By Gill Pringle
So at the end of the last Resident Evil, you said that the next one would be the last. How do you feel about it? Is it really the end?
It’s definitely the final chapter, we made a decision that we wanted to go out strong. We didn’t want to be one of those franchises that ends because people have lost interest in them, where people are telling you ‘stop making them, we don’t want them anymore’. I’ve had ideas since when we made the very first movie, in my wildest dreams we would have made this huge franchise and get to tell the final story. I’ve been itching to use those ideas and tell that story, so this is my opportunity to do that. I always wanted the last film to go back to the very beginning, like a snake eating itself. You would go back to Raccoon City, back to The Hive and that’s what this movie is, it’s a return home for Milla. There’s a lot of ideas, like who really is Alice? What is her story? What really is the agenda of the Umbrella Corporation? Who is the Red Queen? What really happened in Raccoon City when the virus escaped? We answer all of those questions in the movie, which makes it very exciting, so it was an exciting prospect to be making the film.
After all this time, how do you find working with Milla?
You know, I’ve made seven movies with Milla now. Every time I write a movie with a woman in it, it’s her. She’s my muse you know. Whether it’s a 10 year old or a 90 year old, every time I write, I can’t help but see that character as Milla. So definitely I would love to work with Milla again.
You have a new muse now though, your daughter (Ever Gabo Anderson appears in the new movie).
Yeah, she’s pretty spectacular I have to say. I was pretty nervous about putting her in the film because of the whole nepotism thing, but she really impressed everybody. There’s a funeral scene, we’re shooting it all on long lens, and in the scene Evers’ father has been murdered. The man who murdered her father becomes her guardian, which is Iain Glen. We’re shooting all long lens and the camera pans down as Iain Glen puts his hand on her shoulder and Ever looks up at him and a tear rolls down her eye. I’m watching it in the monitor tent and it’s really emotional and I’m talking to the camera crew through this talkback system and I’m like ‘back up to Iain, back up to Iain’. So the camera goes back up to Iain, and I’m like ‘tip down, tip down’ and the camera goes down a second time and the second tear rolls out of her eye. It was just genuine emotion, it really made you feel but at the same time she was aware of what the camera was doing, she wasn’t wasting it, she wasn’t crying when the camera was on Iain. She was really delivering, I mean she was seven years old when she did that and I was really, really impressed with how she did that.
Looking at Ever now, what kind of actor do you think she could be like in the future?
I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. She loves being an actor, she loves being on movie sets and she really enjoyed it and she really delivered but she’s eight years old, she can do what she wants. If she wants to become an accountant she can do that.
What did Ruby Rose bring to this film? Why did you want to cast her?
I just loved everything about her. I saw her in Orange is the New Black and she just really, really reminded me of Michelle Rodriguez. When I first worked with Michelle, she’s just someone who bring so much of her own character to a role. She invests in the role so much. Ruby just reminded me of that, like ‘that girl has so much character’. She really brought it in terms of designing her own costume, the physicality in the role, a really, really strong performance. You can see that from her early work.
You always cast people from all over the world, from a lot of different countries, is that something you deliberately like to do?
Well, that’s who I am. I’m a European filmmaker. I kind of see myself as a global filmmaker. I think people forget that the very first Resident Evil was not an American movie. It was a German/British co-production that was financed entirely out of Europe and Japan – that’s where the money came from. We didn’t have a studio deal, we didn’t have any American money in the film, we made it entirely without American finance. So its genesis has always been a kind of global movie, and I’ve always seen myself as a global filmmaker. Nowadays, everybody writes about the international box office and how important it is, but back when I started, they couldn’t give a damn about it, it was all about here. They didn’t care if you made $50 million dollars in Japan or $30 million dollars in Brazil, it was all about how did you do in North America. I think my films have always been structured to appeal to a global audience. America is just another market in that audience.
What inspires you?
The inspiration I have for the movies I make? I think it goes to growing up. I grew up in the north of England, in a town called Newcastle. It was like a post-industrial town, it was all kind of falling apart, everything was falling down, big industrial buildings that have fallen apart. I think you see that, from the very first movie I made Shopping, to the derelict wasteland of Raccoon City. I love that, I grew up in a world that felt like it was falling apart and I make movies in those kind of worlds.
What do you like the most about Milla as an actress?
(whispers) I get to keep 50% of her fee!
She’s just intense, I mean from the first moment I saw her and fell in love with her, she just has this intensity that makes her really interesting to watch. I don’t care what she’s doing, whether she’s shooting guns or just making a cup of tea – she just makes it very interesting to watch. A lot of actors just don’t do that and Milla is just so alive, behind her eyes. I’m just fascinated watching her do things. It’s funny the way she lights up the screen. She makes my job easy, that’s what I love about her as an actress, because she just brings things to life. I mean, sometimes you shoot a scene and you just have to work really hard to make it work. If Milla’s in it, I know I don’t have to worry about that, because the camera loves her. Not just in like a beauty way, you can see behind her eyes. I think that’s not something that can be taught as an actor. You either have that or you don’t. I really genuinely believe that, you either have that kind of intensity and talent or you don’t and she has that in spades.
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter hits cinemas on January 26.
People were begging him to stop making Resident Evil movies ever since the first one!