Music, Style & Culture

Interview: Red White & Blue Director Simon Rumley

He reveals how excited Noah Taylor was to play a psychopath.

More than a year after it blew us away at 2010's FrightFest, Simon Rumley's Red White & Blue finally hits UK cinemas on 30th September.

The British director emerged from club-centric Brit flicks to make an impact in the horror genre with warped drama The Living and the Dead. How he returns with Red White & Blue, a shocking, visceral, twisted revenge thriller.

See the loveable Noah Taylor as you've never seen him before, playing Nate, a sociopathic war veteran. He comes into the life of Erica, a vulnerable woman who seeks out passionless and empty one night stands with strangers. Erica's encounter with wannabe rock star Franki (Marc Senter) has staggering repercussions, as the film descends into something unexpectedly devastating. A powerful piece of work, it has the honour of shaking me up more than any other film of that FrightFest, despite it not being a horror film.

We caught up with Rumley (pictured above, second left, with his cast) last year to talk about his Austin-set film. He's since announced two new projects. There's the China-set Stranger and a return to Red White & Blue's Texas setting with another dark drama, The Cherished One.

There are plenty of surprises in Red White & Blue, but our interview doesn't touch on anything that isn't apparent in the trailer or press releases, so can be considered spoiler-free.

You've gone from making very British films to filming in Texas - how come?
I got bored of making films in Britain really. You spend a lot of time, effort and energy, and getting very good reviews, but then nothing happening, and the industry being generally disinterested. I'd been wanting to make a film like this for a long time, and it seemed like, from my last film, it was a natural progression. You look at the British film industry and a few films travel, but very few do. Even though the subject matter's tough, when you set your film in America you have more chance of success. If this was set in Blackpool, I'm not sure it would have ever been seen outside of England.

I think setting it America gave it a dangerous, glamorous edge.
Yes. I think violence in this country is associated with football hooligans, or gangsters, which in filmic terms are pretty much the same social demographic. Violence doesn't tend to go beyond that. Now you've got a bit of hoodie horror. In America, the accessibility to guns, and the gun culture, and there's more people, therefore more serial killers.

Did the spark for the story come after you decided to make a film in America?
It came from touring The Living and the Dead, and doing Q&As and reading reviews where people said it's more horrific than any horror film we've ever seen, but it's not a horror film. I liked that contradiction. I spent 18 months touring that, and at the end I thought I should do the same thing with another disturbing film, set in reality. It's why horror films aren't that scary and can be stupid. I thought, how can I make it a slasher movie?



How did Noah come on board to become so unrecognisable?
Noah was actually the easiest person to get to, to be honest. When I finished the script, I came up with five actors. I thought Noah was a long shot as he's Australian, but he lives in Brighton, so he read it, he liked it, and I went down to Brighton. I gave him The Living and the Dead. The one thing he wanted to be convinced of was that it wasn't going to be another Hostel, or something gratuitous, and I assured him that it wasn't. It was as easy as that. Now I've got to know Noah better, it turns out he's always wanted to play a killer and/or psychopath. He was really excited! Having been on board for a couple of weeks after reading it, I got an email from him, saying "I've been thinking - this is a love story really, isn't it? Now I'm really excited!"

Amanda gives an incredibly brave performance. I believe she was last-minute casting?
We tried three actresses - one British, two American - who were all reasonably well-known. One had problems with the violence, one had done nudity before, and didn't want to do it again, and one couldn't be bothered, so that didn't happen. We were running out of time, and my producer said, what if we can't cast the Erica role? He suggested we got someone in LA to do our casting, and we'd watch it online in Austin. We found our top five, and Amanda was head and shoulders above everyone. She had two days notice. Much like Noah, she instinctively understood the character, and didn't feel sorry for her, or hate her - just empathised with her struggle. At the time she'd split up with her boyfriend so she was quite vulnerable, and she almost took solace in the character. She was an absolute pleasure to work with. With all the sex and violence, it wasn't the nicest part for her, but she knew what she was getting into.



Marc plays a slimey character, but strangely sympathetic.
Marc is a very lovely guy, very chirpy and happy and smiley. I'd seen him in The Lost, Chris Sivertson's adaptation of the Jack Ketchum novel, which was touring festivals in 2006. He did a great performance, playing a psychopath, and it was a fine line between living in reality and just being a complete maniac, and quite a charismatic one as well. I felt he would understand where the character was coming from and where he went. He's a singer in a rock band, which usually comes with arrogance or delusions of grandeur. We looked at other people, but we kept coming back to Marc. Great guy.

The FrightFest preview warned against reading too much about the film before seeing it, but because I was at a horror festival, I knew to have that sinking feeling of dread. How would you market the film to unsuspecting audiences?
When we did our first press release, we virtually told the whole story, but then we realised that's a bad thing. Journalists have been pretty good; there have been a few that write this is what happens, then that happens, and you think, for fuck's sake. It's tough. It's just been released in America, and they cut a new trailer, and we were happy to make the trailer more commercial, and you do see quite a bit of violence. We market it as "three characters whose lives inexplicably intertwine for the worst". Which is abstract - it hasn't been easy.

Afterwards all I could think about was the futility of revenge. How do you want your audience to feel?
We watch so many films where... people ask if it's a political film, and it very reflects American policies - hit ten times harder. I think the whole aspect of violence is futility. The film is a tragedy, and if they had stopped to think about what they were doing, they wouldn't have done it. Any rational person would realise you've got cause for grievance, but going down this road isn't the way to solve it. It's sad how things get out of control.



It's astonishing it was only a three week shoot - there's a scene with a family that you'd think would've taken three weeks on its own. How did you shoot the distressing scene with the child actress?
It had the potential to be the strongest scene in the film, and I was reliant on getting a great girl. We'd seen a bunch of young girls at that stage, and I've never worked with children before, so I didn't know how to do it. Saxon [Sharbino] came in, and we had a quick chat. We said "are you ready to do the audition?" And she said "yes, can I have a minute to prepare?" We had a quick snigger, then she turned back round and in literally thirty seconds she was in tears, and it was stunning.

Did she know what was being said to her on the script?
Yeah, but she didn't read the whole thing. We did it ten times, and everyone was screaming all day, and she was saying, "I want to push this to get the best performance." It was truly something. It will be interesting to see what happens to her in her career. She's in I Spit On Your Grave as well. She was great to work with - a natural.