Content Starts Here
Peter Cattaneo interview
CATTANEO'S LUCKY BREAK
Tiscali talked to Lucky Break director Peter Cattaneo about life after The Full Monty.
It's been an incredible four years since an unheralded British comedy about the plight of a group of unemployed Sheffield men became a national phenomenon, cut a trail across the world and ended up being pipped for Oscar glory by Titanic.
So what has Full Monty director Peter Cattaneo being doing since?
'The first year immediately after its release I spent selling the film,' says the 35 year-old filmmaker. 'I went around the world. Then there was a year in the middle when I was just reading a hell of a lot of scripts, but I didn't find anything that made me go 'Yes!'. The second half of that period was spent working on Lucky Break'.
After such a smash, did the predictable offers from Hollywood start rolling in? 'Yeah, but it was the volume off offers that freaked me out,' admits Cattaneo. 'I had a mountain of unopened FedEx packages...a lot of them were fairly standard Hollywood romantic comedies. There was nothing like Alien 4 in there'.
Cattaneo had the idea for Lucky Break while he was in the bath. It's a prison caper comedy that is more Porridge than Scum, and the director is ready to admit his influences included Ronnie Barker's classic sitcom as well as legendary prison movies such as The Great Escape and The Enemy Within. But the film does have its share of bittersweet moments which prevent it from being an overly jolly depiction of prison life. 'I didn't want the film peppered with heroin overdoses and the truth of prison but it was very important to have one well-balanced negative strand in it. I didn't want it to be Carry On Prison though'.
As well as landing James Nesbit for the lead role ('we had to delay the start of the film so he could finish Cold Feet'), Cattaneo was thrilled to enlist Christopher Plummer as the vain prison governor whose musical 'Nelson' becomes the film's comedic highpoint. 'I was really chuffed with that. At first I was thinking isn't he the guy from The Sound of Music? Then I saw The Insider and he was fantastic in that, so I rang him and offered him the part.' Timothy Spall, Olivia Williams and Bill Nighy added weight to an impressive cast.
With Lucky Break about to go head to head with Steve Coogan's comedy The Parole Officer, what does Cattaneo have to say to the doommongers of the British film industry, who seem to constantly carp in the press about our failure to produce successful films? 'Well, we do actually make good films. Every now and then we make a film that is hugely successful, such as Billy Eliot. There was a run when the lottery first put money into films, which strangely kind of happened on the back of Billy Eliot, of not so charming comedies. But like any industry, there is a mixture. And what I really think is 'go on then, send me your script. I am available to read them, but it's just not that easy to make a good film!'
Cattaneo has shown that he is no one trick pony, and his new film sees him retain his status as one of Britain's leading directors. He can't yet confirm what his next project will be, but there can be no doubt that he is going to make quality films for a long time to come.
Font size
Mail
My account
Help
Community
Print now
Send to a friend
Related articles
Related products
