Last week, FilmCrunch had the opportunity to interview Martin McDonagh and Colin Farrell, director and star of the upcoming film In Bruges.

Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are two hitmen sent to the Belgian city of Bruges after a botched job in London. They’ve been told by their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes), to do some sight-seeing, lie low and await further instruction. But the city, full of ancient architecture and historical landmarks, can’t satiate Ray and his need for distraction. The men venture out and soon discover that beneath the city’s quaint exterior lies a strange and disturbing underbelly, a surreal setting that causes them to begin to question life and death, right and wrong, and the purpose behind their little “vacation.”

For more about the film, visit the official site or read the FilmCrunch review.

For Martin

What drew you to focus the entire movie on this one city?
Well, I just went there for a little weekend break from London about four years ago and was struck by how cinematic and beautiful and weird the place was, how strange and otherworldly. We were there for a couple of nights, and towards the middle of the second day I was just bored out of my head and just wanted to get drunk and meet women. But then the rest of me was thinking, you know, stay and see the churches and see the architecture and the culture. Then the other side was again saying no, let’s leave or get drunk. So that was both sides of my brain arguing with each other, which became Ray and Ken in the film. Then, I’m thinking, why would two guys who hated a place that was so beautiful … why would they be there? Naturally, I thought, well, they’re hitmen, and they’ve been sent there because something awful has just happened. The thing pretty much wrote itself after that.

Your Oscar-winning short film, Six Shooter, had a really good mix of comedy and tragedy. In Bruges is the same way: comedic and dark at the same time. Does that balance come naturally for you?
For me, my background is in writing plays—all those have a strong balance of darkness and comedy, too. I think it’s kind of the way I see the world in lots of ways: naturally bleak but naturally funny.

There seemed to be a disconnect between the way the film was advertised in the trailer and the way it felt on screen. Could you speak to that? And how was the film received at Sundance?
It was received very well at Sundance. You know, when you’re making a trailer—and I completely approved the trailer, so you’ve got to blame that all on me if you had issues with it—they look at it in the way that comedy sells, and despair and murder doesn’t. I think it’s a funny trailer, but it doesn’t quite capture the darkness that the film goes to. But that’s fine, because in some ways the setup of the film lulls you into thinking this is a crazy comedy about a couple of hitmen for the first ten or fifteen minutes, and then we go to a darker, bleaker, more interesting place. For me, the trailer and the first fifteen minutes set that up.

What are the differences between writing for the screen and writing for the stage, and do you find one easier than the other?
I think I still find plays easier to write than screenplays. I think plays take about three weeks and screenplays take about four. With screenplays, there’s so much you’ve got to juggle in your head. It’s like a massive jigsaw puzzle. Whereas plays, you know, you can have eight scenes, and that’s your entire story. In a film, you can have eight scenes, and that can be the first page. So that’s one thing that took me a long time to get my head around, and just to think in images was another thing. I mean, all my plays are kind of cinematic in some ways, but it’s one or two images per scene. Whereas this is like … it’s just a whole different head space, trying to think and break things down into images rather than lines of dialogue or characters. But I’m happy with the place that this went to cinematically. I didn’t want to make a playwright’s film. I didn’t want it to be a film about a couple of guys just chatting for two hours. But I also didn’t want to run away from things I like, which is dialogue and characters and plot. So I think we struck a balance between cinema and character pretty well.

What challenges did you find between shooting a short film and this, your feature-length debut?
It was much more terrifying, initially anyway. But then the three weeks we had together, after the three of us got onto the same page and were coming from a place that we all agreed on, the first day or second day of shooting wasn’t scary anymore. In the short, I was scared the whole time—I didn’t really step up to the plate enough. I let Brendan do an awful lot of the work I should have been doing. Even in, you know, standing up to producers and taking control of the aspects that you should and you have to. It’s in some ways harder work, but I found it to be a lot more fun than the short.

For Colin

You’ve played a wide range of characters. It seems that, with films like In Bruges and Cassandra’s Dream, you’ve moved into the “crime caper” genre. How’s that going for you?
(Laughs) Well, I think seven people saw Cassandra’s Dream, and In Bruges isn’t out yet, so not too well. I never sought to move into crime capers. There’s a lot to judge from a piece when you look at a script or a film, and you look at it objectively. But when you find yourself in a position of fortune, where you disappear into the film, then you become a subject. You know, people are talking about the humor in In Bruges, and I was aware of it when I read the script first—it was just laugh-out-loud—but through the rehearsal period that we had, mostly the three weeks with Brendan and Martin, you get inured to the comedy, and it becomes very real and very situational for you. So, crime caper? I don’t know. I’ll tell you what, though—it’s nice to be playing someone closer to me, which is a confused mumbling.

