Director Autumn de Wilde Interview Emma

Director Autumn de Wilde Interview: Emma

Emma director Autumn de Wilde talks about her Jane Austen adaptation, assembling a stellar cast, and bringing a modern touch to a timeless classic.

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Director Autumn de Wilde Interview Emma

In today’s cinematic landscape, a new Jane Austen adaptation is always in the works from one studio or another. Some are direct adaptations of her original stories, while others take creative liberties with the original text in an effort to mix it up. Though she’s been dead for over 200 years, Austen’s work has inspire generations of readers to believe in love and stepping outside their comfort zone for the sake of taking a chance on another human being. Published in 1815, Emma is the last novel released during Austen’s lifetime, and is fondly regarded as one of her greatest works.

The timeless story of the “handsome, clever, and rich” wannabe matchmaker and her misadventures with the social and romantic lives of her friends has been adapted to film and television many times over the years, most notably with 1995’s Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone, and 1996’s Emma, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Now, a new version of the story is making its way to the big screen in the form of Emma., starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the meddlesome, if well-meaning, title character.

While promoting the theatrical release of Emma., director Autumn de Wilde spoke to Screen Rant about her work on the film. Emma marks de Wilde’s feature directorial debut, though the artist is well known for her decades-long career as a beloved photographer of various subjects, most notably in the realm of rock and roll music. Interspersed with her musings on the film, de Wilde talks about some of her passions and approach to life, as well as her inspiring trajectory in show business. She also shares some brief stories from her youth and time on the road, and discusses her unique approach to tackling some of the iconic and unique fashion and style trends of the era and adapting them for the film.

Emma. is out now in theaters nationwide.

Director Autumn de Wilde Interview Emma

First of all, I loved your movie. Even though I guess I’m not in the “core demographic,” or whatever.

Good!

Not everything has to be for me!

I didn’t even think about the “key demographic.” I just tried to tell a story that would appeal to me and service the book.

I recently did an interview with some of the people who made The Rhythm Section, a new action movie that just came out…

I love action movies. Die Hard is the best Christmas film ever made.

Oh yeah, it’s up there! But the movie industry, especially in that action space, getting to talk to a woman director, a woman star, and a woman producer. Now, with Emma, it’s right there in the title! Written by a woman, directed by a woman, and starring a woman in the title role. So, do you feel a responsibility being part of a movie that’s ostensibly “by women, for women,” but also can be seen and enjoyed by anyone with good taste?

Yeah, I feel a responsibility to any great story. Maybe because I kinda dress like a boy, I’m kinda like a girl, I’m kinda like a boy… I don’t really think of… I wasn’t raised to separate men and women as much. And my taste isn’t exclusive to what women like, but I love girly things… But I’ve also lived on the road with bands as a rock photographer. I’ve lived in many worlds and I’m comfortable in many worlds. For me, it’s just like, the male characters in this movie were really important to me. A lot of the musicians I spent many years on the road with and giving advice about love and hearing about how they had a panic attack right before they told someone they loved them. It’s not just girl stories. It’s human. The hubris of youth and how foolish everyone is when they fall in love.

Yeah, I know a little about that.

I’m a hopeless romantic and definitely found my way into many humiliating situations in my youth. That’s kind of the glory of it, you know? I don’t feel like these are exclusively female stories. I just think the female voice or the male voice should be designed as a stereotype to bring in a certain type of person.

Director Autumn de Wilde Interview Emma

I’m thinking of, like, The Powerpuff Girls, which was marketed as a “girl” show, which upset the creator, who wanted the show to appeal to anybody regardless of age or gender.

There’s a lot of men who love this story! And that’s because almost everyone has fallen in love with their best friend, or the person they argue with the most. They’re like, “Oh God, I just realized, I think they’re hot!” And they’re like, “Well, what would have happened if I’d worked up the nerve to kiss that person?” That’s why When Harry Met Sally comes out of, Knightley and Emma’s relationship. And Reality Bites, that’s totally it, Winona and Ethan Hawke have that same dynamic. Everyone’s had a crush on someone who was a friend at some point. I don’t think it’s exclusively female.

Definitely. I think the idea of this freedom from social norms that really shines through in this movie, would you say that comes from your upbringing in upstate New York?

I was born in Woodstock, in a log cabin in the woods, but I was raised in L.A. But still, yes. My parents were hippies before there was a word for it. My parents raised me and protected me, but I was also a roommate, you know? They were not interested in following the traditional route. But they didn’t also rebel just to be rebellious. So yeah, I didn’t grow up with the whole “girls do this, guys do that,” thing. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t realize how much other people suffered that until I left, until I went into the school system.

