On the surface, audiences may think French director Luc Besson’s new film, THE LADY, is an unusual project for his resume. Considering he’s known great success in the high-charged, shoot-em-up action genre (and has produced quite the roster of protégés in the last few years), a story about one Burmese woman’s political struggle seems like an odd choice. However, that’s where you’d be wrong. While the story may be small in scale, THE LADY’s scope is large and cinematic.
Actress Michelle Yeoh is probably best known worldwide from her Hong-Kong style action films. Now she, just like Besson, has changed gears to show her fans she can also handle drama quite adeptly. And she is hoping American fans embrace her will embrace her work in THE LADY.
Of course you would like that your audience gets a variety of your performances. So they won’t only be stuck with you doing one kind of film, or one kid of genre. So when they walk into the cinema, they are not quite sure what I’m going to present to them. This time with THE LADY, it’s very close to our [motions to Thewlis] hearts. There is a very important message. There’s an awakening. I hope people who do not know about Aung San Suu Kyi – about the plight of the Burmese people will now have the option to do something because now they know.
Even before the most recent events of her life, Aung San Suu Kyi had such a remarkable life story. Yeoh had heard about Suu Kyi through the media and was passionate about bringing it to life on the big screen.
You see it’s always very difficult to try to make a movie about someone who’s alive. First of all Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest at that time. I think that was where the junta was successful in this because they would really making people forget about her. There was no news. There was no communication at all. Even the family couldn’t call. They couldn’t write letters both ways. The only time when people suddenly remembered was when the American swam into her compound just when she was supposed to be released from her house arrest term and the elections were coming up a month later. Suddenly her sentence was extended for another 18 months. So I think it was at that time we all went, “Why are we not telling this story?” I remember calling my manager here saying, “I want to do this! I’m sure there’s someone out there writing this.” So he investigated and he found Andy Harris [producer of THE QUEEN] and also Rebecca Frayn, his wife, had been writing this story. That was how it all began for me.
Fluent in more than one language, Yeoh’s dedication to her craft fully encompassed her life.
I speak English. Malay because I’m Malaysian. It’s similar to Indonesian. I speak Cantonese since I work out of Hong Kong a lot. Mandarin because of the China connections – I work in China. I was learning Burmese, which is very crucial to playing this role. The first speech she makes is in Burmese to her people to convince them and get them to understand that even though she did marry a foreigner, even though she lived outside of Burma for so long, she was her father’s daughter. She can not turn away from what’s happening to her country. And all of this is documented in Burmese. So we can’t take liberties and do it in English. It wouldn’t be right. I had one of the best dialect coaches. She is Burmese, but she is one of those who can not have credit to her name for having taught or being associated with the film because she still has family in Burma. It was just sheer hard work. It was being disciplined and diligent about it. At the end of the day there was no way to read it. Not like Malay. Here is the circles and the dots and it looks like noodles. Here, it was not the so much the sounds or exact notes but the flow that dictated the emotions. When a man says it, it’s slightly different than when a woman says it. The speed of how it was delivered would determine the emotional value of it. So then the only other way to learn it was chop blocks memorizing. Saying it over and over again until I know it so well I can just say it. At the end of the day you are committed. This is a role a chance, an incredible gift. You know that you will do it.
Since the person Yeoh is portraying is still alive, she felt pulled to make sure her performance was at the pinnacle of respect. She learned it wasn’t just about the costumes but it was about getting to the heart and understanding of Suu Kyi’s cause.
For us we were trying to research for the roles. I had 200 hundred hours of footage of San Suu when she was campaigning. So I’m very good at making political speeches in Burmese. Not very good at normal dialogue. It’s really to get inside this person. It’s one thing with the hair and the prosthetics that we both had. The change of the colors of the eyes. Because she didn’t wear a lot of makeup. She wore very minimal makeup. It was always the flowers in the hair. The costumes the beautiful longyi. From there I could see it wasn’t all this. That’s very two dimensional. It was right here [points at heart]. Her demeanor. Her body language even though she’s so proper in holding herself. There were the moments you could feel the weight and the pain or the wistfulness. Being a Buddhist helped because it’s a philosophy in life. Her thinking of the non violence. Where the selflessness came from. Where this strength – because I think she drew this tremendous strength from her husband. He supported and he enabled her to be her and fulfill her destiny. Without that strong love, which was the part of the story that really got all of us to fall in love with this and know that this story had to be told. There’s no doubt that everyday I worry I haven’t done my best. Every day I think I could have done it better. But then at the end of the day, I step back and think I have given it my best. I’ve done it with love, the greatest respect and the only way I know how. Fortunately I’m blessed when I have someone like David around and we just dove into the marriage.
Unfortunately, Thewlis didn’t have the opportunity to meet his “character,” Michael, before he succumbed to cancer. But, as fate would have it, that wasn’t necessarily a such bad thing.
I could have relied on the script as there’s not a lot of footage as there is of Suu. There’s a little bit of footage giving interviews on news programs very anguished as a new visa has been refused, as less news is getting through and another phone call has been cut short. So all I had was about three interviews with him. It was always a very solemn Michael. I thought when I first read it, it’s fairly open to me to interpret this how I see it with Luc and Michelle. Particularly because he had a very particular voice, Michael the way he spoke which I’ve quite honestly taken down a bit in the performance because it would be too eccentric. I did get to meet his twin brother, who I also get to play in the film. So that’s obviously a great bonus. I met a more eccentric version, a happier version of Michael. It was very helpful to me on a few occasions. Just spending time with him was a great help. Luc was very insistent, especially with Suu Kyi, that Michelle resemble her as much as possible but also with me who I don’t think I very much look like Michael at all. We did go someway with the wigs and the ears. We both have prosthetic ears. I think it’s one of the few films where the two leads have prosthetic ears. It got very complicated at some times because they would lock together.
