IR Interview: Iain Glen & Sasha Luss For "The Last Front" [Enigma[

The Inside Reel

Actors Iain Glen & Sasha Luss talk to The Inside Reel about approach, intensity and perspective in regards to their World War I-set film: "The Last Front" from Enigma Releasing.

Transcript

00:00♪♪

00:10♪♪

00:18Help!

00:19♪♪

00:23Lock your door, barricade yourself in. Have you got a gun?

00:25Father, listen to me for once!

00:29No!

00:37Ian, first, could you talk about Leonard and his perspective?

00:40You know, the aspect of, you know, being in war but not wanting to be in war,

00:46being pulled by his wife's hand at one point versus not.

00:51Can you talk about that in terms of motivation?

00:54And then I'll go to Sasha for Louise.

00:56Sure, sure. So I play Leonard and he's a farmer living a very, very simple life

01:01in rural Belgium during the very, very early days, pre-days of the First World War.

01:07He has a young son and daughter, kind of in their teens, late teens.

01:14And yeah, his life is torn apart by a war that is totally unexpected,

01:20that none of them understand.

01:22It's the very, very early days, as I say, of the First World War.

01:25So no one knows quite what is going on.

01:28So he really does represent in many ways and every man, like you or I,

01:33how we might be in a very rural setting when suddenly war invades,

01:38where you have no idea that it's about to hit you.

01:40And there are profound repercussions for him and his family.

01:44And the film captures, I think, very beautifully the rhythm of that life

01:49and the simplicity of that life and the honesty of that life

01:52and represents the kind of meaningless of war,

02:02how it takes no prisoners. It doesn't care.

02:05It doesn't care what it's destroying.

02:08And the film, I think, captures that very, very nicely.

02:18Who have I been praying to all this time?

02:20Search every building. I don't care who you have to kill to find him.

02:23You just find him.

02:31You were my shelter, my quiet place in the chaos.

02:45From your point of view, Sasha, because it's also,

02:47she's as much of a warrior as he is in many respects.

02:51Yeah, well, it doesn't start like that.

02:57I'm a daughter of one of the wealthiest men in our town.

03:01I feel like I'm a little princess and I am in love with Leonard's son,

03:07who is the son of a farmer.

03:09And I just choose this life.

03:13And while my parents are telling me that that's a really bad idea,

03:17and I don't care because love is love.

03:20But then the war happens and all my dreams and the way I thought

03:26my life was going to be is completely crashed by these horrible events.

03:31And I think, yeah, we play people that are unwillingly become part

03:37of this horrible event, you know, and you have no choice

03:42but to just go through it.

03:44I feel like Louise throughout the movie kind of is questioning,

03:47but why does this happen? Why?

03:50And the answer is, well, it just happened.

03:54And you have no choice but to go through it.

04:04We need to stop for a while.

04:07Johanna's wounds opened up.

04:09I think it's the movement of the cart.

04:15We're close to the French border.

04:18What do you think? A couple of hours?

04:22Bite that?

04:24Then we plow on.

04:28Why are we waiting?

04:31Let's them get closer to the border.

04:33Yeah, but every it's interesting.

04:35Every choice begets another with these characters.

04:38I mean, could you talk about that?

04:40And the because like the emotionality can be informed

04:43by the physicality for both characters, you know,

04:46that basically your body just reacts to these situations.

04:50You know, I would think as an actor being in sort

04:53of these environments, it really impacts you.

04:57And you both have done films and series that have done this.

05:00Could you talk about how it's different in something

05:03that's based within, say, real life more?

05:07Yeah.

05:08I mean, you know, we're simple creatures, really actors.

05:11And if you can place us in the environment,

05:17which this film certainly did, we shot all around Belgium

05:21and often in buildings that hadn't changed

05:24since the period to which they belonged.

05:28The whole cityscape, the farmstead that I live in,

05:33obviously the forest, a large section of the kind

05:36of part of the escape takes place.

05:38And so, you know, you put on your costumes

05:41and the costumes were absolutely wonderful.

05:44You know, it's kind of like your shoulders relax

05:50when you put on something that feels so right

05:52for the character and for the period.

05:57And you kind of don't want to change out of it.

05:59And so you kind of, I certainly during the course

06:02of the whole filming stayed, you know, I went off

06:05at the end of the day, but I didn't like to go back

06:08to a trailer.

06:09I can't even remember if there was one, to be honest,

06:11but you basically live, you know, I wanted to stay

06:14in my house that I lived in while I was there and stuff.

06:16And, you know, and all that is extraordinarily helpful.

06:20And again, it kind of highlights just when everything

06:23is then torn apart.

06:24So you sort of try and become that as much as you can,

06:26as you say, emotionally and physically,

06:29and then you let the film happen to you.

06:31And that's the only kind of, in a way you try and be

06:34as reactive as possible to the events as they unfold.

06:38Unprepared, kind of unprepared stuff.

06:41And a lot of the stuff that was hardest to do

06:44was the most unscripted stuff where it was just reaction

06:47to what was unfolding.

06:49But yeah, so I kind of went through my own little trajectory

06:53of being very, very at peace in this place.

