(c) Urban Cinefile

Andrew L. Urban's revealing interview with Michael Rymer can be found in Real Player audio format at the fantastic Australian movie site, Urban Cinefile. Andrew conducted this onset interview in Michael's trailer during lunch one afternoon. The interview was posted on the Urban Cinefile website during November, but I'm assuming it was conducted during October for, at one point in the interview, Rymer says they've "only been shooting three or four days."

Click here to listen the full interview (running time approx. 15 minutes, 21 seconds)

Andrew also wrote an article detailing the experiences of his day on the set (he was cast in the role of a journalist) This behind-the-scenes account is full of interesting information and is definitely worth a read. I highly recommend you click here to check it out!

Since the audio interview is so long and filled with great quotes, I have decided to transcribe it onto this page for easier access. Remember that this was a live, spoken interview, and so some sentences may seem somewhat 'flawed' in their written format. I think the best way to enjoy the interview is to listen and read along at the same time! This is definitely the best interview concerning the film available so far. Enjoy!

Andrew: Well, Michael Rymer and I are doing lunch on the set of 'Queen of the Damned' and we are in a very swank trailer. That's why it's so quiet, everybody else is out there munching and chomping and so's Michael. We're shooting - we, of course I'll explain why I use the word 'we' - are shooting a movie called 'Queen of the Damned' and it's being shot in the middle of Melbourne and other places. Now, the reason we're here, is because - and I have to declare my interest - I am in this movie, not just on the set. Here I am playing a journalist - typecast! Finally - Michael, very quickly, a brief summary between mouthfuls of this film.

Michael: Well, it's an adaptation of the third book in the Vampire Lestat trilogy called 'Queen of the Damned', a novel by Anne Rice and the story's about a vampire who has been alive for 300 years and he's, through various tribulations, gone to sleep in a state of depression and is woken by the sound of a very loud electric guitar. And he rises from his grave in New Orleans and finds the band playing music and says to them "I'm gonna to make you rich and famous" and he becomes a rock star. And, in the process, pisses off every other vampire in the world cause he's not supposed to be going public. And so they all come to get him at this big concert that he's throwing, and the twist is that in the process of waking up all these other vampires, he wakes up the queen mother of all vampires, Akasha, the Queen of the Damned, who comes to get him. Meanwhile there's a young sort of researcher who tracks Lestat down and decides that she has a connection with him and falls in love and there's also a love story in there as well.

A: Now, I must alert to you the fact, Michael, that you omitted to mention my role... (laughs)

M: Oh (laughs)

A: So I will mention it while you finish lunch. I play a journalist, which is what I am, at a press conference in London, the very first and probably only press conference held by the band. And, of course, Lestat isn't there in person. We see an image of him on a giant video screen cause he can't go into daylight. And so I ask him a couple of questions and that's me done. However, it lets me see inside the makings of the movie. Especially, although it's done in Australia, it's a studio picture. This is a Warner Brothers movie, I understand, and who else?

M: It's a Warner Brothers co-production with Village Roadshow, and I think the Village Roadshow side of it had a bit of influence about the fact that we're in Melbourne because the big-wigs at Village Roadshow are Australian and they know Melbourne and they know, really, there's a lot of versatility and a lot of different options.

A: But also there is a commercial element, obviously, you're shooting now when the Australian dollar's pretty weak. How does that impact on the shoot and, you know, what's the scope of the shoot?

M: Well, I'm not supposed to say what the budget is but, I can tell you that for what we're doing it is extremely low, and we would not be able to do this movie if we were shooting in the States. So you've got the exchange rate, you've got the very generous tax concessions from the government and just generally prices for construction are cheaper here. And how that, you know - I guess the major creative impact on the film from my point of view is that, because the budget is low for what we're giving the studio there was less pressure to have big name stars, so we were able to actually do casting sessions and cast young actors that are relatively unknown.

A: Well, in my case, of course, I have a huge back end deal which is why I... no, but seriously, the other thing about this is that the film, you know, having read the script, I know a bit more about it than I would normally do - what is the tone though - how, you know, another vampire movie - what are you doing with it?

M: Well the tone is tricky, to say the least. My big concern is - I mean, I'm a huge Anne Rice nut, and what I love about it is the scope. She had a very vivid imagination and really thought through the idea of well, what if you were a vampire? The first book, 'Interview With the Vampire', and the film really deals with the issue, well if I'm a vampire I have to kill, and how do I cope with that and what does it all mean? And in the second book, Lestat doesn't have the same sort of qualms about killing. He's more, you know, he's quite happy to be a vampire. In fact, he loves being a vampire, he's a fabulous vampire, but the issue becomes about immortality. If you're going to live forever, what do you do with it? And so there are, you know, half a dozen different points of views on that from vampires of different ages, vampires that are 300 years old, 2000 years old, 6000 years old. And so it has a real philosophical, sort of, follow through. You know, if I am gonna live forever, how do I do it, what do I make of it, what does it mean?

A: So, it's quite serious, it's ah... the tone is not 'jokey'...

M: Well, the tone is not camp. I mean, the tone is light. I mean, come on, it's a rock'n'roll vampire movie! How serious can you be? It's fun, it's a fairy story. It's a piece of, what I'm trying to make a piece of, sort of, pop culture mythology, and I think it's working really well. It's very colourful and bold and stylized and dramatic and hopefully funny as well and frightening. So, you know, we've only been shooting three or four days, but I think the material we're getting is really supporting that tone so far.

