How did you go about casting these women?<\/strong><\/p>\nI was not aware of Daktoa Johnson before this but then I met her upon the recommendation of my casting director and thought she had a really soulful, older quality to her that I thought would bring out a tender side of Jimmy Bulger. As for\u00a0Julian Nicholson, I had loved from her work on stage and she felt like a real woman rather than a movie actress and I thought she would couple nicely with Joel Edgerton.\u00a0I revere actors so I remember them from other performances and see how they can fit in my world.<\/p>\n
How do you draw from actors what you\u00a0want from them?<\/strong><\/p>\nThrough a lot of investigative text work: we talk about what qualities they might share with the person they\u2019re playing. We talk about their relationship to their family, what kind of music they listen to, those sort of things. Then you treat them not as actors but as human beings. You give them a very safe space in which to take big risks and then acting is as simple as what we\u2019re doing here: listening and reacting and talking. I don\u2019t like to do much rehearsing at all because it tends to make things stale.\u00a0As a director you\u2019re many things, a therapist, an administrator but most of all you\u2019re a human.<\/p>\n
Did it become like a family?<\/strong><\/p>\nIt always does! My movies are very intense and harrowing and whether you\u2019re together with someone for a small amount of time \u2013 as with Juno \u2013 or for a longer period \u2013 like with Johnny \u2013 then, as long as you\u2019re making the same movie and have mutual respect, you make very long lasting bonds.<\/p>\n
In terms of all the actors you worked with in this film, who surprised you the most?<\/strong><\/p>\nAlmost all of them. You get surprised at Joel Edgerton, who is Australian, and managed to perfect, as did Benedict Cumberbatch, a very specific Bostonian accent. For someone as untested as Dakota Johnson, as young as her, to go to those emotional places. I found myself surprised every day.<\/p>\n
Did you ever get desensitized to the violence on set?<\/strong><\/p>\nNo never. I know that Benedict Cumberbatch came by the set one day when he wasn\u2019t working and said \u2018Oh my god, I can\u2019t even watch!\u2019 You never get desensitized to it, that\u2019s when you know you\u2019re in trouble. Hopefully my portrayal of these violent events is so searing and realistic that you don\u2019t get desensitized otherwise I would be trivializing these events and the victims and their families.<\/p>\n
Black Mass is released nationwide 25th November<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We got the chance to take an early-look at Black Mass\u00a0and\u00a0talk to its director, Scott Cooper about the movie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":60794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9416],"tags":[7757,7915],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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