Stan & Ollie Interview – Jon S.Baird
attends the World Premiere of "Stan & Ollie" and closing night gala of the 62nd BFI London Film Festival on October 21, 2018 in London, England.
This coming Friday 11th January, Stan & Ollie will be released in UK and Irish Cinemas. The true story of Hollywood’s greatest comedy double act, Laurel and Hardy. Starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly as the legendary movie icons, Stan & Ollie is the heart-warming story of what would become the pair’s triumphant farewell tour.
The film has toured the final months of 2018 Film Festival circuit and left with some solid reviews. Now we’re only days away from the cinematic release, Keanu Arcadio caught up with the director Jon S.Baird…
Your first short film was it’s a casual life, then you moved on to direct Cass, Filth and then you did some work for Babylon, so I noticed that there are some running themes of violence, the outsider and man. Would say the Laurel and Hardy is a departure from all of this?
JB: Yeah, clearly, it’s a total departure. It was a conscious decision to do something very very different. Those films that you highlighted were all films that I respond to, particularly identity.
Would you say that those themes are concluded for you?
JB: Not necessarily no. I had a big thing growing up with identity and where I fit, you know, and where I fit into society and the community, so I don’t think that would ever be concluded.
We know you worked on an American comedy TV series, You know, I’m dying up here, I’m guessing this work influenced your decision to make a work about comedy?
JB: Actually, I already had Laurel and Hardy already planned way before I worked on I’m dying up here because I’d been a fan of Laurel and Hardy since I was eight years old.
So you already had a deep connection with Laurel and Hardy anyway?
JB: Yeah as a kid I used to watch them on television growing up, and used to dress up as Stan Laurel for school fancy dress parties. There’s always been a connection.
Did you have a friend or a partner who was your Hardy?
JB: I did. I had a fat friend – who was my Hardy, slightly chubbier than me, so he was automatically called Hardy.
Do you feel Laurel and Hardy as comedians have any relevance today?
JB: The relevance to Hardy is because people still remember him yeah, and the audience that are watching this film are a naturally excused audience yeah. But the film isn’t really just about Laurel and Hardy, the film is a love story through a friendship. In the times that we’re living in, it feels as though that we could be doing with something that is based on friendship, love and reconciliation – that’s the point that is relative today.
How much research did you do on Laurel and Hardy and what was the process?
JB: As I’ve said, I’ve been a fan for a long time, I had seen most of their movies. But the biggest piece of research for me was to get into contact with Stan’s great granddaughter, she was a source of reference for material that wasn’t available. And I spoke to a lot of Laurel and Hardy fans from the Sons of the Desert fan club and we had some advisors on the film, so we tried to keep as possible to the real thing, without relying on it just being a Laurel and Hardy movie, we wanted it to work more than that. We took our responsibility very seriously.
Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly gave strong performances with good chemistry. How was the process of filming on set with them? Did they just jump straight into it?
JB: Well, we had three week’s rehearsal for it, which is unusual for a film this size, because you normally get a week. We would take less shooting days and then more rehearsals, very important that the team held pretty well, that was something we focused on – the preparation time.
Let’s talk about Ida, the fierce Russian lady, how did you frame her profile?
JB: Again, we spoke to Stan’s great granddaughter who told us a lot about Ida, then we looked a lot archived footage on Ida. Also Nina, the actress who’s playing her is actually from New Jersey, but actually has Ukrainian parentage, so she has that slavic temperament, which really describes their tough love, and we thought that was very important for someone to understand that sensibility – that was our big decision for working with Nina. Also the comedy that comes out in the film, Nina and Shirley improvised that a lot, not on set, I’m not a big fan on improvisation on set, but they improvised a lot of that in rehearsals, and we wrote it in the script, so a lot of the comedy has to be given credit to the girls and what they came up with.
Stan & Ollie will be in UK and Irish Cinemas from 11th, January 2019.
Keanu Arcadio
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