Lukas Moodysson recently spoke to me about his latest effort We Are The Best!, and discussed the film’s genesis, production, casting and music. And don’t worry, because as this is a Swedish pic (and despite the fact that it’s all about punk), there just had to be an ABBA reference.
We Are The Best! is based on an autobiographical comic book written by your wife Coco, right?
That’s right, although it’s a ‘graphic novel’, of course, and it is based on Coco’s own experiences. We’re like Siamese twins, me and Coco, and her experiences are quite like my own, as we’re the same age and we grew up with the same music and experiences. I think the greatest difference between her and me, though, is not the fact that I’m a boy and she’s a girl, but that she grew up rather more in the middle of things, in the city, and I grew up in really a much smaller place.
So when did the production of the film properly start?
Before the production of a film starts there’s always me standing somewhere thinking that I really have to do something, and then many of the ideas that I get turn into nothing. But this idea turned into a film, and I think that the reason for that is that this project was always going to be such fun to make. Me and my producers needed a project that would be fun to work with, and I’m not saying that we didn’t want to do a project that wasn’t serious, as really I think that it is a very serious film, but we wanted to do something that was fun. Something that would be fun to go to do every day, and fun to work with because of all the young people and the music.
Like many of your films your cast here is made up of many unknowns. Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin and Liv LeMoyne had never been in a feature film before…
Mira Grosin had been in a short film before, and she’d done some things on television, so she had a bit of experience. But this was her first major project… One of the things I really wanted to get right on this film was to make sure that everyone got candy on Fridays and lots of coffee and sandwiches and cakes. I think that’s one of the most important things when you make films, as you need to make people feel happy and safe and like they’re having fun. If they feel like they’re in good hands then all the acting just comes naturally. So yes, Directing Lesson Number 1: give people food!… We auditioned for a long, long time, and even though we quite early on thought that these three actors were really something special, it still took a lot of time as we needed to ensure that they were the best combination and could all work together. I thought they were very talented when I first met them but, still, it took a lot of time… And I do think that ethically the biggest problem about making movies with young people for me is that you have to say no to them.
In the film Liv’s character is musically gifted with the guitar – unlike the two others, who are barely competent musicians and prefer to just do the whole punk posturing thing – so was she actually that talented?
She plays the electric guitar very well, but she hadn’t really played the classic acoustic guitar much and so we had to give her a teacher. And the line producer on this film, she was friends with the legendary Janne Schaffer, who had played electric guitar on all the ABBA records, and so she called him and he came in and sat down with Liv and taught her how to play the acoustic guitar. In Sweden Janne is a legend not just for his work with ABBA, and he wasn’t punk, you know, so it was funny that he was going to teach Liv to play punk style on the guitar… And yes, Mira and Mira didn’t have any musical experience, and so when they play in the rehearsal room we used lines from when they tried to play for the first time.
Many of your films – like your breakthrough, Show Me Love – are about young people, so is there any reason why you gravitate to their stories?
I suppose that there is some childishness in me, but there is also something about the approach that young people have to life. The way they see and experience things for the first time, the unreflective way that they look at things, you know, it translates well to film.
As you’re working with untrained young actors do you allow improvisation and diversion from your script?
I do like it very much when things happen that I hadn’t planned, yes. Sometimes I let them improvise a lot, but sometimes I make them stick close to the script… So it’s a combination, and it just depends, and some actors are better at improvising while others need to be told exactly what to do.
And what about your previous film, 2009’s Mammoth [which starred Gael García Bernal and Michelle Williams, who were in no way unknowns]? Was that your first film with international stars, and would you make a movie like that again, and in America?
I just pick the best actors, whether they’re well-known or not… I’m undecided about making films with international actors like that, those so-called stars. Maybe it’s a language thing, as I tried to do Mammoth and it was difficult, partially due to the language barrier. I don’t always find the right words, but I do feel very at home in my own language, as I do think that Swedish is the best language. It’s the only language that I can really speak in and understand and feel comfortable with, and Sweden is the only country that I can feel at home in and truly understand too. Maybe I’ll make another movie in English in America sometime soon, or maybe I’ll stay here where I’m happy and make movies here… And I never talk about my next project at times like this, because if I do then it’ll never happen!
(This interview appeared on the Rip It Up Magazine and The Adelaide Review websites)
I Wake Up Screening 