Marie Claire UK - 10.2019

ADDITIONAL WORDS BY MARIA COOLE, NIAMH MCCOLLUM. PHOTOGRAPHS BY ENTERTAINMENT ONE, GETTY IMAGES

AsJames Frey’s controversial bestseller

A Million Little Pieceshits the big screen,

directorSam Taylor-Johnson tells

SophieGoddardwhy she and husband

Aaron Taylor-Johnson took it on

Howwas it writing the script with

and directing your husband?

Well,we intended to hire a writer, but

thought we’d get some scenes down

while we were waiting for someone to

be available. The dates kept getting

pushed back and we would write

another scene then thought, ‘We’re not

handing this over, we’re almost there!’

Aaron is very structural in his thinking

and I’d go off on a tangent, so somehow

we’d meet somewhere in the middle.

You last worked together on

Nowhere Boyin 2009. How was

it working together this time?

The stakes were higher with this

because we’d written and produced it.

Nowhere Boy was my first film and

‘IT WAS A

WILD RIDE’

The book came out in 2003,

so has the movie been in the

works for a long time?

Yes, I kept hearing news of which

studiobought the rights then ten years

wentby and it still wasn’t made. I heard

therights had reverted back to James

Frey so I emailed him and 20 minutes

later he called and said, ‘The rights are

yours if you want them.’ I paid him

a dollar. He said, ‘I just want the movie

made,I don’t want money or input, just

goand create art in the same spirit

I wrote the book,’ which was incredible.

Howinvolved was he?

Hesaid, ‘I’ll be as involved as you

wantme to be.’ It was amazing to be

givencreative licence to just run with it.

There was controversy around

the book [Frey was found

to have fabricated parts and

a legal settlement saw his

publishers provide refunds].

Wasthat a consideration?

We treated it as three separate things

• the book, the controversy and
  the movie – and the movie isn’t
  a documentary, it’s a film, a piece of art.
  How hard was it condensing the
  book for the big screen?
  There was a lot of juggling – proper
  independent film-making at its best.
  It really makes you think creatively
  on your feet, and I hadn’t done that
  in a while. I had that privilege with this,
  whichhas been denied me in other
  spaces, so it was truly exciting.
  Is it true you shot the film in
  just 20 days?
  Yes, and we shot it on such an
  extremebudget, it was a wild ride.
  But it made everyone – Billy Bob
  [Thornton], Juliette [Lewis], Charlie
  [Hunnam] – a really tight community.

I learned a lot but with this

one, Aaron had to wear

three hats – producing,

writing and acting – and

I was juggling, too. It was

complicated but amazing.

You and Charlie

Hunnam were set to

work together on Fifty

Shades and it didn’t

happen. Were you

delighted to secure him?

It was fantastic. When we were writing

it,I kept thinking, ‘Charlie would be

perfect to play the brother.’ He read

it and said he’d love to. He’s so soulful

and that really comes across in this.

I don’t think I’ve seen him play

something so soft and nurturing.

Do you have advice for women

trying to break into the industry?

If somebody says ‘it’s impossible’,

you’ve got to kick that door down

and just get in there. There were times

I’d actually doorstop people at

work, saying ‘You have to consider

me’ because I couldn’t even get

meetings. Even the success of Fifty

Shadeshasn’t changed that.■

A Million Little Piecesis out on 30 August

SamTaylor-Johnson

(above), and on

set with Aaron

Taylor-Johnson and

Billy Bob Thornton

(left, top) and

Juliette Lewis (left)