Outlaw
The cast and crew of Nick Love's Outlaw
discuss the project from start to finish

THE INSPIRATION FOR OUTLAW

Markedly different in tone and style from his previous films GOODBYE CHARLIE BRIGHT, THE FOOTBALL FACTORY and THE BUSINESS, OUTLAW is writer-director Nick Love’s reaction to contemporary events in a conflicted society. But it is primal too, a universal tale that captures a feeling of emasculation in the modern, law abiding, middle class male, expressed through the inability of Dekker, Bryant, Mardell and Munroe to protect that which they most hold dear.

“It’s not supposed to be a full on film about revenge and violence,” Love explains. “For me it operates on a few different levels. A lot of men – myself included – have a fear of violence. I think a lot of men share a feeling of impotence in not being able to stand up for themselves. So that’s on one, very muscular, level.

“But the bigger issue for me is the whole social issue, where so many people feel let down by the law. I’ve wondered for quite a while how long it would be before people started to take the law into their own hands, because they feel there’s no point in calling the police.

“The other issue in the film was that of men facing the existential questions in life as in ‘what’s the point? What are we all doing here?’ I think that, particularly later in the film, there’s a struggle to try and deal with their lives which is why they seem to be going out in a blaze of glory.”

The film has a political dimension that Love does not shy away from, referencing the issues thrown up by a controversial war and the treatment of returning soldiers by a society that seems not to care for the men who fought to defend its values. This sense of alienation has been thoroughly examined in American films, post-Vietnam movies like COMING HOME and THE DEER HUNTER but the theme is far less common in British movies.

“In my first film GOODBYE CHARLIE BRIGHT,” Love recalls, “there was a character who served in the Falklands. I realised recently that I’ve got this affinity with soldiers coming home from war. And I realised it was because a friend of mine’s father came home from the Falklands and slowly drank himself to death. He walked away from his family, he just couldn’t reconnect socially. I remember, he worked in a scrap metal yard, and felt so overawed by the whole experience that he’d been through, and yet – as far as I could tell – he was never given any way of dealing with it.

“Sean Bean’s character is a representation of a lot of men who are drifting through their lives like ghosts, who can’t connect with anybody and feel desperate and alone. We don’t live in a culture where men can easily express themselves. When he goes to see his old commanding officer, Captain Mardell, and he’s asked if everything is okay at home he says ‘yeah’. He can’t tell the truth, he can’t say ‘I’m a mess, I’m living like a vagrant in a weird hotel with this strange security guard!’”

But while issues of masculinity resonate with Love’s other work, there is evidence of a more rounded filmmaker here, a man in touch with feelings that those who routinely dismissed THE FOOTBALL FACTORY or THE BUSINESS might be surprised by.

“I’m getting older,” Love adds, “and I think I’m maturing as a filmmaker and that’s reflected in the film. I could have very easily made OUTLAW in the style of THE FOOTBALL FACTORY, I remember when I was doing it, thinking that it was more MAD MAX with lawless gangs running around everywhere.

“It could have had the kind of lads’ treatment on it, as opposed to a more sober feel. Some people won’t think of it as sober, but the people who are prepared to think beyond the violence will find it more thought provoking. I think it’s made in a more mature way.”

Love was determined that, while the film dealt in important, contemporary themes, he also delivered genre styled thrills. The reality is evident, but it is heightened and sometimes playfully handled, so that the audience who have enjoyed Love’s previous work can find something to enjoy as much as those who are discovering the British filmmaker for the first time.

“I would imagine OUTLAW is going to have a bit of an easier ride because it’s not wall to wall music and violence, I think it speaks to more people. It’s got a much wider target audience, it’s not catering to one particular demographic, there are different characters in different walks of life. There’s a lot more to latch onto in OUTLAW than in my other films.

