PERFECT SENSE

EEN FILM VAN

DAVID MACKENZIE

WILD BUNCH HAARLEMMERDIJK 159 - 1013 KH – AMSTERDAM WWW.WILDBUNCH.NL [email protected] WILDBUNCHblx PERFECT SENSE – DAVID MACKENZIE

PROJECT SUMMARY

EEN PRODUCTIE VAN SIGMA FILMS, ZENTROPA IN SAMENWERKING MET ARROW FILMS, BCC FILMS LAND VAN HERKOMST ENGELAND TAAL ENGELS LENGTE 92 MINUTEN GENRE DRAMA REGISSEUR DAVID MACKENZIE HOOFDROLLEN EWAN MCGREGOR EVA GREEN CONNIE NIELSEN EWEN BREMNER RELEASEDATUM 19 JANUARI 2012 FESTIVALS SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL – WERELDPREMIÈRE

KIJKWIJZER

SYNOPSIS Susan en Michael hebben beiden weinig geluk in de liefde. Susan lijkt geen relatiewaardige man te kunnen vinden. Michael heeft de ene vluchtige affaire na de andere. Totdat ze elkaar ontmoeten en zich vol overgave in hun gepassioneerde verliefdheid storten. Op hetzelfde moment staat de wereld die ze kennen op het punt dramatisch te veranderen. Er heerst een epidemie die emoties en zintuigen een voor een uitschakelt. Terwijl de wereld steeds minder voelt en waarneemt, wordt de liefde tussen Michael en Susan alleen maar intenser.

CAST MICHAEL EWAN MCGREGOR SUSAN EVA GREEN SAMUEL STEPHEN DILLANE JAMES EWEN BREMNER JENNY CONNIE NIELSEN

CREW DIRECTOR DAVID MACKENZIE SCREENWRITER KIM FUPZ AAKESON PRODUCERS GILLIAN BERRIE MALTE GRUNERT CO-PRODUCERS TRISTAN LYNCH SISSE GRAUM JØRGENSEN LINE PRODUCER JULIA VALENTINE EDITOR JAKE ROBERTS CINEMATOGRAPHER GILES NUTTGENS SOUND EDITOR DOUGLAS MCDOUGALL MUSIC MAX RICHTER CASTING SHAHEEN BAIG PRODUCTION DESIGN TOM SAYER ART DIRECTOR ANDY THOMSON COSTUME DESIGN TRISHA BIGGAR HAIR AND MAKE-UP DONALD MCINNES

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ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

THE ORIGIN OF THE STORY Perfect Sense is the latest product of the rich and enduring co-production partnership between Sigma films, UK, and Zentropa (Lars Von Trier) in Denmark. Their previous film collaborations have involved the Cannes Jury Prize winning Red Road, and Von Trier’s Dogville and Manderlay.

‘We’ve become great allies over the years,’ says director David Mackenzie. ‘I trust their judgement and sensed it would be something special when theybrought me the script.’

The script landed of David’s desk in 2009. ‘I was hooked after ten pages, I thought it was absolutely fantastic, it had this vast global scale. But at the same time it was quite minimal, intimate and simple, like a fable.’… ‘I found it very life affirming – A film with an emotional well, that makes people want to reach out to their fellow men’.

For Scriptwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson - a long time admirer of Mackenzie’s films – the story had also come as a surprise: ‘This is more of a fantasy than my previousfilms. I have done a lot of work in realism with research, trafficking, prostitutes,etc you know, and then in my children’s books I have worked with fairy talesand magic. So this film was like a reaction to both, like working in a new melody, a new tone.’

Aakeson’s script has the simplicity of an allegorical tale but is still utterly modern – a love story framed against a declining world. He feels it is necessary to talk about our modern problems, but to go beyond describing them in the negative.

‘There are a lot of stories right now about anarchy and human beings turning against each other, but the opposite is also true, in the face of disasters, we keep on working and eating and shaving and falling in love. I wanted to tell the story of human love and its power.’

Mackenzie, knew it was a challenge to work in the genre of the love story: ‘It is hard to tell contemporary love stories because we’ve become tired of the clichés. It’s like the pop songs – who wants to hear another pop song about love? The task is – what makes this love special? How is it different from all the other love stories? We have so much cynicism these days that it sometimes takes a shock to the senses to make us see love from a new angle – that’s the beauty of this story set against such extreme circumstances.’

