We caught up with Stanley Tucci, Ralph Fiennes, and Isabella Rossellini during the London Film Festival, to discuss their new critically aclaimed papal drama. Report by Mccallumj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00I'll tell you what, London Film Festival with a seven-week-old baby at home is no joke.
00:03Oh, I'm so sorry.
00:04It's no joke.
00:05Congratulations.
00:07You'll never sleep.
00:08You'll never sleep.
00:09I'm looking forward to the hour-and-a-half sleep.
00:10Yes.
00:11You're going to sleep?
00:12You mean sleeping through films?
00:13No, no, not through this one.
00:15That gets us onto this nicely.
00:19The Pope is dead.
00:21The throne is vacant.
00:23The conclave begins now.
00:26What a thrill it is to do these on these days when the film is brilliant.
00:32For me, it's the best film I've seen all year.
00:35It's the first time I've stepped out of a screening still exhausted from having a baby
00:39at home, but I would have been willing to watch that film again later on that evening.
00:45So congratulations, first and foremost, but it does make me wonder.
00:49So much of good filmmaking is in the pacing and the shot choice and cinematography, and
00:55I've asked actors in the past, you know, how much was on the pages, it's all in the
00:59good writing, but there must still be an element of surprise for you guys when you see the
01:06finished product because there's so much effort from so many different people and so many
01:10minds that makes something as good as this has turned out to be.
01:14Well, I think, yeah, I think what you're saying is right.
01:16I mean, I think there's the script and the director, Edward Berger, in this case, brings
01:21together his team of designers, cinematographer, and his cast, I mean, and they all, you don't
01:28know where, I don't think any director knows where it's going to land, and having got to
01:35know Edward a bit, he's very aware that, you know, however prepared he is, and he's very
01:39prepared, he has to sort of trust the energies will work, and then again, I guess, going
01:45into the edit, you still don't know what you have, and then you, so there is a question
01:50of a degree of luck, I think, or even the, I mean, we know, we can think of great, there's
01:56directors like Stanley Kubrick, who are master sort of control freaks, but that doesn't always
02:04guarantee the magic, I think, so I think if you feel that, that's great, I think we're
02:10lucky, I mean, I think it's, there's some magical element, I think, that comes to play,
02:15you just don't know.
02:16You guys must have all been involved in projects in the past where you've finished on set and
02:20you've thought, this thing is, it's very good, I'm expecting this to be quite a game
02:24changer, or even the opposite effect, leaving on that was all a bit chaotic, you know, let's
02:29see what happens there, and then the finished product is so different to what you had in
02:33your mind.
02:34Was this one of those experiences, or did you finish on set of Conclave and think, now
02:38that is a piece of work, let's see, let's see what comes of this?
02:42I think you never know, I mean, you know, the, what's the, I forget, I can't remember
02:49the expression, but the, I think that you can have an idea of what you might have achieved,
02:56but like Rafe said, you never know.
02:58There are three different movies, there's the movie that's written, there's the movie
03:01that is performed and filmed, and then there's the movie that's edited, and there are a lot
03:06of voices around all of those aspects, particularly the final aspect, and so you may well have
03:14had something, but there could be voices from studio heads, there could be voices from
03:20wherever, from, you know, groups that, you know, what do you call them, groups who look
03:26at films and…
03:27Focus groups?
03:28Focus groups, yeah, that alter things, maybe not for the better, so you just, you just
03:33never know.
03:34It makes you wonder how many potentially incredible pieces of work are out there that were sort
03:39of finished off in a different way, and could have gone left instead of right, there may
03:43have been the films we still talk about today as kind of legendary.
03:46And the music, the music is always so surprising, the music is so powerful in this film, you
03:50know, that was always an element of surprise when you finally see the film put together.
03:55You make a very good point, because there are films like this that are kind of character
03:59driven and it's about the kind of the conversations and the dialogue, rather than, you know, explosions
04:06and all sorts of other incredible things we see in movies, and they can really irritate
04:11me with how they become overindulgent in the use of music to build suspense, or they stay
04:16on a shot for so long and you just think a little bit, okay, somebody's just become
04:21a bit obsessed with this.
04:22And the pacing of this film, it never kind of drops that beat every moment, it's just
04:28perfectly kind of judged for me.
04:31Speaking of perfectly judged, I introduced my stepson to Merlin with you and Sam Neill
04:36recently, one of my old favourites, another legend of the screen.
04:41You guys were sequestered away on this one together.
04:44How much of a joy to kind of work shoulder to shoulder with the kind of level of actor
04:50and actress that has been on set, Isabella, what has the experience been for you?
04:53It was a delight.
04:54We were all staying in the same hotel, I can say sequestered because we were in Rome, Rafe
05:00was sequestered because he was in every scene.
05:03I had, you know, I worked two or three days a week and the rest, I was free to be in Rome,
05:09which is the city where I was born, to see family, friends, and also take a lot of touristic
05:15tours, because the production has organised for us to go see museums, the Sistine Chapel,
05:22the Vatican, so that was also very informative.
05:25This is a conclave, it's not a war.
05:27It is a war, and you have to commit to a side.
05:34With the quality of a film like this, there are kind of the irritations of kind of the
05:39buzz of awards and, you know, adulations and things like that.
05:43When you're, it makes things easier when you're promoting, but when you've done something
05:47and you put it to one side, is there a sense of kind of early gratification or a bit of
05:52frustration when those sort of murmurings begin?
05:57Does it take something away from the celebration of a film to have to talk about it?
06:00In Italy we would go like this.
06:01Right.
06:03Because it brings bad luck.
06:04It brings bad luck to say award and all this, you go like this, you say, well, you know,
06:08don't say it.
06:09I feel like that.
06:10I always feel.
06:11Look, I mean, obviously it's lovely to get on it in any way, but I think to sort of,
06:15I mean, if it happens, it happens.
06:17I think otherwise, I see Isabella, I see that, it's bad luck to go, just enjoy the present
06:25moment.
06:26Be in the present.
06:27Here we are.
06:28Hollywood is obsessed with, you know, garnishing itself with awards to the point where the
06:35award season is longer than just about any other season that we have.
06:40So it's great.
06:41Like Rafe said, like if it happens, it's great, but you can't, you just have to enjoy what
06:46we made.
06:47That's it.
06:48Well, I hope people completely ignore that and just let themselves be sort of taken by
06:52this film and hopefully films similar to this that will come out through London Film Festival
06:56and things.
06:57Because I thought it was really one of those just indulge the pleasurable experiences to
07:01sit down.
07:02I think this is, this is like as Scorsese would say, this is cinema.
07:07So congratulations, guys.
07:08Thanks.
07:11Have an awesome London Film Fest.
07:13You too.
07:14Get some sleep.
07:15Yep.
07:16Yeah, that's not going to happen, is it?
07:17And I'll see you on the next one.