Chris Columbus on The Thursday Murder Club: An Empire Podcast Spoiler Interview

0:14Chris Hewitt:Hello Pod, I'm Chris Hewitt and welcome to our latest Empire Podcast spoiler special, interview special. The Thursday Murder Club is the first but almost certainly not the last movie based on the wildly successful series of novels by Richard Osman about a group of retirees, played by Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie, who find that solving murders keep some spry in their golden years. It's been on Netflix for a couple of weeks now, so it's time to share the interview I did recently with this director, Chris Columbus. As the original Harry Potter director, Columbus is of course a man who knows a thing or two about turning a beloved series of books into a big screen behemoth, or behemoth, if that's how you like to pronounce that word.

1:01Chris Hewitt:And in this interview, we talk about the challenges of adapting Osmond's novel. It must have seemed like a pointless endeavour. Oh no. The major changes that are made to the storyline, and much, much more. Columbus also produced Robert Eggers' Nosferatu last year, and that is briefly alluded to also. It's a really fun, Sunday afternoon movie, particularly if you love the book. And I had a great time talking with Columbus, who was fun and frank, which is the best combo when it comes to a spoiler special. So here you go. Time for some murder, murder, murder, murder. Enjoy. We're delighted to be joined on this, the Thursday Murder Club spoiler special by the film's director, Chris Columbus.

1:44Chris Hewitt:How are you, sir? I'm excellent. Thank you. Good, good, good. You're looking forward to getting into spoiler territory, spoiler streets? Yes, I love spoilers. Whatever you want to call it. Love it. I always, my son accuses me of always reading the spoilers first, which is something I, I just have this horrible habit of reading them. What do you mean? Even if I haven't seen the film, I will read the spoilers. It's just, I can't stop myself. I've got that. I do that as well. Yeah, I know. It's horrible. I do that as well. I have to stop myself. It was something I really, really love. For example, the finale of Breaking Bad, I had to physically stop myself.

2:16Chris Hewitt:Because I'm so nervous for those characters. I wanted to find out what was happening. so that element of attention would be evaporated. Did you find out? No, I managed to steer clear. That's pretty great. I've been weak in the past, Chris. Yes. I found out what happened to my favorite character on The Last of Us, so that was depressing, yes. I think everyone did. No, but I found out before. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay, well, that's not a Last of Us spoiler special. I found out before I saw it. I think it was published the next day. Okay. I didn't watch that episode on Sunday night. If it's the same character I think you're thinking of, then, yeah, I was told that a couple of years before by people who played the game.

2:54Chris Hewitt:And I was like, come on, guys. It's ridiculous. But anyway, let's get into the Thursday Murder Club spoiler special. I always like to start these things off by talking about the big question, the thing that's going to be in everybody's lips after they see the film. Here is my big question, Chris. Yes. There is a scene where we see Joyce doing a live model art class. Yes. The model is clothed. He has a robe over him. Joyce has given this model a very large member, shall we say. Was that... That's relative. Large? I don't know. It depends on what part of the world you live in. It was cold. What clubs you've been frequenting.

3:41I didn't consider it large. Normal size. Small, if anything. It's not David. Okay. It's not David.

3:49Chris Hewitt:It's not Michelangelo's David. So, yes, what was the question? The question was, was the model clothed at one point or was he nude? The model was always clothed. Okay. So Joyce has been mischievous. Joyce was not shot like that. Okay, so here's the spoiler alert. Okay, here we go. That scene was shot and completed. And Elizabeth says something to the effect at the end of the scene, Joyce, you have quite a talent. something to that effect. And that scene, when I saw the scene, got a laugh, a polite laugh. And I thought to myself, and I had a friend, and I won't reveal the friend's identity because that's too much of a spoiler.

4:30But it's someone we all know. But a friend of mine saw the film and said, you know, you should digitally add the penis. And I said, come on, that's the laugh. For me, that is not, I don't, he said to me, just try it. Just please put the penis in there and see what happens so i said it's cheap we did a we had um no one's going to pick up on this you thought no we had some of our guys in the editing room actually do a temporary thing before we sent it out to visual effects houses and we previewed the film yeah and when we previewed the film thunderous laughter and applause based on the fact that there was a penis in the scene and i thought that's an easy laugh it is but it's one i will take in this film because we don't do it that often in this film.