Mackenzie and Aakeson, from the start, shared the common goal of creating an intimate study of a couple finding each other against all odds. For this extraordinary tale to come alive a cast of the highest calibre had to come to the project.

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HOW THE ACTORS WERE DRAWN TO THE STORY

EWAN MCGREGOR Mackenzie had wanted to work with Ewan McGregor again since the award winning Young Adam and saw in the sexy, charismatic, hedonistic character of Michael a perfect role for the 38-year-old star. McGregor had just come from filming in LA: ‘I just loved this script and think David is such a good filmmaker. When I got sent Perfect Sense to read I loved the characters, it was such a really lovely premise – this idea of this relentless love story, this story of these two people falling in love almost against their better judgement. I’m drawn to stories that I like.’

Ewan reflected on why he chose this British Indie film over other mainstream projects: ‘I don’t think of them as mainstream films or indie films. I suppose that’s a kind of luxury. But when it comes to making films that you really love and … you know, the size of it, the budget is irrelevant – why would you not want to be involved in a story of love with a film director you really respect. It doesn’t make sense to pass up on that experience just because it doesn’t have a huge budget.’ ‘I really believe that Independent filmmaking is where you can make comment and make statements. It’s quite a complicated film, in terms of what it’s saying about life and love.’

EVA GREEN Mackenzie picked-up on Eva Green from her outstanding roles in Casino Royale and The Dreamers. She described the script as ‘very intense’ and was drawn to the part of Susan. ‘Susan seems to have spent her life searching for answers, professionally, personally, emotionally. I loved this about her and could relate to an extent.’ ‘Susan starts the film surrounded by boundaries that she has put up. As she faces the loss of her senses, her boundaries are lowered and she allows herself to discover love.’

Eva was also keen to work with director Mackenzie: ‘I’d seen some of David’s work before and in particular I really loved Young Adam. For me the thing that connects his films is a deep sense of character and willingness to take them to unusual places. For an actor, that’s a really attractive starting point. Knowing you’ll have the freedom to explore. He is very trusting of his cast and is always interested in pushing in unexpected directions.’

The task then was to see how the two actors interacted. As Mackenzie says ‘They are two people burned by love in the past and they have to believe in it again. In each other.’ For that to happen the audience had to believe in them as a real couple. The co-stars worked closely together to bring out the complexities of the onscreen relationship, while also doing research and training into the real-life daily work of their characters. In rehearsal and while filming, Mackenzie was impressed by Eva and Ewan’s dynamic and understanding of each others roles.

As McGregor says – ‘I loved working with Eva, she’s just fantastic. She played a part that was really challenging. We spent a good week or so working on the scenes …her character is very…she’s been in one too many bad relationships, I guess, she doesn’t trust my character and men, and there’s something really lovely about this reluctance. I really like that element of the story, and the fact that they overcome it. In contrast my character is very optimistic.’

Eva also gained a lot from working with Ewan: ‘I had heard that Ewan is the most generous actor and everything I had been told was true. One of the truest pleasures of making this movie was working with Ewan.’

In support, Connie Nielsen plays Susan’s caring sister - while maverick actor Ewen Bremner is the kitchen comedian who makes the restaurant sequences so realistic. Ewen was keen to work again

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PERFECT SENSE – DAVID MACKENZIE with David Mackenzie again after his role in Hallam Foe. An actor renowned for his improvisation skills he enjoys the freedom that Mackenzie allows him.

‘Improvisation is a terrifying and exciting position to be put in, by the seat of the pants. …David is quite mischievous, he enjoys that dangerous element. Although a lot of it’s quite composed, he likes a bit of mischief in his scenes. He was encouraging me to really run with it, run with an idea…. A lot of what I enjoy about it, is working with these other people, these great actors, they’re all playing off each other, playing with each other.’

This was also Ewen’s third time working with Ewan McGregor, after first meeting on Trainspotting, then on Black Hawk Down. He admires Ewan’s work and prodigious output. ‘We hung out a lot together On Black Hawk Down in Morocco, and saw a different side of each other. I think, since he’s started making movies, he’s really been so prolific, and he’s done so many different kinds of films, and so many different kinds of parts, and worked with so many great filmmakers and actors, and he’s really right now, at the height of his powers. He’s in a really impressive place now, he’s a really impressive actor.’

