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Exclusive Interview Writer/Director/Producer Bryan Fuller 

Q: This film seems like man and woman for all of our ages, it has tackled many themes: being a child and being an adult. You have created TV series “Hannibal” and “Star Trek Discovery”, what were the elements in your life to trigger to make this film?

Bryan Fuller: This started as an “Amazing Stories.” It developed with Steven Spielberg for a new iteration of “Amazing Stories,” I think in like 2018. And a lot of the stories didn’t make it through, and so this one had all the makings of what I loved.

About going to see movies in the eighties. the Amblin Entertainment brand, “Poltergeist,” “Gremlins,” “Goonies” or all these kind of gateway horror stories that had young people as their own heroes and solving their own problems and being. The protagonist of the pieces. So when we were having trouble getting it through to do it in television, I was like, you know what? I feel like this is a movie. 

I feel like it’s a small enough movie that I can wrap my arms around it and do something interesting with cinema that will. Show what I could do as a first time director. There was the start of it all and the “Amazing Stories” getting notes from Steven Spielberg and that Amblin entertainment moon dust.

On the narrative and what the characters were going through, and also feeling like it was digestible for me. And not having had any experience directing before, but being a showrunner, I direct the directors. And there was something about, this one felt like all the things I got excited about going to the movies for in the eighties when I was a kid. And it felt like time was right. I was like, I’m gonna take this story back and write it as a feature. It took about five years to get it made. 

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Q : I heard that his movie has an unusual screen ratio of 3:1, which makes it vertically claustrophobic, what was the intention behind that? That was intriguing approach, because this film was pretty much taking place in apartment. 

Bryan Fuller: Well, it started with Nicole (Hercsh) Whitaker, who is our wonderful cinematographer. She and I went to the warehouse looking at lenses. It’s strange when you’re looking through a specific lens, it gives you indications of psychology and emotion. Based on small technical differences that filter out parts of the story that you don’t wanna think about or enhance ones that you do.

As we were looking at these lenses, Nicole took off the Matte Box to change lenses. that’s when I saw the three one aspect ratio without any Matte Box indicating what it should be. The subject in the frame, it created this sense of isolation for a little girl in a world with monsters lost by herself and having so much space on either side of her as the subject. Made me feel more concerned for her. Made me fear what was approaching from off camera. There was an immediate psychology to the look of it. 

Because it was so wide, because it isolated the subject in such a dramatic way. That I turned to Nicole and I was like, “Is there any reason why we can’t shoot the whole movie in this aspect ratio”?

Wow. Because this is I’m having an emotional reaction to the frame, got me excited and she was like, there’s no reason why we can’t shoot a 3 : 1, because everything is a digital projection and it’s not like we need a wider frame mount. for the projectionist to show the movie.

So it all came about as we were looking for how do we make this special? Whenever I’m doing anything, I always think about what other people are doing in that arena and try to put up an orange cone. So going someplace new or at least perceptively new for me is always exciting.

I’m glad you responded because we were like, should we do this? I think it is giving more to the emotion of the storytelling, performing a duty beyond just looking cool. I also had an emotional reaction to the subject in the frame with that three one aspect ratio.

Nobody has done that since 1917. The last time we had something wider than 2, 8, 5 was. A movie called “Napoleon” in 1917 that I believe was 4:1 and had three projectors. I liked that growing up the way I did.

We were told being different was bad thing, but I knew in my heart that being different was a good thing. And whenever I was ridiculed or coerced into conforming. I knew my heart belonged outside those parameters, I like doing something different. I like that people think of me as being different. As opposed to being just like anybody else. 

Q : I was simply blown away by the performance of Sophie Sloan who played Aurora, how did you discover? I heard she had some accent, but could you talk about casting process. 

Bryan Fuller: Yeah, Sophie. I had a wonderful casting director named Margery Simkin. She cast a wide net. There were thousands and thousands of submissions for this role.

Then from those thousands and thousands of submissions, there were about a thousand auditions. And of those thousand auditions, they whittled those down to 12. I saw Sophie in that 12. She was winning immediately. And I was like, you are great, but you have a very thick Scottish brogue.

