Bringing up Bobby gets its
DVD release in the UK this week, and it marks the directorial debut of Dutch actress Famke Janssen. The film tells the story of Olive (Milla Jovovich), a Ukranian con artist who moves to Oklahoma with her 10 year old son Bobby (Spencer List) in a bid to escape her murky past. What Culture caught up with the former James Bond villain who also wrote and produced the film to discuss the excitement of helming her first feature, and much more. It took almost five years to get Bringing up Bobby off the ground, but Janssen ensured that the time was well spent. She explains;
During that time I really got to think through the script and how I wanted to shoot it, what I wanted to do in terms of casting, locationIt gave me a head start in a way that I wouldnt have had otherwise. Being a foreigner who came to live in the United States herself, Janssens journey mirrors Olives.
"It wasnt until I went to Oklahoma that I realised how much of an outsider I was and how much of my ideas about the United States were really formed through film. The whole journey of Olive and her being a foreigner who lives in the United States is very much influenced by film and the media in general, it was just something that I wanted to explore. For film lovers, there are a lot of things to spot in there; there are quotes from movies but there are also some visual references that I have made as well". Janssen has worked with a number of different directors in her 20+ years of acting, and that experience proved to be an invaluable when it came to directing Bringing up Bobby. She comments;
Ive worked with two of the greats in the business in Robert Altman and Woody Allen. Both had such entirely different ways of working, and I learned an incredible amount from both of them. Being on set and observing each director do their own thing, and then deducing from that how I would do it, especially in the years leading up to making Bringing up Bobby that I started paying attention even more so and really thinking Oh OK thats how they do it but maybe I would do it this way. Its always much easier to be an observer and see what works and what doesnt work than applying it to your own film because if theres one thing Ive learned, you have to make your own mistakes. Those important lessons have made Janssen a wiser actress, and in some ways have changed her perception.
The concept of time and how time is money, my awareness of that really changed. Sometimes people in their trailer, they get caught up a little bit too much and theyre chatting away, when the clock is constantly ticking. Thats why I think that in a way for actors its a little bit easier to start directing their own movies because they have so much on-set experience, and as an actor you get to see every department at work, from the DP to makeup and hair. You combine all of that, all those lessons that you accumulate over time and you apply that to your own way of working. With her first feature behind her, Janssen is already hard at work perfecting her next script.
The film is called Rio Rio. Its a very complex story with a lot of different characters. I wrote it very quickly in the beginning, and now its just in the rewriting process, so its very exciting. I really want to apply all the things Ive learned to the next one, because you can only get better over time. Janssen will next be seen in upcoming blockbuster The Wolverine. To get her thoughts on the X-Men franchise and more, click
here.
