Interview - John Michael McDonagh (The Guard) Part 2

In this second part of our interview (read Part 1), writer/director of The Guard John Michael McDonagh gives us his opinion on director’s cuts (including his favourite deleted moment from his recent film) and his next project with Brendan Gleeson.

CLICK: Do you see yourself as a writer or director now?
JMM: Originally just as a writer but once I’d seen my material just fucked around with on Ned Kelly it pushed me to want to direct. I could see that I would sell a script but it would be much more likely anything I write to direct myself.

CLICK: So you’d rather not have another director take on your scripts?
JMM: No… I’ve written a couple of scripts that are quite big budget, like $50 or $60 million and in that case it’s a lot of money and I'd understand if a studio wanted someone with more experience. But if it’s something for me to direct I specifically write it in the 5-15 million dollar brackets so they might actually give me the money. I’m trying to be pragmatic about it, I’m not expecting anyone to give me $50 million [laughs]. And the next one Calvary is about the same budget as The Guard and then an American one that I’ve written is about $10 to $15 million.

CLICK: So you’d anticipate directing those two next?
JMM: Yea and I’m getting stuff in from the States and everywhere as well. But for every 20 you get in only two are any good or have any promise, there’s a lot of bad writing out there.

CLICK: The Guard is your first DVD commentary, how did you find that?
JMM: Yea it was funny because we did this press tour in LA and New York and you’d arrive and get your schedule and it would say ‘tomorrow – commentary recording!’ And I was thinking that I'd have like a week to watch the film and get my notes and influences together and be really pretentious about it! And I get in and of course I’m doing it with Brendan and Don and the minute I start going ‘this is a reference to…’ they all start taking the piss! So it’s more of a jokey sort of talking about the film, what the camaraderie was like on set, funny things that happened. I’d like another time to do my pretentious, arthouse commentary!

CLICK: A dry one
JMM: A really, really dry one with all the literary and cinematic reference throughout the film.

CLICK: You should!
JMM: And then people would probably switch off after five minutes to the other one!

CLICK: I don’t know if it’s something you considered but was there ever a chance to do a new cut of the film on the DVD?
JMM: Looking back I’m not a big fan of those directors’ cuts because I always feel that the footage was cut for a reason. That the directors knew at the time and over the years they’ve convinced themselves they needed to change. There’s only one tiny cut I missed in the entire movie and it’s where Billy Devaney is being interrogated and he reveals that he molested a llama. That scene was originally really long and most of it I’m happy to lose but there’s this bit where he drifts off and reveals that the llama he molested was named Stephen! It was really slow because he drifts in and out and it really slows down the scene but I just thought it was funny! And nobody else did. But they can see it on the extras on the DVD.

CLICK: Both yourself and your brother Martin seem to have this blackly comic sense of humour – is that something that runs in the family?
JMM: I wouldn’t say it’s in my mum and dad. We were kind of recluses for a long time – you’d be watching TV dramas or films and you’d be sort of criticising them and making fun of them. For me personally I find it quite difficult to write a straight drama because as I'm writing you can see the po-faced movies that are made like that. So I’d always have the inclination to undermine it. One of the earliest scenes I wrote for The Guard was when they discovered the dead body at the beginning and they walk in and I thought – ‘how do they do this on CSI, I’ll do the opposite’. So I had him fiddle with the body, I had him destroy evidence. You take what Hollywood would normally do and subvert it. If you have that kind of a mindset it’s pretty hard to write a straight drama. Maybe someday though! But at the moment no. The next one Calvary that I’m hoping to shoot in August/September next year it has... it is more of a dramatic narrative but it still has the same blackly comic elements again.

CLICK: And that’s with Brendan Gleeson again isn’t it?
JMM: That’s with Brendan again. And it’s something that came out of when we were out one night during filming I think at a lock in at a pub in Spideal or something. And obviously there have been a lot of scandals about priests and there will be loads of bad movies made in Ireland now about bad priests so the thing to do would be to make the opposite – a film about a good priest. Just on a technical level it’s quite difficult to write about people who are good and Brendan said he’d always wanted to play a good priest! And the editing of The Guard went on for so long that I got to write the script during that time so we’ll see how it goes.

CLICK: Is that financed already?
JMM: No it’s not financed yet. But with the success of The Guard we’ve already got distribution in Australia, people are reading the script and a couple of my first choice actors have said yes already so it’s got quite a positive momentum right now. I was hoping to have a bigger budget. That’s one of the naïve things I thought – after the success of The Guard I thought instead of having €6 million you might get €10 million or so but the script is still quite edgy and confrontational so the budget is the same. It’s based on the material, getting star actors in only goes so far if the material is still quite confrontational.

CLICK: At least you might not have any gunfights this time!
JMM: Well a gun does go off a couple of times! But there’ll be no big massive shootouts on the pier or anything!

CLICK: You also mentioned your American film – can you tell us anything about that?
JMM: Yea, it’s called War on Everyone. The reason I wanted to make Calvary next is because War on Everyone has a similar type of tone to The Guard. Instead of being about one confrontational, mildly corrupt cop it’s about two confrontational, totally corrupt cops in Alabama. So even though I think it’s a really good script, it’s quite funny and should be popular, I didn’t want to follow The Guard with this because I thought they might be perceived as being too similar. So I wanted to put my arthouse movie in between them.



CLICK: Are you looking forward to working in the States on that?
JMM: Yea the main thing for me with the American script is to just be able to compare crews. What the working environment is, dealing with the financers over there. Would I get more pressure, will they try to lock me out of the editing room? Working with virtually completely American actors, is that going to be different? I think you should try to push yourself into areas that might be uncomfortable and stressful just to keep going. I had to push myself from being a writer to being a director and you just have to keep doing that as long as you can.

CLICK: Well it sounds like after almost 10 years off you’re really busy now!
JMM: The thing is all those years of bitterness, once you’ve made the first film it is addictive. It was really enjoyable being on set and working with the actors. Editing was stressful but still quite enjoyable. Working with the great crew – it’s an enjoyable job when it all goes well. And so now I’ve done it, yea you take a break to go to the festivals, but I really want to get back on set again!

The Guard is out on DVD and blu-ray from the 2nd of December. Read our review and our interview with Brendan Gleeson.