 I suppose what I think of as evil is sort of anti-human impulses in humans, and doubtlessness is a thing that I think is really problematic, and very much in vogue these days politically. The politically doubtless seem to be being bigged-up and I think that it is anti-humane. So that feels the closest thing that I can think of to a concept of evil. The lack of the capacity to be compassionate, I think.
Some time ago you said you weren’t an “industrial animal” and that the first “industrial site” you'd visited was when you made The Beach. Do films like The Chronicles of Narnia and Constantine suggest that you are becoming more of an industrial animal, or at least somewhat more acclimatised to this kind of filmmaking?
“I wonder whether I am. The real reason that I’ve made a couple of studio films recently is that I’ve been asked to. But really I suppose the reason is that the studios have hired Francis Lawrence [director of Constantine] and Andrew Adamson this time round and they’ve wanted me to be in their films. So it’s more a question of the mountain coming to Mohammad, I suppose, than the other way round. To make a big studio picture with Francis Lawrence or Andrew Adamson feels exotic because 1500 people come to lunch every day, or because we go to the set in a helicopter. But actually it feels pretty much business as usual, because I was clear from the beginning that I would have made both of those films if they had made them in basements. I would have been very, very happy to make a film with Andrew wherever he made it. It was an added joke, and also an added advantage, to be able to be a spy on a big one like this. It was really interesting. I have learned more about the differences between big films and little ones, and why they end up being the way they are, which is fascinating.”
By calling yourself a spy do you mean that you still feel like a bit of an outsider looking in on these things?
"Um, well I’m an observer in the sense that it’s not my natural habitat. I’m a guest. I feel that I’m a guest. I think it’s a miracle that anything this big can be as fresh as this film is or as fresh as Constantine is. I think it’s extraordinary. I understand much more why big studio films are rubbish as they usually are [laughs], because the creativity is in a different place with big films. It’s months and months and months, and maybe years ago, whereas in the little films you’re working in the state of maelstrom all the time.”
You’ve talked about the communication you have with directors being important. What kind of communication did you have with Andrew Adamson on this? What did he say that convinced you that this was a project you should be involved in?
“Well that was exactly business as usual for me. The very fact that he’s the person, and that he’s the element with which I had my connection, and that he was the reason that I did it. His enthusiasm for this book that I had never read, I didn’t even have that connection, made me want to be around when he tried. And I’m really glad that I was. I can’t even remember what he said to me. But he must have said something that made me think it was a good idea. I liked him, you know? I wanted to be around him.”
Did you do the movie for your kids?
“No. They don’t want to see the film, they’ve told me that already. It’s the only film I’ve ever made that they could see. But they say they don’t want to see it, so there you go. It’s pointless doing things for them. I think it’s such an amazing story anyway, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Going through the back of a wardrobe and going into a magical land where there is the epitome of all evil. And the reason that I really, really felt it was like a right-on thing for me to do at the moment is that it’s about war children and about the consciousnesses of war children, and I feel really strongly that all our children, whether or not they’re exposed to media, are war children now. When you think of our children that are exposed to media, the amount of stuff they have to absorb, where do they find a wardrobe to go out the back of somewhere? How do they absorb what’s going on and how powerless they are in it? That’s what I love in that story about children: it’s about children in a parentless world that go out the back of that wardrobe and they just become kings and queens and they slay evil. It’s just fantastic.”
You grew up in the shadow of the Bomb and with images of the Vietnam War pouring out of the TV. Did you also have that war-child feeling growing up?
“Yeah, definitely. I think we all are. And I think we all have been for a while. I was definitely from a war family in the sense that my father was, to an extent, a war hero, and we were always brought up with the idea that you lost a leg in the war. And, you know, just to be in the environment of that, no matter how unspoken it was, makes an impact. So yeah, I think we’ve all been war children, always.”
You said you wondered where children today find their wardrobe to escape through. Where did you find yours?
“Um, I don’t know. I, you know, made for a life as soon as I could as an artist among artists. That’s my camp. That’s my army. And I’m happy to have joined up. Yeah, the company of other alienated people [laughs].”
Did you feel alienated at home? Did you feel different?
“No, apart from the fact I was the only girl among a bunch of boys. And no more alienated than any introspective child that asks questions that nobody wants to answer. You know, nothing particularly exotic.”
Do you always try to be there for your kids when they ask questions?
“Well, I’m not there today. But they don’t ask the questions I asked. But then, to a certain extent, they don’t need to. They’ll come up with different questions, no doubt. But my son did ask me the other day when we were on a plane, whether he could bounce on the clouds. And when I said maybe not, he said, ‘But you’re able to when you’re an angel, aren’t you?’ I thought, ‘Wow! Where did that come from?’ I don’t know, they’ll probably end up joining the Hitler Youth.”