Ewan McGregor thinks highly of Ewen Bremner’s abilities. ‘He’s a great actor, we have real camaraderie, he really throws himself into the thick of things.’

EWAN MCGREGOR AND DENIS LAWSON The actors on set had a close connection, which was even at times ‘familial’ – Ewan McGregor took the opportunity to work with his actor uncle, Denis Lawson, for the first time (it is claimed that Denis first inspired Ewan to be an actor when he played a role in the first Star Wars trilogy).

‘I’ve been directed by my uncle on stage and in a short film he made,’ says McGregor ‘but I’ve never acted with him and I always wanted to. We were waiting for something special to come along. Dennis was absolutely perfect for the part, they have a nice relationship in the film, Michael and the restaurant owner, they’re very close and we were absolutely able to use that. It was just so lovely for me to play those scenes with Dennis.’

Denis puts their family acting history in perspective: ‘Ewan had wanted to act with me since he was about nine. There was a moment of anxiety though, there when I came across him sitting in the make-up trailer, but as soon as we got on set it was like the most natural thing in the world. We had a great time together, and the relationship between the two characters was quite a nice close one.’

The actors talk of the sense of camaraderie within the script and of working to a tight schedule: two things that could not co-exist if it were not for the vision of the director.

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THE DIRECTOR’S VISION

Shot over five weeks, Perfect Sense was set in three principal locations around Glasgow, with additional footage being shot in Kenya, Mexico and India. From the start Producer Berrie and Director Mackenzie had decided that although the genre of the film was Sci-fi, the focus of the film should be an emotional journey.

‘We agreed on creating a poetic version of the story rather than a big-splashy special effects version of it. You could have re-designed it as an 80 million Hollywood movie with lots of special effects and bombast, if you wanted to do.” says Mackenzie “But we were very conscious that we didn’t want to do that. We decided to be low-key and to maximise the micro-cosmic, to keep it minimal, to pull it back from all the tropes and tricks. To push the envelope of the romance – push the genre inwards not outwards.’ He conceived of telling the story in a simple way. ‘The movie is telling a vast story with a limited palate. The film is talking about day-to-day things. It’s about how people cope with terrible changes rather than the disaster itself. That’s one of the things I found amazing and challenging about it.’

Even during filming although large areas of the city had been shut off for filming epic wide-shots, Mackenzie favoured tighter shots, focusing on the emotions of the actors. ‘I tried to stick with the aesthetic of not-trying-too-hard. There was an instinct, that told me not to be too grandiose about it, because the story is grandiose enough in itself, I had to keep it light on its feet to allow the fiction and the poetics of it to come alive, as well as the seriousness.’

The true-to-life vitality of the acting is nowhere more apparent in the restaurant scenes which crackle with wit and high energy and are a counterpoint to the gentle intimacy of the central love affair. Mackenzie explains his technique: ‘In the restaurant, the actors are actually cooking - Ewan and Ewen spent a lot of time training with three or four chefs, just to get that feeling of authenticity and the feeling of the rush. I spent quite a bit of time in kitchens studying them and there’s always a bit of a storm and you can feel the wave of it, it requires great focus.’ ‘I filmed as much as possible as live action, we shot a lot of it on steady-cam, trying to get the energy right up.’

Ewen Bremner explains how Mackenzie got the cast to act with this energy and confidence in the kitchen scenes, through three weeks of intensive prep – training with leading chefs. ‘We had some very good tuition from a friend called Guy, who runs a restaurant, just round the corner from the set, and he took us all over Glasgow to train us up. Various places, like the fish market and the university kitchen, his own kitchen, his own restaurant, he really tutored us very well, very patiently. We wanted to look like we knew what we were doing, the other characters, the non speaking characters, were all really experienced chefs, so I think they were having a few chuckles about some of the stuff we were doing, some of the mess we were making. We were in good hands.’…

Over and above this Ewen picked up some skills that may outlast the film. ‘I’ve learned how to sharpen a knife. How it’s supposed to be done, how you’re supposed to look when you do it, the angles of the blades. If you try it without the knowledge… you could really do yourself an injury.’ Such attention to detail lends depth to the acting and authenticity to the film.

