RED DRAGON
EMILY WATSON INTERVIEW
By Martyn Palmer

When Emily Watson met Hannibal Lecter it was, she says, more than a bit scary (as cinema audiences around the world will doubtless sympathise). In fact, says Emily, her tummy did somersaults.

"I went into Anthony Hopkins' trailer to say hello," she recalls. "And he was in all the Lecter gear, just about to go on set, and he turned round and said 'hello' in that voice. It was one of those moments..."

Filming Red Dragon, with a truly stellar international cast – including Hopkins, of course, Ralph Fiennes, Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Harvey Keitel - was quite unlike anything this hugely talented young English actress has ever done before and provided many more memorable moments (not all of them quite so creepy).

"I really didn't know what to expect and when you first turn up and there are trailers as far as the eye can see, and hundreds and hundreds of PAs, but actually when you get down to it, most of my scenes were with Ralph Fiennes who is the most real, proper actor's actor, you could hope to work with. And I enjoyed it very much indeed."

Based on Thomas Harris's best selling 1981 novel, Red Dragon is the third film to feature Hopkins in his masterful guise as Hannibal 'the cannibal' Lecter - following Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs and Ridley Scott's Hannibal which were both massive box office hits.

The screenplay for Red Dragon is by Ted Tally who won an Oscar for his work on Silence of the Lambs. Red Dragon is directed by Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, The Family Man).

Emily plays Reba McClane, a young blind woman who develops a relationship with a shy, slightly disfigured loner, Francis Dolarhyde (played by Ralph Fiennes) and has no idea that he is a man battling with terrible inner demons which have driven him to slaughter families, seemingly at random, and that unknowingly, she represents his only chance of choosing good over evil.

Meanwhile, ex FBI agent Will Graham comes out of retirement to try and help track down the serial killer, known in the press as the Tooth Fairy, before he strikes again.

Graham knows that to try and catch the Tooth Fairy he needs to get inside the warped mind of the killer and that the best way to do that will be to enlist the help of his nemesis Hannibal Lecter - the man who almost cost him his life when he had captured him years earlier. But by doing so, he places himself and his own family in terrible danger.

For Emily, an admirer of The Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon appealed because it is a story which has all the ingredients needed to create a masterful suspense thriller on screen and also because of the opportunity to work alongside a formidable array of some of the world's best actors.

Now 35, Emily was born in London, the eldest of two girls. Her father is an architect and her mother is a teacher and Emily enjoyed a "lovely, beautiful childhood" during which she developed a taste for acting but was never quite sure how to pursue it.

Instead, she took a degree in English at Bristol University where she did "lots and lots" of plays and decided that once she had graduated, she would try and find a place at drama school. It wasn't easy, she was rejected by several colleges before her determination paid off and she won a place at the Drama Studio in London.

After leaving drama school, she worked in the theatre and was actually on the dole - unemployed - when in 1996 she was cast by Lars Von Trier in Breaking the Waves. Her remarkable performance as Bess a young wife whose new husband is paralysed after an accident on an oil rig, won Emily her first Oscar nomination.

Since then she has confirmed her reputation as one of the best actors of her generation with highly acclaimed roles in Gosford Park, Angela's Ashes, The Luzhin Defence, Hilary and Jackie, The Boxer and Metroland amongst others. She will shortly be seen alongside Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and is currently appearing in two plays at the Donmar Warehouse in London under the direction of Sam Mendes.

Emily lives in her native London with her husband, the actor and writer Jack Waters.

Q Is it fair to say that Red Dragon is very different to the films you've done before?

A Yeah and I thought it was time to jump into that Hollywood mainstream and see what the temperature was. And it was warmer than I expected...(laughs)

Q But you jumped in with good company...

A I did and that's the trick. I mean, I really didn't know what to expect and when you first turn up and there are trailers as far as the eye can see, and hundreds and hundreds of PAs, but actually when you get down to it, most of my scenes were with Ralph Fiennes who is the most real, proper actor's actor, you could hope to work with. And I enjoyed it very much indeed.

Q Did you actually get to do any scenes with Tony Hopkins?

