Backstage with… Christian Bale and The Pale Blue Eye cast on humanising Edgar Allen Poe
He’s known as a master of macabre, for pioneering the short story in the US and is credited with inventing the detective fiction genre.
But perhaps far less is known about the gothic writer Edgar Allan Poe as a person.
Now, a new film about the poet is looking to change that. The Pale Blue Eye – based on the book of the same name – explores the period of Poe’s life when he found himself at the US Military Academy. The movie imagines the young writer teaming up with a detective to investigate a series of murders.
While Poe is played by Harry Potter star Harry Melling, Christian Bale plays the lead veteran detective Augustus Landor, and the starry ensemble cast also includes Gillian Anderson, Timothy Spall and Lucy Boynton.
But as filming started in November 2021, Bale told Sky News’ Backstage Podcast that, despite being part of a big cast, he largely spent his time off-camera on his own.
“It was still right in the middle of COVID,” he explained.
“I think they were being really draconian with me – like they wouldn’t let me see anybody, because everybody was getting ill at some point, but they were like, ‘man, if you get ill the whole production has to stop’.”
“So they were like ‘get back to your room and stay in your room’ – and I did!”
The film is a murder mystery, so only when it’s over does the viewer realise the breadcrumbs that have been left for them along the way in terms of figuring out whodunnit.
Bale, who is also one of the movie’s producers, says, as an actor, it makes for an interesting challenge.
Bale spoke to Backstage – Sky News’ TV and film review podcast. Credit: Scott Garfield/Netflix ..
“I would give Scott [Cooper – the film’s director] some variation, some choices he could have in the edit room,” Bale said.
“Scott is always very meticulous and really very precise in what he wants and he tends to be exactly right, so he doesn’t experiment too much.
“But, with this, because it was such a particular balancing act, I tried to give him a few variations and I think he really nailed it.”
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Poe isn’t the main character, but the film explores the literary trailblazer in a setting most people aren’t aware he was ever in.
Gillian Anderson told Sky News’ Backstage Podcast that’s one of the things that made the film attractive to her.
“It was interesting to dive into something that had such a strong element of gothic thriller-esque, but at the same time, an origin story about somebody who wouldn’t normally be in that kind of circumstance.
“The fact that he was at West Point [the military academy] for a period of time – what does a person who is an artist, who is so different from what you might normally find at West Point and the rigidity of West Point, what do they do under those circumstances?
“I think that that threw into light a whole other side of Poe that I hadn’t really even thought about before, which I found fascinating,” she told the podcast.
Gillian Anderson plays Julia, the wife of Toby Jones’ (L) Dr Marquis. Credit: Scott Garfield/Netflix
The actress plays Mrs Marquis, the wife of the doctor who performs an autopsy on one of the murder victims. The character is a real oddball and Anderson admits that it’s good fun to play someone so strange.
“It’s very freeing – I remember feeling that a few years ago I did Blanche in [A Streetcar Named Desire at the National Theatre] and there’s something about Blanche that you just feel like you could do almost anything. It just feels that you can give all of those bits that you’ve restrained in yourself to another character.
“It was similar with Mrs Marquis, I think, because she’s so unpredictable, and what we see in the film is real eccentricity and quirkiness.
“To be able to push that to varying levels on a day is enjoyable.”
Poe also comes across as odd at times.
Melling, who plays him, says that while preparing for the role he found himself engaged in some curious behaviour himself – rehearsing lines in his local cemetery.
“Very respectfully, I should add,” he told Backstage.
Harry Melling (R) told Sky News’ Backstage podcast about why he decided to learn his lines in a graveyard… Credit: Scott Garfield/Netflix
“But yeah early on, I was reading a lot about Edgar being obsessed with the dead with death and the occult, and I thought, you know, I’m just going to head to the graveyard with my book and see what comes to me.
“And it slowly became a routine of going to the cemetery, and reading a bit, and just going through some of the things he says, and just slowly building up that world for him and how he thought. It was just a very early sort-of building block phase to getting to Edgar.”
Melling says he also set off on a deep dive in terms of researching the writer.
“What I found really useful was his early life – losing both his parents, being adopted, moving to London, then moving back to Virginia,” he said.
“All of that stuff about being a bit of a nomad early on explained a lot in terms of what Scott Cooper’s script was doing with this character, who was constantly trying to invent himself a persona as the young poet.
“But there’s only so much you can take research I think… and also people have such a fixed idea of who Edgar is. It was very interesting to go back and work out, ‘okay, who is this person before we get to this idea of this icon, this American writer of the macabre and the dark?’, and that was a really interesting exercise for me.”
Lucy Boynton plays Lea Marquis in The Pale Blue Eye. Credit: Scott Garfield/Netflix
Melling’s co-star Lucy Boynton agreed the script certainly sheds new light on Poe.
“[The film is] exploring the person behind the reputation and facade that we’re aware of,” she told Sky News.
