When the Oscar-nominated costume designer Joanna Johnston was looking for inspiration to dress Ron, the most ostentatious member of “The Thursday Murder Club,” the group of retirees from Richard Osman’s bestselling novels that pass the time at their old age home of Coopers Chase by solving murders, it wasn’t necessary for her to go back to the book for details, but rather simply look towards director Chris Columbus in production meetings.
“I felt that Ron was the most personal wardrobe decision I’ve made,” laughs Columbus now, letting me only imagine if he’s in a Springsteen tour tee or a flamboyant striped jacket on the other end of a call recently. “Ron dresses exactly like me. I have two of Ron’s shirts that I wear all the time that the costume designer gave me. It was very easy to dress him, because I dress exactly the same way.”
For a filmmaker not necessarily known for having a signature style as he’s gone about making some of the biggest blockbusters of all time from “Mrs. Doubtfire” to “Harry Potter” to more recently “The Christmas Chronicles,” Columbus has always put more of himself into his films that people think, which is part of what has made them so fun and ultimately resonant. Longtime fans will likely get an extra kick out of the black-and-white opening scene of his latest film where surely he drew inspiration from the British murder mysteries of the ‘40s and ‘50s that were a part of the mix of midnight movies he used to stay up and watch late as a kid on local television, the same well that gave birth to the gangster movie parody “Angels with Filthy Souls” in “Home Alone.” Having a personal history with the genre while having never tackled such a film before himself made him the best possible choice to direct an adaptation of the first of Osman’s wildly popular page turners where Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), Ron (Pierce Brosnan), Ibrahim (Sir Ben Kingsley) and Joyce (Celia Imrie) are called upon to help out with an active murder investigation after years of making a hobby out of solving cold cases, with local cops Donna (Naomi Ackie) and Chris (Daniel Mays) reluctantly asking for their assistance when the case could involve Ian Ventham (David Tennant), the landlord of Coopers Chase who is eager to unload at least a section of it for redevelopment.
The quartet would be motivated simply by the fun of piecing together a motive in their Jigsaw Room at Coopers Chase, but the loss of any part of the property offers additional incentive, particularly when Columbus and production designer James Merifield imagine such a lively senior community where there’s painting and pickleball, among the many activities on the grounds as far as the eye can see. It becomes quite the playground for some of the world’s finest actors to cut loose as well, with Columbus taking full advantage of his seasoned cast to sometimes get away with murder themselves with their witty repartee and handing them the keys to the car for some exciting action sequences. If they feel like kids again, you sense that Columbus does too in a way, not only having fun, but also poignantly reuniting with the film’s producer Steven Spielberg, who gave him one of his first big breaks after noticing the script for “Gremlins” on his assistant’s desk once upon a time and taking it home for the weekend after being intrigued by the title.
Beyond talking about the full circle moment of working together once more after Columbus has put together a legendary career himself, it was a real privilege to connect with a filmmaker who has opened the door himself to so many others with Maiden Voyage, the production company he runs with his daughter Eleanor that has been behind such films as “CODA” director Sian Heder’s debut “Tallulah,” Geremy Jasper’s “Patti Cake$,” Karen Maine’s “Yes, God, Yes,” Sean Wang’s “Didi” and an ongoing collaboration with Robert Eggers since “The VVitch.” (Not to mention his other daughter Violet’s documentary “The Exiles on the filmmaker Christine Choy “The Exiles,” co-directed with Ben Klein.) As he explains, it is himself who has been rejuvenated from the partnerships and with “Thursday Murder Club” ready to take the world by storm with its premiere on Netflix, he spoke generously about the excitement of working with first-time filmmakers and a hall of fame cast, putting the best foot forward for what could be a potential franchise and why the nerves of directing never go away.
How did you get interested in this?
