Home > MOVIES > THE 'SPACED' INTERVIEWS: EDGAR WRIGHT
THE 'SPACED' INTERVIEWS: EDGAR WRIGHT
The acclaimed director talks about "Spaced," "Hot Fuzz," and what's going on with "Scott Pilgrim" and "Ant-Man"
By Rachel Molino
Posted 8/22/2008
Edgar Wright chats with Wizard about "Spaced" and his upcoming work on film adaptations of "Scott Pilgrim" and "Ant-Man."
WIZARD: Did you ever consider "Spaced" an experimenting ground for different kinds of camera work? EDGAR WRIGHT:
Not anything that wasn't right for the show. I was 24 when I made the first series so I definitely had a style in previous things that I'd done that I'd been trying to perfect, and "Spaced" turned out to be the perfect vehicle to make that work. I was very lucky that I got my start doing TV comedy when I was 21 'cause I'd made amateur films and then made a very, very low budget feature when I was 20 that was ridiculously naive but had a particular kind of style I was trying to build up to, and with "Spaced" it seemed like all the elements came together. I'd already worked with Simon and Jessica before and so we were able to hit the ground running with some momentum in terms of the style. They were used to my style of shooting 'cause we'd done a series before and I'd read the script’s first draft of the first episode which was written maybe 18 months before we actually started shooting so I had a lot of time to think about it so it worked out brilliantly. It was the first thing that I'd done where I really felt, like, "Okay, this is what I want to do."
Were there any really big things that you learned as a director while you were doing it? WRIGHT:
I think the biggest thing was trying to do that kind of style of direction that is very set up heavy and can't always be achieved in a couple of takes. I guess something that I've always done with all my different films is try to achieve the great shot and the great performance in the same take and also try to perfect what you're doing visually, but being sympathetic to the performers and not wearing them out. I think that tends to happen in the editing room. Even if you've got a brilliant visual take, you'll always go with the best performance at the end of the day. And the thing also that was great doing "Spaced" was that all the actors were of a similar age, so we were really able work in unison and I was able to communicate what I wanted from them, because I’d worked with a couple of them already.
Were a lot of the cut scenes and action parody sequences a partnership of your and Simon’s and Jessica's ideas? WRIGHT:
I think it was all of us. Simon and Jessica wrote the scripts for "Spaced" and I was involved from an early part but if you read the original scripts they contain all the major deets but maybe not all of the visual detail. I was just looking at something yesterday, the writing of the zombie scene in the third episode, how the action was written down and what the finished thing is like, the execution of it. The intent of what they wrote is exactly what we did but we kind of made it three times as complicated and three times as long with three times as many zombies. I think that changed with the second season because Simon and Jess were then writing knowing how the show finished up because, basically, the scripts are written, then in rehearsal you add lots of stuff and then I added stuff in the visuals and then in the editing and then in the dub, you just keep adding extra layers and stuff so there's jokes that can be achieved not just on the day but through music and sound and graphics and so it was incredibly dense. So I think it absolutely is a combination of all three of us, you know.
Did you have a favorite episode? WRIGHT:
EW: I think if I had to pick one it's the second series - episode five of the second series - the one where they go out drinking in Camden, where they sort of go foul of the teenage gang and have this gun fight. I think that was my favorite one. I mean, there were lots of them I'm really, really pleased with. In London last year we had a "Spaced" marathon. They were showing the entire series in one day and people sat there for seven hours, watched the whole thing and I kind of watched the whole thing with them and it was a real rush to watch three years of your working life kind of go by so fast.
Yeah. I spoke to Simon about the U.S. version of "Spaced" that they were trying to put out. What was it like finding out that they were about to do that without any of your input? WRIGHT:
Basically, it really sucked. There was no real way for the people making it to make it up to us from the kind of the insult of having to read it in the trades without your involvement. The way it was originally written in the trades they didn't mention Jessica at all, one of the creators of the show just kind of conveniently left out because maybe she wasn't in "Hot Fuzz." They also kind of implied that we were involved. If the show were to be remade, we wanted to be very involved because we wanted to protect our baby and it was something that was incredibly personal to us. The fact that I was in Los Angeles at the time somehow made it even more of an insult. I was sitting in Hollywood looking in the trades and reading about my own show being remade in that very town. It was just really strange. I immediately got deluged with e-mails from the various internet, film and TV sites saying, "Are you involved in the 'Spaced' remake?" and I had to say, "Not only am I not involved but you heard about it at the same time I did. I have nothing to do with it." And as soon as that word got out and the fans realized that we've never been keen on a remake - full stop. It became clear that the fans were really not keen as well. There wasn't any way after that. The makers of the pilot did eventually reach out to us and even McG kind of eventually after about eight months tried to get in contact with us but I have to say that I believe they were only getting in touch because there'd been such a huge backlash on the internet.
Did you take anything from the set when you left? WRIGHT:
Yes and no. There was one thing that I very symbolically left on set because I felt like it was the end of an era. The PlayStation console in the show is mine and at the end of the second series I left it in storage with the rest of the props 'cause I didn't want it back. I felt that it was like a Ouija board that I needed to get out of my house and get on with work. Some of the things in the show are mine. The "Evil Dead II" poster on the wall is actually my poster. I had that before the show and I said, "Oh, we should have this there on the wall," so in that sense, I took that back—my "Evil Dead II" poster, from the set of "Spaced." Oh, and I took one of those foam Klingon swords that were in the first series.