A No. We had dinner and he was on set a bit and he seemed like a very nice man. A very singular, particular intelligence and fiercely concentrated. I liked him. He's certainly done some amazing work.

Q Did you see him in character as Lecter?

A I went into his trailer to say hello and he was in all the Lecter gear and he turned round and said 'hello' in that voice (laughs) and I was like 'oohh...' and my stomach turned a little. Scary!

Q How do you think that people will view Red Dragon alongside Manhunter,

A Michael's Mann's 1986 version of the book? Well, it's very different. And I think this is part of the Hopkins as Lecter trilogy and it's a very different story, really, it's closer to the book.

Q And closer in style to Silence of the Lambs?

A Absolutely. I think so, Silence of the Lambs was a great, suspenseful thriller and I would expect Red Dragon to be similar. And I think it's very character driven. And what attracted me to it was the sense that we would investigate the relationships between the characters. One crucial part of the story is the fact that the detective, Will Graham, (played by Ed Norton) has to try and imagine his way into the killer's head to be able to detect and try and imagine what the killer feels, which is a very scary place to put yourself. But also in terms of what the audience feels, they have to invest in the relationship also with Reba, my character and Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes), and Dolarhyde is conflicted, he is not just an out and out serial killer, he wants to stop, he wants to go down a different path and Reba represents that.

Q So there is a degree of sympathy for him...

A Yes. My character is blind and she senses that he is kind of an outsider and they share that sense of being a bit different. And she is also a bit of a sexual predator, she wants to find someone. Unfortunately, she finds the wrong kind of man.

Q Did you do any research for the role?

A Yes, I did a little course at the RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind) and I spent a bit of a time with a girl who is almost completely visually impaired and she was fascinating. She was such a great girl. She's incredibly active, she's a researcher, she's just had a baby, she goes to judo twice a week, you would not know when you meet her that she can hardly see, she has the most incredibly expressive face, really beautiful, wonderful eyes and she is very animated. And that was really helpful and very interesting. She is really proud of the fact that she can function like anybody else, she gets on the train to go to work in the morning. When
I went to see her she had opened the door and ran up the stairs. I mean, she is incredible. Obviously there are hurdles but she is very proud of the fact that there is nothing she can't do, she really lives life and that was very important to me, not just to portray this character as a victim.

Q Is it rather an uneasy feeling when you meet someone like that for research purposes, at least at first?

A Absolutely. I do think you feel a little bit like you are preying on people's lives. And also it can be slightly uneasy because people know that it's something to do with a film and that's exciting and you don't want them to give away things about themselves because of that. But actually it was a real mutual thing, because she had read the book and she is a Thomas Harris fan, she loves the book, her husband reads to her. So she was really into it and really excited about the whole project. And she talked about the character, she actually had some ideas of her own.

Q There’s an extraordinary scene when your character strokes a real, fully grown tiger. What was that like to film?

A Not just to film, but the experience of being in a room with a tiger like that was amazing. It was kind of the best acting I’ve ever seen. We were all in this tiny little room and the door opened and this tiger walked in, literally, just sort of padded into the room and looked around. So beautiful, the pattern on her face, I’ve never seen such presence and it made everyone take a deep breath, she was so beautiful. And she was lying on the table and fully awake the whole time and growling because it is not legal to sedate an animal for the purposes of filming anymore. She had two trainers with her and they had a rope around her neck so she couldn’t get up and run off or attack anybody. And she was being fed meat all the time. And I had to walk up behind her and stroke her, as you see in the film, and occasionally she would sit up and look around and I just had to walk away again very gently. If you made any sudden movements she would have noticed you and got interested in you but unless she was hungry she just treated us like part of the furniture. And then when I put my hand on her, it was like when you put your hand on a cat and you can feel the vibration when they are purring, but times a thousand. It was a really really thrilling thing to do let alone filming the scene. And it is very sexy as well: somebody says I’m taking you on a surprise date, you don’t know where you are going and you can’t see and then you put your hand out and there is a tiger. Amazing.