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EDITING AND GLOBAL FOOTAGE While Mackenzie sights the innovative Godard’s Alphaville as a source of inspiration, there is, as in previous Mackenzie films, an unmistakable openness, accessibility and a celebration of life in this film, coupled with a pushing at the boundaries of cinema. This can be seen in the use of footage from around the world to trace the development of the virus: Film crews in three different global locations were given shooting scripts and instructions and they returned breathtaking footage from Kenya, Mexico and India. This was then inter-cut seamlessly with archive footage of riots, marches, medicine and natural history and all were and blended together with a poetic use of voice over.

NARRATOR (V.O.) But first the shining moments. Maybe the finest in the history of Mankind. A shared flinching of the temporal lobe. A shared sense of a greater power, a greater meaning. They let their guard down and reach out. Overwhelmed with warmth.

Mackenzie, has in past films shied away from voice-over - ‘We’re used to being told that it’s a compromise,’ he says, ‘It’s part of the filmmakers arsenal that rarely gets used. But it’s amazing how powerful voice-over can be if you embrace it.’ He describes the voice-over in Perfect Sense as a combination of childlike and God-like. This contrast between the epic and the intimate, between tragedy and romance is threaded through all aspects of the film.

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THE SCORE – MAX RICHTER Even before he considered casting the film David Mackenzie had already decided on working with award-winning composer Max Richter. ‘I’d wanted to work with Max for a long time, because I’m big fan of his work, I have all of his albums in fact! Strangely, he contacted me around the time of Hallam Foe but we’d already decided on the score by then, so I stayed in touch with him.’ The right project had to gel, so as to use the epic scope of Max’s music to the full. ‘The moment I read this film,’ Mackenzie says, ‘I knew it was for Max…There’s something about his music which is both classical and modern, both beautiful and messed up. I just knew he was perfect for this film.’

‘It’s been a really nice collaboration’, Richter says of working with Mackenzie for several months on the score – ‘Shuffling ideas around and having the chance to think about the material a bit more deeply has been great.’ he says. He describes the film as ‘pretty heavy duty’ and so came up with ‘A string score with a lot of grit and electronics all over it’. This aesthetic of contrasts was also mirrored in the camera work and visual conception of the film and echoes the tension between global disaster and intimate romance.

THE IMAGES – GILES NUTTGENS Director of Photography Giles Nuttgens has worked with David Mackenzie on five films now. ‘Working with people that you have before gives you a great advantage’. Mackenzie says, ‘We can be robust with each other, push each other - because we don’t want to go to the same places we’ve been. I was trying to de-aestheticise this film, to push the package’. As with the score and the acting Mackenzie was looking for “edgy” moments of the fleeting and vulnerable - almost accidental glimpses of truth. ‘Giles and I - our eyes are in the same place. We’re always looking for something that’s got a slight awkwardness to it. Not that perfect ‘pack-shot’ mentality, we were not looking for things that were perfect or composed.’

Nuttgens and Mackenzie went through the script scene by scene with a lot of ‘prediscussion to get a feeling of the vibe’ but not, Mackenzie insists, ‘pre-visualising’ ‘It’s never about Giles choosing the frame and me getting the actors in. It’s a much more robust dynamic.’

In the film Nuttgens has an incredibly intuitive sense of what is happening in a scene, sometimes following action with Steady-cam or catching glimpses of secondary incidents that would usually be left “off-screen.”

Mackenzie admires Giles’s work: ‘He’s a stylist, a psychologist, an improviser, an aesthete and a soldier! I want people to go with me and fight the good fight. Giles really is that, he’s a tough guy!’

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PERFECT SENSE IN CONTEXT Looking back on his five feature films Mackenzie has recently realised that ‘I thought I was someone who was making anti-love stories, but actually they’re all love stories basically - in-fact I’m going to have to stop myself making love-stories now!’

Mackenzie believes that Perfect Sense is a coming together of many themes in his previous films and that it has a message that he finds both humbling and timely. ‘For the last seventy years, we’ve been living with the shadow of Armageddon, in various different shapes, an awful lot of movies live in denial of that, and the ones that do try to deal with it, deal with it with bombast while suggesting that these things are surmountable.’ The question for Mackenzie, at the core of the film is about survival and love - Do we believe in love anymore? Can Humanity survive without it?

‘One of the things that amazes me about this story is that it starts with our usual modern cynicism - Both of these characters don’t believe in love when we start, but they do believe by the end. That’s a salient point. Maybe, sometimes we need the fear of loss to teach us hope.’

