Interview: Bill Condon, director of Dreamgirls, Gods & Monsters and Mr Holmes
One of the most successful, authentic gay men working in Hollywood and director of the new Ian McKellen film Mr. Holmes, we meet Bill Condon. Interview by Simon Buckley.
Sir Ian McKellen owes his first Oscar nomination, for the biopic about troubled gay filmmaker James Whale, Gods and Monsters, to the sterling direction of Bill Condon. That was 17 years ago and they became fast friends, although they bided their time on working together again until this month’s Mr. Holmes – an adaptation of the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind that reimagines the fictional sleuth as a real person.
It’s 59-year-old Bill’s tenth film as a director and another example of his versatility. Gods and Monsters was a gay-themed drama but he also helmed the last two Twilight films, directed Jennifer Hudson to awards glory in Dreamgirls, scripted Chicago and dipped his toe into The Big C for a couple of episodes, plus he explored the whole breadth of human sexuality in Kinsey.
He’s a gay moviemaker who makes more than just gay movies, with his next venture – a live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson, Emma Thompson and, yes, McKellen again – being a mainstream Disney musical. If it’s anything like the animated version it’ll have audiences singing and swooning, unlike Mr. Holmes, which tugs at the heartstrings. I mention that at the screening I attended a couple of hardened critics were blubbing into their tissues, eliciting “Oh good, it’s nice when that happens!” to a delighted Bill.
Sherlock Holmes has been portrayed on screen countless times, more than any other literary character in fact. What distinguishes your take on him from the 250-plus others?
It’s the conceit of the film, which is that Sherlock Holmes was not a fictional character. In this alternate universe, John Watson created a kind of idealised version of him, but in the film he’s the actual living being who doesn’t figure out every case and makes big blunders and has different habits from the ones Watson gave him. Also the idea that he exists anachronistically in a post-war England is something different from what we’ve seen before.
The film reunites you with Ian McKellen some 17 years since Gods and Monsters. Was it like directing an old friend?
It really was. We’ve stayed in touch. He always stays with me when he’s in Los Angeles and we’re really close.
That said, is it difficult telling your mate what to do on set?
[Laughs] I don’t think it’s ever a case of telling Ian what to do. It’s about being the best first audience for him and helping to shape it. He’s unbelievably eager for collaboration, like all really great actors.
What do you feel he brings to the role?
It’s just that lifetime of experience. It’s an icon playing an icon and that’s so powerful. There’s also the flat-out smarts of the man.
Sir Ian has said that coming out was the best thing he ever did, but do you understand why other actors choose not to?
I guess I understand it, but things have moved so quickly in just the last ten years that it’s kind of reaching the point where it’s hard to imagine someone making that choice [to stay in the closet]. It’s very easy for me to say that, being on the other side of the camera, but culturally actors now have a real chance to be the vanguard of change. We live in a culture that seems far more fluid than it did even a decade ago so that old argument that people can’t project romantic fantasies onto someone because of their sexuality is obsolete.
I wonder if anyone has ever said to you ‘You’re gay so this isn’t for you’?
Not directly but your interests and who you are take you in certain creative directions and of course people always bring biases. There’s no question, especially in a place like Hollywood, that people tend to be put in boxes and I’m sure they do make those kind of assumptions. But I don’t think it’s such a terrible burden. We all have that in some form or another.
Your films focus on all aspects of human emotion and sexuality. I assume you never wanted to be pigeonholed as ‘a gay filmmaker’?
Of course not, but at the same time I don’t shy away from that. If you’re forced to be in a box then that’s a pretty big box to be forced into. It encompasses everything you can imagine, but I agree – no-one wants to be reduced to any kind of label.
It seems there are so many more LGBT characters in film and TV than there were when you made Gods and Monsters…
Absolutely. It’s so wonderful, isn’t it? What’s interesting about Gods and Monsters is that we made it in a period when if there were gay characters they tended to be role models. James Whale wasn’t. He was a complicated older man who had some unappealing qualities. What I love is that in recent years that’s become more common. It’s not just simple portraits. It’s gotten so complex.
What did you find most fascinating to discover about human sexuality when you wrote and directed Kinsey in 2004?
He had so many interesting theories but the one thing I found really fascinating was how it runs the gamut from people who are quite un-sexual to people who are highly sexual. Different times have different taboos and I think people who are less sexually-charged have a tougher time of it now.
Peter Sarsgaard’s full-frontal scene was pretty daring for a mainstream movie. Is it true he did that on the spur of the moment?
It was in the second scene, where he was supposed to keep his clothes on, where he did that by himself. In the first scene it was scripted. He’s such a wonderful actor and there’s that old cliché of actors being courageous but he really is.
You wrote the script for Chicago, which is credited with reviving the movie musical. You must be proud of that?
Oh my god, very proud. It’s a genre I love and one that I really enjoy working in. I’m working on Beauty and the Beast at the moment. We just shot a big musical number and there’s just nothing like it. The movement of the camera becomes a partner to the choreography and it’s right on-the-moment with the music. It’s really thrilling.
After Kinsey you wrote and directed the fabulous Dreamgirls and got a wonderful performance out of Beyoncé. How was she to work with? Any diva moments?
She’s such a hard worker and she put so much into it. She was a real pro. As for being a diva, we never saw Sasha Fierce on set. She was at every rehearsal and there for every actor. No, not a diva at all!
How about Jennifer Hudson, who won the Oscar for playing the feisty Effie?
When you think of it now she was just so young but again she’s truly a natural, so in touch with her inner life and her emotions. The way she did And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going and communicated so much pain and rage, it’s still astonishing to me.
Do you know if Diana Ross saw the movie?
I actually sat behind her at a screening and she seemed to be OK with it, which was such a relief. But she knows it was done with such love. It’s a very affectionate portrait of a fictional version of her.
Watson is on the periphery of your Sherlock Holmes movie but what do you think when people talk about the homoerotic subtext to the pairing?
Ian and I talked about it and because it’s not in the script or the novel the movie is based on we decided it wasn’t really what it was about. But in terms of Holmes in general? Yeah. Confirmed bachelors, right?
You directed and scripted the last two Twilight films. Did you see any parallels there to gay life, namely the idea of being an outsider?
Of course. It’s a theme that runs through all those movies and personally it’s hard for me to identify with anyone who has too secure a spot in the world. But as you get older you get a better sense of who you are and with that comes a recognition of how you fit into the world.
Your next project, as you mentioned, is a live-action version of Beauty and the Beast. What can you tell us about it at this stage?
I’m so excited about it. You get nervous because you’re remaking something that’s truly perfect and you have to ask yourself ‘Why?’ For me it was the idea of doing it in a different medium – live action – and also 25 years later when technology has caught up to the ideas of the original. Plus it’s such a perfect fable with a fantastic score.
Ian McKellen is in that one too but how’s it been working with younger whippersnappers like Luke Evans and Dan Stevens?
They’re incredible. There’s something special that happens when you see these guys making a musical. Ian was in the recording studio the other day doing a musical number and you’d think you know everything about Ian but there’s this other thing that happens when someone starts to sing or dance.
We can’t wait to hear Emma Thompson as Mrs Potts singing Be Our Guest. Please tell us that’s going to be in the movie!
Of course. And she’s so great. You’re gonna love it.
Mr. Holmes opens in cinemas on June 19th.
This interview appears in the July issue of Attitude, hitting shops next week.