“As I was writing it I wasn’t just thinking of The Guardian and The Independent. I was thinking of the lads who read Nuts and Zoo and have gone out in their droves and bought the DVDs of my other films. There are moments in the film, good one liners in the film that those sort of audiences love. So I’m slowly moving away from my roots but I’m not abandoning them completely.”

PREPARATION AND RESEARCH

In order to root OUTLAW in a convincing level of authenticity Love immersed himself in stories of people whose lives had been desolated by violent crime, people who live in fear, still haunted by the crimes perpetrated against them. For Love OUTLAW is an indictment of the ills in society, some of which can be traced back to government policies that are self evidently not fit for purpose.

“OUTLAW tells an important story,” says Love, “because it shows a world that is the product of our current government. Many people feel that this government has been more interested in its public image than delivering changes that make us feel safer on the streets and in our own homes.

“In many ways it was an easy film to write, because the basis for the script came from true stories and real lives. I had to make the issues slightly more extreme in some cases because, after all, it is a film after all. But for the most part I stayed true to the research. The kernel of it was already in existence: you pick up the papers, be they tabloid or broadsheet, and see that we are facing dark and uncertain times. Crime rates are spiralling out of control and the public generally feels helpless.”

The writer-director is quick to point out that while OUTLAW has a political context there is more to the film than just that. It is a character study of people who seem quite ordinary on the surface but who are pushed to embrace an extreme reaction to the breakdown of a once civilised society.

Love continues; “OUTLAW is about a group of disillusioned men thrown together by fate, who decide to avenge themselves against those who have done them terrible wrongs. In the process they are embraced by a media that senses a good story, but as this spins out of control and the Establishment moves against them they recognise they are out of their depth and try to disband. But it’s too late. They have fundamentally changed and cannot return to their old lives. They decide to come together for one last time, knowing in their hearts what the price of failure will be.”

Producer Allan Niblo was an enthusiastic supporter of the project from the moment he heard Love’s idea: “When Nick first told me about his idea for OUTLAW, I was immediately gripped. Here was a project which tapped into the conscience of the modern audience: fear of crime and the inability of law enforcement agencies that has made us all fearful. Nick’s film speaks directly to the audience and explores their fears and uncertainties.”

“I remember giving Allan the first draft of the script,” Love continues. “It was not manicured in any sense, it was a rambling 200 pages, but it was what it was, it was the seeds of OUTLAW. He called me two hours later and said it was a great read. The problem is, we don’t feel like a community any more, we don’t trust each other. The bad man has everything going in his favour these days.

“I’m a middle class coward who doesn’t like violence, but I’m appalled by the way we’re headed. The idea here was trying to make a film that speaks to the public on those levels, and yet is still an entertaining thriller. For me that was the hardest trick of the film to pull off. To say that this is not just a laugh, this is serious stuff.”

CASTING – ASSEMBLING THE OUTLAWS

Gathering together his starriest cast for his most ambitious film, Nick Love felt from the outset that Sean Bean would be ideal casting as Bryant.

“The first person I approached was Beano,” he says, “because I had this character, this guy who was a quiet man, quite a thoughtful character but he was incredibly violent when he needed to be. The thing was I could never get Sean out of my mind while I was writing it, and the more I wrote it the more it became apparent that Sean was right for it.

“Where else would you go apart from Sean? That gruff northerner, who you really believe has been out in Afghanistan. Who else? Ray Winstone? Gary Oldman? Tim Roth? There aren’t that many actors of Sean’s generation that you believe can be quiet and then explode when he needs to. Fortunately he read the script and said he was in. Once you’ve got Sean Bean in your film it’s a lot easier to attract everyone else on board.”

Casting Bob Hoskins as the sympathetic, disillusioned police officer Walter Lewis was crucial too, lending more weight still to the piece.

“Bob and I talked a lot about this feeling that England was not like it used to be, and not feeling safe on the streets. Feeling that sense himself, of where are we going wrong, I think Bob probably shared that anger, so it was quite easy to sign him up for it.”