In contrast to other filmmakers like Werner Herzog, with his bleak view of mankind as murderous - or blockbusters that’s relish end-of the-world scenarios, Perfect Sense communicates a positive and simple message about the human capacity to survive and adapt.

In a time which is marked by uncertainty on many fronts (the economic, the ecological - the apocalypse as almost-willed-for-resolution) Perfect Sense presents a different view. It is one that is informed by producer Gillian Berrie’s experience in working in International co-production, over ten years with Denmark and Ireland.

‘One of the ironic things,’ Berrie says, ‘is you try to make some kind of ‘warning film’ about how things are going wrong for all of us, internationally, and you think no-one’ll care, no one is going to fund this, it flies in the face of commerce and logic - but then there’s this enthusiasm and communication between countries and people, and it’s almost alarming, really, how much a need there is for films like this – the actual co-production process itself is like a metaphor for how people can come together, and give credible, not just idealistic hope.’

Mackenzie believes that films tell us something about the way we would like to live our lives. ‘I don’t believe that humanity is heading towards chaos.’ Mackenzie says. ‘In the future, no doubt we’ll see anarchy on the streets and global disasters, but for all that, I don’t think we’re heading towards Cormac Macarthy’s THE ROAD. No, you get people working hard to help each other, the human spirit, somehow or other, urges itself to assist others rather than to brutalise. It’s a very human thing, we do adapt to fit our circumstances, irrespective of whether we are surviving in extreme or secure environments. Maybe it’s a gut feeling, and call me a romantic if you like but I believe in the potential for goodness, for mercy, a desire to build rather than destroy at the heart of the human spirit.’

Of the film’s conclusion, Eva says ‘The ending is so beautiful. There is a sense of hard-won hope. The age we live in is cynical but many would say that leaves us more in need of stories of love than ever before.’

Ewan McGregor also feels the film has a hopeful message: ‘I feel there’s something really poetic about Perfect Sense - it’s like a metaphor for falling in love, you know, the world is literally falling apart, losing it’s senses, and when we fall in love we lose our senses, we fall apart, we can’t eat, we can’t sleep, it takes us over. I loved this film, loved it from the moment I read it… I hope we’ll never tire of telling love stories.’

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INTERVIEW WITH EWAN MCGREGOR

Q - You’ve worked with director David Mackenzie before, what drew you back to the UK to work with him again? E – Yeah, I worked with David on a film called Young Adam. And I thought it was a fantastic script that he’d written and I had very creative time working on it, and he made a beautiful film out of it. He’s a very interesting filmmaker and there’s something quite unique and special about him. He’s not a director for hire, he has a real visual sense, a real mood, he manages to inject his films with so much mood. I think he’s really great. So when I got sent Perfect Sense to read from David, I just loved it, I loved the characters, it was such a really lovely premise – this idea of this relentless love story, this story of these two people falling in love almost against their better judgement.

Q – Do you feel that we live in a cynical time, that we are tired of love stories, or that there is still a role for love stories? E – I’ve always, loved making love stories, I love romance and romantic stories, I’ve always been drawn to them and never tired of it. It’s a very powerful emotion. Falling in love with someone is a very wonderful and all consuming, physical and emotional experience, that we really like as human beings. So I hope we’ll never tire of telling those stories. For a long time now there’s been a slight embarrassment about telling romantic stories, it’s more common that you would shroud your romantic story in comedy for instance. We’ve had a lot of romantic comedies but I’ve always been interested in films that are romantic without having to be embarrassed about that or shrouding them in anything other than just what they are. I feel there’s something really poetic about Perfect Sense - it’s like a metaphor for falling in love, you know, the world is literally falling apart, losing it’s senses, and when we fall in love we lose our senses, we fall apart, we can’t eat, we can’t sleep, it takes us over. I loved this film, loved it from the moment I read it.