And Mads Mikkelsen has a thick accent as well, of course. And if you’re not Danish or Scottish, you might have a trouble understanding what people are saying. So we can’t put two people with thick accents in there. And we’re like, you’re so good, you’re so wonderful. Because this character is of us.

Citizenship like we wanted her to have an American accent. She went off and watched TikTok videos for two weeks and taught herself a flat American accent and came back and auditioned again and got the role. 

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Q : Really? Within two weeks? That’s impressive!! 

Bryan Fuller: Yeah, it’s and I think there’s something very savant like with Sophie. She was very much an adult and very much a child at the same time. Because we were making a monster movie with the child lead. I wanted to make sure she had a great experience first I didn’t wanna traumatize her.

I didn’t want her to feel stressed about, being a professional actor in a world run by adults, between Mads and myself and Line Kruse, who plays the mom earlier in the movie who is also Sophie’s acting coach. 

Q : Really? 

Bryan Fuller: We all locked arms and were like, let’s make sure that this is a great experience for this girl. Make sure she wants to continue acting after this. So it was about like caring adults who wanted to protect a child’s experience making a monster movie, and everybody stepped forward and everybody wanted to make sure that she got to be a kid, and a professional actor. I loved how dedicated everybody was to protecting Sophie. 

Q : The film very much resides on the eye level of child, and production design kind of reminded me of “Never Ending Story” and “Gremlin”, how do you carefully work with production designer to have that kind of wild and imaginative setting? 

Bryan Fuller: Jeremy Reed our production designer, did a wonderful job on the movie. We also had a fantastic location scout that, found the apartment building with all those wonderful Art Nouveau styling. So between Jeremy and Marcy, our location scout, we were really able to craft a distinctive look for the movie. And if you look at movies like “Poltergeist” or “ET” or “Gremlins,” those are set in a certain kind of Americana 

That has its own sort of styles and limitations of style and wanting to make it accessible. I really responded in the 90’s to French maximalism and the collaborations of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro and, movies like “Delicatessen” and “City of Lost Children” and “Amelie.”

Q : Right. 

Bryan Fuller: Emotional experiences, looked beautiful. The production design had a psychological element of creating a world, and in our case, a fairytale world that. Would be helpful in the storyline because we want the audience to never be completely sure if they should trust Aurora’s point of view of what’s happening, if she is a reliable narrator in that regard.

Or if we should, believe Mads Mikkelsen as the intriguing neighbor and what his perception of events I think if there’s a message of any kind with this movie, it’s believe children or listen to children. 

I remember plenty of times as a child having my beliefs or my perception of what was happening, dismissed. Because I was just a child. And there’s something about a child’s point of view that can teach us so much about our adult perspectives we need to embrace that leap of faith and fancy we have as children when our critical thinking is low and our absorption of material is high, we fully absorb the experience.

That’s why fairytales are wonderful ways to tell a story, whether that fairytale is the “Wizard of Oz” or there’s something about young people going on an adventure that for adults experiencing the movie are going to be reminded of a freedom of thought and belief that we may need to reconnect with more lively experience being alive.

©Courtesy of Lionsagte/Roadside Attractions

Q : It makes sense, you obviously worked with Mads Mikkelsen for “Hannibal”, what was his elements that you thought he could bring in this film as you compare to Hannibal series? I didn’t expect him like initially he would be the perfect, but this is really a perfect example of how versatile he is. So could you talk about casting him and creating a dynamic relationship with Sophie.

Bryan Fuller: I had pitched this story when it was an “Amazing Stories” episode to Mads at the  Premiere of “Rogue One : A Star Wars Story.” So I’d just seen him, play the biggest trick on the Empire and plant the back door that saves the rebellion until of course, the sequel series, right. When Fascism comes back, it had been in my mind with him for a while. 

It was gonna be a TV episode, then it wasn’t, and I was like, I’m gonna write this as a feature and I want you to do it what I love about Mads and his versatility is that many American audiences may only know him as a James Bond villain or a Marvel villain or a character in “Star Wars” or an “Indiana Jones” villain.