And then of course there’s Danny Dyer, an integral performer for the director in each of his films so far.

“The interesting thing is that Danny was originally going to be playing Hillier,” Love reveals. “After making GOODBYE CHARLIE BRIGHT, FOOTBALL FACTORY and THE BUSINESS, I had to really shake myself out of what I was doing in terms of reinventing myself with new cast and crew. It was a re-birth for me, and because I felt that OUTLAW was a much more serious, grown up film it felt like the right time to do it.

“But then again I felt he was like a talisman, and out of all the actors I’d worked with in the past he was by far the one who had the least ego and was easy to get along with. He speaks the dialogue the way it was intended to be spoken, I never had to question anything with him. But I did think I had to make him different, I couldn’t make him Frankie out of THE BUSINESS or Tommy Johnson out of THE FOOTBALL FACTORY. So the original idea was he was going to play the creepy security guard. And then one day one of my partners said I was mad, that he was Gene Dekker, the easygoing, middle of the road guy.

“Danny doesn’t like violence, he’s terrified of violence, he just wants to have a quiet life which is exactly what Gene Dekker wants. So we changed his role. I spoke to Danny and in typical style he said ‘yeah, I’ll do either, I don’t care’. But I think he does it really well, because you need an actor who you believe could get beaten up and believe at the end of it that he could turn round with a gun and shoot someone.”

The rest of the key cast members fitted into place quite easily.

“Sean Harris walked into a screen test and I had no idea who he was,” Love adds. “My producer Allan Niblo really pushed for me to meet him. I had other Hilliers in mind and was pursuing the actors I thought would be good for the role. Sean walked in and I was mesmerised.

“Lennie James was always top of my list for Cedric Munroe, the barrister. Lennie has done lots of great tv work and I always admired his dignity as an actor. His story is the emotional heartbeat of the film, and if an actor played it wrong, the film would perish. It’s the understatement that makes Lennie's performance so memorable.”

One part that did prove a bit of a challenge to cast was that of Sandy Mardell. Love explains, “Rupert Friend was the only actor that came into the auditions who didn’t play him like a crying boy. It’s a hard part to play. He barely says a word in the whole film, but is always there, watching, feeling, and ultimately, regenerating himself through his experience. Rupert got the balance of hard and soft perfectly for the role.”

THE SHOOT –
HEADING INTO THE WILD WEST

“I had the most fun making OUTLAW that I’ve ever had on a film set,” Nick Love says, “which is ironic given the serious nature of the subject. Ultimately, I put it down to working with a team who are all at the top of their game.”

Up until now Love has worked with the same crew on all his films, from his short to all three of his features. But as OUTLAW required a different aesthetic he felt a need to move beyond his usual comfort zone and to work with some new crew members.

“I’d never worked with cinematographer Sam McCurdy before, but he was amazing; such an instinct for following the emotional drama, and for avoiding the obvious. His team broke all the conventions. They understood that the look and feel of the movie was just as important as the story and worked tirelessly to make sure everything was perfect.

“Typically the weather was against us – a real contrast to my last film – which was shot in Spain in glorious sunshine. But Sam and I had worked out a specific look and grade for the film which was not weather dependent, subject to the occasional bout of torrential rain.

“The fights and shootouts were probably the hardest to get right and look authentic. With very little time and money, you have to get them right first time, so a lot of preparation and rehearsal took place. The final shootout around the country house that carries on into the woods was shot in two days. That’s not a lot of time but with rigorous planning and a great team, we sailed through it.”

No stranger to working to a tight budget Love and his team were able to be inventive and make the most of the film’s budget.

“Instead of scouting for a location we decided to build the hotel corridor and security room for ourselves, as it was a hub for the early drama. We wanted to be able to control it as much as possible. It was always such a strange atmosphere in the security room – it had a horrible stillness to it, probably helped by Sean Harris, who acted as if he owned the place – if a crew member sat on one of his sofas, he’d have a go at them.