Q Did you see Manhunter and if you did what did you think of Joan Allen’s performance as Reba?

A Yes I did and that was one of the reasons I watched it, Joan is one of my favourite actresses, I think she is amazing. It was out of respect for her, when somebody has previously inhabited a role, she was great. And I think that was one of the first things she did, she was quite young, and I just wanted to see what she did. And she was very innocent. And Red Dragon is written very differently, the script is much closer to the book than Manhunter was and I think the relationship between Dolarhyde and Reba is all fully explored in Red Dragon, because of the writing, and also the casting of Dolarhyde was so different you know having somebody who is really a romantic movie star playing a serial killer is a very different way to go with the whole relationship.

Q Did you feel that this was a big challenge to play a blind woman?

A It was a challenge, yeah. But as an actor, the kind of actor that I am, that’s my bread and butter, you know that’s how I get into a role, to have something that, a skill you have to master, something you have to learn or some physical thing you have to get your head around and it’s almost like then you have your tools. And what was very interesting for me was to try and express myself without using my eyes and to have on screen chemistry with somebody without ever making visual contact. And that was interesting.

Q Had you met Ralph before?

A Yes, we know lots of people in London because of the whole theatre connection. He’s a lovely man.

Q Are you a fan of the thriller genre?

A I think Silence of the Lambs was a great film and when somebody does that kind of suspense thing, with that much restraint, it's impressive. It's not a book that I would necessarily reach for. And I wrestled a little bit with certain aspects of it...But I think this film is much more about what you don't see rather than what you do see. I wouldn't be interested in a slasher kind of movie, it's more in the tradition of the great suspenseful thrillers.

Q You must have been offered big Hollywood movies before and it does seem you've chosen a different path...

A Actually, there's been a hurdle that's been quite difficult for me to get over in terms of Hollywood. I've had a lot of critical acclaim and in those terms I've got some clout in Hollywood but I don't in box office terms which is their major criteria and I've actually had directors wanting me to do things but the studio have gone 'who?' so...(shrugs). But I'd much rather it was that way round.

Q But did it feel different working on a big budget film like this?

A Yeah, physically it was huge. There were caravans as far as the eye could see and it was a huge event. And there were tourists going round on trams on the lot and you just felt you were part of the whole machine which is a bit weird. It was quite funny, Paul Thomas Anderson was editing Punch Drunk Love across the road, just over from the Universal lot and I would scurry across the road and sit in there and see what he was doing (laughs) and then go back to our big set over the road. Quite a contrast.

Q But that's great, isn't it, where you have two examples of very diverse films and you are in both of them?

A Yes, I've been very fortunate. Punch Drunk Love is a lovely film. He's a great director, he's the man...

Q is Punch Drunk Love released around the same time as Red Dragon?

A Fortunately for me, I'm opening two plays at the Donmar around the same time that Red Dragon opens in October and Punch Drunk Love screens shortly afterwards, so it all happens at once.

Q What are you doing at the Donmar?

A I'm doing Twelfth Night, playing Viola, and Uncle Vanya, playing Sonja, working with Sam Mendes.

Q And that will be the first time back on stage in how long?

A Seven years! Yeah, it is scary. It's a whole different kind of anxiety. But the great thing about doing a theatre job is that once the ball starts rolling you just have to go with it, it's inexorable. There's nothing you can do, and I will screw up, I will make mistakes, I won't be perfect every second. Which is the thing about film, if you don't like something you can go back and do it again. With theatre, there's a kind of courage to it that is making me feel slightly ill (laughs) right now!

Q What was the last play?

A I did a theatre tour with Three Sisters.

Q Was that before Breaking The Waves?

A Yes, it was.

Q So you had no idea at that point that it would be a seven year gap during which time your film career would take off in the spectacular way it has?

A No idea at all

Q Is it still hard to believe sometimes?

A Yeah it is. You kind of have to get over it because you can't sit there going (makes a surprised face). I've been fantastically lucky and the thing that has given me the most pleasure has been to be able to work with some really, really great directors, that's been wonderful; they are great artists and that's been the best. All the rest is a bonus you know.