Elba's trophy for best supporting actor in "Beasts of No Nation" rekindles debate over his Academy Award snub; James Schamus used to buy films at Sundance as the head of Focus Features, but this year he was there with his directorial debut.
Idris Elba of 'Beasts of No Nation' takes home 2 SAG Awards
At the 2016 Screen Actors Guild Awards on Jan. 31, Idris Elba took home not one, but two awards: one for Male Actor in a Supporting Role for his part in "Beasts of No Nation," and the other for Male Actor in a Miniseries/TV movie for the BBC America show, "Luther."
Elba is the only SAG film award winner who was not also nominated for the Academy Awards. His absence in the Oscars lineup added considerable fuel to this year's #OscarsSoWhite controversy, as many believed that his performance in "Beasts of No Nation" was more than worthy of at least a nomination. His win at the SAG Awards seem to confirm this sentiment.
The Frame interviewed Idris Elba at the Telluride Film Festival last fall about his role in "Beasts of No Nation."
ORIGINAL POST: If you were anywhere near social media three years ago, you probably saw something related to "Kony 2012."
The short film about the Ugandan guerrilla leader — and his history of forced recruitment of child soldiers — struck a nerve and went hugely viral. And while the video received plenty of criticism for its oversimplification of complex issues and its encouragement of "slacktivism," there was clearly a Western fascination with the man behind years of atrocities.
And that's the fascination and energy that writer-director Cary Fukunaga has tapped into with his latest film, "Beasts of No Nation," which stars Idris Elba as the commandant of a child army in an unnamed country in West Africa.
The film premiered at the 2015 Venice Film Festival and just had its U.S. debut at the Telluride Film Festival, opening to positive reviews that praised Elba's performance in particular.
When we spoke with Elba at Telluride, we asked him about his personal history with the filming location for "Beasts of No Nation," and the ways in which he and Fukanaga blurred the line between Idris the actor and Commandant the character. Oh, and we also asked about the history of his DJ alter ego.
Interview Highlights:
How'd you start DJing? Was it an early passion?
Yeah, I've been DJing since I was 14 years old. And before that, I used to DJ for my mum and dad. They'd have friends over and I'd be the guy putting the records on while they were getting drinks. Once I was 14 or 15 I was on pirate radio, and then at one point I decided I wanted to be an actor, but I kept the two going.
Do they give you different satisfactions?
Actually, it's the same satisfaction. It all comes from creativity, trying to make people emote to you, one way or another. However, DJing is live, it happens there in the moment, and if you make a wrong turn you can change the atmosphere of a room just like being on stage as an actor. But it's very different for film.
Let's talk about "Beasts of No Nation." First, I want to talk about the location where you shot this film, because it's a place that's very special to you personally. Can you talk about what the location meant to you as a child, and then what it means to go back there as an actor?
The film was shot in Accra, in Ghana, which is very special to me because my mum was born there. My mum was the last of 10, 11 children, and she left Accra when she was 12 and moved to Sierra Leone, where she met my dad. They got married and then I was born in London. So my affinity for Accra is because it's my mother's birthplace, and simply making a film there was very special.
I took my mum with me, so the first time I got off the plane was with my mum, and she hadn't been home in about 20 years. That was a great moment. Accra is a beautiful place, very proud, and they're very proud of me and my career, so it felt very welcoming. And, of course, we were making an important and in-depth film, and Accra lent itself to us in so many ways that it was just incredible.
Not only was it perfect for what we were shooting, but the Ghanaian officials and government who allowed us to come in and make this film were really sensitive as well. It was a really good atmosphere to make a film in, and Cary was very sensitive to the idea of being a filmmaker, coming into Ghana and making a film about atrocities that never happened in Ghana.
You play a character named Commandant, who's a soldier-for-hire in many ways. He's driven less by ideology than he is by profit, and yet he has a remarkable and obviously dangerous bond with the children that he has fighting for him.
I think there's an ideology that he believes in. The way he runs his faction is based on the army and strategy, and that's an ideology that he uses to entice kids to come into his fold. He's fighting for a dead ideology and he doesn't realize it, and that's what you realize halfway through the film.
But it's a fascinating slice of someone that has a lot of complexities, and that was one of the things that drew me to this role. How do you make someone so despicable — I'm going to take your child and turn them into soldiers and we'll make them do horrific things — but make him human? What's that process? Cary and I were both fascinated by that.
We wanted to steer away from the caricatures of the Charles Taylors of the world and the Konys of the world, who have these magnified personalities of being commandants of child soldiers. We wanted to find a middle ground — this guy's real, he's honest, he's human, but he is what he is.
When Cary's casting the film, he's casting from a lot of local actors, non-professionals, people who live in the area. As an actor in that film, does that change your relationship with the cast? As a professional actor, do you become someone who's walking them through the day of how to act?
You've picked up on it immediately. There had to be a moment where Idris the actor really connected with the supporting artists. In other words, we had to really understand each other to make it happen on the screen.
So, for example, I'd walk on set and I'm the lead actor, but we designed it such that when I walked on-set, we were ready to go. The actors that were non-actors were really excited to see Idris, but the point is that also these were multiple days of our story — I'm the Commandant, and I'm going to tell you what to do.
There was this real interesting rapport, where the extras would look at me and [think], I've never seen a professional actor, but he's still acting, so we must still be acting. Here he comes! [And greet me], "Hey, Commandant!" And the great thing about Cary was that I'd come in, I'd walk on the set and wouldn't even be prepped, and I'd just stir up a frenzy with the guys. And before you knew it, Cary was filming and that was the energy of the camp. It was really fascinating.