Q – What was it like working with Eva Green, an actress who is known for her beauty? E – I loved working with Eva, she’s just fantastic, what a great girl, an interesting girl, an interesting actress. She played a part that was really challenging. I really liked her, I liked her as a person first of all, she’s very dry and witty, she has a very skewed sense of humour, which I like a lot. We started rehearsing together in Glasgow, and it was very exciting to be back in Scotland and to be there with her, I think it was her first time in Scotland, so introducing her to Scotland and Glasgow was nice. I just knew we would get on from the beginning of the rehearsals. And we spent a good week or so working on the scenes and it was great we just got on. And I think it’s true her character is very…she’s been in one too many bad relationships, I guess, she doesn’t trust my character and men, and there’s something really lovely about this reluctance. I really like that element of the story, and the fact that they overcome it. In contrast my character is very optimistic. Blind optimism! (laugh)

Q – You play a chef in Perfect Sense and look very convincing. Was there a lot of research that went into this role? E – Yes, I’m not a cook, I don’t know how to chop or … mainly I don’t know what goes with what. I just don’t have that understanding or knowledge. Also I think I’m quite a … maybe it’s my roots but I’m not that fussy. I like good food but I’m not a gastronome. So I had to learn about cooking or at least to learn to look like I knew how to cook, that was my job, really. I knew I wasn’t going to learn how to cook in two weeks of rehearsal. I went and hung out with some great chefs in Glasgow. I went down to Guy Cowans, I did couple of days and nights in his kitchen. And I used to be a dishwasher, in Crief, where I grew up - there’s a hotel called the Murray Park – I used to work there from the age of fourteen – I was a dishwasher there and then I became a waiter and a barman, but I was washing dishes there, from the age of fourteen, for about two years and so I knew how a kitchen worked… So I had some experience and I spent a few nights during service at Guy’s at Candleriggs, then we went up

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PERFECT SENSE – DAVID MACKENZIE to a restaurant up north. It was all about the details. I really enjoyed it. I haven’t cooked since, I haven’t become a great cook because of the film (laugh).

Q – Ewen Bremner said he was amazed at the things he’s learned about a kitchen – like discovering that you could stick your fingers into boiling sauce and not get burned! E – (Laugh) Right, If you’re quick it won’t burn! Apart from oil, we learned that. You can’t do it with oil because the oil sticks to your skin, and that’s it!

Q – What was it like working with Ewen again? This is the third movie now. E – It was brilliant, I really, really love working with Ewen and I really always have done. It was a nice continuity together, we were both in Trainspotting together, then both in Black Hawk Down and I always thought we should have done a scene for the extra features on the DVD for Black Hawk Down, when I look across at him on the street, under gunfire, and I go Eh! SPUD! What you doin’ here??! He’s a great actor. We had some weird stuff to play in the kitchen, like the food frenzy – some really disgusting things we had to do. And he really threw himself into it. I remember watching him pouring a five litre can of oil into his mouth, and then butter. Oh, it was disgusting! But he was great, it was great to work with him and it was especially nice for me to work with my uncle Dennis, who I’ve always wanted to work with as an actor. I mean I’ve been directed by my uncle on stage and in a short film he made but I’ve never acted with him and I always wanted to. We were waiting for something special to come along. Dennis was absolutely perfect for the part, they have a nice relationship in the film, Michael and the restaurant owner, they’re very close and we were absolutely able to use that. It was just so lovely for me to play those scenes with Dennis.

Q – Why do you continue to be drawn to doing independent films, when you must have so much influence these days that you have quite a bit of creative freedom in Hollywood anyway? E – Well, listen, there’s a certain amount of choice in work that I have now. I’m still just drawn to stories that I like. I don’t think of them as mainstream films or indie films. I suppose that’s a kind of luxury. But when it comes to making films that you really love and I just loved this script and think David is such a good filmmaker, you know, the size of it, the budget is irrelevant – why would you not want to be involved in a story of love with a film director you really respect. It doesn’t make sense to pass up on that experience just because it doesn’t have a huge budget. I really believe that Independent filmmaking is where you can make comment and make statements. It’s quite a complicated film, in terms of what it’s saying about life and love.

Q – What do you think the film is saying? E – I think a lot of films these days just say “This is a film.” I was reading a script someone had sent me and recently and I was going ‘This is just a film’, this script… I suppose it might make a good film, but it’s got f**k all to do with anything, it’s just a film. That’s absolutely what struck me, that this script I read was only based on other movies and some idea of what the audience might like – well Perfect Sense doesn’t have any of that, this film is really odd and bizarre, it’s just f**king bananas, it’s brilliant. And I love the twists and turns in it. I like Michael. He reminds me of…I saw this play Frankie and Johnnie at the Claire de Lune…Funnily enough it’s about a chef, and they end up in bed together, and they’re not in any relationship, and he spends the entire play trying to convince her that this could be it, this could be the big love in their life, and she’s had it with men, the first time she thinks he’s an idiot. I loved that play and there was something reminiscent in this film about it.

