Jonas Akerlund returns to the director’s chair this week with his great new movie Small Apartments, which sees him team up with the likes of Matt Lucas and Billy Crystal.
We caught up with the director to chat about the new movie, what inspired him about the original novel and what lies ahead.
- Small Apartments is set to be released here in the UK this week so can you tell me a little bit about it?
I would say that the movie is a little unexpected for a few different reasons. The thing that I kept thinking about while I was making this movie was ‘there are a lot of people in this movie who did things that they usually don’t do’.
So I did cast unexpectedly and the story has some unexpected turns - there are a lot of surprises. It is really hard to expect anything with this movie as it is really set in its own little world, which is something that I have never really seen before.
I think that the cast were a brave group of actors to say yes to these roles and that really adds on to that unexpected experience.
- The film is an adaptation of the novel Small Apartments by Chris Millis so where did this project start for you and how did you get involved?
This has been an extremely dragged out process as I got this book over ten years ago. Especially in Los Angeles you get attached to these projects and then they lie around and you wait and look for that moment in time when everything just works out - every movie that gets made here in LA is a little bit of a miracle. This movie is even more of a miracle as it is not a commercial film that people would want to put money in to.
So I was just waiting for that moment and what really made this project move forward was Matt Lucas. I was looking for an actor that was brave enough to play this part - there were a lot of people who wanted to do it - but I felt Franklin was a little compromised and it didn’t feel 100% right.
But then I managed to get the book and the script to Matt in London and I went over to London to meet him. He said that he wanted to do it but he was very busy at the time and so that meant we had to wait another couple of years until we could get the schedule sorted out.
But the book was with me for a long time and it was given to me by a producer who said ‘you will probably like this’, and I did. Chris Millis and I developed the script together but it really did take a long time.
- You are clearly a big fan of the book and know the book very well so I was wondering about Chris Millis’ original story that really attracted you?
I think I fell in love with the central character of Franklin straight away. I don’t want to say that this movie is preaching or has a message but there is that something that extra layer that made the movie interesting to me.
It starts off as a comedy - it really could be like any other comedy - but then it ends up going in a different and unexpected direction. The character f Franklin and his journey and the unexpected turns and the message of the movie really inspired me.
It was also very well written. Chris wrote this book in three days - a story like this could take a writer years - and there was something inspiring about that as well.
- The cast for this movie is just terrific Matt Lucas, James Caan, Juno Temple, Rebel Wilson and Dolph Ludgren are to name but a few so can you talk a bit about the casting process?
To me this movie is such a character driven story - some of them have more screen time than others but they are all very important characters. So very early on I said to my producers and my casting directors that I wanted to aim high with all of these actors as every role was an important character to the story.
When you do that with a small move like this where you don’t really have anything to offer except the passion for a project just getting people to read it can be a struggle. I was very flattered that people took this seriously and it was surprisingly easy to get people to read it and be involved.
Like I said before I am very proud of all these actors and they are very brave actors who didn’t need this movie (laughs). But they fell for it and fell in love with Franklin and the story.
That is one of the sides of Los Angeles that I really like as people may have their big careers but there is one side to Hollywood that is always open to taking risks - as long as it doesn’t include risking too much money.
But if it just roll down the hill and be on a weird little shoot for a few days people really are open minded. It was a very short shoot and it helped that we shot here in Los Angeles.
We got Matt Lucas and Peter Stormare very early on and I had Billy Crystal on my list for it and he was a tough one and I needed to do a few meetings before he said yes. He has never done an independent movie in his life.
So there were a lot of people who had never done certain things before; Matt has never played a lead role before and he hadn’t done an American accent in a movie. Billy had never done an independent movie ever before.
Johnny Knoxville took a big step into more serious acting than he had ever done before and Dolph Lundgren did a movie where, for the first time in twenty years, he didn’t hold a gun. There was something in it for everyone that they had never done before and that made it interesting and fun.
- As you say this is the first lead role for Matt Lucas so how did you find working with him? And what did he bring to the table when you were developing the central character of Franklin?
Well I saw him on TV like everyone else. Franklin is an odd character and so easily could become an unlikeable character. He looks the way that he looks and he is doing stupid things - throughout the movie he really is an unlikeable person.
With Matt there is something about his appearance that is very likeable and I think that that was one of the biggest things that he did bring to the character; he actually got away with doing these things and still being likeable.
I saw it unfold right in front of my face when we shot this movie because Matt walks on to set in his underwear and he is like ‘this is me, this is who I am’ and most of my American crew didn’t know who he was. They looked at him and were like ‘woah, who is this guy?’
And after only a couple of days people started talking to him and started to like him and by the end of the shoot everyone loved him.
That is kind of what the character is doing in the movie; you see him and it could be a turn off but eventually you start to care for him and you start to like. What was most important to me is the ending actually does feel good for the audience and I think it really works and I think people are really happy for him at the end.
So it think that that was the biggest thing that Matt brought to the character. We had many meetings and developments together to get him to the right place.
Matt is use to hiding behind his very strong and funny characters and he is use to having a lot of hair and a lot of makeup and funny voices and doing little sketches.
This was very different for him as we took all of that away and this is very naked and very revealing - that was part of the character.
- So how have you found the response to the movie so far - it does seem to being going down incredibly well?
Yeah, I think so. It is a small distribution but it is growing and I am seeing that in my emails and online as people are sending me notes and their thoughts - more recently people have been coming up to me to talk about the movie.
I kind of like that feeling that this is the kind of movie that audiences find and I have a feeling that it is going to grow and be around for quite some time. So far it has been received very very well.
- You started off your career filming shorts and music videos so how have you found the transition into feature films?
I am a very spread out type of director as I just love working in all of these different worlds; I go from commercials to music videos to art projects. I also work in a lot of different countries and travel. So making movies was not really a transition it was part of everything else that I do as well.
I find doing all of these very different things very compelling and very inspirational. I don’t have much patience as I really like to work a lot and it is really hard to work a lot in movies because you have to have patience - every movie is a huge test of patience. But this is my fourth movie so I have been doing this for a while not.
- As you say you have done commercials music videos, documentaries, shorts as well as still photography and while you have penned some shorts you have never penned a feature film screenplay so is that something that is on the cards?
I think that it is because of my patience and my time. I want to write and it is actually one of my goals in life - I have just finished a script actually; I have been working on it for quite some time.
The biggest things is I don’t really have the peace and quiet to be able to do it as I really like to work a lot; already this year I have done over ten projects.
Writing is there for me and all of the music videos and other things that I am doing I do write myself. But with movie I haven’t really found the time for it yet.
- Finally what is next for you?
Right now I am on a little bit of a commercial rollercoaster. I am also attached to three or four movie projects at the moment but none of them have been green lit just yet - I shouldn’t really be talking about them yet.
One of my goals this year is to do another movie and keep this going. So hopefully this Fall I will be shooting my next movie.
Small Apartments, the new comedy film from Jonas Akerlund, launches in UK cinemas from Friday 22nd March
Tagged in Matt Lucas