Gavin Hood on his new film Official Secrets

21 February, 2019 - 08:02

This business is brutal, Gavin Hood admits frankly. Were speaking the day before the world premiere of his latest movie, Official Secrets, at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah and this first audience response is weighing heavily on his mind. by Fiona Walsh

A political thriller starring Keira Knightley and a strong cast of British acting talent including Matt Smith, Ralph Fiennes, Rhys Ifans and Tamsin Greig, Official Secrets is based on the book The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War, and tells the true story of British Intelligence operative Katharine Gun (Knightley) and the professional and personal fallout from her decision to leak a highly classified internal memo.

Determined to stop what she sees as an illegal effort by the UK government under prime minister Tony Blair to help America swing a UN Security Council vote towards war with Iraq by blackmailing smaller, undecided member states, Gun decides to defy the Official Secrets Act, with far-reaching consequences.

Its early afternoon in Park City and Hood and I are sitting in the media centre on Main Street. Outside the temperature is hovering around minus one and the streets and buildings are inches deep in snow. The contrast with a South African summer couldnt be starker.

Hood is a frank and engaging presence and, if hes feeling the strain of his impending premiere and a morning spent in back-to-back interviews, hes certainly not showing it.

He has, in his own words, bounced about, back and forth, for the past twenty years, firstly between South Africa and the US, studying film-making and taking his first steps in the industry, then between Joburg and the UK. But for the last decade hes largely been based in Los Angeles, although still travelling constantly, depending on where the next shoot takes him.

With his previous film, Eye in the Sky fronted by Oscar winner Helen Mirren, ironically the shoot took him back home. We shot the whole movie in South Africa. I was very pleased to go back - the crews are brilliant.

After winning an Oscar of his own for Best Foreign Language Film for Tsotsi in 2005, Hood moved on to high profile features starring a range of A-listers, including Reese Witherspoon in Rendition, Hugh Jackman in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, as well as Mirren in Eye in the Sky. After big budget films with international themes, will he ever make another movie rooted in his home country?

Its a good question, but its all about the script. Lets face it, thats the hardest thing to find. The right story that has something you feel needs to be said. And thats the key.

Hood admits to surprise that the Katherine Gun story landed on his desk. If youd asked me Do you want to tell a story set in England? Id say, Id love to, but I dont think anyones going to ask me. But when the script arrived, it resonated.

I think why Katherine Gun is so interesting is here is an ordinary person - it could be you or I - working for a company and we discover something wrong, something bad is happening in the business. Do we have the courage to speak up? This is a very contemporary theme; when do you speak up and risk losing your job, in any organisation? In her case it wasnt only a matter of losing her job, she could also potentially lose her freedom, because of the Official Secrets Act.

So, there is a wonderful dilemma - would I have the courage to do what she did? And if Im interested in that question, maybe my audience will be interested in that question too. They may not agree with what she did, depending on their political point of view, but I dare them to say shes not brave.

Hood studied law at Wits and admits his legal background tends to draw him towards stories that offer a moral or ethical dilemma for the audience. He based his directorial debut, the short film The Storekeeper, on a law school case that examined how far you can go in defense of your property.

Sadly, thats a very South African question, Hood says ruefully. The dilemma is, theres an elderly man who runs a store and a thief keeps robbing him. They never meet, but he takes measures to prevent the thefts; he puts up burglar bars and eventually he rigs a shotgun and a tripwire and then, of course, something happens.

His first major feature, A Reasonable Man, which he wrote, directed and starred in, was also based on a case from law school. Here the central question revolves around what can be considered a reasonable belief system. And again, he says, theres no good answer, just a fascinating question.

GAVINS PARENTS HIJACKED

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Then came Tsotsi, based on Athol Fugards novel, which gave him his major international break and propelled him all the way to the Academy Awards.

Tsotsi happened because my mum was carjacked. I never remember the order - had I already been sent the script, before the hijacking? - but I was thinking, Whats the way in? Do I have the right to tell this story? And then my mum got carjacked with my dad.

There were four carjackers with guns and my mum started having a conversation with this young 18-year-old carjacker, who had ripped her necklace from her and pulled out her earrings. And my mum, who was a schoolteacher and thought she could talk to anyone, said in her overly British way, My dear, you dont want to be doing this. What would your mum think? Lets all calm down.

Afterwards I said to her, What were you thinking! And she replied, Gavin, he was just a child.

For Hood, this provided the key not only to Tsotsi but to a number of his subsequent features. Its how to find a way to empathise. Can you make a film and generate an empathy for someone who for the first 20 minutes you absolutely loathe? Can you remove the mask of anger and rage and get to the person?

A STRONG FEMALE LEAD

Following Rendition, which starred Reese Witherspoon, then Eye in the Sky

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