ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Marlowe director Neil Jordan about the noir crime thriller. The director spoke about working with Liam Neeson and adapting Interview with the Vampire. The film will debut in theaters on Wednesday, February 15.
“Marlowe, a gripping noir crime thriller set in late 1930’s Los Angeles, centers around a street-wise, down on his luck detective; Philip Marlowe, played by Liam Neeson, who is hired to find the ex-lover of a glamorous heiress (Diane Kruger), daughter of a well-known movie star (Jessica Lange),” reads the film’s synopsis. “The disappearance unearths a web of lies, and soon Marlowe is involved in a dangerous, deadly investigation where everyone involved has something to hide.”
Tyler Treese: I thought Liam Neeson was such an inspired choice for Marlowe because he’s not really someone I would think in that role, but he does it so great. What did you like most about what Liam really brought to the character?
Neil Jordan: The reason I made the movie is because I wanted to see what Liam would do with this role. I’ve worked with Liam four times before. I did a movie called Michael Collins with him. I did a movie called Breakfast on Pluto with him. What else did I do? Anyway, a few. I really wanted to see him play this role, you know? I know the subtlety he has as an actor, I know the range that he has. He’s been very successful ever since Taken. He’s done a lot of action movies, and I really wanted to see the slow smoldering, burning Liam Neeson that I kind of love. I wanted to see him explore a character in a full and dynamic and really urgent way. I thought he would make a great Marlowe.
Liam is now older than Humphrey Bogart was, of course, older than [Robert] Mitchum. But they always seemed old to me when I looked at the original Raymond Chandler characters, the people who played Marlowe, Dick Powell, you know, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum … and I thought Liam would do something really interesting with this character, and I thought he’d bring an integrity and a yearning to the character, if that makes sense.
Like you mentioned, there’s a real legacy of film there with fantastic actors playing Marlowe. What did it mean for you to get to contribute to that legacy with Liam?
Well, it’s kind of intimidating, really, you know? Because Robert Altman did a great spin on the whole Chandler-esque thing, didn’t he? With The Long Goodbye, there was such fun in that movie. So it was quite intimidating, really. But I mean, I basically wanted to see the noir-ish landscape drowned in color. Now that sounds like a contradiction of terms, doesn’t it? But I really wanted to saturate that whole world of darkness and all the modes of the Chandler-esque world. I just wanted to drown it in color and light. It sounds like a contradictory thing to me to do, but I just thought if Howard Hawks had the possibility of color, what would he have done?
I thought the choice to have this story be based on The Black-Eyed Blonde was really intriguing, because it’s not one of those original mysteries, but that also works to its advantage as it’s a fresh story that not as many people know. Why do you think this story worked so well as a movie?
The story? Well, that’s quite a simple thing. The simple thing that I brought to it is … William Monahan had written this wonderful script based on the John Banville novel, which I knew, because John Banville is a friend of mine. It was really interesting that John had given the character Irish roots and he’d given some of the noir-ish … the bad girls — let’s put it that way — Dorothy and Clare. He’d given them both Irish roots. I thought, “Okay, this is an interesting perspective on this character. This is a perspective that Liam himself could play, obviously, because Liam is Irish, you know?”
I’ve read all of Chandler’s work and I don’t think I’ve ever come across a story where a detective has been tasked to find somebody’s lover so the client themselves can blow their brains out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that, and that’s what I wanted to do. I thought, “Okay, this is something I’ve never seen before. I’d love to do that.” The great thing about Chandler’s stories is they’re kind of whimsical and they’re kind of pulled from the air. The characters are intriguing and the moral dilemmas that they get into are intriguing. But you don’t really have a true … kind of a dynamic storyline that is pushing towards its end.
William Faulkner was one of the writers on The Big Sleep and they were wondering, “Why did the chauffeur get killed? Why was his car and that window of the scene pulled from the beach?” And they rang up William Faulkner, he said he didn’t know. They rang up Chandler, “Who killed the chauffer?” And even Chandler didn’t know. There’s these eccentric kind of loose ends in Chandler, isn’t there? But the good thing about this story was the heart of corruption was actually in and around a film studio. You know? The basic dynamic of the central character, Clare Cavendish — played so wonderfully by Diane Kruger — was that she wanted Marlowe to find this guy so she could kill him herself. I thought, “Great. Okay, I’d like to do that.”
Next year will be the 30th anniversary for Interview with the Vampire. You assembled such a great cast there: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt — how do you look back upon that movie’s legacy as it has aged?
Well, hasn’t it got a legacy? I hope it has. Up to that point, Francis Ford Coppola with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, he introduced opulence and theatricality. Normally, before that one, I always thought of vampire movies as cheap, cobbled together, brilliant use of minimal resources. Francis made it this epic, didn’t he? So when I was given the opportunity to make Interview with the Vampire, I thought, “Oh, it would be really great to expand on that epic sense of darkness and to give these characters huge, kind of romantic destinies and longings and feelings.” And it was great. I could get two of the best actors in the world to be in this movie. It was like a unique opportunity and Warner Brothers — I had just made The Crying Game, which was quite a big hit.
They asked me to make Interview with the Vampire. I said, “Look, the only thing I know how to do is make independent movies. I don’t know, studio films, really. I’ve never … it’s not my background, but if you let me make this like an independent movie, I’d really love to do it.” And they did. So I had Tom, I had Brad, I had Kirsten Dunst, I had Antonio Banderas, I had Stephen Rea. They let us shoot in darkness at night, which drove the actors insane — drove Brad Pitt mad, I think — but they let us do it, and they let me just do exactly what I wanted for six months on a budget of about what, $60 million? I mean, that was unique opportunity, you know? I couldn’t believe that they let me do that, but they did.
You’ve worked with Colin Farrell before and he’s been having such an amazing stretch lately. What makes him so special?
He’s so smart. He’s not only smart about his acting — he’s a great actor — [but] he’s also smart about his life, you know? You kind of want to be him, don’t you? In some way. You want to sit in Colin’s shoes, don’t you? He’s so charming and so full, and so quizzical. I loved what he did in The Banshees of Inisherin. He could well win an Oscar, in which case I’ll never get the chance to work with him again. [Laughs].
