Universal Presents: The Boat That Rocked

Richard Curtis is writer/director of THE BOAT THAT ROCKED as well as one of Britain’s kings of comedy.

His screen credits as director include Love, Actually and The Boat That Rocked and, as writer, he has had hits that range from Notting Hill to Four Weddings And A Funeral and Bridget Jones Diary.

On television he is famous for writing for top comedies like Blackadder, Mr Bean and Spitting Image and, of course he invented Comic Relief.

Interview

QUESTION: The unsung star of The Boat That Rocked is the ship. How did you get it?

RICHARD CURTIS: It was a long search. It was a complex piece of auditioning to find the boat. And it was quite hilarious. We sent someone right round the coast of Britain. We had 15 boats and they’d say…look at this one and I would say…no, it looks a bit too much like a steamer…or it would be too clean…ort it would be too big or too small. Then finally we found the one that we loved. It was up in Scotland, in dry dock, I think. They sailed it nervously round to Southampton. But, as you say, it was one of the big characters in the movie, and such a pleasure to shoot on.

QUESTION: With your vast knowledge of pop music hoe difficult was it to prune down to the number of songs that you feature in The Boat That Rocked?

RICHARD CURTIS: It is very interesting the way that songs interact with finished film footage. We would have a scene and I would have 10 songs that I thought were suitable. Then you would on the first one – and it would not work at all, even though it is the one you most love, because it is ages until you reach the chorus. Then you try the next one and you realise that the interesting bit comes over just when you want people talking. So it is sort of like self-editing, you finally find the only song that actually fits with that scene.

QUESTION: From all the songs that are in The Boat That Rocked, what are your favourites?

RICHARD CURTIS: There is a Francois Hardy song called All Over The World, which I particularly enjoy. I am surprised by the fact that I love those two songs from The Turtles so much. I particularly love Elenore with its fabulous line…’You’re my pride and joy etc”…

QUESTION: And what is your favourite scene in The Boat That Rocked?

RICHARD CURTIS: Gosh, that’s a very tricky question! I think that my favourite scene in the movie is the one where Tom is sleeping with Tallulah for the first time and the camera drifts round and then we cut to Felicity, the lesbian cook, at the moment where she finds love and there is the astonishingly beautiful shot of a girl called Olivia. I love that scene.

QUESTION: What extra material can we look forward to on the DVD of The Boat That Rocked?

RICHARD CURTIS: We were just doing it and the DVD does seem to contain all the funniest scenes in the movie. There is a great section, which is a raid on Radio Sunshine – which is when they find out that there is a rival station and they go there and blitz it and sabotage it. It has got James Corden and Rich Fulcher from The Mighty Boosh, that’s quite funny. We find out the real name of Kenneth Branagh’s secretary, in quite a funny scene. I am hoping that there is a dance sequence, featuring Rhys Ifans and the most attractive woman in the world, dancing to Get Off My Cloud. There are a lot of funny scenes. There is a scene which we called Eggs. It is where Nick Frost breaks three raw eggs over Tom Sturridge’s head. It is quite funny and certainly it was ghastly to film.

QUESTION: Surely the duel scene on the ship when Rhys Ifans and Philip Seymour Hoffman were climbing up the masts was very tricky to film?

RICHARD CURTIS: Yeah, the scene with the masts was one of the toughest scenes. We actually shot it in all sorts of places. Some of it was shot on the boat itself, some of it was shot on a cliff, so that they could climb up masts and we would only have sea in the background, and some of it was shot in the studio. So that was one of the most complicated things. That scene was broken down into all its elements for the DVD, so that you can see how we eventually made it relatively convincing.

QUESTION: Did the tug that you used for filming cause most of the sea sickness in The Boat That Rocked?

RICHARD CURTIS: The really se sickness moments were when you got these lovely, glamorous shots of girls arriving. January Jones arrives, looking like an angel, but she was feeling sick as a dog. Emma Thompson looks very happy but if there was a smile on her face it was only her trying to hide the sorrow.

QUESTION: What was the first pop record that you bought?

RICHARD CURTIS: Reach Out I'll Be There by The Four Tops. It was the song's opening that grabbed me.

QUESTION: And what was one of the most recent records that you bought?

RICHARD CURTIS: Love Story by Taylor Swift.

QUESTION: What would be your top three pop discs?

RICHARD CURTIS: And I Love Her by The Beatles...Whole Of The Moon by The Waterboys....Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. I once paid 200 pounds to a charity to hear that Fleetwood Mac song and I was only earning about 350 pounds a year at the time.

QUESTION: What is the record that you might most like to smash?

RICHARD CURTIS: I've never been fond of ‘I'm Henry The Eighth’ by Herman's Hermits.







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Published 5th Aug 2009

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