Director John Madden on his new movie 'Miss Sloane'

26 March 2017 - 02:00 By Shanthini Naidoo
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Director John Madden.
Director John Madden.
Image: Supplied

Director John Madden, best known for 'Shakespeare in Love' and the feel-good Marigold Hotel films, tells us why he took on something darker in his new film 'Miss Sloane'

I don't necessarily want to be making the same film all the time.We had a wonderful time making the Marigold Hotel films in India and I love comedy, but this came to me out of the blue at a time that I was very interested in American politics. I guess I'm not unique in being fascinated by the gun-control issue: it is incomprehensible why a civilised country with constant tragedies has made no legal progress on the issue.

[In Miss Sloane], the subject matter is about the political approach to this gun issue, but also doing it as a woman, with women-centred support [systems]. [The title character, played by Jessica Chastain,[ is asked to make guns "friendly" for women.

Jessica's character would be so familiar in so many ways - if she was a man - a maverick rule-breaker, professional, with no observable emotion or family life, until she discovers a tiny flicker of humanity.

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[In the movie, Sloane is challenged by a woman of the opposite extremes, a victim of gun violence named Esme, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who is used by Sloane as a pawn in the lobbying game.]

Gugu is the key to the film; its heart and soul. I was knocked out by the skill with which she played her cards as a character. There is an interesting scene in which she is unforgiving and tough. Jessica loved that.

They are sort of weirdly a mirror image; Gugu has a toughness but also a luminous openness and vulnerability compared to Jessica. In fact, they are physically so opposed. Gugu has soft, rounded features and Jessica is sculpted with fine bones and very pale. The contrast was fabulous to work with.

There is a lot of material I have to read professionally, but my guilty secret is reading the Guardian, Washington Post and online news. I'm afraid the main thing I am consuming is every development within the US political scene. Not since Watergate has there been such a profoundly disturbing time politically across the world.

WATCH the trailer for Miss Sloane

 

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