BAFTA a Life in Pictures: Sam Mendes 30 November 2015 at Princess Anne Theatre, BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London
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BAFTA A Life In Pictures: Sam Mendes 30 November 2015 at Princess Anne Theatre, BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this to remind you of the greatness of Sam evening’s Life in Pictures with Sam Mendes. Mendes. The event is being filmed so please ensure that all mobile phones are [Clip plays] switched to silent or airplane mode, and please refrain from any photography. [Applause] Now please join me in welcoming this evening’s host, Briony Hanson. Welcome Sam, thank you so much for joining us. [Applause] Sam Mendes: Pleasure. Briony Hanson: Good evening ladies and gentlemen, a very, very warm welcome BH: You all know how this works; we have to BAFTA. Thank you so much for joining an hour or so to talk through the films us. As you all know Sam Mendes is one of that we’ve just seen in tiny big life there. the UK’s most commercially successful, You’ve chosen some clips so that we critically acclaimed film directors; one of can talk a little bit more in detail, and the most we’ve ever had in the UK. He’s then of course it will be plenty of time for also no stranger to the BAFTA stage. He’s you to ask your questions. So let’s just scooped approximately ten BAFTAs I start, this event is as you know entitled believe, as well as eight Oscars and five your Life in Pictures, but of course you Golden Globes. [edit: Sam Mendes’ had another life, a hugely successful projects have won ten BAFTAs, eight career before you got to the pictures, Oscars and five Golden Globes.] By the which was in theatre. How actively did time he turned to cinema he was of you pursue a career in pictures, or was it course already a hugely well-established an accidental sidestep? theatre director. Mendes was Artistic Director of the Minerva Theatre in SM: Well I think that, by the way I love my Chichester at the tender, straight after introduction, I have in fact not won eight Cambridge. He then directed Judi Oscars, although I would love to say that Dench on the West End stage when he I have. was just 24, and of course he founded and ran the Donmar Warehouse for ten BH: I didn’t say eight Oscars. years and made it the kind of pillar of theatrical establishment here in the UK. SM: Right at the beginning you said that But we’re not here to talk about theatre; and I thought, “I’ve died and gone to we’re here to talk about cinema. heaven.” So, but thank you very much, it Mendes made his debut with American was very, very sweet what you said. So, Beauty, which received a total of 14 well I went to Cambridge not knowing BAFTA nominations, winning six. He’s then what I wanted to do at all. Theatre, film skipped very ably, or apparently very were, neither of those things were at the easily from genre to genre, from period forefront of my mind. In fact I know, I gangster to war films, from drama to remember going to the Freshers’ Fair and road movie. And in every incarnation he sort of scoffing at all the drama stalls. seems to have effortlessly won fans, Because I think theatre then presented received huge acclaim. Just when we itself to me, and I tried it and discovered thought we knew what he was capable that I loved to do it, and that I felt that I of he took a huge sidestep and became had something to say, eventually, that a director of the Bond franchise, the was the course I took. Film, I think if juggernaut that was the Bond franchise. you’re in any way interested in doing film His Skyfall grossed over a billion in this country, certainly 30 years ago worldwide, and it became then and is when I was at University it seemed an still the most commercially successful film impossible path to take. There just was of all time in the UK. And as you all know no conceivable way of doing it. There Spectre opened with huge frenzy were no film courses, there were very, anticipation just a month ago and is still very few ways of getting into it, and all going strong in cinemas. We have a lot my heroes were either American or to talk about; just before we do I thought European, or the Brits that I loved, the we should show a very quick clip reel just Hitchcocks and the David Leans had 1 BAFTA A Life In Pictures: Sam Mendes 30 November 2015 at Princess Anne Theatre, BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London gone away to make their movies. So in a other theatres, telling stories to 250 way I put it to the side of my mind, but if I people a night that lasted two and a look back I do think there were moments half hours. And learning how to read when I was at University when I audiences, how to shift rhythm, how to absolutely knew I wanted to direct tell stories that lasted an evening, rather movies, but I just didn’t want to admit it than ten minutes or fifteen minutes or a because it seemed like a preposterous half hour TV show or whatever, and that dream, and the journey into it was a muscle is always being reengaged. And very, very sequitous one. And then of even now I find studios and people for course theatre became my home, and whom I make films are always surprised for 15 years that’s what I did, and then that I want to put it in front of an gradually I came back to the possibility audience, because for me coming from of doing movies, mainly because at that the theatre, unless it goes in front of an time there were fellow theatre directors audience, it doesn’t feel like it exists you who had made that step. Then Ken know. It feels like how could I not put it in Branaghs and the Nick Hytners and the front of an audience? I remember when Roger Michells and the Danny Boyles, I first made American Beauty them those people were all directing theatre saying, “Look, this is such an unusual film, in the early 90s when I started out, and you don’t have to preview it, because they showed that it was possible to do an audience might not know what it is,” that. And that’s how I kind of re-entered or you know, which I thought was a very the journey to try to find a way of doing dismissive way of talking of an audience. a film. But nevertheless, they were worried that it was going to score badly in a preview BH: And when you did make that and it would knock it and knock me. And journey, can you remember much about I said, “Actually, I want to. I want to go the differences and similarities? I mean out there and do it, because for me you how much was transferrable from your know I need to hear whether they laugh, background in theatre? I need to know whether there are boring bits,” and you know that for me is the SM: Well I’ve always said I think that moment that it exists for the first time. theatre directing and film directing are completely and utterly different in almost BH: Do you want to talk us through the every respect. Technically they’re very, clip you’ve chosen? very different, and I think if you’re working with an actor for example, what SM: Yes, well this is from American you’re seeking to do on stage is to find a Beauty, I presume. So this, the story way to engage that outside eye, so that behind the movie and finding the movie what they’re doing in rehearsal they can is perhaps for afterwards, but this clip is a repeat. So in a way you’re both inside part of a section of the film that still and outside in the theatre remains to this day I think probably the simultaneously. In film what you’re trying one or two things I’m proudest of, which to do is the opposite, you’re trying to is that there’s a ten minute section, disconnect the outside eye, you’re trying maybe 15 minutes in the middle of the to encourage spontaneity and freedom, film where I feel it shifts from being a and no you know self-editing at all. And broader comedy into something that goes for every aspect of filmmaking, completely different. And this is when every day is different, every scene is Ricky shows Jane, the two kids in the different, every shot is different, every movie, the most beautiful thing he’s ever take is different. In theatre it’s about filmed. And then it shifts very quickly into repetition, the French called rehearsals a scene of a completely different tone répétition, you know and that is what it is. entirely. It’s about the same set, the same scenes, re-explored over and over BH: Can we see the clip please? again, refined and perfected we hope, although rarely that’s the case. So I find [Clip plays] them very, very different, except in one regard, and that is that I spent ten years [Applause] at the Donmar, for example, and many 2 BAFTA A Life In Pictures: Sam Mendes 30 November 2015 at Princess Anne Theatre, BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London Kevin Spacey tells a great story about adamant about what it was; it clarified you shooting the first, the very first day’s what I was trying to do.