By Travis Johnson
Let’s start with an obvious and personal question: what’s your religious persuasion?
I’m not part of any organised belief structure. I’m not religious. I’d say I’m spiritual.
Were you raised in a church or a faith?
No, no religious upbringing.
Then the next obvious question is: why Mary Magdalene?
Well, I think I’ve always been spiritual since birth. I’ve always had an interest in why we’re here and what are we connected to, and I’ve always had a spiritual instinct with everything in my life. So when I read this story I was completely taken by the spiritualism of the story, and for me it suddenly all made sense – Jesus’ story and this story from this time.
Growing up maybe I did go to church a couple of times, but it did not make sense to me. I just saw a lot of men, no women, what they were talking about didn’t resonate with me. I still respect all of that, of course, but when I read this it just completely made sense.
So the script, the project didn’t originate with you?
No. I was just finishing off Lion and [producer] Emile Sherman said, “Garth I have this really beautiful project I think you might like – it’s Mary Magdalene.” A part of me was really excited because I do love biblical movies. I’ve always had a fascination with religious movies – there have been some fantastic films. But there was a lot of trepidation, but when I read it I realised why he gave it to me, because it was such a humanistic version, and I just really connected with it.
Did you think you’d be jumping back in to a major project so soon after Lion?
No, it was the last thing on my mind but I fell so deeply in love with the material I just thought, “Oh shit, I’m gonna do this.”
Before beginning work on the film, what was your awareness of the historical and biblical figure of Mary Magdalene?
It was pretty generic really, how she’s seen as the fallen woman, the prostitute, in a lot of biblical tales, and that’s about it. But when I read this, it was just a completely different telling so, as I started to investigate it I started to realise the different interpretations and why those interpretations were there and then it suddenly became more compelling to me. I thought it was more controversial that her story hadn’t been told in some way, so I suddenly felt a lot more confident in what we were doing, and felt the other reason why I need to make this was that it needs to be told – it’s crazy that her story hasn’t been revealed for over 2000 years. It’s bizarre.
The script is by Helen Edmundson and Philippa Goslett – what kind of shape was it in when it came to you, and how did you influence and shape it on its journey to the final film we see on screen now?
The script was in really great shape when I read it but like anything that I’ve worked on, you have to make it more efficient and you bring a directorial language to it occasionally in places. So you’re bringing your values to the script and you work with the screenwriter quite closely. And then when the actors come on board and you go deeper into the characters things get discovered and things get kind of tweaked as we go along. So largely it was the same, but we were constantly tweaking and adjusting as part of the normal process.
Can you give us an example of a “tweak” – something in the original draft that is now different on screen?
Well, the original script had a whole other chapter, a whole other act where we went back to Peter’s house in Capernaum. It was fantastic, but it would have taken another 20 minutes of screen time and when you get into the timing of the script it just didn’t work, so we had to remove that and re-adjust some of that material into other scenes. Often that’s what we do – you can combine the content of two scenes into one. So just trying to retain the important elements of story and kind of make it more efficient.
And then also specifically with Jesus, especially when Joaquin came on board, we tried to fine-tune his language – his dialogue and the way he interacted with the other characters.
How did you and Joaquin Phoenix approach portraying Jesus?
What was great was that all the actors I brought to this project are more spiritually based than religious based and really felt connected to the material and the way we were doing it. So Joaquin’s instincts were razor sharp – he did some beautiful, deep work, and he always had some great choices as to why the words he was saying were coming out of his mouth and how he approached some of these very complicated scenes.
And of course, it’s not just a religious film, it’s a historical film. You’re dealing with a period which has been fairly heavily researched. What did you do to ensure verisimilitude?
I know the writers had a lot of support from different groups. We had a lot of 1st century academics, a lot of religious experts, and all the different religions and faiths were feeding in constantly through the writing and the making of the film. It was a fascinating process to hear everybody’s point of view.
We also traveled to Israel and retraced Mary’s steps along the way. We were guided by lots of different academics and theologians and anthropologists. It was just such a fascinating journey – I absolutely loved it. I must say we’ve been very respectful of that process and we were just trying to be aware of whether we were stepping on any toes or saying something highly offensive or historically inaccurate, and then we would have to decide whether we wanted to take that risk or not, when that feedback came back.
But ultimately, we were just trying to bring to life the experience of this world. I wanted the audience to feel that they were going back in time, that they could get under the skin of these characters, you could see the detail in the everyday life, so we can relate to these characters. I find with a lot of previous biblical films that I felt like I’m being told a certain story a certain way, with Jesus up here and he’s not human and You Must Obey – I don’t trust that. So here was an opportunity to maybe tell this story in a way that’s going to connect to people outside of religion as well, because I do believe that this message about unconditional love is something that is honourable and is something that I want to be bringing into the world. Like Lion – Lion is totally about unconditional love. So for me this is just an extension of themes that I’m interested in as a human.
These characters, these figures, are seen as iconic, so how do you as a director working with your actors, psychologise these figures and make them seem real and tangible to us as an audience?
It’s interesting because in a lot of biblical movies when God talks, the earth shakes. It’s like an X-Men movie. But for me God talks in amazing acts of love, or an amazing act of forgiveness. So for me, I wanted them to be the monumental moments. In some ways it’s a much more intimate movie, celebrating acts of humanity as ways of getting closer to God. So we just had to get the actors into that. And that’s why the actors came on board – they connected to that.
And as for Jesus, he’s someone who’s battling with flesh and divinity. I think we all do in some ways – we all become entangled with our everyday lives, and trying to become better people, and trying to find a connection with our destiny and what we’re trying to become. I think it’s a complicated thing – that’s why Joaquin’s there, because he has that dialogue within himself. I think he brings that sense of inquiry and sensitivity to the screen from his own life. I think with another actor it would have been much more difficult to feel and believe someone who’s both human and divine.
One element which must come into play in biblical films is the Divinity of Christ – whether he was, in the context of the film, man, or God, or both. Where does your film fall?
That’s up to everyone’s belief system, I suppose. My personal belief is that I do believe in miracles to a certain extent, if you surrender completely to unconditional love. What’s beautiful about the healing scene is that he met people where they were. In that time, anyone with an injury or illness, they were all seen as demonic or possessed. But Jesus didn’t see that – he saw them for who they were. Just being seen and validated would have been immense for these people, and then he just held them in a place of compassion and love, and I think in that miracles can occur – beautiful things can happen if people are seen and loved and validated. So we can call that divine, if you like, and maybe it is – maybe when we do surrender to unconditional love, maybe we are connecting with God.
Mary Magdalene is in cinemas now. Read our review here.
