Richard E Grant Q&A

Chris Tilly catches up with the 'Withnail and I' star to discuss his directorial debut, 'Wah-Wah'.

Jun  2 2006

Richard E Grant makes his directorial debut with 'Wah-Wah', a touching account of his childhood growing up in Swaziland during the final days of British rule. Chris Tilly caught up with him to discuss the pain involved in putting your life on screen.

How long did it take to get 'Wah-Wah' made?

I pitched the story to the first producer in October 1999 and it comes out in cinemas in the UK in June 2006.

Had you been thinking about it before then though?

Yes, because I'd been inspired by another actor turned writer-director Bruce Robinson, who I'd worked with on 'Withnail & I' 20 years ago. That was about his growing up years in London at the end of the 1960s, and I suppose it really inspired me to write about growing up in Swaziland at the end of the 1960s, which were stuck in the 1950s colonial mentality. I'd certainly been thinking about it for a long time.

How many re-writes did it go through?

It went through 27 drafts, but that was mainly to tighten the script. Structurally it's the same as it was from the first draft.

Was it a difficult process summoning up all these past memories, or was it like a catharsis?

Oh, both. Cathartic, difficult and very funny, because the amateur dramatic production of 'Camelot' that was put on for the handing over of independence was extremely enjoyable to write and re-visit in my head. But, of course, there was the more painful, dysfunctional side of my mother's adultery, my father's violent chronic alcoholism, and all those things went into the mix. So it was a combination of the two.

Your father was obviously a big influence on your life – did Gabriel Byrne really capture his essence?

Yes. When he first came on set in the white ice cream colonial suit with the pith helmet and the sword and everything, he looked uncannily like my father. And he captured the incredible warmth of the man by day and then this violent, psychotic demon that he became by night. But it was always informed by sympathy. And once I understood, from my father's deathbed line, that he'd never stopped loving my mother - which came so out of left field, like a bomb exploding in my face - I understood why and how the man was as he was, and felt huge compassion and understanding for him really.

What was it like re-visiting Swaziland and re-staging all these moments form your childhood?

That was amazing, because the whole notion that you can't go back in time was turned on its head. There I was, in Swaziland, back on the locations where most of this stuff actually happened, with many of the extras being people that were actually there. Especially at the reconstruction of my father's funeral – there were people there who were at his actual funeral. So that had extra resonance for the cast because they could ask questions of these people. Seeing them all there in their costumes was a bizarre, déjà vu experience.

Has the country changed much?

In essence no. Most of the people I knew are either dead and gone or have moved to other countries or back to England. So I know relatively few people compared to when I was growing up, but the spirit of the place and its physical beauty remain absolutely as was.

There are lots of emotionally charged scenes in the film – what was the hardest to shoot?

Re-creating when my father tried to shoot me after I'd emptied a case of his scotch down the sink, when he was in the middle of a drunken rage. And also his funeral, because there were so many people there who were at his original funeral. And my daughter was at the recreation of the funeral of the grandfather that she never met in real life. So that was as emotionally charged as you could get.

What was it like having to film an Argos advert in the middle of the shoot?

Bizarre, but I was very grateful for that because the four years that I was contracted to do those ads enabled me to turn down other work so I could concentrate on getting this film written and directed. If I hadn't had that I don't think this film would ever have happened.

It must have been a strange contrast.

It was. Driving to Johannesburg in the middle of the night to do one day on an Argos ad. And they had to fly everyone out there, including Julia Sawalha, who had a very good sense of humour about it, and Paul Weiland, the director, to do 78 takes taking a hamburger, supposedly half eaten by Elvis, out of an Argos fridge. The budget for flying those people out there alone was probably half of what my entire film cost to make, so it was utterly surreal.

What was it like screening it to an audience for the first time?

Astonishing, because when you work on a film for so long you get used to seeing it without any audience reaction whatsoever. You're so embroiled in the technical problems, including the editing, that when you actually experience it with an audience that audibly laugh and cry and then speak to you afterwards about their lives or how things in the film have resonated with them – that's an astonishing thing. It reminds you and reinforces why you did it in the first place. So it was all worth it in the end.

Do you have any plans to direct again?

Absolutely. And I'm hoping that the critical success this one has had will make it easier to get financing for the next one.

Have you got something in mind?

I'm writing a film called 'Zeitgeist', which is about the making of a disaster movie – basically 'The Poseidon Adventure' in outer space! It's about how a disaster movie becomes a real disaster, and how actors really are, as opposed to the PR version. It's fairly and squarely based on my experience working on 'Hudson Hawk' with Bruce Willis 16 years ago. So from bitter, first-hand experience.

I can't come and talk to you without mentioning 'Withnail & I', so what's this I've read about a stage show?

Well this guy Peter Meehan, who has brought the film library of Handmade Films, has come up with this plan. But he's never approached the writer-director Bruce Robinson and he doesn't own the rights to do it as a stage play. So... it makes good copy. Bruce was incandescent when he read about it.

So I needn't ask about your involvement then.

No involvement, nothing to do with me. I read it in the paper like everyone else. I think it would make a good play – a few characters, set in a room. It's very dialogue bound and there's very little action, so I could see it working well. If it does, I just hope that Bruce Robinson gets to do it, because he's never earned a bean of profit from 'Withnail'. Everyone else has apart from him. Well not the actors, but the people that bought the film afterwards, so he is rightfully embittered by that. He's still owed the £35,000 that he spent paying for the last day of the shoot. So he's never had a penny from the last 16 years of video and DVD sales. It's shameful.

Are you amazed that the film still follows you around to this day?

I'm amazed that people still see it or know about it. I know from my daughter's school that her generation – 17 year-olds – know all the lines and know the movie. I can only think that it's because it's a sort of rites of passage story. But why it has this ongoing life I have no clue whatsoever.

'Wah-Wah' is released today.

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