The Big Picture

• Karen Gillan and Adam Cooper join Perri Nemiroff for a Drumpe Screening Series Q&A covering their new movie,
  Sleeping Dogs
  .
• The film is about an ex-homicide detective suffering from memory loss who revisits a case from his past, and discovers chilling secrets in the process.
• Sleeping Dogs
  is now playing in theaters.

After writing a number of feature film scripts, including Assassin’s Creed and Allegiant, Adam Cooper sits on the director’s chair for the first time on the set of Sleeping Dogs. Led by Academy Award winner Russell Crowe, the project follows an ex-homicide detective suffering from memory loss. While in the midst of a cutting-edge clinical trial, he decides to go back out into the field and take on a brutal murder case that might be linked to his past. The crime drama also stars several other notable names including Karen Gillan, Tommy Flanagan, Marton Csokas, and Thomas M. Wright.

Ahead of the film’s theatrical release, Drumpe had the opportunity to host an early screening, followed by an insightful Q&A with Cooper and Gillan hosted by Perri Nemiroff. Cooper discussed the challenges of being a first-time feature director, why he was compelled to do a whodunit through the lens of memory, and why he wound up switching the killer’s identity while bringing the story from book to screen. Gillan also highlighted the opportunity to take big swings with her character in Sleeping Dogs, her passion for acting, and her emotional reunion with Mike Flanagan for the upcoming Stephen King adaptation, Life of Chuck.

You can either watch the interview in the video above, or read the conversation in transcript form below.

Adam Cooper’s Directorial Debut Is a Whodunit Through the Lens of Memory

PERRI NEMIROFF: Adam, you’re getting my first questions. I love asking about making a feature directorial debut. First, more broadly, why this particular story for your first feature? What was it about it that made you think, this is how I want to introduce myself as a director to this industry?

ADAM COOPER: I think I like characters in crises. I like a good whodunit. I liked that it was a whodunit seen through the lens of memory. It was sort of a singular man’s journey. I just really identified with his character story, this idea that he’s so bereft of memory that he has no context for who he is or his place in the world, and this journey that he goes on to find out who he is so he can reconnect only to, upon learning everything that he learned, wishes that he never began that journey to begin with. So I think all of those things were really compelling to me.

Getting into specifics, I also love asking about the green-light experience when you’re making a first feature. Two-part question about that. What was the biggest roadblock you hit, but then also, what was a game-changing thing that happened? Something you acquired that made you feel like making the film was going to be a reality?

COOPER: Second part first, Russell Crowe. We had a very hard time getting the movie made; first-time director. It becomes all about your ability to cast a lead that is compelling. We’d walk down the road with some other folks. The combination of me and an actor who wasn’t a movie star wasn’t really enough to push it over the top, so it kind of gestated for a while and then one day there was just a phone call that Russell had read the script and was interested, and that was sort of the thing that pushed it over the top.

What was your reaction?

COOPER: I didn’t really believe that, because I think you get jaded and cynical in this business, and so you don’t really believe it’s happening until it’s actually happening. And then it’s totally terrifying.

Sticking with the first-feature aspect, Karen, two questions about working with someone who’s making their feature directorial debut. First, what do you need to see in someone who’s new to this part of filmmaking that signals to you, I am in safe hands with this person?

KAREN GILLAN: I don’t know if I have a set sort of rule for that that I follow. I think it’s a case by case situation. I actually hadn’t watched anything that you’d made. Did you make any shorts that I could have watched?

COOPER: I haven’t made anything.

GILLAN: Ah! Okay, that’s why I didn’t watch it. [Laughs] So I spoke to Adam and we kind of had a really, really good conversation. And he wrote the script, so obviously that was an even more insightful conversation because it was his brainchild. And so we spoke and I was just sort of taken with the conversation and felt like, you know what, I think we can make something really interesting. It’s always a little bit of a risk, but it paid off, so that’s great.

Karen Gillan Took Big Swings With Her ‘Sleeping Dogs’ Character

What is something about Adam as an actor’s director that you really appreciated and are excited for more actors out there to experience on his future films?

GILLAN: Oh, so many things. Where do I begin?

I love making people compliment each other.

