| Part One: Taking on the project of Miquel & William..... "I think what intrigued me about this project is the way Inés approached these characters. It was a very refreshing take on 'who was William Shakespeare at that particular time'. There's not much that people know about him during that time, so for me as an actor it was very liberating to come in and play this sort of young and passionate playwrite who enjoys improvising as an actor and is a lover of life and women and literature." "I think that with any good comedy there's always tragedy. You sort of somehow can't have one without the other. One of the great parts about playing William Shakespeare in this film is that he goes on this great journey where you see him almost whimsical. Up until this point he's only written comedies and histories. Then through the film you see him fall in love. But rather than just enjoy the passion of love and the pain of love, he finds out that he has actually fallen in love, which causes him geniune pain; and for him it is possibly the first time that he has come into contact with tragedy and pain and how then, that can inform his creativity and his life." .....and the role of William Shakespeare "It was at times very scary because of course we all know and have heard of William Shakespeare - his plays, his sonnets - and so at times I would wake up in a cold sweat and think 'Oh my god, what am I doing? Am I insane? Am I crazy? I'm playing William Shakespeare!". Very few actors would dare play him. But then I would talk to Inés and go back to the script again and again - and the way that it's written is so fantastic. So after awhile I actually woke up and would say 'Hey, yeh. I'm playing William Shakespeare.' It was great fun." Part Two: Shakespeare 101 "I thought it was important that I knew enough about William Shakespeare and his upbringing, where he grew up and his relationship with his father and with his close-knit family. I felt I needed to know enough about him up until this point in the film and not worry too much about what happened after these so called lost years, because you then begin to lose the character of who Will really is at this point; he isn’t the Shakespeare that we now know and revere. With regards to reading Cervantes’ work, I have to be honest, I chose not to because at this particular time, William Shakespeare hadn’t read anything - Cervantes was yet to also write his greatest work. I thought it was important to have a knowledge of the references though because again, the script is so clever that I think people that know Cervantes’and know Shakespeare’s work, will marvel at how cleverly Inés has made references and also cross-referenced the authors’ plays." Spanish 101 "One of the challenges and also one of the reasons why I chose to take on this project is the fact that I got to travel to Madrid for the first time. I spent 3 months here in Spain and had to learn a little bit of the language which I had not previously had any knowledge of at all. And not just learning passages of Shakespeare for the first time, but also learning the Shakespearian language in Spanish as well." The actor inside and outside the dancer "I think subconsciously I of course use what I’ve learned as a dancer over the last 12 years. It is a part of how I work as an actor."....... "With this project there is such a wonderful blend of cultures, of languages, that for me it was important being the only English actor and the only English character that comes into this very Spanish film, and with a character like Cervantes who was very serious and very woeful, that what I brought in as Shakespeare was very light and fresh; until of course you learn of his troubles." ...... "Inés would encourage and trust me to come up with new ideas and we constantly changed things. It was fantastic to have a person on the other side of the camera that encourages your creativity. It’s just like I think William Shakespeare would have responded to life." On working with Juan Luis Galiardo "Juan Luis! What can you say about Juan Luis? It’s very flattering and very nice to hear that he thought of himself as a father to me. And also being a producer, he probably was somehow a father to the whole production as well. Juan Luis is an amazing individual in that he is larger than life. He is the kind of person that if he is in the room or in your space, you’ll know about it, you’ll hear him. He’s a great personality to work with." On working with Elena Anaya "Elena Anaya is also one of the strongest reasons that I wanted very much to be in this film. I think that her fans here and worldwide will be deeply impressed with her English and also that she sings. Elena Anaya has a wonderful voice which I think we haven’t had the opportunity of hearing. I was fortunate enough that I had already met Elena and we had this strong friendship. So even when it was tough or you're tired and you're trying to make the scene work, we were always joking. Her encourgement and her experience helped me enormously, particularly coming into a production where I didn’t speak the language." Part Three: Anecdotes from the making of the film: “The whole course of this filming was somewhat bizarrely paralleling what I thought Will Shakespeare would have felt coming into a different culture, a different language. For me at times it was very frustrating and at times great fun. The locations were phenomenal. It was such a wonderful opportunity to visit Loarre and Toledo and these beautiful, beautiful castles; the most breathtaking views. And so yes, I think that my journey through the making of Miguel & William would have been similar to what Shakespeare would have felt. Another parallel that I could also draw with Shakespeare and his experience coming into Spain....the first few talks that I had with Inés, we were talking about the fact that in the script Shakespeare rides horses and I said 'oh fantastic, you know, the heroic, romantic vision of Shakespeare coming over a hill in Spain on a horse, wind swept hair. And he gets to sword fight with Cervantes. And I am thinking this is great, this is fantastic, I get to sword fight and ride a horse. And then I said to Inés 'I don't speak Spanish' and she said “no problem, just a little bit".....sí, adios, holá, that sort of thing. So I think fine. When I turned up on the set and asked ‘where’s my horse?’, they said 'no, no, no, un burro' and I'm thinking un burro, what’s that? ….. They give me a donkey. William Shakespeare on a donkey. Then when we came to the sword fighting with Cervantes, they hand me a stick! And then, when I get to the set having learned a little bit of Spanish, there are pages, poems in Spanish that I have to learn....” (In this video interview Will says these last bits in a sort of humorous, dead-pan, matter-of-fact way and ends with a kind of 'go figure smile and shake of the head). Pretty funny; very cute. ~~~ ...You know, he may not have looked very heroic or romantic coming over the hill on that donkey - but he did have wind-swept hair.... ___________________________________________________________________________ |
| Will's Interview with Warner Brothers International Spain |
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