Yeoh, for one, was happy to be rid of those prosthetic ears.
They were painful! Every time my sons in the film came to hug me, I’d say, “Ok guys. Stop it!”
Yeoh never worried that her race would ever play a part in her not getting the role as Suu Kyi. And she thinks audiences won’t cause an uproar over the fact she is not being Burmese.
I think as an actor, you don’t play the role with your Passport. If I only get to play Malaysian roles, there wouldn’t be very many roles for me to play. I think with the Europeans and Americans they cross between. Like Liam Neeson playing a German. Ben Kingsley playing Ghandi. I hope we are not limited. Just because we do look alike in many ways is just the way we speak, the language of course, the mannerisms. When we play Burmese, we immerse ourselves into that culture because it’s the nuances that make the biggest differences. As an actor, that is part of your job description. To be able to project yourself and portray all these different roles.
One of the most interesting facts about the film is that some of the extras in the crowd scenes were actually present at the real life events that were being recreated. As you can imagine, this leads to the authentic feel of the picture.
At the beginning, I really take my hat off to Luc. What he did was he actually went to the Burmese refugee camps up in Northern Thailand and he cast about 200 of them. You know the guy who does the [mimics gunshot motion] he’s a carpenter and not an actor. Actually all of them were not actors. It was a completely new experience. They were very natural, of course. They were Burmese. So the way they moved when they were with me, helped me tremendously. The way they kicked and reacted to each other.. some of them had family members killed. So they were just in a sense regurgitating the things that happened to them. What they have seen clearly with their own eyes. I thought it was amazing Luc had gone out of his way to do something to bring that authenticity to the film. What was most touching, when we were doing the speech, when we were doing the close up Luc was saying “there is someone crying behind you the whole time.” Of course I couldn’t see because I was so worried about doing it right so we found out he was there. He said at that time in ’88, “I was in the audience looking up at Suu Kyi hearing that speech. Today I’m standing behind her. Listening to her say that speech again.” It was incredible. When we were shooting the market scene, I had a couple of old people come up and [mimics talking] “oh Suu Kyi!”
As this marks a sort of shift in Besson’s directing career – going from fast paced action films to the slow burn of drama – the actors saw no difference in his directing style. Thewlis explains,
I’m not saying this because he might read it (he probably won’t). I don’t want to say surprising, but he was a great director for actors. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that, but maybe it’s because of the kind of films he makes would be concentrated on more of the imagery and action. He’s one of the best I’ve ever worked with. One of the main reasons is that he’s there really present on set. He’s also the camera operator which is very rare. He operates all the shots, apart from the Steadicam. So he’s right there in front of you. He’s not over at the monitor trying to gauge your reactions. I’ve had lots of directors come over to me saying, I don’t think you’re quite doing enough and you end up doing too much. He’s right there with the camera giving you notes as your performing. You don’t cut and start again, you just keep going and going and going. And I found that very stimulating.
Yeoh concurs,
This story needs scope. Needs that great picture and at the same time, needs that intimacy. It goes straight to the soul or the heart. If you look at his films from THE BIG BLUE to THE PROFESSIONAL. You’re going into that world very intimately. He’s about very raw emotions. In this movie, it’s always good to go to a director where things are unexpected. The usual suspects would be to go to Oliver Stone or Ang Lee or someone like that where they are supposed to be their kind of film. Luc was a great choice. He’s always been very good at portraying strong women – JOAN OF ARC, LA FEMME NIKITA. Now it’s very much a woman who is fighting but her armor is her faith, her weapons is her passion, with her words rather than that visual with guns. The same could be said for me as well. What are two supposedly action actor and director doing with a very dramatic film? As filmmakers, we should be able to move from one genre into another. The most important thing is if you are doing it for love and commitment.
Thewlis also tries to vary the roles that he plays, never resting in one specific genre.
I always wanted to do that. I looked at people like John Hurt, who was a big influence. If I wanted to be an actor, I’d love to be an actor like him whose such a great character actor. Never repeats himself. I would get very bored if I had done something like what I had done before so I tend to try to stretch me. Would entertain me. Not choose a script where I’m bored before I started doing it. Someone had assembled a montage of photos of everyone I’ve played. A lot of different haircuts. It’s all based around haircuts, really. This is one of the best. I’ve even got little wigs on my eyebrows.
The word “important” is often used to describe THE LADY, mostly because of its historical subject matter. However, THE LADY is so much more than that. It’s also entertaining. Yeoh explains,
When I go to a film, I like to either laugh a lot or cry a lot. For example, remember that movie THE CHAMP? I was in college and I cried buckets. It was such a liberating experience. Sometimes you need to be moved. This is one story that does that. Forget about the political side because you don’t get in there and be taught a political lesson. We don’t do that. And we didn’t set out to do that. It is a beautiful love story. That was what drove us to be really engaged with it. Fortunately, it happens to have a nice message to it.
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