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Shane Meadows Interview
SHANE MEADOWS
Shane Meadows is nervous and nursing a hangover. It's 9.30 am on the day of release of his new film, Dead Man's Shoes, and he confesses that he had a bit of a 'whopper' the night before. 'We had a big screening last night with about 450 people and a party afterwards. It was fantastic though. I love The Office and Martin Freeman came up to me and told me he loved it, Ken Loach was there and all of these people who are heroes of mine.' The truth is however that this affable Midlander has little to worry about. The film is receiving the best press of his career (deservedly so), and Meadows is clearly buoyant. 'I did get a one star review in the Daily Mail, though', he jokes, 'but the day they give me a decent review I'll probably go and hang myself.'
Dead Man's Shoes is the story of Richard, an ex-soldier who returns to his home town to avenge his brother, whose mistreatment at the hands of some local yobs has been plaguing him for years. Meadows enthuses about it. 'On the surface it sounds like a classic 70s revenge thriller, but I wanted to make a new film that hadn't been done before. It was the idea of social realism meets the Sixth Sense. It's High Plains Drifter meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.'
With all of Meadows' trademark black humour, improvisational performances and natural handheld style of shooting, his fans are in for a treat. The film is dominated by the central performance of Paddy Considine, who imbues Richard with a wild-eyed aggression that is rarely captured on film. Meadows and Considine go back a long way. 'We were at college together from the age of 17. He wasn't an actor then, but he could do the meanest Robert de Niro impression you'd ever seen. He went off to do photography courses, but I always wondered what he would be able to do. He's built his own reputation though.'
The film is darker than Meadows' previous work and is sometimes hard to watch, such is the implied sense of doom, and there were moments when the director himself felt ill-at-ease with his subject. 'The hardest parts to film were the parts with Richard's brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell), especially when the gang took it out on him. It was bloody disgraceful and I felt horrible doing it, but they had to make it real. Toby had bruises and burn marks after those scenes.'
After going through the mill on Once Upon A Time In The Midlands, which suffered from too many chiefs being involved, Meadows intends to stick to what he knows best - having creative freedom over each project he chooses. 'The freedom is important now,' he admits, 'but I've had bad experiences in the past. You've got to have the people around you wanting to make the same film. I got a bit lazy on Midlands so making this one was a bit like starting again.'
He enthuses about how much easier it is to make films now, and offers salient advice to any youngsters trying to get into the business. 'Just do it. It's so much easier now with technology that the only reason not to do it is laziness. I can't recommend education because it's not for everybody, but anyone can get a small camera and go and shoot anything. Don't wait around and send in ideas to the BBC, just go out and make something. It's the only piece of advice you can give.'
Meadows already has his next feature planned, and it sounds both hilarious and wildly different. It's called Le Donk. 'Le Donk will be the next film and Paddy will be in it. It's about a rock drummer who gets dropped from his label and he has to go back and work on the council estate. It'll be a fly-on-the-wall documentary and will be totally different. He's called Le Donk because he got off with a French student when he was at school.'
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