Huh?
“It’s important to ring the changes. It’s important to go away from your parents, isn’t it?”
You’ve played mothers in the past who are very protective of their children and here you’ve turned that around, playing a witch who tries to capture and kill four children. Could you have played this role a few years back? You’ve said that there’s always an element of autobiography in your work, but I can’t imagine what it is here.
“I think the autobiographical element in this is people who were cold to me when I was a child. But that still would have stood good 10 years ago. So I think I was always probably ready to do this. Yeah.”
So it’s been building up inside you?
“Mm, very good. And it’s also sort of a blood-letting for me as a parent. I am not cold. I am not capable of that kind of control. You know, I’m fully into modelling human beings with my children.”
You’ve said you play the epitome of evil in this. Do you actually believe in evil?
“I suppose what I think of as evil is sort of anti-human impulses in humans, and doubtlessness is a thing that I think is really problematic, and very much in vogue these days politically. The politically doubtless seem to be being bigged-up these days and I think that it is anti-humane. So that feels the closest thing that I can think of to a concept of evil. The lack of the capacity to be compassionate, I think.”
So it’s actually part of our human make up, or an absence of something, rather than the religious concept of something coming in from the outside?
“Well, I don’t know how to comment on the religious concept. What I would say about that though is that if the human nature is capable of encountering something then it must come from within. Certainly a recognition or a wiring must occur to bring it from within for it come from outside. Unless one is talking about being dominated, I don’t see what . . . what’s really profound for human beings is what they can drum up for themselves.”
What did you get out of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when you first read it? It’s widely regarded as a great piece of Christian literature but people involved in the film are playing that down saying that it’s whatever you want to make it.
“Well it was written by someone who was a devout Christian, there’s no doubt about that. But there’s also no doubt that he was perfectly capable of writing very overt Christian tracts, and in fact was writing them alongside this book, and that what he really did was he actually set out to write something different with this book and with this whole series, the whole Narnia Chronicles. I was reading recently a position about C.S. Lewis which implied, in my view, that he was intelligent enough to realise that young children are incapable of a religious experience, actually. Not incapable of a spiritual experience, but incapable of a religious experience. I would go so far as to say that not only is this not a religious book, but, if anything, it’s actually an anti-religious book in the sense that it is about the very opposite of following a dogma, following a doctrine. It’s about being resourceful and self-sufficient and following your own conscience and your own star, which is a very private issue and not anything to do with any set down religion. So, if anything, I think this is C.S. Lewis looking at something other than religion; looking at a childhood state which is sort of pre-religious.”
Does it, though, as a former member of the British Communist Party, concern you that right-wing Christians in America are gearing up to use this as a faith-building exercise?
“Not at all. Christians are welcome, too. They can absolutely buy tickets to see this film if they like. It’s not exclusive to anybody. I think that those that are trying to hijack this film haven’t seen it yet. And they will see, for example, that the whole idea of interpretation is deeply embedded in the film. When Aslan is resurrected – you know, according to the resurrection myth in most standard religious belief systems – when the children ask him what’s going on, originally there was the idea that there was a deeper magic that even the witch didn’t understand. But in fact in our film his answer is that had she interpreted the deep magic differently . . . The idea of interpretation is right there in the heart of the film and belief is in the eye of the beholder, and people can slap on it whatever they want. But at the end of the day it’s a really good story about children being self-sufficient.”
Could you just say something briefly about playing Nico, the late Velvet Underground chanteuse, before we wrap up?
“Yes, I hope before too long to play her. David Mackenzie, who made Young Adam, and I want to make a film about the last tour. And Jan and David Peoples, who wrote 12 Monkeys and Blade Runner, have written a script. It’s not a biopic, it’s about the last tour. The very last gasp. The has-been that never was. I love that whole subject, you know, those tours at the very end of either people’s careers or lives, where they’re going round university campuses. I’m actually a really great fan of hers. I think she’s fantastic. And I always have. I know that David Mackenzie feels the same. That’s why we feel emboldened to make a film about her, because we think she’s great. I don’t think people who don’t think people are great should make films about them [laughs].”
Are you a frustrated rocker? You were wearing an Iggy Pop T-shirt when you were publicising Thumbsucker in Berlin.
“I was giving it my Marilyn Manson in this film [Narnia]. This is very Marilyn Manson inspired, actually, particularly the battle outfit. There was one moment where I had to be in front of a green screen and I had as my soundtrack a Marilyn Manson track, which was great. And that Stone Table was very Iron Maiden, actually. They should really have done the soundtrack, they missed a trick there, but I don’t know whether Disney would have liked that. I really wanted Nick Cave to be the voice of Aslan originally.”
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