SON OF RAMBOW Interviews Part 2: Garth Jennings, Will Poulter and Bill Milner.

We talk to the writer and the two young stars of the great British film.

Son of Rambow has now been released in the UK and we thought it was time for you to get some behind the scenes gossip. So sit back and enjoy scrolling through child stars Bill Milner and Will Poulter dishing the dirt on director Garth Jennings, Garth praising the kids and Garth Jennings talking candidly about the state of the British film industry.

Garth, how did you find these two guys? Mr. Poulter has the cheekiest grin I've ever seen. GJ: He's evil, he's actually evil... It took five months actually, it took ages. And it's not because we couldn't find anyone because we found some really good actors at that stage but they weren't exactly what we had in our heads. And then these two came along right at the end of that process and they were both exactly right for the parts and if people like the film I think it's actually because they like these two. You can do all the best writing in the world but it's very hard to find people of that age with their confidence. It was one of the most instant, easy-peasy decisions when they walked in... they could be a pain sometime but... nah, I'm just saying that because otherwise it seems like I like you too much! Boys, could he be a pain sometimes? WP: No, not at all. It's our first film and we realised how lucky we were to be working with people like Nick and Garth. We were constantly surrounded by people who were really helpful to us in our first experience of filming.BM: Yeah. Did any of it hurt? BM: There was this scene with an oil tank that was really cold. Was it really oil? BM: No...GJ:With hindsight we would've been better off with oil, we used this kind of water-based thing with toothpaste thickener to make it look like oil. But the trouble was we were in Ramsgate and the sea-wind would just freeze you within a second so you were suffering there weren't you Bill? It wasn't very nice to do so we kept it short. But your mum was there so I felt like it was all cool.BM: Was it? GJ: But it was worth it though, it looked great in the end.BM: Was it worth it? We also see you being catapulted through the air among other things, did you do any of your own stunts? BM: No. During filming we had an ongoing competition over who could do the most stunts, but they were always a bit petty. Jumping down a flight of stairs and stuff.GJ: You really have to be careful with younger actors because there's all sorts of rules and things. Even though you know they'd love to jump into the lake themselves, you can't. Did any of this stuff pressure you in terms of time? GJ: Timewise you've got little time compared to normal actors, but all it meant was you have to be more efficient and I much prefer that way of working anyway. And these guys never went over two or three takes except once maybe. It's such a pleasure to work that way.BM:We had...GJ: We had couple of bad days but they were still great, we still got everything we wanted. And these guys, the best thing they did was just go with it - they didn't make a fuss or anything, they just did it. When you say "can you be dragged a hundred feet across the grass on this kite?" they're just like "yeah! Cool" and they did it. It's a lovely way of work it and it affects the crew and you have this wonderful atmosphere which I think comes across in the film when you watch it. Will, you looked pretty experienced at having a quiet cigarette. WP: My dad is actually a professor of cardiovascular diseases so me smoking...GJ:It was just down to me to go "here ya' go, have that" when his mum and dad weren't there, just smoke that.WP:Yeah, Garth's been so great to me!...GJ: "Steal this stuff from that shop"WP:"Steal that money from that old man". No, he's been horrible to me. But the thing is my older sister's a smoker and I've been brought up hating smoking so it was just uuurgh every time the fag box would come out and I'd be like "I feel ill, I don't think I can do this". Where there any elements of the two boys you saw in yourselves? BM:No, I hope not. I didn't think so which was kind of fun really 'cos you got to play these weird characters. I didn't even know about Rambo or the Plymouth Brethren so you had to find out about these mad things and that was the fun thing about it.WP:You kind of share Will's imagination though don't you?BM: Mmmm... yeah. Boys, what's the worst thing you've ever done at school? BM: Oh yeah, soldier 3... or 2. They just give you a number and you just stand there...GJ: No! I think he means behaviour.BM: Oh! I'm a good kid! I don't really know.GJ: There's room for that! You're still young, you've got fame... a life of crime is just on the horizon.WP:I genuinely can't think. I'm sure there was something. But in terms of plays I was always a tree or a log or something.BM: Yeah! You stand there for ages and get one line and the teacher goes "That was hilarious" but it's stupid. Have you seen the original Rambo? WP: I haven't. Garth can answer the question about when he first saw it.GJ:Well I was their age when I first saw it. It was the birth of VHS and it was ridiculous because I could go down the video shop and say "hi, it's for my mum and dad" and they'd be OK with it and someone's brother got hold of FIRST BLOOD and it was the first film I'd seen that was not meant for our age group and up until then it had all been STAR WARS and that was fantastic but this was phenomenal. And I don't mean that in an ironical way. We used to play in the woods every day and here was this guy who could take on two-hundred people with just a stick and he'd only kill one of them and that was by throwing a rock, I mean he was just so inventive, so impressive.BM: I had to see it. My character is moulded on it, how would I know what to expect. I had to know how my character felt. I enjoyed it and it was really good. Has anything had that kind of effect one you two? WP:I remember when I was about 10 coming out of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and being generally convinced I was a secret agent. Anything action-packed was amazing...BM:Spider