SEX “The film seems to
cut through all these gay themes. I sup- pose you don’t have to be an alien from another world to understand. There’s no reason why, any human on earth
could not understand this film. That’s the strongest element. It’s not a ‘gay’ film, it’s a human film.
”
A REALISTIC LOOK ATAND LOVE REVEALED IN WEEKEND
AN INTERVIEW WITH OUT ACTOR CHRIS NEW
by bill biss What begins as a late night sexual encounter develops into an exploration of two
gay men’s lives over the course of 48 hours. Sexual attraction, a discovery of person- alities and emotions and the chemistry of friendship and love are unveiled in the new film, Weekend. Out actor, Chris New plays “Glen” in the film and stars opposite Tom Cullen as “Russell.” Chris New trained at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and has starred opposite Alan Cumming in London’s West End production of Bent. He makes his feature film debut inWeekend, directed, written and produced by Andrew Haigh. The film has already garnered numerous awards in film festivals throughout the United States and Canada. Here for The Rage Monthly, New elaborates on the making of the film, his take on why audiences should see it and what’s more difficult… “filming love scenes” or “two men on one bicycle?”
As you have acted on stage and on television, how would you describe the experience of making your motion picture debut inWeekend? It’s a strangely weird mix of the two actually. Partly, because obviously it’s the cam-
era, so you have to be a little bit less “shouty,” than you do on the stage. But, we did a lot of the filming in sequence and then we did it in very, very long takes. This was in the hopes that we wouldn’t have to edit or cut during any of the scenes. So, I felt surpris- ingly comfortable in that because it was obviously, very similar to theatre. When you control the arc of the scene, in your own way, it made things a lot easier for
me as I learned how to make a film basically. Did the director, Andrew Haigh, test the chemistry between you and Tom Cullen previously to you getting the part? Yeah, when I went in for the meeting, he’d already gone through quite a few “Russells” [Tom Cullen’s character] and he put together a couple of them who I did a reading with. It was kind of obvious from the first reading that Tom and I were the ones who worked best with each other. We were just very relaxed with each other straight away. We just played off each other’s rhythms and ideas. It was very obvious from the beginning, that was the pairing that was going to bring the most to the film. What are your impressions of acting with Tom Cullen? It’s very strange… (laughter) it’s odd. I don’t know really. It’s strange to think back
from an “actor’s” point of view. The main thing we did was just to try and relax as much as possible. In the hope that would just carry onto the screen. The film is very realistic. Yes. I think some of the realism in the film is created by the sense of quite deep relax-
ation. There’s no kind of tension creative-wise in the film. That was greatly provided by Andrew [Haigh, the director, screenwriter and producer]. From the first moment, we started working together and started rehearsing… we would go through the script, working it out and discussing it. He just ensured that everybody was very, very relaxed and that we could feel free to talk about anything, give ideas. That is the first step and it set us on a very strong curve, after that.
OCTOBER 2011 | RAGE monthly 41
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