With a background in writing, directing and producing animation, Sarah Watt came to her live action feature debut Look Both Ways – which she wrote and directed – with some trepidation. But this award winning tale of two lost souls who find each other over a momentous weekend in their lives has proved a hit in her native Australia, and earned great reviews wherever it has played. Look both ways is distributed by Tartan Films
Given that you’re married to your leading man, casting William as Nick, must have been fairly straightforward, wasn’t it?
“I wrote the part of Nick with William in mind. I’m not a good enough writer to have made the script really work for his particular talents, so it was more making sure the character was the right age. I thought William was a much better actor than a lot of the roles he had had gave him a chance to prove. I knew he could do the dry wit, but also be emotional. It was a hard role, because he is really quite passive in the film, being run by his dread and what other people do or say to him over the course of a weekend. I also wanted him to get a job, as someone has to pay the mortgage, animating is not exactly a lucrative career.”
Why did you decide that Nick should be diagnosed with testicular cancer?
“It was because that’s one cancer that can be diagnosed on the day. I got to thinking, what if you had terrible news on the Friday but nothing could be done until the Monday? What a weekend that would be. And the way that you tend to remember things is through the peaks and troughs. That’s how it is for Nick. Plus testicular cancer has a very good recovery rate, so it’s entirely possible that he does in the end get over it.”
Was it fun to be directing your other half in the film?
“Going in we thought it would be great to work so closely together, but in the end I probably spent less time working with him than the other cast members.”
Presumably he didn’t try to use influence the edit, did he?
“No, he had the good sense to stay away from the editing suite, that’s when directors and editors are less than complimentary about actors, when they’re trying to maintain the continuity in a scene with multiple takes.”
How about Justine Clarke, whom you cast opposite William in the role of Meryl?
“For Meryl I wanted someone believably single and lonely. Someone scared they would never find a partner and have children, who could spit the dummy out and still have the audience on her side. Needless to say there aren’t a lot of female actors in Australia who are in their late thirties, overweight, and not conventionally attractive. I think we tested pretty much everyone who would test. In the end the most important thing was to have someone the audience liked, someone they could go on the journey with, and Justine had that quality. She kindly made herself look older, ate solidly for a few months and dyed her hair brown. She is actually gorgeous as well as a great actor.”
The story takes place over the course of a weekend, were there major logistical difficulties involved in bringing this about?
“It was a pretty low budget feature, so logistical problems were a daily event. We had one day to get all the interior rain shots. One day to get the exteriors of trains and Nick jogging. It was 45 degrees, and the train was so heavy we were all covered in dusty dirt and there was no shade. We didn’t have a lot of extras, so if anyone came to visit us they had to be in a shot. But we did have an excellent producer in Bridget Ikin, and a cast and crew that were really behind the project. They bought a lot of personal energy to it, so it was actually all good fun.”
How soon did you begin to feel comfortable under all the pressure of directing your first feature?
“Pre-production was terrifying. I found that very hard, so many decisions constantly being asked of me, feeling like I was the only one who didn’t know what they were doing. Then the first day of the shoot was a day at the swimming pool, with lots of extras. That was very scary. But I’d say half way through the next day, things started to click, and a day or two after that I started to enjoy it – with small daily doses of terror to keep me on my toes.”
How straightforward is it achieving a proper balance between drama and comedy?
“I worked long and hard on the screenplay. I knew with my directing skills the film was never going to be any better than the script, and could be a lot worse, so I made the script as good as I could. The humour is definitely in that, as is the emotional stuff. But then of course in the shooting things become unbalanced, and during the edit some versions were melodramatic, others had too many jokes and were too flip. So we just crafted and picked at it until we felt it walked the line between moods that we wanted. It was scary, but people seem to have liked the line it takes.”
The film is specific in where and when it is set, and yet it is clearly able to touch a chord with audiences. It’s universal, isn’t it?
“The humour is quite an Australian thing, I think, but I’m sure the ideas in the film can be recognised by audiences in different parts of the world who have a certain shared experience.”
Look Both Ways deals, on some levels, with fate. Could you have dared hope that fate would have been so kind to you with the film?
“Of course not – I’d have jinxed myself! I just hoped they wouldn’t be too mean. But we also all worked incredibly hard to fine tune it, to make it work for audiences.”
How did you feel the night of the Australian Film Institute awards, when you received ten nominations and won four of them?
“It was obviously very thrilling, especially given the quality of Australian films last year. The night itself was ghastly, with me torn between wanting the film to win and terrified that if it did I’d have to get up and say something that made sense.”
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