Man! WP: Yes!BM:He's a dangerous lad, seriously, and he goes to school! He's doing his GCSEs and he's fighting crime! Clever guy. Has the big man himself seen the film? GJ:He's seen it and he gave it a veeery nice review, he was very sweet and very kind and it was lovely to get his blessing. It was nice enough to have him sign a release form for the clips of him but to have him say "I liked it" is great, it's kind of weird after all these years. Garth, you'd written the script for this and then HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE came along, are you glad you got to do that first? GJ: The one good thing about doing it almost the reverse way around was that up to this point we'd all worked together in a kind of very small commando-like unit and then doing HITCHHIKER'S we suddenly inherited all this studio stuff and all these people and it was fine and we got everything we wanted but we had all these people and we moved a lot slower and it was harder to get where you wanted just because of numbers. So it was nice to do SON OF RAMBOW and think "right, we really don't need all of that stuff". Like you don't need all that video playback, all those monitors so that people sit around and watch things over and over again. We got rid of that so that these guys never saw a frame of it until the cast and crew screening and it meant people weren't self-conscious and suddenly we were moving fast and you a get a much more hands-on, dynamic set and these guys just do their thing without waiting for anyone else.WP: That helped me because if I'd seen monitors all the time it would've killed me.GJ:Everyone gets all upset about it! Being a personal project, did this give you more pride or a greater sense of achievement than HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE? GJ:That's a good question actually. I don't know. I think maybe a little bit because we put more of ourselves into it but I don't want that to take away from how lovely HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE was. Garth, having put all this effort into the film and having trouble financing it, what kind of state would you say the British film industry's in? GJ:Ah well that's the trouble, I wish I could answer that but I'm baffled by it all. I don't know how it works. I work on that barge, just there and it's so away from the 'scene'. I'm not part of any society that's part of network. All I know is that it was very tricky for us because we weren't following on from HITCHHIKER'S, we weren't making a looney space thing or something with robots and, seriously, people were saying "It's nice, but have you got anything with puppets or robots? Puppets would be great" and these would be people that I thought were meant to be the kind of main go-to guy for these sort of films but I realise now you've just got to get on with it. So unless you just want to repeat yourself it's all going to be a bit tricky and that's fine, you are asking for millions of pounds to make a crazy little film. But this seems like a quirky, funny, quintessentially British film that we make really well. It seems surprising you struggled so much. GJ:Well, you know what, when we were going for the financing, just before we were going for a second approach a film called MILLIONS had just come out, now I haven't seen MILLIONS but it didn't do very well at the box office so everyone goes "MILLIONS didn't do well, kid - main part, to be avoided" and you can't help but wonder if they'd done a sci-fi and that didn't do well would that mean no sci-fi? I can't work out the logic so I just figured go with it, get on with it. What did the film cost in the end? GJ:About £3.5 million. And what would you be happy with as a worldwide gross turnover? GJ:Oh just one or two billion... But do you know what, I genuinely mean this, one of the nice things about the delay after the complications over release last summer I took the film to the film festivals instead and it was fantastic, it was like having a mini release. It played in about twelve different places and I got to see it play in front of an audience and thought "OK, it worked and it's done what we wanted it to do" and I know it's cheesy but that's really all I wanted it to do. If it's a success at the box office that's really great and pays back our investors who did take the risk but really we can't predict it. You mentioned the problems with release, were these just relating to FIRST BLOOD clips? GJ: Well it wasn't just the clips, it kind of all gets mushed in together. I mean people own different parts of the clips and prints and so on. All these things I just didn't know about beforehand. But it didn't really get resolved until Sundance which was such a phenomenal success for a small film that people sat down and said "OK, let's talk". But we got told all the time we couldn't make the movie because we'd get sued and we kept thinking "come on! We'll just make it and it'll be good and it'll be all right" and.... that was unbelievable naive! But I'm really glad we took that route because if we hadn't we'd have changed things and you just couldn't because it's too much a part of the whole thing. What's next for you all? BM: I just finished a film before Christmas called IS THERE ANYBODY THERE? but I don't have anything else.GJ:But you've got a lot of school still, both of you. You've got your mocks...WP:Yeah I should be getting my mock results today! I'm waiting for a text now.GJ:"You failed! Loser!"WP:Yeah! Cyber text bullying but uh... no films at the moment. I'd love to obviously but...BM: It's one of those jobs where you can never tell if it's going to come about, you know.WP: And there's so much competition and stuff. GJ: And I haven't got anything actually on the table. I love those directors who have it all wrapped up: they're editing one and getting the other one going, I'd love to be able to do that but I'm trying to write something but I haven't started them properly yet. SON OF RAMBOW is in cinemas in the UK now, so if you fancy checking out the chemistry for yourself go ahead!

Contributor

Michael J Edwards hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.