A: Now, for Australians this will seem a huge dramatic jump for Michael Rymer who was last seen making a film called Angel Baby which was rather well received everywhere. Sold quite well internationally, starred John Lynch and Jackie MacKenzie in two superb performances, and dealt with two young lovers who happened to be schizophrenic. And everybody, you know, saw a big future for you Michael. And you indeed have been busy, but we haven't seen much of you here. Could you briefly fill in those missing years, and your filmography for us.

M: Well, 'Angel Baby' got me a lot of attention and a lot of opportunities... I got involved with a couple of studio projects in LA that were very, sort of, dark and difficult, and I read them and went, Wow, I love this! Gee, if the studio wants to make this then, well, I'll do it! And, they didn't really want to make it which raises the bigger issue in why they wasted everyone's time and money but, you know, that's not my concern in the end. I've just become a bit more careful now with what I get involved with. And during that period of frustration, I went off and made a short, no, a feature length improv film with no script. Because previously before I finished film school I spent two years studying the Stanford Meiser technique, which is an inprov based acting training, in order to learn how to direct and speak to actors. And so I tried to shoot... I shot a film in 9 days which was with no script and it was pretty successful. It worked pretty well. It actually played on Encore here, it still does. But we... for reasons I'd better not go into it didn't sell widely and we never got certain clearances and so forth so the film never really made it to light, but it did inspire me to try that again and sort of refine the process so just this last summer I shot another improv film and that had a bit more money and had a longer schedule and that was called 'Perfume', so that will be - we're finishing that up at the end of the year - and that's about as different from 'Queen of the Damned' as you can imagine. It's a very adult film, an art film and, you know, everything this one isn't.

A: Which raises the question, how did you become involved with 'Queen of the Damned', who approached you and why, and what attracted you to do it?

M: Well, I would go around town after 'Angel Baby' and people would say, "well, what do you want to do?" and I'd say "if I could do anything, I'd do The Vampire Lestat", which is the second Anne Rice book, and I just happened to say it at the right meeting and the vice president of Warner Brothers, Courtney Valenti, said "Ah, well actually, Jordan's not doing the sequel, and it's sitting on the shelf, do you wanna develop it?" So we - feels like a long time, I think it was actually only two years ago - we sat down and figured out how to approach the book and I spent a couple of weeks with Anne and we hired a writer, and here we are two years and six writers later on the set and shooting the damn thing. So, um, it's pretty cool.

And the reason isn't you know, to get back to your original question. All my friends and family - a lot of people asked them - "after Angel Baby why would he want to do this?" But anyone who's known me my whole life just laughs because this is - I was a horror movie nut when I was a kid. So this is my, you know, this is my fantasy. Oh, and by the way I did another film - I did a Miramax film - last year which was called In Too Deep which was a African American undercover cop story. So if you really wanna talk about continuity of themes and style and, you know...

A: There isn't one!

M: Nah, well, there is if you look at all the films. Like, there seems to be two strands running. One that's fairly light and sort of feminine in a way, sort of what one might call like a 'chick flick' theme, and then I have this much darker more... driven sort of world view I'm trying to express as well. And I think the two feed each other very nicely. But no I haven't settled on a world point of view or a style yet. They seem to be converging and sorting themselves out.

A: Are you confident that, with 'Queen of the Damned', you will hit that tone that you're looking for, which is somewhere between, you know, being totally credible but also being larger than life? I mean, God, I'm sitting here wearing enormous black boots and, you know, a jacket that everyone who sees it would die for - the black and white jacket. But you know, it's all over the top, it's all very bold and big.

M: It is bold and big but it's not - we haven't sort of tipped over the edge into a cartoon sort of Batman style. This is much more... oh, it's a hard one to nail, I don't know what this film is like! You know, our references were always, oh, you know, if Neil Jordan did Interview With The Vampire in the style of the Merchant Ivory classy period piece, then this is Anne Rice done in the style of Trainspotting. Or something much more sort of irreverent.

A: Just quickly, the vampire Lestat is played by Stuart Townsend, a young actor not terribly well known by Australian audiences. Why did you pick him?

M: Well, it's just a very rare situation in a studio system film where the best actor - like I tested about 60 actors. I went to London, I did it in LA, we did tests in New York, and he was the best young actor for the role. You know, as well as Marguerite for the role of Jesse. So, I mean, it made them very nervous but they were really were ballsy and went for it, said okay, well, this movie's at a price and gotta build an audience and this is enough going... And we also have Aaliyah in it who has broken out as an actress and has quite a large following and by the way is fabulous - is going to be fabulous as Akasha. She's amazing.

A: Now yes, and I enjoy being on the set...

M: Boring.

A: Yes, well, it is boring. But, you know, I enjoyed being on the other side for a day. And the fact that...

M: You get to sit down.

A: I get to sit down... It's full of Australian actors. As well as the leads there are a lot of secondary lead characters who are Australian actors. So, in a sense you're at home here making a Hollywood picture but with Australian elements and working with a largely Australian crew.

M: Well, you know, they wanted to originally go to Vancouver, and I had shot this cop thriller in Toronto and had been very disappointed in the level of supporting actors, the pool of people that were available. So when it became viable to come here I became very excited. Not because I particularly wanted to become involved in Melbourne which is where I grew up, but because I knew that there was a very strong base of theatre and television and film making that I could get actors - because, you know, they're as important as the leads. One bad performance undoes the whole film.

A: Well, I've nearly stopped you finishing your lunch, but there's a little bit left and as soon as you've done that, let's go shoot my close-up, okay? (laughs)

M: We're coming round to that right now.

A: Thanks a lot!

Interview spoken by Andrew L. Urban and Michael Rymer, courtesy of Urban Cinefile.
Transcribed by Vampvan.

BACK