06:56And it wasn't entirely chronologically,

06:58but mostly chronological that we shot the film

07:01to having everything sort of torn apart and having to spend,

07:05you know, night shoots just, you know,

07:08tearing yourself apart or, you know,

07:10so there was a full gamut there.

07:12And yeah, so I felt very fully exercised

07:17as an actor doing the role.

07:19Get off me! I can't breathe!

07:21Who are you? Why are you spying on us?

07:23Answer the question, boy!

07:24I was just hungry. I was looking for food.

07:26The rifle.

07:27I'm on the road to the Germans.

07:31I killed my parents. I killed my parents.

07:39Come on.

07:45We're heading for the French border.

07:47You can come with us.

07:51Are you with the resistance?

07:52No, I'm just a farmer.

07:55Where did you get this?

07:58This is Adrian's.

08:01It's my son's.

08:03You know, I feel like just the knowledge

08:07of what these people went through, you know,

08:10because it's a real event that did happen

08:13and we have all the, you know, history that we can learn.

08:17And you know what kind of weight you have

08:22on your shoulders, you know,

08:23when you're portraying these people,

08:25even though this particular story, you know,

08:27was created, but it's the story that could happen,

08:30you know, like, and most definitely in one way or another,

08:33one shape or form did happen.

08:35So just understanding this and as Ian said,

08:38you know, you do kind of have a title

08:40machine when you're working in a period film,

08:42because I remember we were filming this church sequence

08:46and you step out of the church and you see horse carriage,

08:50you see this vintage car, you know,

08:52like people walking in their 1914 outfits.

08:55Someone is reading an old newspaper and you really feel

08:59like you're part of that world.

09:01And then when you see this little village getting destroyed,

09:05you know, by the German troops,

09:07I remember I had tears in my eyes because I could imagine

09:11that this actually happened.

09:12I could feel it.

09:13And that helped a lot.

09:14And of course you were very supportive,

09:17but it was very really, as Ian said,

09:20people point and script and you hold on tight to it and you kind

09:24of, but it's just the event itself helps you feel like,

09:30you know, this,

09:32It's a kind of strange paradox, sorry,

09:34just of when you do kind of quite fast filming like this,

09:38this is not big budget filming.

09:40This is not huge.

09:41You know, you don't have huge unit bases.

09:43You don't have huge production value that you're,

09:46I mean, I think it's got great production value,

09:48but it's not, it's not manufactured by lots and lots of people

09:53in the moment.

09:54It's not, you know,

09:55it's not, you know,

09:58It's in the trenches.

10:02It sounds like it's in the trenches.

10:04Yeah.

10:05And it's fast speed.

10:06It's speed filming, you know, a lot of handheld,

10:08a lot of in the moment, can't have too many takes.

10:10And so that allows you as an actor kind of to live it a little bit

10:14more readily than the big budget films,

10:17which it's always just slow, slow, slow.

10:19So it's about waiting.

10:20There wasn't much waiting in this one at all.

10:23The line where they fell,

10:30we'll go back and bury them.

10:32When all this is over,

10:37we have to get the people to safety.

10:39They won't bother us.

10:40We're civilians.

10:41We can fight them.

10:42No, no,

10:44we can't risk any more lives.

10:45Leonard,

10:46shouldn't we hide in the field?

10:48Isn't that the safest place?

10:49They're not going to do anything.

10:51They want water and food.

10:52And that's it.

10:53We should defend our homes.

10:54If we're going to die,

10:55we might as well die with honor.

10:57Nobody's going to die.

10:58People have already died.

11:00They're heavily armed.

11:02They don't care.

11:03Believe me,

11:04Nicholas,

11:05more people are going to die.

11:06Well,

11:07you can hide all you want,

11:08but I'm going to fight.

11:09With what?

11:10Your butcher's knives.

11:11If you owe guns,

11:12follow me.

11:13No,

11:14it seems like you tend to have connection.

11:16And that's my last question.

11:17Connection in these moments,

11:18because it is these intimate stories

11:20that maybe this is,

11:21you know,

11:22many of these stories have been lost,

11:23you know,

11:24and it's only by remembering it,

11:25do we sort of pass it on to the next generation?

11:28I think it's true.

11:29And also just zoning,

11:30you can zone in all sorts of different aspects of war,

11:33about,

11:34you know,

11:35how to avoid it and how politicians made it happen.

11:36And what was it that,

11:37what territory was trying to be gained?

11:39And what fateful decision was made that caused the,

11:41you know,

11:42D-Day to go right,

11:43as opposed to what you can focus on that.

11:45But you can also focus on three or four characters,

11:48a little group of characters,

11:50and they know nothing about war.

11:53They know nothing about it.

11:55They,

11:56they,

11:57they don't know why it's happening and nor should they.

11:59And so you can actually get inside it and just,

12:02just shoot a film from,

12:04from the inside of how,

12:06how people who are living a very simple life,

12:09try and cope with this thing happening to them.

12:12And that seems to me as valid.

12:14If not,

12:15you know,

12:16yeah,

12:17a very valid way of trying to tell a story about the first

12:20world war or about any war.

12:44Yeah.

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