Exclusive interview with director Michael Hoffman

Forever fascinated by love and relationships, American writer/director Michael Hoffman (above) uses Leo Tolstoy to once again tackle the subject in his latest film The Last Station. I had a chance to talk to the man, behind such films A Midsummer Night's Dream and One Fine Day, a few days ago and he shared some insights on the movie, love and, er, James McAvoy’s marriage. Here is is what he had to say…

Movie Mazzupial: It’s lovely to speak to you Michael.
Michael Hoffman: You’re welcome. Are you calling from Australia?

MM: Yeah, yeah I sure am. Have you been here before?
MH: No, I’ve never been there.

MM: What? I don’t believe that.
MH: No, I always make myself available to go down there, but I still haven’t been. I was hoping to come down there for this. And I’m hoping to work there at some stage because there are great opportunities at the moment, and I have friends there.

MM: Well, you will just have to set your next film here so you can visit.
MH: (Laughs) I might do that.

MM: Firstly, what fascinated you about Jay Parini’s novel and made you want to make it into a film?
MH: It first read it in 1990 and I didn’t see what the movie was. But when I re-read it in 2004, then I saw it as a film. By then I had been married for 14-years and saw the impossibilities of love, living with love and the fear of living without love. That really intrigued me. I believe that when you’re making a film you have to be making it about one thing and there needs to be a dramatic concentration.

MM: Right, so was it difficult to get some of the elements in the novel across to the screenplay?
MH: There was so much in the novel and initially I was writing a screenplay that was a battle about the point of view, because the novel is from six different points of view and I couldn’t really figure how to work it. I went down the Bulgakov road because there’s a lot of information the audience needs and he can be educated as the audience is educated. I was really interested in juxtaposing the young love between Masha and Valentin and the older lovers Sofya and Tolstoy. I like the way those two relationships resonated in the film. It was a gradual thinning down process of not making a Tolstoy biopic and making a humorous film about love and marriage instead.
MM: Do you find it easier to direct something that you have written yourself?
MH: I’m a director first and a writer second. When I’m writing the film I’m writing to direct and I have that in my mind as I’m doing it . I do a lot of writing for the actors. I did a lot of acting when I was younger and I can imagine how I want these moments to come across. I want to create an environment where actors can do their best work and present ideas that can be better than mine.

MM: You seem to be really fascinated by the question and substance of love, did you seek to answer the audiences question about it or merely give them the tools to decide for themselves?
MH: Well, I think in the best movies you don’t really have an answer, you have possibilities and that’s one of the big mysteries in life. This thing that should be so simple, but it’s not.

MM: You mentioned your acting experience earlier, did this help in getting such amazing performances out of the actors? How did you do it?
MH: It’s more about the fact everyone is recognising these experiences in your life and there’s this constant dialogue between us all. It starts getting enriched through the dialogue, through the screenplay, the actors, what you bring and what they bring, it keeps enriching the story. That’s how you have layers, stories and to me it works better when there’s this constant dialogue.
MM: So were you nervous for Christopher and Helen watching the Oscars?
MH: No, there’s a sort of a momentum beforehand. You sort of new Jeff Bridges would win the Oscar for best actor, but on the other hand when Christophe Waltz was winning all the best supporting actor things, every time they would say his name we would lean forward thinking they were saying Christopher (Plummer). I mean, Helen had won a few years ago so she wasn’t too expectant but the great thing about it was that it introduced a whole group of people to the film who hadn’t heard of it before

MM: They certainly put across some excellent work, how did you get such a great cast together?
MH: You know, this is the only screenplay where every actor I sent it to said yes, they wanted to do it. I think it was the Russianness as well, the tragic comedic tone and the chance to be funny. On another level, audiences have an understanding of what it’s like to be in relationship. How can love, how can this thing that we all say we want, how can it be so difficult? It’s amazing to me and all inspiring. MM: Speaking of love and marriage, what was it like working with James McAvoy and Anne-Marie Duff on set, who are of course married in real life?
MH: (Laughs) It was really interesting and kind of intimating because they have one of the most remarkably happy marriages I’ve ever witnessed. It’s really incredible how these two people relate with each other, they giggle and go off together…because they’re like little kids. It was a little intimidating because I didn’t want my wife to see it (laughs). Everyone brought the relationships they were in to set. Helen talked about the ones that didn’t work for her and Christopher, his three marriages. You don’t want to make the stuffy period movie so you need to find a way to make people interested and connect with the film.

MM: You have made a lot of films with comedic and romantic elements, now what’s next for you?
MH: I’m not positive where I will go next. I know it will have a lot of comedy in it, I can’t imagine a world without a lot of comedy in it, especially when you can take a genre people aren’t expecting to see it in. That’s one of the things about the film people have loved, how much comedy there is in it.

The Last Station opened nationally yesterday and you can read my review here.