In Perfect Sense, Michael, this guy, his optimism is quite tangible. Their love … it could be alright, why can’t they just give it a go? And then when he’s talking about when the world loses it’s sense of taste, and he’s outside the front of the restaurant and there’s Dennis, my uncle, and he’s drunk and saying there’s no point, no – one will eat out anymore, since they’ve lost their sense of taste – and Michael just won’t have it. He says no, I think you’re wrong. People will still want to get together and we’ll just

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PERFECT SENSE – DAVID MACKENZIE have to change. And he has to come up with something new. And I love that about people who are like that. It’s the only way you get on ‘cos bad things happen all the time and the only way to accept them is to adapt and change and move on. And that’s the nice thing about my character in the film.

Q – Is this a happy ending? Or a sad ending? Or a sad ending with a positive message? E – I always thought it was hopeful - the end. I didn’t see it as being…it’s complicated, it’s awful … it’s not a cheery ending, but at the same time I always thought there was hope in there and I thought it was quite an uplifting ending. At the end there they’re reaching for each other and know that they’re truly in love with each other. In a way, I experienced it by reading it, in a way that made me cry, it was just so beautiful at the end.

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ABOUT THE CAST

EWAN MCGREGOR - MICHAEL Ewan McGregor was born in Scotland and studied acting alongside Daniel Craig and Alistair McGowan. His first and widely acclaimed role was in Dennis Potter’s 1993 TV series Lipstick on Your Collar - a vivacious acting and singing part which foreshadowed his award winning performance with Nicole Kidman in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. His first feature was Danny Boyle’s 1994 thriller Shallow Grave. This was then followed in 1996 by Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book and by Trainspotting, which brought him international acclaim and a cult following.

The list of his many films over the following fourteen years has shown his incredible versatility and ability, stretching form art house films like Velvet Goldmine, to his serial role as Ob-Wan Kenobi, in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, all the way to comedy with The Men who Stare at Goats. He has also starred in thrillers such as The Ghost, Stay and The Island (with Scarlett Johansson) and period romances such as Miss Potter (with Renee Zellwegger - who he also co-starred with in the 2003 Down with Love).

He has also acted alongside Josh Harnett in the Academy Award winning war film Black Hawk Down and in 2009 supported Jim Carey in the comedy I love You Philip Morris. His other films include Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, Incendiary, Angels and Demons, Nora, Little Voice, Rogue Trader, Brassed Off, Amelia and A Life Less Ordinary. He has also voiced the animations Robots and Valiant. He has recently finished starring in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen with Emily Blunt and Kristen Scott Thomas and the action drama The Impossible with Naomi Watts. He is currently shooting Jack the Giant Killer alongside Nicholas Hoult, which also reunites him with Ewen Bremner.

Ewan is now one of the most critically acclaimed, publicly adored and prolific actors of his generation. Perfect Sense is his second feature, after Young Adam (2003) with director David Mackenzie.

EVA GREEN - SUSAN Born and raised in Paris, Eva made her breakthrough with her starring role with the internationally multi-award-winning director Bernardo Bertolucci in The Dreamers in 2002 (playing alongside Michael Pitt). Bertolucci famously described her “so beautiful, it’s indecent”. The film generated much controversy due to Eva’s numerous nude scenes. She then went onto win a BAFTA and an EMPIRE award for her performance in the James Bond film Casino Royale (starring Daniel Craig). For this role IGN named her the best Bond Femme Fatale ever: “this is the Girl, that broke – and therefore made – James Bond”.

Eva then appeared in The Golden Compass, as the witch Serefina, and in Franklyn, playing a Schizophrenic artist. She played the role of Sibylla in Ridley Scott’s action/epic Kingdom of Heaven alongside Orlando Bloom and Jeremy Irons. She then went on to star in Womb, a film about a woman that clones her dead husband. She has recently appeared as the sorceress Morgana, in Starz’s ten part series Camelot. Eva is currently filming Tim Burton’s gothic-horror Dark Shadows alongside Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

Eva speaks English and French, collects and frames insects, has an interest in Egyptology, plays the Piano, and has modelled for Emporio Armani and Lancome and was featured in Christian Dior’s “Midnight Poison” advertisement, directed by Wong Kar-wai. Vogue has commented on her “Killer looks, intelligence and modesty”, while The Independent describe her as “gothic, quirky and sexy”. She finds herself “Nerdy” and says she likes to act because “it allows her to wear a mask”.

