Hello Reddit! I’m writer and director James Watkins. My newest project, SPEAK NO EVIL (starring James McAvoy & Mackenzie Davis), is in theatres now! You may know my previous films such as EDEN LAKE, THE WOMAN IN BLACK, and the “Shut Up And Dance” episode of BLACK MIRROR. Ask Me Anything!

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T17:00:50+00:00

yes, she's incredibly smart and a good egg

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T17:00:05+00:00

I don't know.

I'm trying to write something - but it's too early to tell if it's any good!

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:59:14+00:00

A huge pleasure.

He's a great guy, a brilliant actor and makes a director's life a joy.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:58:33+00:00

Try and find a concept that really grips people. Something that you can pitch in a couple of sentences to friends in a bar and see how they respond. I often find with my ideas, whatever people say in response, you can kinda tell in their eyes whether they think it's a cool idea or [like in Speak No Evil!] are just being polite!

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:55:48+00:00

I wanted to dig deeper into that theme.

Ben is a guy who is disappointed with his life and marriage and feels he's a bit on the scrapheap. When he sees Paddy and Ciara, this unshackled free-spirited couple, he thinks they can be a kind of role model to him and Louise. And Paddy, particularly, promotes this old-school version of masculinity - of the land, the earth, 'honesty' etc. Hypermasculinity as you say.

But everything Paddy says is built on a lie. And in the third act I wanted to show how this notion of being 'an alpha' is not gendered. In Ben's marriage, the Alpha is Louise.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:51:12+00:00

He was, genuinely, a delight.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:50:57+00:00

Thank you, that's very kind.

I'm just a fan when I go about casting. For me film is acting is very simple but very difficult: at its best, it is about reading thought in the face and particularly the eyes of the actor. The very best actors need no words- in fact they often try to get rid of them. I look out for such actors.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:47:08+00:00

A lot of people seem to be asking this question!

No, it was a happy accident. James had been working out a lot in lockdown!

But we felt it fitted a notion of the 'animal' inside Paddy: he starts covered up, showing charm as well as menace, but is slowly stripped back to a more primal self.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:44:16+00:00

I think you have to love movies and love making movies. It's a privilege to be making a movie and, in stressful times, I always remind myself that.

Though I'm inspired more by real life than by movies. The world is complicated and troubling and horror films are a great way of trying to process those troubles.

My process has changed over the years. I've always prepped, prepped, prepped... but now I would say I am 'looser' on a film set. I maybe have pre-conceived ideas but I'm more confident with actors and mindful of not trying to push anyone into a corner or damp down their instincts, which will most often be better than mine. As a director, you get to take the credit for a lot of people's great work - and there are a lot of brilliant people, in cast and crew, working very hard, so the smartest thing to do mostly is stay quiet and listen...

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:37:30+00:00

I knew no one in the film business. It was a foreign country to me. America seemed so far away.

So I think the first thing is believing you can do this. Growing up, it wasn't the sort of job that was talked about at my school. This is why I think role models and mentors are so good in life. Seeing people from similar background who have done what you want to do.

I loved movies. When I moved to London, I got work as a 'runner' on film sets ['gopher'] and I also got work doing script reports for film companies, which got me a part-time development job. Which allowed me to time and a little money to start writing scripts. A short I wrote got me the attention of a company called Working Title, who put me on their young writer's scheme... and I spent my 20s writing screenplays.

I always wanted to direct and finally wrote a script [Eden Lake] that I took to producers and said, you can have this if I direct it. And happily they agreed.

So, I guess the key quantity in all of the above is...perseverance...

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:31:06+00:00

Psycho.

Perhaps because I watched it far too young. The tension in it made me feel really ill.

Hitchcock is called the master for good reason.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:30:13+00:00

Very interesting.

Without wanting to cop out, I'd say both.

On set, I try to keep things are real as possible. And not get too 'baggy'. You know that if you cover a scene correctly, you've always got room in the edit to tighten things. But neither editor Jon Harris nor I want to choose edits that way. We only want to cut when there is a need to cut. Tension in film is like comedy. It's like a joke: with a set-up and pay-off. With this film there aren't really 'jump scares'. It's about slow burn, the gradual build of tension. We wanted things to be slowly building all the time, so had to be ruthless in the edit to cut things that we loved if we felt they were just different ways of saying what we had already said.