GILLAN: Oh, people get so uncomfortable when they get compliments, right? Adam’s amazing to work with from an actor’s perspective. He’s so collaborative. He really listens to us. He makes us feel heard. He knows to not listen to everything that we’re suggesting and take the good parts. I think the biggest thing for me was just the atmosphere that you created. It was such a sort of friendly, safe-feeling atmosphere where I just felt like I could fall flat on my face and try things with this character that might be embarrassing to fail at, but I felt okay doing that in the environment that he created.

Is there any specific thing you can remember doing that made you think, « I’m taking a big swing and no one’s going to use this, » but because you felt safe and did it, it worked out and now we can now see it in the finished film?

GILLAN: I mean, you kind of let me take a little bit of a swing with how performative the character is, which is pretty risky because sometimes that can really look like bad acting.

I read something in our press notes you said, that she’s an overly brilliant and almost unrealistic person. What was it like capturing those qualities in her but while also making her feel grounded enough that she feels real?

GILLAN: Did I say that?

It’s in my press notes! You did indeed! [Laughs]

GILLAN: Wait, okay. What was it?

An overly brilliant and almost unrealistic person.

GILLAN: Yeah, that checks out. I think that makes sense. Yeah, it was hard. It was hard to pitch this character because she’s kind of a different person, not every time you see her, but quite a lot. I wanted her to have a slight sort of affectation to her as a vibe, like it’s slightly affected, it’s slightly put on. I think I know who she is underneath it all, but I think as a means of survival, she sort of takes on these characters and I think she’s been watching YouTube. Does the timeline match up with YouTube? Does YouTube exist in the world of Sleeping Dogs? Okay! She watches YouTube videos of intellectuals and sort of emulates them, I think.

I have another quote from the press notes. Adam, I swear you said this. This is a broader career question inspired by the themes of the movie and also this specific quote. You said, « What thematically excites me about this story is that it deals with the role memory and our awareness of our past plays in shaping who we are today. » For each of you, can you name a past project that you think contributed most to the kind of artist you are today?

GILLAN: Oh god, I don’t know if there’s one. I don’t know if I could choose one.

It can be more than one!

GILLAN: I think that I’m just a cocktail of all of them. [Laughter and applause.] Yeah, give it up for cocktails! I don’t know. I feel like I’ve honestly learned something from every single job that I’ve done and, in a way, learned what not to do on every single job that I’ve done because I can’t really see what I’m doing as an actor and then I get to see it like a year later, and then I can assess it and be like, that works, that doesn’t really work as much for me. I do that on every single job, and that’s how I hopefully get better.

COOPER: I think I have to ape Karen’s answer. I don’t think I could pick just one thing. I’ve been a writer my whole career. You learn a tremendous amount about storytelling when you’re a writer. And I’ve been fortunate to work on a lot of different projects and different genres. For me, it’s always about a character with a compelling goal and a compelling backstory. It’s not by accident that the title of the book that her character has written in the story is called « Past is Prologue » because I’m just really interested in the way things that have happened to people inform their behavior in the present tense. That’s something that I think I’ve just learned across all the projects that I’ve worked on. I don’t think I could pick just one, though.

Speaking of Adam’s writing work, Karen, surprise, surprise, I have another quote that I really like of yours.

GILLAN: Oh, no! What have I said now?

It’s a good quote! « It’s so handy to have the writer be the filmmaker as well because it means you can get so much more information about the intention behind everything and you can evolve it in the moment. » Can you remember a time on set when that attention to detail and his knowledge of the material helped you evolve something, and now we can now see in the finished film?

GILLAN: I did say that. I remember saying that one. God, I’m trying to remember specifics. I mean, we were able to talk through everything and kind of evolve it in the moment. I don’t think I really was like, « Let’s change these lines, » but maybe we played around with the intention behind them a little bit. You were really collaborative in that sense. Russell really liked tearing into the scene and being like, « Okay, how can we change this and do this? » And you were so sort of hands-on with that and collaborative. That was just really cool to watch.

Russell Crowe Made a Huge Change to the ‘Sleeping Dogs’ Ending

Given that, Adam, is there a time when Russell wanted to play with something and a scene evolved because of it?