We were in the middle of shooting “Nosferatu,” and the two things don’t necessarily connect, but I was reinvigorated by working with Robert Eggers and the idea to get back into the directing chair was really starting to come to the surface. I was really excited about finding something and I had a few projects and Amblin sent me “Thursday Murder Club.” I read the book first and fell in love with the novel and the script wasn’t really as faithful to the original book as I would have liked, or I assumed most of the fans would have liked, so we got Katy Brand to come in to do a rewrite, which became a much more faithful adaptation of the book. This just became something I was very passionate about for two reasons — one, because I had the opportunity to go back to the UK and shoot a film, which I hadn’t done for 20 years and shooting the “Potter” films really was the best cinematic experience of my life for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I worked with some of the greatest actors on the planet. I realized I had the opportunity to do that again and actors just started saying yes. Helen Mirren said “yes.” Pierce Brosnan said “yes.” Then Sir Ben Kingsley and that cast goes so deep with Daniel Mays, Naomi Ackie, Celia Imrie and Richard E. Grant and Jonathan Pryce. It just was reliving the joy I had when I was shooting “Potter,” and we were off and running.
It’s a slightly unexpected cast, but some inspired choices — I’m not sure how many would think of Pierce Brosnan for the blustery Ron, for instance. How did you bring people in?
From the page, when you’re reading the character of Elizabeth, there’s no one else in your mind but Helen Mirren. She was really the only person in my head who could play Elizabeth accurately, and I had worked with Pierce twice before, and I saw some extraordinary comedic chops when we were doing “Mrs. Doubtfire.” He was in more of a reactive role, but when you have to react to Robin Williams, it just shows a director that you have an extraordinary amount of comedic talent, so I knew Pierce was funny, and I knew he had a gruff side and he really felt like Ron to me. I think it’s the stigma of James Bond. People think about James Bond, and they don’t see those two characters together, but it’s been over 25 years since Pierce played James Bond and I really think that he’s the perfect Ron for this movie.
What’s it like actually developing a relationship with an author of something like this?
It was interesting. It was the situation where I was a huge fan of the books, much like “Harry Potter.” I loved what was written, and I responded like any other fan. I read all three of the books immediately and I wanted to know more and more about these characters. So meeting Richard was like finding a long-lost friend. We had the same film references, the same sense of humor, and he was really a valuable collaborator, particularly in shooting the film. During production, there were nights before I would go to set, and I was struggling. I tend to rewrite the night before a lot. I don’t want to throw the actors, but certain things just didn’t seem to be working sometimes, so I would text Richard at six at night and say, “Can you take a look at this scene?” And within an hour, he would send me back ideas for the scene the next day. Sometimes that would be a little frustrating for the actors because Richard and I would come up with something new.
You mention film references and there’s a great POV of the killer shot that reminded me of Hammer thrillers from the ‘50s that I know you’ve spoken of fondly from watching as a kid. Was that an itch you wanted to scratch?
After so many years of doing this, some of that becomes subconscious. You don’t think about it when you’re doing it. Certainly Rob Eggers and I were obsessed and that’s where we initially bonded — over the Hammer horror films — so I re-watched many of them before we did “Nosferatu,” and I think that sticks with you in your cinematic memory somehow. And sometimes you utilize a certain tool and you have absolutely no idea why or what the reference is, but I can definitely tell you that my brain has been severely infected by Hammer horror films. It goes back to “Home Alone,” [which] in a weird way was influenced by Hammer in certain shots, particularly when Macaulay Culkin goes down the stairs and sees the furnace come to life. That was pure Hammer horror.
Something that seems to be a signature of yours is how you cover a scene and especially with this cast, you’re always getting these great reaction shots. What’s the secret to not breaking up the energy in the room while you’re getting all the right shots?
Sometimes when you use over more than two cameras, you sacrifice lighting, but it was essential for me to use two cameras throughout most of the shooting and this is a cast of very professional British actors. They’re trained in stage [as well as] television where they have to do sometimes nine to 15 pages a day, so basically within three takes, I was getting three different versions of each scene — all amazing because every actor was doing their best work. And if that particular moment or emotion was changing in a scene, it was great to have another camera on one of the other four actors.