“We shot the movie in eight weeks and only had Sean Bean for four of those as he had to go straight on to another film in America. So that meant we had to shoot all the action in the first four weeks. It was gruelling but actually the sense of relief that we’d got through nearly all the hard stuff without anyone getting hurt gave us huge confidence and meant we could concentrate on the performance scenes in the latter part of the shoot. When we finally wrapped I felt exhausted but my adrenaline was kicking in so much I was convinced I could do another couple of weeks.”

Sean Bean plays Danny Bryant

“Meeting Nick got me excited about the project, his vision of the film and how he wanted to portray the character, the ideas he wanted to get across. I met him and he told me what he wanted to do, he said it was all in his head, and having worked with him I know that was the case. He knows the script like the back of his hand, and he knows every character inside out.

“I was so impressed by what he was trying to achieve, and I thought this sort of thing don’t come along very often, a man who’s so impassioned and enthusiastic about what he wants to create. He said ‘I’ll come back in three weeks and I’ll have the script ready’ and that’s what he did. And it was even better than I thought it would be, it had so much detail, so much depth and anger and hurt as well as the violence.

“But the violence comes from a deep rooted source. It’s really clear that these characters are isolated, alienated, angry and frustrated. They’re disillusioned so you can see where their actions come from. That’s why I was interested, and then meeting Nick and seeing that passion, that really bowled me over.

“I’d played a few soldiers before so I brushed up on that and observed the military side of things but there wasn’t a lot of research to do. The theme of the film was all around us anyway. You only have to pick up a paper or go in a pub or talk to anybody, that that’s the research: it’s being talked about all the time. People are very aware of it socially and politically and I think the themes of the film are with us.

“OUTLAW has been incredibly well cast, and not necessarily in the way you might expect. Some of these guys have been through horrific experiences, especially Lennie’s character, and Rupert’s. They’ve had their lives ruined even though they’ve gone through the right channels. We’ve all gone through the right channels, we’ve all been failed, and I think that’s something people can and will identify with, because where do you turn? What do you do? People are desperate. We all want to do the right thing but sometimes that just doesn’t work, and I suppose that’s the gist of the story.”

Bob Hoskins plays Walter Lewis

“Walter is very ordinary really, he’s a policeman and he’s found that playing it straight has got him nowhere. He’s been forgotten by all these flash Harrys who are in the police force, he’s been left behind and he can’t handle the corruption he sees around him. When this group of vigilantes get together he decides to help them with information from within the force, protecting them from the inside.

“My agent sent me the script, and told me it was good. I read it and it passed the cold bum test. When a script comes through my letterbox I take it to the loo, and if I’m sitting there for quite a while I realise I’ve got a cold bum. Then it’s got to be a good script, you know? That’s how I judge them.

“I met with Nick Love, and I liked the way he talked about making films and when we started I liked the way he worked. Drama is about private moments, it’s about things that you don’t normally see, emotions that people don’t show. So basically the audience is a kind of voyeur looking in on something private. The way Nick shoots it, he makes the camera a sort of secret observer, and I think that’s fascinating.

“He assembles a picture gallery in his head, and once he’s got this complete gallery it pours out onto the paper. You can do whatever you like but if it doesn’t fit in with the pictures you go back to his script. He wants you to make it yours and knows what he needs to tell the story, which a lot of directors don’t.

“As for the story of OUTLAW, it reflects what people are saying on the streets. It’s not a call to arms, it’s a prophecy. Everything is weighing down on people, they’re highly taxed, they’re getting fined for petty reasons, they’re being punished, they’re being turned into statistics. The only people who seem to have any freedom in this society are criminals, and ordinary people are getting very angry. I think Nick was recording what he’s seen, and it’s a very strong, alarming vision of what is happening out there.”

