REFLECTIONS

Fred Schepisi and "LAST ORDERS"

Fred Schepisi spoke about the making of "Last Orders" at its first Melbourne screening at the Nova Cinema in Carlton (Friday 28th June 2002). "Last Orders" is a story that examines the lives of a group of people played by MICHAEL CAINE, TOM COURTNAY, DAVID HEMMINGS, BOB HOSKINS, RAY WINSTONE AND HELEN MIRREN - all of whose characters appear in younger incarnations. Amongst many other things Fred reflected upon aspects of the casting process.

Fred Schepisi: J. J. Field who plays the young Jack … (laughs) … came to see me five times, poor bugger, because I was not convinced he was right. JJ kept coming and doing a 'drama school' audition. There's a whole set pattern of how they audition which drove me absolutely nuts. And I kept saying, "He's not the guy." But she convinced me to see him one more time. At this stage the poor guy was shooting a television series and on this particular day he had been up from five o'clock in the morning and at the end of his day he had to drive up to London to see me and it was ten thirty at night by the time he got there. He was completely stuffed. There was no pretence left in this guy whatsoever. And I've got to tell you I was a bit stuffed myself … so we both looked at one another and said let's get a drink … and then he talked to me just as the normal person that he is … and right away I could see that he was the right guy for it.

Question: When you are looking for someone to play younger counterparts of characters, what kind of things are you looking for? Is it about physical similarities? Is it about finding some sort of emotional chord that connects the two?

Fred Schepisi: HELEN MIRREN said to me, "Don't worry about how much they look like us. Just make sure they can act. And if they are really good actors they will transform themselves. Then there are some really simple things we can do with hair colour, hair parts, certain little habits … um … that will make us look alike - even if we don't." And she was very right. When you get that kind of advice it takes pressure off and you feel freer about who you look for because not only do they have to reasonably resemble the older counterpart they have to act as well and they also have to have that extra juice that made those people stars … and that's an inexplicable charisma … where performances leap off the screen rather than settling into the screen. So you had to look for that as well. A lot of people say that JJ looks incredibly like MICHAEL CAINE. Actually he doesn't look like MICHAEL CAINE when he was younger. He looks like MICHAEL CAINE now and MICHAEL CAINE kept saying, "I wish had I looked that bloody good when I was younger."

Question: How did you get DAVID HEMMINGS eyebrows in that kind of remarkable position?

Fred Schepisi: We weren't allowed to touch them. (Laughs) You will notice we lowered them down for the younger periods and he didn't like it I'll tell you. I think the Guinness put them up there. The young person playing him was his own son. And that's what David Hemmings used to look like.

Question: What about rehearsals?

Fred Schepisi: Rehearsals depend on actors schedules and lots of things. I like to rehearse generally across a two-week period. I like if possible to do some very early rehearsal, say ten weeks/twelve weeks before you start shooting if you can - where you just discuss the character's and the character's needs. I do that individually with each actor and I then discuss it en masse so that everybody gets to understand what roles they are all serving inter-relatedly - so that before they go off and try and create their own biographies (as some do and some don't) at least they have some idea of the form so that they don't create problems that I have to go and fix later.

In this actual circumstance most of the older actors were not available for very long. But it didn't need that kind of rehearsal because they are all from that world. MICHAEL CAINE for example, lives one mile from where this is set. MICHAEL'S father worked in Smithfield Market, in the fish part not in the meat part. He found out three years ago that he had a brother that he didn't know he had - exactly the same story as in this film. So you don't have to rehearse that stuff. And it was the same pretty much for all of them. So what we did was kind of go through it over a few days, individually and then in groups - the needs and what the undercurrents were and what the back-stories were etc. I kind of like to rehearse to the point where you get the essence of the scene and the emotion of the scene, when your hairs prickle and you know it's there and then leave it alone. Because once you start filming everyone changes and you need to be free to cope with those changes.

With the younger actors we did a lot more rehearsal because their roles were tougher. The older actors … I did suggest that they got together with the young actors, on their own as well as with me, and pretty quickly because the way the schedule went we were shooting all the young actors first and so it was going to be them who would establish the characters and what they looked like and what their habits were. So if the older actors had any ideas they had better get them across pretty quick. And that process starts with a mass reading.

I think rehearsals also happen in wardrobe. I go to the early wardrobe session and talk about the clothes and why they are wearing the clothes because the minute an actor puts on the clothes he is putting on his character and you better be there to make sure to make sure he puts on the right character. There are lots of little tricks like that.

"Last Orders" is a well-told story with a rich complement of fine performances. It's well worth seeing.

Copyright © The Rehearsal Room 2002. All rights Reserved.