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Right. That’s always where things start to go downhill. Definitely for me.

Yes. For me, too. I was bullied and I was a total nerd, and I was very loved at home.

I’m totally over it. I definitely don’t still carry the scars from kindergarten all the way through high school. Nope, not me. Not. One. Bit.

Actually, Emma really is a high school story. They’re 21. They’re young! Harriet is like, 17. That’s why Clueless works so well. It translates really well into the class system in high school and the power dynamics there. I did a book on Death Cab for Cutie. I remember Ben Gibbard saying one day… We were talking about high school, and he said, “You know, I know I went through a lot of drama in my 20s, but I kinda don’t remember what I was so upset about… But I remember every single person who hurt my feelings in high school.”

It’s the whole world, until you grow out of it.

I think that’s why there’s never too many high school movies. I think that’s why Jane Austen, why people have this weird idea that it’s for girls, but it’s all these people at this age where women are pressured to marry, and the women are afraid of what will happen to them if they don’t marry, but they’re just kids! And you stick them all together in this situation where they’re kinda trapped, which is like an office or a high school, and the wheels start popping off because they’re trying to follow the rules and gain power, or avoid punishment. They get bullied, they bully others. I think it’s all very human. Human things that we’re familiar.

Totally.

Director Autumn de Wilde Interview Emma

I wasn’t interested in modernizing Emma, but I was interested in humanizing it. Reminding people that Mr. Knightley… Johnny Flynn and I planned out his panic attacks. We were like, “You’re having a panic attack here. You’re having one here but you can manage it.” Of course that happened back then!

I don’t even know that I recognized it until after it had happened, when he’s just on the floor with his clothes unbuckled. I was like, “What is he doing? Is this a bit?” And then it hit me, like, “Oooh, he’s freaking the eff out.”

I have this friend who told me he had this… People thought he got lots of girls, but he would panic when he was alone with them. And he spent, like, his early 20s… He had all these movie nights with girls where he was too scared to do anything, and nothing would happen the whole night. And afterwards, he would be like, “Ah, I’m such an idiot!” Because he just couldn’t do anything!

And I imagine that just reinforces it, because everyone watching from the outside is thinking otherwise, right?

Yeah. So I sort of thought, Mr. Knightley looks like he’s got it together, but he just chickens out every time that moment comes. Every time he’s about to say something to her and there’s an interruption because he waited too long… And also, like, as he’s coming up to her for the proposal scene, he’s clutching his chest, thinking, “Don’t do this to me now. I’ve gotta be able to talk! Oh, please!”

On an episode of Supergirl, a character is told to cross his hands over his chest and tap his fingers back and forth to deal with PTSD, and I started doing it and it, like, actually worked!

I’ve never tried that before! But I’m a good panic attack guide. I’ve spent a lot of time on tour, walking and talking people through their panic attacks.

What was our first exposure to Austen?

I don’t really remember the beginning. My dad’s from Brooklyn, and my mom’s from England, but I grew up in Los Angeles. Anything from England held a fascination for me. It was this, like, “what if?” Who would I be if they had raised me in England?

Director Autumn de Wilde Interview Emma

I would have been Ringo.

Good choice. I’m a George guy. I think he’s the only one who actually believed that “love is all you need.” I think the rest might have been faking it. (Laughs) But Ringo’s the coolest.

Oh yeah, the best. Not to get off track!

No, The Beatles are part of everything. And Star Wars.

I’ve tested this many times over the years, and every young drummer goes through the same phases: first, they love Ringo because he’s the first drummer they know. Then they get sassy and think Ringo is lame or overrated because he’s not overplaying everything and being flashy the way a sassy high school kid might want to be. But then they come back around when they appreciate that he played the songs, and wasn’t constantly playing for attention.

Right, you go down a Rush path and you’re thinking, maybe Ringo doesn’t have enough drums, doesn’t have enough cymbals. Maybe that’s his problem! But the thing about Ringo is that he understood the silences. He understood where not to play. And that’s also Kieth Moon. Arrow, my daughter, she’s 20, and she’s in a band called Starcrawler. Her dad’s a drummer, and he has a very Ringo/Kieth Moon style. He’s left handed and plays a right-handed kit. It’s so fun to watch.

That’s awesome, I know a couple of people who play like that, it’s really cool.