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EWEN BREMNER – JAMES A native of Edinburgh, Ewen Bremner made his breakthrough playing Spud in Danny Boyle’s cult 1996 film Trainspotting. His subsequent feature credits include Marvelous, The Zero Sum, Mojo, Life of Stuff, The Acid House and Julien Donkey-Boy for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema. Bremner has also appeared in Paranoid, Guy Ritchie’s Snatch, Pearl Harbor, Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, Call Me Irresponsible, Sixteen Years of Alcohol, Skagerrak, The Rundown, The Reckoning, Around the World in 80 Days, AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Woody Allen’s Match Point, Frank Oz’s Death at a Funeral, Fools Gold and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.

On television, he appeared in two different takes on the story of Elizabeth I: as King James VI in Channel Four’s “Elizabeth I” starring Helen Mirren in the title role and as Sir James Melville in the BBC’s “The Virgin Queen” with Anne-Marie Duff as the queen. Ewen has also appeared in popular dramas such as “Spooks” and “My Name is Earl”. He has recently completed filming of David Hare’s thriller Page Eight alongside Bill Nighy, Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. He is currently filming Jack the Giant Killer, which reunites him with Ewan McGregor. This is his second film with David Mackenzie as director, as he played the role of Andy in Hallam Foe.

CONNIE NIELSON – JENNY Danish actress Connie Nielsen hit the spotlight in 2000 with her Empire Award wining portrayal of Princess Lucilla, opposite Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott's Academy Award-winning Gladiator. Then followed the suspense thriller Demonlover, costarring Chloë Sevigny and Gina Gershon. Her other lead roles range from The Hunted (with Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro; to Basic (opposite John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson); to One Hour Photo where she starred opposite Robin Williams; to Mission to Mars opposite Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins and Don Cheadle; to The Devil's Advocate starring Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves.

She has given unforgettable performances as a German heroin junkie in Permanent Midnight opposite Ben Stiller, and in Rushmore opposite Bill Murray. Other film credits include Dark Summer, Voyage, Return to Sender and the comedy The Ice Harvest (with Jon Cusack). In 200 4 she won Best Actress Awards from the Danish Academy Awards and from the San Sebastian Film Festival for her role in the Danish drama Brothers. And in 2005 she played opposite Benjamin Bratt, Joseph Fiennes and James Franco in The Great Raid. Connie is currently filming alongside Nicole Kidman, Clive Owen and Robert Duvall in the HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn.

STEPHEN DILLANE - SAMUEL Dillane comes from a distinguished background as a theatre actor with notable roles which include Prior Walter in Angels in America, Clov in Beckett’s Endgame, his 2005 one-man version of Macbeth and his Henry in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, for which he won a Tony award in 2000. Onscreen, Dillane may be best known for his portrayal of Leonard Woolf in The Hours (2002), and his portrayal of Horatio in Franco Zefferelli's film adaptation of Hamlet, with Mel Gibson in the title role.

He played Michael Henderson in Welcome to Sarajevo and is also known for his performance as legendary English professional golfer Harry Vardon in The Greatest Game Ever Played. He received an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Thomas Jefferson in the HBO mini-series John Adams (2008), and won the 2009 BAFTA for Best Actor for his work in The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall.

He has recently filmed Twenty8k.

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ABOUT THE CREW

BIOGRAPHY DAVID MACKENZIE – DIRECTOR PERFECT SENSE (2010) is David Mackenzie’s sixth feature film. His previous film, SPREAD (2009) premiered at Sundance in 2009, where it was a major seller of the festival. His fourth film HALLAM FOE (2007) was the winner of eight international awards including Silver Bear for best music and the German Art House Cinema Guild Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007 - the same prize that Mackenzie’s third feature ASYLUM won in 2005.

YOUNG ADAM (2003), starring Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton premiered in Cannes in 2003, and won several awards, including a London Film Critics Award for David, the Best New British Feature award from the Edinburgh Film Festival and a Scottish BAFTA for Best Director.

Mackenzie’s first feature, the experimental road movie THE LAST GREAT WILDERNESS premiered in Edinburgh in 2002 and went on to have its international premiere in Toronto the same year.

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