The Cottage: Exclusive interviews and clips
A YORKSHIRE-shot comedy horror is not the expected follow-up from the team behind the hit movie London to Brighton. Arts reporter Nick Ahad met the director and producer of The Cottage.
Five stars. The best British film of the year. A shot in the arm for a whole genre.
It's not so much a case of how could they follow this early success, as how could Paul Andrew Williams and Ken Marshall even step foot on another film set after such universal accolades for the first movie they ever made together?
The answer? They just did – and once there, made something wildly different to their previous effort with a new movie which was anything but what might have been expected.
Marshall and Williams created cinematic alchemy when they came together to make London to Brighton.
But the film they always wanted to work together on was The Cottage, a comedy-horror set in the countryside and filmed on location in Yorkshire.
It couldn't be more different to London to Brighton for which they received enormous critical praise, with fans including Peter Bradshaw the respected Guardian film critic who called it the "best British film of the year".
London to Brighton told the story of a teenage prostitute fleeing with a young girl from gangsters and pimps in the capital.
While the subject was tried and tested – it was essentially an old fashioned chase movie – the way the story was told and the sparkling dialogue saw the name Paul Andrew Williams mentioned alongside Mike Leigh. He was hailed as a brave new talent telling the story of a previously unseen underbelly of British society.
But the movie was not the one Williams was striving to make. It was written and filmed while he and Marshall were trying to get The Cottage off the ground.
"I wrote it one weekend on my kitchen table, in my pants," says Williams.
"I was just so sick of not making a film. It took me four days. I started on Friday afternoon and just sat there until the Monday and I had finished the script."
At this point the straight man in the double act, Marshall, jumps in and says: "Sometimes Paul makes it look easy – and I don't say that lightly. Making a film is hard work, but Paul just has this ability to get it out there."
Marshall and Williams took the script written in one weekend and borrowed the relatively miniscule 80,000 needed to shoot the film, which they did over a period of just a few weeks in 2005.
The movie was released in 2006. It was a hell of a calling card.
It was screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival and, as Williams says: "Things just went a bit nuts.
"I was in this position of being called a new British hope for film. It was a lot of responsibility and it was incredibly flattering, but it means there is a weight of expectation about what you are going to be doing next."
What they did next was actually the thing they wanted to do first.
The chronology goes something like this. In 2002 Williams sent his script for a comedy horror movie called The Cottage to a production company called Four Horsemen Films, where it found its way into onto the desk of production executive – now head of development – Marshall.
The moneyman loved the script and on their first meeting, Williams and Marshall knew they could work together.
Sitting together at the Bradford International Film Festival, the pair are like chalk and cheese. Williams is more of a Cockney wideboy in his cap and camouflage jacket, his unguarded speech and his proliferation of tattoos.
Ken Marshall looks like his namesake, Barbie's boyfriend. All white teeth and permatan, with a Canadian accent and immaculate hair, he wears jeans and a tailored suit jacket with pristine white trainers. As different as they are, working together on a film they created magic.
Their partnership got off to a tough start, however. The people that could fund The Cottage would promise money then take it back. Actors were on board and off. The production was taking its toll on both director and producer, and false promises led endlessly to false starts and frustration.
It was at one particularly low moment that Williams sat in his pants and wrote a script for a gangster movie, out of sheer frustration as much as anything else.
"We just wanted to make a film," says Williams. In 2005 the pair decided to abandon The Cottage and make London to Brighton and everything changed.
Marshall says: "That first movie and the reaction to it opened a lot of doors for us.
"But there was pressure because people might have wanted us to go in a certain direction and we were always determined that we wanted to make The Cottage."
This time around, the money has been much easier to secure – no longer are the pair borrowing cash from friends and contacts. But being able to get their hands on the 2.5m budget more easily does not make things necessarily easier.
"It's a totally different ball game," says Marshall.
"With London to Brighton we only had to answer to ourselves, because we had no money and people were working for free."
Williams adds: "There was no-one looking over our shoulders last time. There are very different pressures on us this time around.
"You make a first-time movie and things go a bit crazy, then you get the financiers next time round, but that comes with a lot of expectation and demands."
Speaking of expectation, there is every chance that people might recognise Williams's name from London to Brighton, go along to his new movie and expect to see a gritty, realistic drama.
Isn't he worried about the audience reaction when they get the Laurel and Hardy of the gangster world, a mouthy Scouse girl in the shape of lads' mag favourite Jennifer Ellison and blood and guts galore?
"I don't understand that attitude," says Williams, a former actor.
"Is it unexpected for a chef to make a different type of food? Or should he cook the same thing all the time?
"I don't know anyone who only likes to go and see just one type of film – I like to see all sorts of different types of films, so I had no intention of restricting myself to just one genre."
The Cottage involves two brothers who kidnap the daughter of a gangster and hole up in the middle of the countryside.
The movie was shot on the Harewood House estate.
What was behind the decision to bring the production to Yorkshire?
Williams answers this question with a wide smile and the rubbing of his thumb against three fingers, the universal sign for cash.
It is yet another demonstration of the difference between the rawness of the director and the polish of the producer.
Marshall jumps in: "We were looking at locations all over the country and we contacted Screen Yorkshire, who were very keen for us to film the movie here and helped with some of the funding of the movie."
Williams smiles again and makes the cash sign again, adding: "Seriously, the funding brought us here, but we really enjoyed the experience of working in Yorkshire and it was great to find this old building which was absolutely perfect for us to film in.
"We had to do a lot of filming in the dark, so that meant night shoots and it was really hard work at times, but actually being out in the countryside really helped to create the right atmosphere for the film."
So, with a gritty, realistic gut-wrenching drama followed by a comedy horror, is there any way of knowing what the Williams-Marshall team will come up with next time round?
"I kept getting in trouble yesterday for talking about the next film," says Williams.
"But it's about pensioners."
Who knows if Williams will have these pensioners chased by gangsters, or caught up in in a horror movie? As is the case for the characters in his latest movie, all bets are off.
Email to a friend
Print this page- Three-inch blanket of snow heading our way today
- Barnsley’s Keith Hill invokes Fawlty Towers over link with Leeds job
- Alan Shearer in list of favourites for Leeds and England jobs: Latest odds
- McCormack feels United search can be narrowed down
- Redfearn throws down gauntlet as queue builds at Elland Road
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Yorkshire
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -9 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: -2 C to -1 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South