5:19We've got to be honest. So that's where that came from. I showed it to an audience, got a big laugh, and I thought I will succumb to laughter at this point. Absolutely.

5:29Chris Hewitt:And speaking of laughter as well, I want to get into the plot stuff, of course, but a scene that really made me laugh was, again, this is Joyce-centric. I love Joyce. Joyce's explanation to Elizabeth on the bus of what WTF means. Now, if this had been a theatrically released movie, would you have stopped at one F-bomb? Because that might have incurred the wrath of the MPAA and thus got you in our lane? No, this is something that I've lived with since I directed my first feature, which is very strange. Because if you look at the film, if you look at Thursday Murder Club, Joyce says to Elizabeth, what the fuck?

6:04That means what the fuck? And then Elizabeth says, excuse me. And she says, what the fuck? She says it twice. Yeah. in adventures and babysitting back in the day uh elizabeth shue says to one of the gang members don't he says don't fuck with the lords of hell and she says don't fuck with the babysitter now how did i not get an r rating on adventures and babysitting with two fucks they came up with this theory that they someone dubbed the tandem fuck theory which means that if two fucks are side by side in a film it counts as one uh-huh this happened to follow that theory so from my first film to thursday murder club the two fucks are so close together that we survived a pg-13 and there were there was one other fuck in the film and it was in a in a place that i just i cut because i didn't need the scene it wasn't for right you know eventually this film is going to netflix we get a week of theatrical release here in the uk but yeah eventually it goes to netflix and no one really looks at ratings on streaming services i've found yeah so i didn't really care what the rating was but no it was for theatrical release we ended up with the pg-13 here that's amazing can you say what the uh the third mysterious it was daniel mays danny mays yeah he cut he leaves cooper's chase after his meeting with a disheveled ron he walks outside and finds that his car has been clamped.

7:32And he goes, oh, for fuck's sake. So I just felt that that moment wasn't needed in the film. So I cut it. Amazing. Yeah.

7:42Chris Hewitt:Well, let's talk about things that are in the film. Yes. I always ask filmmakers for supporter specials about beginnings and endings. And the book itself is really interesting. You're no stranger to adapting bestselling books. And Joyce is very much the audience's or the reader's eyes and ears initially. You know, The way that the chapters flit around between choice and various different points of view in the book. And here, you don't do that. Here, you start with a cold case, an Elizabeth's narration to the Peter Mercer cold case. Can you talk about starting the movie in that way? It was interesting because when we first cut the movie together, there was no narration for the cold case.

8:21Okay. So the cold case was actually, in the initial cut of the film, didn't start the film. The cold case was later in the process of the film opened with the introduction of Cooper's Chase. Okay. And it opened. With that sweeping camera shot coming down. With the sweeping camera shot. And we went into the first scene where Joyce meets the Thursday Murder Club. Did all of that. And then when Joyce first is indoctrinated into the Thursday Murder Club, she brings her cake. when Elizabeth is explaining the cold case, that's when we cut to the flashback. And so that was the point where we initially cut to the flashback.

9:02And I saw the film and I thought, I wanted to open the film in black and white. I guess I had just done Nosferatu in slightly black and white, blue and white. So I felt that I just wanted to start in black and white. And I felt that it was an exciting way to open the film. And I felt, having watched the film several times at that point, that I didn't think about the book at that. I was trying to be, as I was adapting the book, I wanted to be as faithful as possible. But at that point, it was about the movie. And I felt that Elizabeth was sort of the driving force in the film. And Joyce is sort of the new member.

9:41So I felt, from a film point of view, from a cinematic point of view, it would be wrong to have Joyce narrating this film. It just felt proper that Elizabeth narrates the beginning of the film. And then, again, she brings us into a section at the end of the film as well.

9:57Chris Hewitt:So did you have full-on Joyce narration? Never. There was never, no. That wasn't even an issue. It was never in the script. It was just never. Joyce, for me, in terms of the book, was one of the few places we deviated. Well, not one of the few. We deviated from the end of the book in a big way because it was so big. uh joyce was where i deviated from the book because joyce joyce's i guess purpose in the book is to really further the plot it's not really her she's giving the reader more of a perspective how the plot moves from a to b to c so i just felt that the film should do that we don't need joyce to do that in tackling this adaptation as well you you said there that elizabeth is in many ways the driving force of the movie.

