Regardless of how you feel about what director Roman Polanski did over thirty years ago and whether what’s happened in recent months is right or wrong, there’s no denying that he remains one of our greatest living filmmakers, something that far too many people have forgotten. In fact, he’s still one of only ten directors to win an Academy Award for their work in the last decade, a rare surprise Oscar win that Polanski was unable to celebrate as he remained in exile in France for his earlier actions.
Despite his recent troubles, Polanski was able to finish up his latest movie The Ghost Writer, a contemporary thriller that harks back to some of the great thrillers of the ’60s and ’70s. It stars Ewan McGregor as a nameless writer hired to ghost write the memoirs of the former British Prime Minister Adam Lang, played by Pierce Brosnan, not realizing when he accepts the job that Lang will get caught up in a controversy that will make the manuscript for his memoirs something people will kill to get their hands on. The movie also stars Tom Wilkinson, Eli Wallach, Olivia Williams, Kim Cattrall and others, but it’s the intriguing relationship between the characters played by McGregor and Brosnan, as well as the very relationship between a political figure and his ghost writer, that makes Polanski’s latest so enjoyable.
ComingSoon.net had a chance to sit down with the two of them for an exclusive video interview and here’s a sample of what we asked them:
* What differentiates Roman Polanski from other directors
* Did they get any direction to deliver lines to make it feel more like a vintage thriller?
* Pierce on his “prime ministerial” inspirations
* Ewan on whether his politically-leaning run of movies was deliberate or not
* Ewan on playing a character who doesn’t have a name
Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is now playing in New York and L.A. and opens in other cities on February 26.