James Schamus goes from studio chief to director with 'Indignation'
James Schamus has been an Oscar-nominated film producer and screenwriter. He partnered with Ang Lee on a number of films, and has writing credits on “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “The Ice Storm.” Until this January, he had never been to the Sundance Film Festival as a director. He attended the indie Mecca most recently as the head of Focus Features, the arthouse division of Universal, where he was looking to buy movies. But this year he took his directorial debut "Indignation" to the festival in the hopes that someone would buy his movie. The night of the premiere Lionsgate bought it for $2.5 million.
"Indignation" is an adaptation of the Philip Roth novel of the same name, and it stars Logan Lehrman, Tracey Letts and Sarah Gadon. It's in theaters now.
The Frame's John Horn sat down with Schamus to get a sense of what it’s like for him to be at the festival in this new incarnation.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
You have been in the Eccles theater [at Sundance] probably more times than you care to count, but it's always been in the role of a buyer, somebody who's looking at a film, trying to figure out if it was a good match for Focus Features. What was it like watching your film not as that person?
That question assumes that while I was sitting in my seat I was actually capable of watching my movie, rather than just kind of feeling what the audience was communicating to me, which was the primary experience, really. So it was quite different.
What was that like?
It was great. Obviously, being in the theater with 1,200 people and having the audience burst into applause at a scene in a drama was weird. I've never had that except once before — at the world premiere for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," when people applauded after the first fight scene. I thought, Oh well, that [scene in 'Indignation'] seems kind of like a fight scene, too. So I guess it makes sense. But it was very odd.
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(Logan Lerman and Sarah Gadon star in James Schamus's directorial debut, "Indignation")
This is the 12-minute scene between Logan Lerman and Tracy Letts?
You're warm!
Fifteen?
But the point is, it's not a macho thing, let's put it that way, like how long it is. But to the extent to which [the scene] played narratively and intensely, people really got the underlying structure and architecture of it. That was the biggest moment, obviously, for me in the evening.
And were you able to separate yourself out from that experience, or did it feel as if you were watching it from some altered state?
The thing is, whatever calculations went into writing and making the movie, the moment of calculation passes by the time it screens. So it is a different experience, on the one hand, than those that I had when I was buying films as the head of a studio. On the other hand, having seen a few hundred movies over the years here at Sundance, my philosophy was always the same — which was, after about 10-20 minutes or so, usually, as a buyer, I would know whether or not the film was for Focus. But I maintained, for myself and my team, [the] ethos, Never walk out of a movie, no matter what. So I sat through all those movies.
You are very rare in that category. Because most of the buyers I know will walk out quickly and loudly.
Yeah. And I refuse to participate in that. I thought that this is a filmmakers' festival. These people have worked hard, no matter what. They made a movie. I'm going to sit and watch that movie. Quite often, the movies that I most enjoyed here at the festival were those that I knew I would never have anything to do with as a businessperson. So I could just sit back and say, Look, let's see where this person's taking me.
They might not have been the best movies, and sometimes they really were the best movies, but they were movies that I was not in a position to distribute.
When you introduced the film at the premiere the other night, you referred to being — and I'm quoting you — "uncharacteristically humbled." What do you mean by that?
[Laughter.] What I meant by it was the followup to it. Which is, uncharacteristically humbled and potentially humiliated. Luckily the potential humiliation [seems] not to have appeared, so that was great. I'm very happy for that outcome. But you have to admit your own vulnerability. Here I am of a certain age and a certain career. And I could easily continue to be doing things that would enable me to be well-remunerated and to receive various life-achievement accolades until whenever. But when you stand there, you're really — even though it's a collective work of art, and I had a great crew and a great cast — you're the guy with the target.
There's nobody else to blame.
Exactly. And rightfully so. So I was vulnerable. And I should have been.
I want to talk a little bit about filmmaking influences. You have worked in the business for decades. You've produced a lot of movies. You've written a lot of movies. As a director, as a different job, do you think of yourself as being influenced by filmmakers you've worked with? Do you think you have your own style? Or are you really able to differentiate those things as you're making a movie?
I've learned so much from everybody. And what I tried to do as a first time director on this movie was something that I've noticed. Sometimes directors fall into a certain trap — they screen their favorite movie for the crew, right? It's like, Let's watch "The Seventh Seal" together and you'll see what I'm really going for! Which to me is just a nightmare. Because A), I'll never get there anyhow. That's Ingmar Bergman and I'm not. And B), I don't want the crew to think that I'm just emulating something. So, I pulled from as many disparate sources and inspirations as I could, knowing that I was going to organize them in a specific style at the end of the day.
If the people who run NBC Universal didn't have a different view of the world, you might be here at Focus Features looking for films. You are not, because they changed the company radically and changed your job in it. With a film here now, does part of you say, Everything happens for a reason?
Yeah, of course. Even if I didn't believe it I'd have to answer that question that way. For sure.
Here's the truth, to be honest. My exit from Focus was something that I had foreseen and had planned on, just not quite as early as that. So I had seen that writing on the wall. I did not see the fundamental change, obviously, to the lives of the other staff at the company at the time. But besides that, I think it had been time. The job had gotten much more corporate the last couple years I was there. And you know, over the years I was able to maintain a pretty fun balance between my own personal creative work and the work of really supporting the company and the films I was delivering for it. But that balance was certainly disappearing.