“I think I’ve realised I hadn’t really questioned what he, what the person behind all of that work and kind of gothic forefront, would be, so it was really beautiful to see Harry’s interpretation of that but also just the exploration of this script of the sensitivity behind the strength of that work.”
The Pale Blue Eye is streaming on Netflix.
Hear our review in the latest episode of Backstage – the film and TV review podcast from Sky News.
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John David Washington says he felt like he had to conceal his desire to act because of the external expectations of him being the child of Denzel and Pauletta Washington.
He tells Sky News it took some time for him to pursue an acting career, choosing football instead to assert his “independence” and create his own “identity” separate from his famous family.
“I’ve been wanting to do this my whole life… but I was hiding it,” he said.
“I had to conceal that passion based on my relationship to the world and more specifically, my folks being in the industry, so I chose ball.
“I loved ball, but I was sort of hiding my love for the arts under a helmet – literally an American football helmet – and so when I wanted to become an actor, when I decided to pursue it, that was a big shock to some people.”
The 40-year-old actor says when he decided to pursue an acting career, he kept the decision quiet.
“Some people didn’t know I was even pursuing it professionally until I got a job,” he said.
John David with fellow actor Danielle Deadwyler. Pic: David Lee/ Netflix
Since switching to acting, John David has starred in a number of notable roles including the protagonist in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, Ron Stallworth in BlacKkKlansman and Joshua in The Creator.
He also led the stage revival of the 2022 Tony-nominated play The Piano Lesson on Broadway alongside Samuel L Jackson.
“He [Jackson] originated the role [I play] in 1987 at Yale with Lloyd Richards and August Wilson,” John David said.
“So it was of great importance for us to learn from both he and Michael Potts about August Wilson. It was a great blessing for me, I think, for all of us to have him present on set.”
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The Piano Lesson is the third August Wilson play to be adapted for the screen by Denzel Washington’s production company Mundy Lane Entertainment.
It is part of a pledge made by the Gladiator II actor to make all 10 of the playwright’s works into films.
The Netflix project is directed by another Washington family member, Malcolm, and stars most of the cast from the Broadway revival.
The Piano Lesson is Malcolm Washington’s directorial debut. Pic: Katia Washington/ Netflix
Set in 1936 Pittsburgh in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the film centres on a family heirloom, a piano, that is etched with the carvings of their family history made by their enslaved ancestor.
Malcolm says he started reading the play for the first time during the pandemic and immediately wanted to be involved in the film adaptation.
“I think with this movie, reclamation of story and identity is so central to the theme and it’s something that’s central to my life where I both acknowledge the fertile ground that I was raised on and who I am today.
“That’s what Wining Boy [played by Michael Potts] really is trying to do, he’s trying to build on that legacy, so that’s a story that really resonated with me.”
The filmmaker added: “I take all the gifts that my ancestors laid in front of me, and I’m trying to build something for the next generation to pass down – all of their gifts, plus mine to the next generation and let them build on it.”
Malcolm has dedicated his directorial debut to his mother, Pauletta Washington. Pic: David Lee/Netflix
Malcolm says his goal was to put family at the forefront of the production. By dedicating his feature debut to “Mama”, he is acknowledging the dedication and sacrifices that mothers make for the growth of their families.
“There’s so much pointing to my mother in particular, who inspired this adaptation so much. I see so much of her life in Berniece’s character [played by Danielle Deadwyler] – and that became a guiding light for me in this adaptation,” he said.
“As we made this thing and started reconnecting with our ancestors, my mum became like a kind of representative of them.
“She’s the matriarch of our family. She tells me about my grandparents and great-grandparents and the line that I come from, and I see them in her.
“And when the movie ends, I want people to kind of have that moment of reflection for their own lives. So in dedicating it to her, I was trying to dedicate it to all mums everywhere.”
The Piano Lesson is now available on Netflix.
Blockbuster Wicked has landed the largest opening weekend of 2024 at Vue International.
The film, starring Oscar-nominated actress Cynthia Erivo and Grammy-winning pop star Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda, surpassed both Gladiator II and Paddington In Peru.
It has also had the largest opening weekend for a stage musical adaptation in the cinema chain’s history.
A boss for Vue International said it had seen a “sea of pink and green” over the weekend.
Ariana Grande (left) as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in the film. Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Released on Friday, Wicked is up 60% on Les Miserables’ opening weekend in 2012 and three times larger than the 2022 film adaptation of Matilda.
Founder and chief executive of Vue International Tim Richards said: “Vue has seen a sea of pink and green over the opening weekend of Wicked, which has shown continued high demand for the big screen experience.
“We saw record-breaking pre-sales for Wicked, followed by a chart-topping opening weekend – the biggest for 2024.”
The film is the first of two parts, with the second expected in November next year.
Wicked and Gladiator II – known together as Glicked – have reportedly failed to beat out Barbenheimer, Barbie and Oppenheimer, in its own opening weekend last summer.
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Glicked brought in £215m in worldwide ticket sales – with Wicked making the majority of that.
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