I could relate to Naomi Ackie’s character when she said “I look forward to this time in my life by seeing this place.” What was it like to map out this retirement community Coopers Chase?
Coopers Chase has a lot in common with Hogwarts, [which] to me at the time was [about] trying to find a visual representation of what Jo Rowling was writing. I wanted that to be a wish fulfillment, a place that every kid would aspire to want to be for a few years,to essentially learn how to be a wizard or a witch. And for Coopers Chase, I wanted to create the same sort of welcoming environment because so many of these retirement communities are kind of dreary. They’ve changed a little over the years, but I remember taking my father to one when he was thinking about moving into a retirement community, and it was so depressing. He said, “Please do not let me go anywhere near this place.” And I took that with me making this film. I thought, “This has to be a place that’s inviting, where you want to spend the last 15 or 20 years of your life.” So this version of Coopers Chase does not exist [in real life], but maybe someday someone will build it. And I looked at it very personally, like ”This is a place I would like to be in retirement.”
Was there a particularly challenging day of filming on this?
It was truly a luxury to be able to go to the set every day and work with the finest actors working today, but the most intimidating moment for me was my first rehearsal with the four leads. I walked into the room and I thought, “Oh, my God.” It’s 160 years of British cinematic history staring me in the face, and I’ve been doing it for some time, but you still get incredibly nervous and walking in the room and seeing Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Sir Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie looking at me, “Okay, boss, what are we going to do?” That’s a little intimidating. But that’s good. It’s good to have those butterflies and that sense of nervousness when you go into rehearsal, when you go onto the set, because if it’s going to be too casual or too easy, I think the film ends up feeling that way too.
I wouldn’t want to put the cart before the horse, but when you said you read all the books, are there things you think about when it could set up a series of film adaptations?
No, and I would love to do another “Thursday Murder Club” film, because as the books move along, they become more and more appropriate for translation into film. But the most important thing to set up for me was really a glance between Donna and Bogdan in the film, and hopefully, I’m not spoiling anything for anybody reading the books, but a relationship starts between those two and I wanted that connection to be evident in this film. If you don’t see it, you’re not going to miss anything, but it is there in hopes that if we are lucky enough to make the third film, when people go back and look at the first film again, they’ll see that.
Something else that was quite moving to me isn’t exactly a part of the narrative, but seeing that Amblin logo at the start when you first worked with Steven Spielberg all those years ago on “Gremlins” and with so many other filmmakers now, you’ve helped shepherd their early work to the screen through the production company Maiden Voyage. Is it exciting to think you could have a similar relationship to those filmmakers over such a long period of time?
Yeah, Maiden Voyage is interesting because now we’re over 10 years old. The idea was to really create a safe environment and help first-time filmmakers make their first films. At the same time, because of the environment that we create, which is basically protecting the filmmakers from horrible notes and ideas from the studio, we really become close to these filmmakers and end up making more and more films with them. Initially, it’s the filmmakers’ maiden voyage into filmmaking, but after that, we want to develop relationships and make more films [with other first-time filmmakers]. For me, that relationship really deepened with Robert Eggers and we were executive producers on a couple of his films before we actually dove in and moved to Prague and spent the entire time producing [“Nosferatu”].
And I learned so much from Steven Spielberg because Steven was really what I call my graduate school of filmmaking, working with him as a writer. He still feels like my godfather in the film industry, and this is the first film I’ve directed with Steven as a producer, so that was a little intimidating for me because I only had worked with Steven as a writer and a producer and it was sort of my maiden voyage with Steven and I wanted to make absolutely certain that he was happy with everything because aside from the fact that Steven is arguably the greatest filmmaker alive, he also possesses an insane amount of film knowledge, so he can look at any film and pick apart where the shots were inspired. I’m dealing with a cinematic genius, so directing a film for him is intimidating. But it has helped me because I learned from the generosity Steven showed me as a young writer and I took that generosity with me over the years and I wanted to give that to other filmmakers.
“The Thursday Murder Club” begins streaming on Netflix on August 28th.