10:44Chris Hewitt:And that's absolutely true. I think it's Elizabeth's movie in many ways. But did you also find yourself, you know, was it a challenge in a way, giving everyone enough to do as well? And in a way you break them into two pairings. There's Elizabeth and Joyce, and then Ron and Ibrahim get their own things to do as well. Was that a challenge for you, keeping these four actors and the balls in the air? No, you know, interestingly enough, It potentially would have been a challenge if the actors themselves, if there was ever a sense of ego or a sense of, it was all, it was immediately from the get-go, from the first rehearsal, it was an ensemble.

11:24And everyone was very collaborative. And I think Helen Mirren probably set the tone. But it was very collaborative. Even Ben Kingsley was talking, he's been talking about in interviews how he approached the role like Spencer Tracy. And he said, by making the other guy look good. And I got that sense from the actors. I really did. That they were there to support each other. So it was always about the story for me. It was never about, oh, we have to give enough time to Joyce. And the only time that we deviate, well, we deviated from the book a few times. But one of the scenes that we deviated from the book was later.

12:01I was in the middle of shooting the film. And there came a point. And I was editing as I was shooting. So I was basically seeing the film come together every week. As we shot more, the film would, you know. And I realized that in the third act of the film, there was not a... The Thursday Murder Club, without Elizabeth, Ron, Abraham, and Joyce, were sort of missing from the third act of the film, in a sense.

12:28Chris Hewitt:Yeah, yeah. And I was up late one night. I was living in Barnes at the time, and I'm watching... I tend to watch old films at night for inspiration. And it doesn't matter. They may have nothing to do with what I'm shooting. But I was watching A Night at the Opera, the Marx Brothers. Oh, my God. So I'm watching A Night at the Opera. The Marx Brothers always cheer me up. And I find their humor still relevant and funny today, unlike a lot of 30s comedies. But I was watching A Night at the Opera. And there's a scene in the famous stateroom scene where all of these waiters and everyone comes into one stateroom.

13:00And there's like 25 people in the scene. and we had an idea and i can't remember what it was what was scripted we hadn't shot it yet but there was a version of jason the son getting out of he's he's being held by the authorities and he gets out somehow and it was i think it was almost off screen and i this night at the opera sequence gave me an idea of pierce and suddenly everything fell into place i called katie brand and i said you know the thursday murder club because of their various talents pierce has defended himself in the past as he isn't a lawyer but he's defended himself ibrahim is a psychologist can we use that to potentially get jason out of jail in this scene so we just i sort of gave katie the outline of that particular scene and she wrote it in two days and it was basically pierce coming in with the suit he was married in twice ibrahim coming in as the psychological evaluator joyce coming in with the cake and it suddenly became one of my favorite scenes to shoot and that's that sort of happened as a result of your initial question which is i felt that the thursday murder club as a group had disappeared at that point can i say i love pierce's suit i love pierce's suit

14:14Chris Hewitt:yes it was great i mean he makes it work he does you know it's so funny joanna johnson johnson who who's our costume designer, I saw the suit before Pierce put it on, and I thought, that's absurd. And only Pierce Brosnan could make that suit look good. It was weird. He walked in, and it sort of worked. I thought to myself, is there anything you don't look good in? It's just amazing. It's disgraceful, quite frankly. Let's talk about murders, shall we? There's several murders in the movie. The first one is the murder of Tony Curran, which you stage in this very classic murder mystery way where you have the victim looking at the camera, looking at the killer, and going, what are you doing here?

14:59Right. I just was, it just felt natural to me. I don't, you know, I didn't overthink it. It just felt like a very simple solution. I don't, I mean, honestly, I don't take great pride in that particular shot. It just felt, no, I'm just being honest. I felt like that, felt like the right, it just felt like the right attitude at that time. And there was no other way, because it's a spoiler, we know it's Bogdan who kills him, but we couldn't show. I was in a situation where I couldn't show the murderer's shoes, the murderer's hand. Every part of Bogdan would give him away just because of his wardrobe and the way he looked.

15:40So there was no way to shoot him sort of coming down the stairs without giving him away to the audience. And so I wanted the murderer to remain faceless, and that was why I chose that, really to get me out of the situation of showing his boots, showing any of his tattoos, any of his jewelry, anything that would give him away.