Your character spends a good deal of time complaining about the city. What are your actual feelings about Bruges?
It’s a beautiful city; there’s no doubt. If you see the film, it’s very much a … it was the first character in the film. I mean, it wasn’t: Aw. Here’s a story about two hitmen who are on the lam. Where will I set it? Oh, it’s cheap to work in Belgium—let’s go there. Oh, where should we work in Belgium? Oh, Bruges—there’s nobody there. Nothing like that. It was literally where the genesis of the piece came. Martin was on holiday there for the weekend and had the idea. He was torn in half between loving the city and getting terribly bored. And I kind of felt the same about it, you know. It was beautiful, but it was right in the middle of Winter, so it was cold and it was dark by three or four in the afternoon. I found it suitably depressing. And it probably had a lot to do with where I was work-wise, because I know Brendan Gleeson went completely the other direction, walking around with a camera in his hand all the time marveling at all the architecture. But it’s a beautiful city, and the people were incredibly gracious, genuinely. And … I’ll never be going back now. (laughs)

What attracted you to this role?
(Laughing) I had four scripts to attend to, and I closed my eyes and pointed—thank God I opened up on In Bruges. To be honest with you, you know, the rumor that there’s only true stories in the world and that everything is a derivative of one of them. The bottom line is, I’d never come across something like this—so unusual and so unique. There was such a dichotomy, too, which Martin touched on, an amazing balance between comedy and the absolute despair and despondency and pain and fear that’s inherent in a lot of our lives, regardless of whether we’ve been involved in the tragedies and transgressions which Ray and Ken have. It was just beautiful, you know? It was just really deep, without being indulgent, and hilarious at the same time. When I met Martin in New York, I tried to talk him out of casting me originally. I said, you should cast unknowns. But if you want me to read for the audition, I’ll be there in a second. I just really wanted to do it, and then I’m glad he lost his marbles for a second.

What do you do to unwind from such a complex role?
Oh, yeah. I dunno. Um, I mean … Jesus. A shag’s never a bad thing, I suppose. (laughs) I used to go to the pub, but I don’t do that anymore. So you just go for a walk or sit and watch the news or, you know, a movie or anything. It’s kind of hard—it never really leaves you fully. I mean it never really left me, In Bruges, because it was fairly intense, and I only learned recently that I was kind of reliving the same three days over and over again. So it wasn’t even that I got to move on into this incredible character arc that takes a month or whatever it may be. It was going back into one of three days for an eight week shoot, so you bring it home with you. I had a lot of quiet time, spent a lot of time at home when I wasn’t on the set, to be honest with you. And steam! I found a steam place. A lot of that, you know: au naturel, naked men and women everywhere, all different types of body shapes, and it was really quite beautiful actually.

How are you different from your character, Ray? How are you similar?
The only thing myself and my character have in common with each other is that we both kill people. (laughs)

For Both

What have you gained as a result of working on this film?
M: (facetiously) Herpes?
C: Herpes and a few gray hairs. No, I’ve genuinely had the chance to work on an incredibly beautiful, intelligent, witty, and profoundly moving piece and play a character that I just really loved. Sometimes as an actor, you go in and there’s the chance that you’re going to work on a script and certain things are going to change. I’ve worked on scripts where there’s yellow pages and pink pages and blue pages, and writers are working on it all the time and producers are giving notes. Everyone from the very beginning of this piece understood that to get into the filmmaking process with Martin was to trust and respect his unique and individual viewpoints and his artistic integrity. And that’s why I think Martin had a good time on this film with Focus, maybe, but particularly with Graham Broadbent, who was one of the producers, because they stayed out of his way and, as an actor as well, the words didn’t change. We had to rise our game to it, and it was so beautiful on the page that to get the opportunity to fly and to invest one’s self to such a degree in that world was really, really beautiful. And also, you don’t rehearse that much on films, and we had three weeks of really intense, everyday rehearsal—myself, Martin, Brendan. So I came away with an appreciation for rehearsal that I only ever found once before, and that was on Phone Booth because that was such an intense ten days—the whole shoot was only ten days, so we had to really block that down. But I must say, I wasn’t a huge fan—more of an enemy— of rehearsal before, but I kind of demand it now.

What’s the best advice you can give young people in the industry, as a director/writer and an actor?
M: For me, completely stick to you mark, never listen to anyone who has money and their opinions. Just be honest—never write or direct to please. Look at the world and be honest.
C: Work hard. Look around you in the world and observe things and people outside your environment, expanding your own horizon. And just never try to fit yourself into a category or a group, or have an energy that betrays your own truth. Just follow it. Play different characters, sure, but allow it all to be born in the core of who you believe yourself to be.

Was there anything about the people of Bruges or any aspect of Flemish culture that you were particularly struck by?
M: We were welcomed with open arms. They didn’t even really ask to see the script. They just welcomed us in—there were fifty locations I’d written into the script and they allowed us to film in every single one. And there’s a freedom and intelligence about the culture that I kind of liked.
C: They’re really hospitable people, and they really did welcome us greatly. And I did love the culture of steam—I indulged in it quite often. I was a bit pissed off that I ended up working in a country that I believe has over four hundred beers. I picked the wrong time in my career to give that up.