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A great drummer is… Most people don’t know that the band completely depends on a great drummer.

Because they play the song. I don’t like the drummers who go, “Hey, look at me, everybody! Check out this cool trick I learned!”

Yes. Well, except for Hair Metal.

Oh yeah, there’s a time and place for it. I love Mötley Crüe. Easily my favorite band from that corner of rock and roll. My friends make fun of me for liking them so much!

I love Motley Crue. My daughter loves Mötley Crüe. I love Poison, too. I grew up in the 80s in L.A. Back when hair metal was dying, right before grunge, it was a crazy time. My best friend, who I had known from elementary school, she went Metal in high school. She hung out on the Sunset Strip. She had blonde hair, and had skirts, and backless tops, and she got into Gazzarri’s for free, underage, because she was painting the murals. I have this weird… I was totally a nerd going to a different school, in drama, trying not to get killed by gangs… I was living a totally different life than her. She would come to see me; I was in a musical, and people would come backstage going, “Who the f*** is that in the front row?!” She was wearing tasseled boots and makeup. I have an affection for the hair metal era, since I had this backdoor view into that scene. I was scared of it, too.

Director Autumn de Wilde Interview Emma

That’s awesome. When I was in high school, my friends were inexplicably all adults in bands, and they would always find a way to get me into their 21-and-up shows, which made me feel really cool.

I love how this story is now all about hair metal. I hope you include it! And since we mentioned action movies before… When Mr. Knightley runs after Emma, that’s my Jason Bourne moment. I made it an action movie (Laughs)

That’s great. Okay, I should probably bring it back to Emma before my editor kills me. I love fashion. Whether it’s modern day, fantasy, sci-fi, or anything, I love how clothes can tell a story.

I love building worlds. I love world creation. I love historical rebuilding. I think, like, a lot of period films are making safety adjustments. Like, “This is a little too this or a little too that,” but for me, I thought, hey, this crazy hairdo existed on Mrs. Elton existed, and we’re going to put it in the movie. There are fashion illustrations with that hair.

It’s very Star Wars.

It’s so fun, I know! The craziest ideas in fashion often come from real things that women were subjected to. (Laughs) Also, I thought it was really interesting; I had never seen men undress in these movies.

That was great. I was like, are the shirts really that long?

Yes! Because they didn’t have underwear yet! They didn’t wear underwear because there was no plumbing. So you had to squat to take a s***! It couldn’t be too complicated to get out of it. So there was no use for underwear yet, so it wasn’t invented. And men’s shirts were nightgown-length because they were twisted and, like, held their junk, basically. And tucked through. So when he’s tucking his shirt in, his underwear is his shirt! And I was like, how did I never know that? It’s so interesting! I’ve been watching women dress my entire life, in the movies – and not always accurately, too. So all the undergarments were accurate. And I just thought… I also wanted wanted to make a point of how, if you were wealthy, you were never alone when you were getting dressed. You were getting dressed by someone!

I definitely noticed that! I was like, “Huh, okay, it was a different time!”

They did everything, yes. Clothes were complicated! I also thought it was really interesting that men and women didn’t dress that differently underneath. They both basically wore nightgowns and stockings. The stockings went over their knees. Then, the men’s clothes went over that, and the women’s clothes went over that. But underneath, they wore pretty much the same outfit, which I found pretty fascinating; that the idea male, masculine heroes had undergarments that we would now consider feminine.

They’re all just trends that change as times go by, right?

It’s very modern to decide that this is for girls and this is for boys, and it keeps changing. I found that really interesting.

Last question: is every second with Bill Nighy just a gift?

It’s a dream. He’s a perfect human.

And gorgeous!

I wanted all the men in the movie to be man-crush men. When I was trying to come up with who Mr. Knightley should be, I called my friend, who’s a musician, Keaton Henson, and said, “Okay. Of all the male actors in England, what guys do you think are men that men like?” And he sent me five photos of Johnny Flynn. He said, I want to be Johnny Flynn, I think I want to marry Johnny Flynn, and I’m pretty sure my wife-to-be is okay with me marrying Johnny Flynn. He was so obsessed with him. And then I watched Beast, and I was like, Oh my God, he’s incredible. And then, Bill, I think is the type of man that women and men are obsessed with. It was the same thing. In order to believe that Mr. Knightley is going to leave his big house and move in with Emma and her aging father, you have to be in love and wish you lived there too, with Mr. Woodhouse. And Bill is that person.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/emma-movie-autum-de-wilde-interview/

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