15:59Chris Hewitt:Absolutely. And speaking of Bogdan, as you say, he does kill Tony Curran. And in the book, that is discovered and is hushed up, shall we say. Bogdan lives to fight another day. Yes. And in this movie, that is not the case. Can you talk about that? That's a major change. Can you talk about that approach? It was a major change because I felt from a filmmaker's point of view and from an audience's point of view. You need resolution. You can't do a murder mystery without having. First of all, Bogdan goes free. And then John and Penny, who are responsible for two murders. Yes. They die. Yeah. commit suicide and they're free so they're no everyone gets away and i felt that can't you can't do that film and it just felt like there was no resolution and there was no satisfaction for the audience and i love the idea of bogdan being responsible and it's a character we really grow to like yeah and there is a sense of real sympathy and sadness from elizabeth now if we do the second movie we know in the second book that bogdan and donna defridis strike up a romance so we have to somehow get him out of prison i haven't i haven't figured that out yet but we're working on it if we do a second film so it was just important that um that there was that sort of resolution i think the thursday murder club might give way to the friday jailbreak club i don't know Possibly.

17:32Chris Hewitt:You're giving me ideas, yes. Imagine if Elizabeth broke Bogdan out of prison. But that whole scene with Stephen, I thought was really touching. Jonathan Pryce in this movie is phenomenal. He's only in a few scenes. But there's a real melancholy to those scenes. And the idea that he is the one who figures out that Bogdan killed Tony Kern, but then forgets it, is so heartbreaking. yeah and it was interesting to see that i mean it was memory serves it was part of richard's book it was and um i just remember being it was reading it was very touching and again i didn't remember if i read it in the book or in the screenplay but uh when jonathan performed it it was just it was kind of extraordinary and then seeing it the first time we previewed it with an audience there was kind of a gasp when he when he says what was I saying there was a gasp from the audience like they were there was a disappointment like fuck he's gonna get away with it yeah and it was an interesting moment was that interesting in terms of talking about Bogdan and justice idea of you know of audiences want I think catharsis they want murderers to be arrested for the most part Bogdan is a likable character as you say yeah you could argue all day long about whether it was justifiable that he his murder of tony curran right but did that give you pause at all john and penny are uh also very very interesting and layered their their motivations are very layered as well you don't have an out and out villain i would guess in the movie once in ventham dies right was that something that gave you pause was that was that something you wrestled with in terms of you know not really i mean i think the thing that was the most cop the most when I first read the two when I first came on board there were two scripts that were developed and both scripts deviated so far from the book and both script I mean the second script was a they were involved in some sort of computer scam I don't even know if you remember this film called sneakers with Robert Redford and uh and Ben Kings and Ben Kings yes and it was very sneakers like they did this high-tech sort of computer thing in Cooper's Chase my voice is no mention of what's My voice is my passport.

19:50So there was no, the murder-suicide was wiped away in both scripts. And there was a fear, a tremendous fear of putting that in the film. And I know it sounds odd now that you see the film, but people were terrified that audiences would reject it. And I remember some people saying to me, okay, shoot this, but you're going to have to cut it. You know you will cut this. I said, but this is the reason. Honest to God, it's the reason I'm doing the movie. Because the movie goes to a place that's unexpected. You don't expect this to happen. You think, oh, Thursday Murder Club, cozy, fun thing. It's a murder-suicide at the end of the movie.

20:28So everyone was terrified. And I said, I really said, I have to shoot this. I believe in it. And I think part of it was the actor's commitment to that scene and the fact that it worked. Once we screened the movie, we realized it worked. And there are still some people who can't believe that that scene is in the movie. And for me, it's like it's the whole reason for making this movie.

20:53Chris Hewitt:Or else you just have another cozy Agatha Christie movie. It's a really interesting scene. Paul Freeman's great. Paul Freeman's great. And it's really sort of thematically ties the whole thing together. So I don't know. I mean, that was really a point of contention until we screened the film for the first time. And again, for those scenes, for the apprehension of Bogdan and the revelation of John and Penny's murders, I guess, for want of a better word, it's the Thursday Murder Club. Right. The Thursday Murder Club are there. They're present. Ron gets to punch out Bogdan. Was that, again, something that, you know, which doesn't happen in the book.