It's clear that you're into comics and sci fi as much as Simon, right? WRIGHT:
Yeah.
What are you reading or what are your favorite books of all time or what do you like and don't like, comic-wise? WRIGHT:
I'd say pretty much since "Spaced" where I've been working and writing, my reading habits have been affected. I certainly find that when I'm writing which tends to be 100 percent of the time, I find it very difficult to read other things, and so there've been major kind of comics, graphic novels and novels that I just haven't read, which is bad and I'm very aware of that, so there’s huge gaps in my reading. One of the adaptations that I'm working on at the moment, Bryan Lee O'Malley's book, Scott Pilgrim is something that was sent to me when the first volume came out. I'm not gonna lie and say that I had read that book and said, "Oh, I have to make this film!" Somebody else read that book and said, "Edgar Wright should make this." Through that I've become close to Bryan from my part of the process and even his. It's been interesting over the last couple of years working on that, to be working with him in terms of doing an adaptation of his comic to actually reading the final draft versions of the book that hasn't yet been drawn, so that's been brilliant for me to get involved with him on that level in terms of sort of seeing a series take shape. It's been a real eye opener so I'm gonna be a shill and say that Scott Pilgrim is my favorite comic of recent times. It is. It's a fantastic book, though, isn't it?
Oh, it's incredible! It's one of my favorite things coming out. WRIGHT:
It's funny. When I first read it I did think, "Oh, this is kind of a bit like 'Spaced.'" You know, sort of the ... and really, Brian had never seen the show and when we first met I gave him a copy of it and he sort of said, "Oh, it's funny." You know. It's obviously not similar plotwise but it has a similar aesthetic to it, you know?
Yeah, exactly. So while you were reading it you really saw what you could do with it? WRIGHT:
Yeah. I read it kind of completely blind. Sometimes people give you synopses of things and I tend to kind of try and skip that, just read it blind. So I was reading it and as it got into the Matthew Patel's first appearance, I was thinking, like, "Oh, okay, I get it. I get it! This is gonna be cool."
Can you tell me anything about the production of it? What stage are you guys in? WRIGHT:
We’re hopefully going into production later this year. We've been doing a lot of work on it in a conception level and getting into casting and crew and stuff. In the number of times I've been to Toronto, one of the most amazing things about Bryan's artwork is that it all refers to real locations. All of the locations in the book he took, maybe even sometimes there's a chain restaurant, like, a Pizza Pizza in Toronto that's a specific branch that he's taken a photo of. Just last month I took some sort of the crew around, like, the Scott Pilgrim locations and it's an amazing thing to take one of the books and say, "Hey, there it is!" You know, and especially where it's essentially very non-descript locations that Bryan has taken photographic reference for and there and lo and behold is the place!
Do you have a grasp on how you're gonna work with how many books are eventually going to be in the series? WRIGHT:
Yeah. The script that we've written essentially covers all six. If it was at the level of Harry Potter we might be able to talk about doing six films but in this case our film is very much an adaptation of the entire six. It's very much in the spirit of Bryan's books and certainly in terms of the first and second books there are whole sections that are straight from the books but then it slightly takes on its own momentum and kind of pace. Especially as a counter point to how uninvolved we were in the American remake of "Spaced," I've been very keen to involve Bryan in every stage of this so that he feels happy and comfortable with what we've written, and as Bryan, I'm sure, will tell you, there are a couple of bits in the fourth and soon to be fifth book which are lines from our screenplay. I feel quite proud that there's a couple of bits in Scott Pilgrim volume 4 where I'm thinking, "That's my line!"
So "Scott Pilgrim" sounds like it's gonna come out before the third movie in the Blood and Ice Cream trilogy, correct? WRIGHT:
I think so. I mean, like, me and Simon are very keen to write it and we have an idea and, um, that's something we intend to sort of at least try and write this year if it's not our next film but we have a nice way of wrapping it up so, um, and ... and something that's definitely UK-set. I think it's kind of, like, we're very proud of the fact of that "Shaun" and "Hot Fuzz" were kind of, like, UK-set and that they ... the fact that they traveled and were shown in ... internationally, you know, given that they have this kind of British sensibility is something that I'm very proud of and want to continue with in the trilogy.
Can you confirm that you're still involved with "Ant Man?" WRIGHT:
Absolutely. I wrote the first draft of the script which, to be honest, kind of took two years to deliver because I did "Hot Fuzz" in the middle of it. But I did my first draft of it just before the strike last year and I think it's one of my favorite things I've ever written. It was a real blast to write. I know that [Marvel's] very pleased with what we've done and, really, really, the appeal to that for me is the fact that like, Ant Man is considered slightly D-list. The whole raison d'etre of the piece for me and my thing has always been to take something that would seem to be uncool and make it really cool and that's certainly the case with British cops in "Hot Fuzz." To take the most seemingly kind of underwhelming concept and make something really cool out of it—I always liked that premise. As a little kid I had a reprint of "The Man in the Ant Hill," the very first Ant Man kind of story and it's something that always struck me. Most shrinking films are about in somebody in jeopardy and this is something where the shrinker has the power. Rather than it being something that's a terrible thing to happen, it's actually making your character into the most bad ass sort of action hero/spy possible.
