By Gill Pringle
From what I understand, a Wonder Woman film was conceived, potentially, in 1996. Why do you think it took 21 years?
Who knows? I have no knowledge of the internal workings of the system. I have no idea, all I can say is that, listening to the fans, and hearing everything they have to say, there is no better time than now, and it feels like everyone is very much ready for the movie, which is really, really exciting for us, and for me, of course. I feel very privileged and lucky that they’ve waited for so long, so I can be the one to portray this character.
There’s a little tweak in the story, for people who are used to the comics, that it went from World War II to World War I. They wanted to show her immortality, so apparently they needed that time frame. Is that correct?
I don’t think it had anything to do with her immortality, but I think that World War I was the right timing for the writers to write the story around. And for me, I love watching period movies and participating in one felt so magical because everything felt so original and so real, that it was unbelievable. I remember once we shot in Trafalgar Square, and for the first time they shut down Trafalgar Square for a movie, and everyone was dressed like soldiers from WWI, and the women had those beautiful, big puffy dresses, and it was so beautiful to see.
It seems appropriate having a female director in Patty Jenkins (Monster). How did this impact the role for you? What was it like working with her?
I think we can all agree that Patty wasn’t hired for this job because she’s a woman, she at the end of the day was hired for the job because she was the perfect person to deliver the best result.
And working with her, and spending so many hours and days and weeks with her, I couldn’t ask for a better director to work with on this, it’s been truly a dream come true. We became super close, we had so many funny moments, and so many deep moments when we were on set, and we were just talking about life, and having philosophical conversations.
After Charlize [Theron] won the Oscar for Monster, the studios all came to her and asked Patty, “what do you want to do, what’s next for you?” And she said to Warner Bros that she wanted to direct the next Wonder Woman. Little did she know that several years later, she would. But Patty is super talented, she had a super clear vision on Diana Prince and her story, and how she wants to tell it.
Do you feel pressure, that you have to prove that a female superhero can hold a blockbuster movie, or that a female director is capable of directing this type of movie?
For me it’s all noise. I don’t think about that. Movies are stories, and I think that Wonder Woman’s story is universal, and works on both genders, men and women, and she has a beautiful story, and I think people will be able to relate to this story. So I try not to exhaust myself overthinking it, and just enjoy the ride.
But you got that great response in Batman v Superman, everybody loved Wonder Woman, so before that, were you nervous how people would perceive you?
Again, I try not to think about how it’s going to, how people are going to accept or not accept what I do, because I have absolutely no control on people’s reaction, and I just try to do what I do and enjoy it, and do the best I can, and I feel very grateful that people enjoyed what we did on Batman v Superman with the character, and I can’t wait to share our movie with them.
What have you learned from the first movie that you brought here, and what have you changed from the first movie?
It was a very interesting process for me, because when I shot Batman v Superman, I had creative conversations with Zack Snyder, but we started at the end. And I was really looking forward to shooting the solo movie, because I wanted to go through the journey from beginning to end, and see and feel how the character evolves. So the process was very different.
On Wonder Woman, I’m starting as Diana Prince, and at the end of it, I’m much more, I understand the complexities of the world, and I’m not that innocent as I was when I just started my journey. Also now I know that the end result of the character that I played in Batman v Superman is different to the character I play in Wonder Woman, and even in Justice League, when I just shot it right after Wonder Woman. At the end of Batman v Superman, she said something about how you can’t trust men, how men have made the world an impossible place to be in, and you can assume that she lost her faith in humankind, but actually, shooting the solo movie, we realise that Diana Prince can never lose her faith in humankind. This is her calling, she would never lose hope, she would always accept different views, she would always have compassion and tolerance to different views, and different people, and she will always try to do good and do better.
Wonder Woman is in cinemas from June 1, 2017.