Danny Dyer plays Gene Dekker

“There’s always a moment when Nick goes away, disappears off the face of the Earth to write his script and tells me nothing about it. I never know what’s going to come back. You haven’t got to be an adult to watch The Business, he basically paid homage to gangster movies with that film.

“With OUTLAW he came back with a script that really says something, and after reading it I wondered why no-one else had picked up on it and made a movie about this stuff. The way Nick does it, he doesn’t muck about, there’s no nonsense, when he writes he doesn’t give you an easy moral ending.

“The interesting thing for me was, when he gave me the script, I was Hillier. And I was really chuffed about that. Then he rang me and said he’d changed his mind. That was a big moment for me, because I was really into this Hillier thing, but basically he said to me that he couldn’t find a Dekker. I hadn’t really thought about Dekker as a character at all, it was only when I went back and read it and thought that Dekker was the one who was going to be in touch with the majority of the audience, he is the everyman.

“On this film I’m surrounded by actors from different backgrounds. People like Lennie James, who’s been in the game a long time, and Sean Harris who is so method in his approach. And then you’ve got Sean Bean who is the A-lister, who’s done the Hollywood thing. We all come together, with nothing in common.

“I remember when we first all met up, this was a big thing for Nick, we sat around for a bit of dinner, and it was the most uncomfortable thing. It was a different approach for Nick, I remember we were all sitting there looking at the menu for about half an hour. Everyone was sort of sussing each other out and it was all about just shooting the thing and seeing what we got back from each other. Everyone was so good that we were all raising our game, and there was a really healthy challenge between us all.”

POSTSCRIPT: A CHANGE OF DIRECTION

The finished film has changed considerably from the original script. The biggest change was that in its original conception, OUTLAW was going to be a vigilante gang film. This would have been aimed directly at the same audiences who embraced THE FOOTBALL FACTORY and THE BUSINESS. But as the shoot went on, the film grew into something else.

“Unlike my other films the failure of law and the issue of punishment are not dealt with purely for entertainment. The issues here are serious. That’s also reflected in the casting. The atmosphere on set was less playful than on my previous films. Even Danny Dyer, whose reputation has been built on playing the cheeky Cockney, came to set saying ‘this is serious stuff’.

“Without doubt OUTLAW is the film I’m most proud of. Not because it’s necessarily a better film but it’s about something that’s significant to all of us. It’s about a time in this country when nearly all of us been touched in some way by crime, or by the failure of the law. Having said that I also like the style and the look of the film. It was a big departure from my other work stylistically, and I think it works to good cinematic effect. In the edit, the idea was to grab the audience in the opening nightmare scene, and not let go of them until the final moment. I hope I’ve succeeded.

“OUTLAW also asks more questions than my other films. As my career develops I think more about the responsibility I have as a filmmaker, and the amazing opportunity I have to both entertain and to challenge. I hope that’s the way OUTLAW will be perceived. It’s not designed as a controversial film but I do hope it gets people talking.”

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: BE AN OUTLAW

In January 2006, Nick Love launched a campaign for OUTLAW where his fans could buy into the film receiving exclusive t-shirts, hooded tops, DVD’s, invitations to special screenings, previews of trailers, posters and other publicity materials. They would also receive a credit on the DVD and a role as an extra one of the scenes in the movie. The campaign was centred around the website www.OUTLAWthemovie.com which has had to date over 2 million hits.

The people who appeared as extras were nicknamed ‘Big Hitters’ who spent a day on set, met the stars of the movie as well as get exclusive priority glimpse of the movie in the making.

“I came to the story of OUTLAW after sensing the fear and trepidation of the public of the lawlessness in the UK,” says Love. “I received e-mails and letters and spoke to people across the country as well as reading news stories about the topic, and felt that I should involve those people who wanted to have their say. Having the fans on set also gave me an opportunity to meet the audience who watch my films and it gave them the chance to observe the filming process for themselves.”