There’s something about these roles when we’re looking at villains, they’re very stoic, serious about destroying the world or whatever they plan on destroying. And I know Mads as this very boyish, likable, charismatic man who is a family man, deeply in love with his granddaughter. And very protective of his role of father for his kids, and there’s a levity and an ease wit and comedy to him, I wanted the audience to see and yes, he’s playing a hitman again, so there’s certain expectations in the scenes with Sigourney where he’s lighter on his feet and trying to impress her that feels closer to who he is as a human being than the characters he usually plays. 

And, because he’s a dad and granddad in his real life, he was so protective of Aurora and Sophie, making sure the experience for Sophie playing Aurora.We saw that in rehearsals. We saw the care he gave her, wanting to maintain a professional. Relationship where she’s able to still be a kid and be the character and not be so rooted in any kind of like method approach to acting, but demystifying it for her so she can have more fun and not have.

So much stress. So he was pivotal in that and creating a safe space for Sophie to be herself. One of my favorite things about working with the cast is how much Sigourney and Mads adored each other. And they were huge fans of each other, like going into this experience. And we would be in rehearsal Sigourney would go into makeup and Mads would be like a school boy.

Talking about his crush of this iconic woman that he gets to finally work with and smitten he is with her. And then she, like he would go to get into costume and I would be talking to her and she would be like waving herself and saying, “I am very enamored with our leading man.”

And it was almost as if we were in school and I was like, should I be passing a note between you two?(lol) They’re so professional, they don’t get to be fans of coworkers It feels strange, because you’re creating this shared reality.

There was enough time where we did scenes together and each of them would comment about how much they absolutely loved being able to work with each other. And that was really neat to see from two. Very experienced actors who’ve done a lot of movies to still find their own fandom with the people they’re working with.

It was special to see they’re just like us. They love movie stars just like we do and are in a circumstance where they can’t gush the way you or I might be able to, because we don’t do the same thing that they do. And so there’s an interesting professional detachment, but that they completely dropped. Whenever the other one wasn’t around, interesting. 

Q : Could you talk about creation of Dust Bunny? Somewhere between scary and cute if he shows his face. Because I thought that was really close between scary, but cute in a certain sense, but it was kind of reminded me of an adoring creature from 80’s. So, could you talk about a balance of having that.

Bryan Fuller: There was like a big influence of Jim Henson and Brian Henson and movies like “Labyrinth” or “The Dark Crystal” or “Never Ending Story” that used a lot of really sophisticated puppetry to depict characters.

That was at the forefront of my mind in wanting. The bunny to be scary, wanting the bunny to be cuddly at the same time. And so my first move was I had worked with this wonderful comic book artist named John Arch, and he had done a “Pushing Daisy” comic that didn’t get published.

And I loved the way he drew characters and looks at people and there’s a madness to how he draws. His figures that was really infectious and lunatic in its specificity. So my first thought was to go to him. And once we were feeling real, like we were gonna make this movie I reached out to John and I said, are you interested in designing a monster?

And he said, “Yes, what’s in your mind?”And I was like, “It’s part highland cow, it’s part piranha, it’s part hippopotamus, and all bunny.” And he did some sketches and one of the first sketches came back bit like a Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer, it had horns as well as the bunny ears. And I was like, “we’ve gotta take it away from Rudolph because he’s an iconic character. 

I’m gonna make sure our bunny is distinct and doesn’t invite that comparison. And then we sent the sketches over to Legacy, who does amazing puppet design. And they built the puppet. We talked about should we build a puppet? Is this all gonna be CGI? And if you see the face and the hands it’s the puppet. If you see the full body, it’s CGI. And, legacy built that puppet and then our wonderful effects house called DNEG did all the bunny work. One of my favorite days was when we introduced Sophie to the puppet and she said. He’s so cute. And I’m not really scared of him ’cause he’s so cute. And I was like when he is eating people, you’ll be like scary.

©Courtesy of Lionsagte/Roadside Attractions

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