COOPER: Yeah, the whole end of the movie. I remember the day when we were shooting the final triangle standoff with Karen’s character and Tommy’s character and Russell’s character. Russell showed up that morning, we had two days to shoot that scene, and he was like, « I don’t like the scene. » And so I spent, I think, five hours in his trailer with him and we pretty much rewrote the whole scene. So that.

You know, I also remember the very first scene where Karen’s character meets Harry Greenwood’s character, where Richard first meets Laura. That scene was originally written that Richard walks up to Laura sitting at the punch table and all the lines that Richard currently says in the scene were lines that Laura had previously said in the scene, and I think two days before, we completely flipped the scene.

Oh, that’s fascinating.

I had two very specific questions about the ending. I never like asking, « What’s the meaning behind this, » but there were two things that caught my eye that I’m eager to hear about. Adam, I’m curious about your choice to have that lens flare when Russell walks into the house toward the end. How’d you come to the conclusion that that was the best way to capture that?

COOPER: We had a lot of lens flare in the movie. Part of it really came from the fact that my DP, Ben Nott, was in love with lens flare. All the stuff in the present tense was shot with these anamorphic Japanese Kowa lenses from the 1960s that had been rehoused. They were really sort of wonky in terms of the light coming in. What happened was, that was the one scene that we shot on the day when we were supposed to be shooting that whole big ending and we didn’t end up shooting the big ending because I’d spent half the day doing something else, so we had a lot of time to fuck around. When Russell was opening the door for the first time, that just kind of happened. We then played around with it and played around with, how big can we make that lens flare, given what the moment was. That was not designed, it was kind of by happenstance and then we sort of built upon it.

Unexpected movie magic, it’s the best stuff.

Now for you, Karen, was it scripted that she touched her necklace at the end?

GILLAN: I think that was, I mean it was, but it was written later if I’m remembering correctly?

COOPER: Yeah, because we talked a lot about her character having sort of a touchstone to the past and a whole story around it. She mentions that it was my grandmother’s, and there used to be dialogue in the dinner table scene where Weider’s talking about trauma, and he says something very, very pointed to your character that refers to a trauma for her around the death of her grandmother and that necklace. In the interest of time, we ultimately ended up sort of losing that stuff, but there was a lot of story that we talked about around that necklace.

Here’s the question you’re not going to like, but I love it because I think it’s an important thing to think about. In this business, we give each other awards and that’s wonderful, but I like hearing people tell themselves good job. I want you to tell me something you accomplished making Sleeping Dogs that you know you’ll be able to look back on and say to yourself, I am so proud of what I did there.

GILLAN: I’m a British person. [Laughs] Can’t compliment myself. Oh, god. I spoke Mandarin for a second. Never thought I’d be able to do that. [Audience claps.] Thank you, thank you.

I’ll take that. How about for you, Adam?

COOPER: I directed a movie, and I’d never done that before. So, that.

Karen Gillan’s Reunion With Mike Flanagan for ‘Life of Chuck’ Sparked Good Tears

Before I toss it to the audience, I have one unrelated question for you, Karen. I wasn’t going to do this, but when you’re in a new Mike Flanagan movie, I’m obligated to ask about it. I’m really curious to hear about how the experience working with Mike differed going from Oculus to Life of Chuck? Especially given how much he’s evolved the Flanafamily since that first film.

GILLAN: Flanafamily, that’s catchy!

Oh yeah, that’s a thing. It’s a special thing.

GILLAN: You know what? It didn’t feel that different. I was sort of going into it looking like, ‘Okay, how has he changed? He’s done so many movies.’ It felt the same. We were back in Alabama like we’d never left. I mean, if there was any difference, I suppose he just felt more — he was relaxed on the first one, but maybe he wasn’t. He was just pretending to be relaxed. But no, he was just the same, the same Mike Flanagan, the same and brilliant. And the movie is absolutely incredible. I saw a not finished version of it and literally didn’t stop crying for days. In a good way.

There’s a wealth of untapped Stephen King books and short stories out there that people could adapt. What do you think it is about Life of Chuck that, perhaps, moviegoers need right now more so than any other story?

GILLAN: It’s a cathartic experience. It’s someone dealing with the end of their life, and it’s told in a very imaginative way. It’s just beautiful, and it’s a celebration of life, I suppose. I think we could all do with a bit of that.

