know if the character was English then, but he was turned into an American either during or before that process. I don't know why it changed, but the location thing has always been interesting to me because the Hellblazer comics take place all over the world. There's a big series of him travelling in the Midwest of the United States. Then he's in New York, and there are some with him in Africa, so I always thought this story could be told anywhere. You could tell it in Los Angeles, England, Madagascar. So that was never an issue for me. I can understand the fans being upset at his not being English or not being blond, but the location question always surprised me.

Is this globe-trotting something you could possibly explore in future film?

Oh definitely, if people like this and we get the opportunity to make a sequel, it wouldn't be set in Los Angeles, it would be somewhere else.

Mixing religious themes with a comic book sensibility, were you worried about how it might be received by the hardcore Christian audience in America?

I wasn't worried. I thought it was going to be more offensive than it has been. What's been really weird is that once the movie was finished we were showing it to religious press and they've actually kind of embraced it, because they see a guy struggling with his faith and the battle between good and evil and the redemption. And what they aren't seeing are some of the jabs we've made at the Christian right, with characters like Gabriel in the movie. It's been fascinating - I thought they'd be much more offended than they are.

Do you believe in god and the devil yourself?

No, I'm not religious.

So why did this subject matter appeal to you?

The character really appealed to me. I like the idea that the world works in ways we don't know or understand. And I like the idea that there's a character who does have it figured out. I'd say that I'm not religious but I also don't know – there's always that possibility. And I also like the idea of taking those ideas and trying to make them a little more universal so that you don't have to be a Christian or Catholic to understand them.

You were awarded an R rating in the States. Is that the sort of rating you were looking for, and is that the sort of rating the studio was looking for?

The studio was looking for a PG-13, and I didn't want to make a film that was just super-graphic and super-gory either. I just don't think those movies are effective. And we never battled during production at all – I explained that I wasn't planning on having blood spurting or a sex scene or people swearing all the time. But I think a lot of us were worried about these themes – the religious themes, the suicides, the lung cancer – these are heavy subjects. What ended up happening, which I'm proud of and the studio is unhappy with but supportive of, is that the movie had an intensity that was too strong for the MPAA.

You mentioned suicide in the movie – was including that a worry for you?

That was my big worry going in. We were on the same page in terms of violence, sex and things like that, but you cannot get past the suicide in this movie and you just have to be careful with that. There are numerous suicides in the movie – not just one. You do feel some responsibility that it is an adult theme. What's really interesting about the rating though, is I think most of it comes from the religious themes in the film. Because if you look at our movie in comparison with one of the 'Lord of the Rings', on a scene-by-scene basis, those films are much more graphic and violent than our film in every way, but because our film has demonic imagery and religious imagery, it's not seen as fantasy, which is really scary to me. If we had called the demons orcs, we probably would have been a PG-13, but for some reason, especially in America, if something is considered religious, it's very real and not fantasy any more.

How do you feel about the finished product?

Obviously having a hand in creating it, I have my own issues. I could keep working on it forever, but I'm really proud of the film and the fact that it got through the system, because I don't think it’s your standard studio film in any way. I think it's pretty unique.

Is the final ending the only one you shot?

No, we actually shot two endings and we're using the original one. The other ending is now a little coda after the credits so make sure you stay to the end!

'Constantine' hits cinemas today and is reviewed in reviewed in Time Out London March 16-23 2005. Issue No. 1804.

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