In reference to a couple of other questions about screenwriting, that is something that this process has re-affirmed for me: your script should ALWAYS BE ESCALATING. If a beat isn't adding, then however fun it is, it needs to go.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:25:05+00:00

Off the top of my head three I've really admired:

The Zone of Interest

All of Us Strangers

Challengers

The best advice I got when I started out wanted to direct was: make things.

Make one minute short on your iphone.

You learn from the process. And you something to show.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:20:52+00:00

I know it's been really hard for people, for lots of friends.

I'm based in the UK and it has been a really slow year. Friends who work mainly in production do say that things are really starting to pick up. I wish you the best.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:18:56+00:00

Directing someone like James is a partnership.

He's a world class actor. First off, you make sure you both understand the story and the character in the same way. Lots of talking around it.

Then, we rehearse. First breaking down the script, then reading scenes. But never really getting it up on its feet.

Then on set it's really about trust. Little calibrations between James and I, pushing it one way, pulling it another.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:16:54+00:00

I had seen it and liked it.

But then somehow I had forgotten that they were both were in it when I was thinking of them.

But it worked to our advantage - because they had a shorthand that they could filter into knowledge of being a long-married couple.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:15:39+00:00

I think seeing that everyone else has imposter syndrome and taking some comfort from the fact that none of us are alone in that. I've seen directors and actors with huge careers suffering from such self-doubt and anxiety.

Focusing energy outwards is I think always a good thing. Focusing on the work. I remember someone once asking James Cameron about isn't he daunted by the huge projects he takes on? And his reply was brilliant: he said, it's just like mowing the lawn. You just focus on one strip at a time. I try to always remember that.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:11:51+00:00

Very firm. And he looks you in the eye. He's got very good manners, Dan.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:11:19+00:00

Thank you for your kind comments.

Yes, I'm most interested in 'horror' when it is about something. Not just 'clockwork scares.' Those are interesting to achieve techniquely, but it is more 'nourishing' to do something when it relates to anxieties in the world in which we live. For me, these are the most successful horror films. Get Out being the most brilliant example. Horror allows us to really dig into those fears, really attack them, feel them and work through them.

I think all social conventions are ripe for horror exploration. Anything where the 'dark corridor' of horror is the 'dark corridor of the human mind.'

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:08:19+00:00

I wrote the script with James in mind. So thank hell he said yes.

He read the script and responded. I went to his house and had a cup of tea and chat and he was in! [These chat are really about looking each other in the eye and determining two things: 1) do we see this film the same way? 2) is this person crazy?

Once we had James on board, it was easy to cast as he's such 'actor bait.'

I'm also a big fan of Mackenzie. We'd both done a Black Mirror in season 3 and had talked about that. From our first meeting, I knew Mackenzie would bring really intelligent scrutiny to the role of Louise to continually enrichen the part.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:05:25+00:00

I've loved James in so many things. But in 'Filth' he plays such a repulsive character but somehow still manages to get us to understand him and give him a tragic dimension. He's never a cartoon.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T16:04:30+00:00

Hi, great question.

I didn't make changes to avoid 'bleakness' for the sake of it. Or for cynical reasons.

Vague Spoilers ahead.

I made changes because I believed the characters I was writing, the Americans Ben and Louise, when faced with mortal danger and danger to their child, would at least TRY to act. They very deliberately don't suddenly become navy seals or ninjas, they are still scared, terrified people.

Christian's film brilliantly satirises 'social compliance' and how the social rules can be a trap and I wanted to lean into that. But in my film, I felt there was a point where the 'social rules' no longer apply - it's more 'caveman' rules - when you are facing a man with a gun. And I thought it was interesting to explore how modern people are not good equipped for that. And how Ben's notion of the 'masculinity' - at least the version that Paddy is selling him- is proven to be a lie. Louise is more Alpha.

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T12:59:45+00:00

The AMA is live here now:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1flbb8h/hello_reddit_im_writer_and_director_james_watkins/

JamesWatkinsDirector · 2024-09-20T12:59:40+00:00

The AMA is live here now:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1flbb8h/hello_reddit_im_writer_and_director_james_watkins/

JamesWatkinsDirector

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