I’m gonna squeeze in one more question. Does that mean it sticks with the story format from the short?

GILLAN: Am I giving things away? It might.

The short story is so good. If you haven’t read it, please go check it out. I’ll stop pushing there. I’m so excited for that one.

Does anybody out there have a question?

AUDIENCE: I was wondering, what was it like working with Russell Crowe?

GILLAN: It was brilliant working with Russell Crowe. He is a full-on proper movie star, and as soon as I got into a scene with him and watched him act in real life, I was like, « Oh, you have the thing, the thing that makes you a movie star that’s different from everybody else. » It was really cool to see how generous he is as a scene partner and how hard he works off camera to really help you get where you need to go when you’re on camera. It was just really cool to observe. Yeah, he’s great.

Next up, right there.

AUDIENCE: My question is mostly about the trauma moment because I studied psychology and I had teachers who’ve worked with memory. In the history of psychology, there is a phenomenon like false memory. For example, there were psychoanalytics who talked with their clients and after their therapy, they started to remember, « Oh, my dad did this to me, » or, « My dad did this to me. » A lot of incest or stuff like this, which never happened. Or, for example, they gave an example for 9/11. A lot of people who survived didn’t remember some stuff, but when they talked with each other, they started to remember more because they talked with somebody who survived. It was their false memory. Did you think about this? Because she’s a psychologist, your character, maybe she manipulated memories or something like that.

COOPER: I don’t think she did that. I don’t think she manipulated memory, but I do think she did manipulate him. I think that she took advantage of her knowledge of his circumstance to use him to do her dirty work.

Why Russell Crowe’s Character Has a Different Fate in the Movie Than in the Book

I see a hand all the way back there.

AUDIENCE: Great movie. I have a question about the story. Where did the general idea come?

COOPER: The idea for the movie came from a book that’s called The Book of Mirrors, which was a book that came out in 2018. It was the English language first book by a Romanian thriller author named Eugen Chirovici. So that’s where the idea for the movie came from. The movie itself is a pretty different adaptation of the book in that the character that Russell Crowe plays doesn’t appear until the final third of the book, and the narrative in the book isn’t actually lensed through the eyes of that protagonist. When is this coming out?

Are you gonna say a spoiler?

COOPER: Yeah, should I not say a spoiler?

You can say your spoiler, and then I will magically have a spoiler warning come up so nobody watches this until they see the movie.

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Sleeping Dogs.]COOPER: In the book that it’s based on, Russell’s character is not the killer. That was an invention born from the fact that his character in the book is a cop who has the backstory that he has relative to investigating the case, and he is bereft of memory, but it felt like a missed opportunity in a story that’s about a cop with Alzheimer’s reinvestigating a case from the past, not to make him culpable in it. But the idea came from a book.

[Editor’s note: Spoiler warning for Sleeping Dogs ends here.]We can squeeze in one more. Pressure’s on!

AUDIENCE: I always ask only one question whenever I attend an interview. Thank you for this movie. It was wonderful. What inspires you both to do what you do?

I love that question.

GILLAN: Oh, you delivered. What inspires me? God, I just love acting so much. I just love doing it. I love the process of it. I love the feeling of it. And then I love it when people connect with it in some way. That’s always really nice to sort of see what can exist between the thing that you’ve created and the people that are consuming it. That’s the most important part. But I get such joy and fulfillment from doing the thing. It also gives me license to be all the things in my life that I’m scared to be in real life. Like really commanding and stuff. [Laughs] So it’s like, I don’t know, instead of drinking alcohol to lower my inhibitions, I act. [Audience applauds.] Thank you.

COOPER: I think I’m inspired by great characters and great stories that I somehow relate to. I don’t think that there’s just one thing that inspires me, but there is nothing better than cooking something up in your head with a group of collaborators and then seeing the effect that it has on people, really, good or bad. I mean, the worst version is just, meh. Sort of a paradoxical reaction is the best kind of reaction because it’s inspired something. But I would also say that I’m inspired by my wife and by my kids.

Sleeping Dogs hits theaters on March 22. Click below for showtimes near you.

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