21:32Chris Hewitt:Right. Again, something that you were working on in the scripting stage, making sure that they were there for the resolution of all of that? Yeah, we wanted them all to sort of be part of it in some way. And I think the punch really came organically in the rehearsals. Oh, really? It was something sort of, yeah, because I didn't, I remember the sets, we had to build the sets a little bigger than we normally would because, certain sets, because Elizabeth's apartment particularly, we knew, it's not that we wanted Elizabeth to have this grand apartment, it's because at the end of the movie we needed to fit 12 people into that apartment.

22:07and I needed to get them in there in a comfortable way. So when you talk about the scene in A Night at the Opera, this was really, you know, you have Elizabeth and Joyce come in and the cops and Ron and everyone showed up. And during those rehearsals, Bogdan, and we were basically choreographing how Bogdan was going to get away or not get away, and that happened organically. That just happened as a result of we said maybe Pierce should call back some of his, you know, when he was younger and fighting the good fight, you know, utilize that. So that's where that came from. And it was really didn't have anything to do with the audience, although the audience seems to seem seems to like that moment.

22:51That's amazing.

22:52Chris Hewitt:Let's talk about Ian Fenton's murder. I've seen the movie a couple of times now. And the second time around, I was watching it forensically, Chris, with a fine tooth comb, with a magnifying glass, to see where John was in relation to— And you found him. I found him. Yeah. Is it blink and you'll miss it? And he sinks back into the crowd. Yes. I wanted the sense that he's there, but it happened quickly. So it's basically a jab, and he's in and out. And we shot several versions. There are versions where he's there much longer. Kind of felt like we were giving it away. There were versions where he wasn't there.

23:32And I thought, is that okay? Does the audience need to see that moment? It could have happened earlier. Yeah, yeah. But I just, that was really, that was the choice take, just to put him in there for a minimal amount of time. And every time I watch it, it's interesting. Sorry to interrupt, but I do count, in my head, I count, can he get there in time? He walks up, jab, out. And so in my head, musically, it works.

24:01Chris Hewitt:Wasn't it tough on the stage? No, no, no, no, it wasn't because we just, you know, with Paul, every, you know, bring him in a little bit, a little more, a little more, a little less, you know. And probably did about seven takes on that and just basically knew I had all the choices when I was going. And my initial choice in the editing room was not to put him in there, was literally not to see him. Really? The first choice was not to see him. And then somewhere along the line, I think it was Jennifer Todd, the producer, said, do you have a take? And I said, oh, yeah, I covered it a million different ways so we could potentially see it.

24:40Yeah. And I was concerned that it would give away his moment. But the fun thing is if you go back and watch the movie, he's there for just enough time.

24:49Chris Hewitt:He's there for just enough time. And I think if people, because it was here on Netflix, people will be pausing it. Yes. He's there in time for a little prick. Absolutely. Yeah. So if they if they if they've gone through the scene frame by frame and gone, he's not there. Yeah. What the hell? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Chris Columbus is head on a bike. Luckily, that does not happen. So you said that hopefully this is going to lead to obviously there are many more more books. Are you hoping that there will be? Well, I would just love to work with these actors again. I mean, I really don't, with the exception of Potter, knowing when I got into Potter, I thought I'd be there for all seven.

25:30And I just put myself into a state of exhaustion by doing, the first film was 160 days. Second film was 160 days. That'll do it. We did them back to back. So 320 consecutive days of shooting. It's not for the faint of heart. So this was 60 days, easy. I mean, in terms of that kind of schedule. Yeah. It would be, the script would have to be great. You know, for me, it was about, it was much less about the murders and much more about the characters and the emotion. The humor, certainly the British humor was the driving force for me.

26:06Chris Hewitt:Which is good because you've lived here. You know what Marks and Spencer's is. You know, you know. I lived here for four years. I was obsessed with, I mean, I think for your magazine, I did a, were you guys doing top ten lists? of favorite films from directors. So my first favorite film was A Hard Day's Night. So it's a British film, Richard Lester film, filled with British phrases that I still try to decipher. And I love that about it. It's sort of like Pierce dropping the word plonker in the middle of a scene. I didn't know what it meant. Dancing on Ice is a big part of this movie. Dancing on Ice, which we recall, we don't have Dancing on Ice.