The holiday season is here. Among the many traditions people enjoy at this time of year is the Christmas movie. What better way to get you and your family into the festive spirit?
Paul Feig, the director behind such recent comedy hits as Bridesmaids, Spy and A Simple Favor is back with Last Christmas, a delightful romantic comedy about a troubled girl who's struggling to find the true spirit of Christmas during a particularly rough time in her life.
The film is set against the beautiful backdrop of London at Christmastime, as well as great pop music from the late George Michael.
Feig has built a reputation, not only as one of Hollywood's best comedic directors, but one of its best humanists too. Within every one of his films, whether it's a comedy or drama, is a deep interest in portraying human stories about connection, love, relationship, family and self respect. Last Christmas is no different.
With a script by Emma Thompson, Last Christmas stars Emilia Clarke (Game Of Thrones) as a young woman making her way through adulthood with no real direction and full of resentment towards her family, her friends and particularly herself. While working at a Christmas shop that sells ornaments all year round, she meets and befriends Tom (Henry Golding), a mysterious man who inspires her to start living life to the fullest.
With Last Christmas now showing in cinemas nationwide, Life spoke to Feig to discuss the film, George Michael and his love of London.
First of all, thank you for a delightful holiday movie. Last Christmas isn't just a romantic comedy, it's a movie about life and hope too.
My pleasure! Yeah, I mean it was. That's one of the things I fell in love with. It starts like a typical romcom but then it becomes about so much more. And it's such a message of hope. It's the message of healing yourself, which I really responded to. Ultimately, it's not about a woman being fixed by a man, it's really about a woman fixing herself, saving herself and I thought that was lovely.
The project actually began with Emma Thompson, who co-wrote the script. How did you become involved?
Emma had been developing and writing the script for eight years. Actually, I was supposed to do another film with Emma about three years ago. And so we worked together on it for a little bit, but then our schedules didn't work out and so I had to leave the project. But we liked each other so much and felt so in sync with how we see the world. We kept saying we had to figure out something else to do. So that's why she sent me the script. I was the only director she sent the script to! I read it immediately and just fell in love with it. She spent a lot of years developing it. But once I was on it, it happened very fast.
Is it true that the genesis of the project was a conversation between Emma Thompson and George Michael?
Well, the idea for the movie was brought to me by one of our producers, David Livingstone, based on the idea that he thought it'd be interesting to make a movie out of the song Last Christmas. Then [Emma] developed it. When she put together her first take on it, he got her together with George. She told him the story, let him read some stuff and he really loved it. So he was very aware of it and wanted to be able to work on the music for it too. Sadly, he passed away, but we really feel like we had his blessing on it.
Were you familiar with George Michael's music before working on the project?
Well, I was aware of the hits, you know, because I was watching MTV and all that. I knew songs like Faith and Freedom and some Wham! songs. When I came on board, it actually wasn't supposed to have a ton of George's music in it. Then I started digging into all the tracks from his albums, all the songs I hadn't heard. And that's where I started finding the songs that seemed like they applied so well to the movie, such as Heal The Pain. I think this song explains the movie even better than Last Christmas.
You've said that the film is a love letter to London. Why are you particularly fond of the city?
I've always loved London. Ever since I was 13 years old and my parents [first] brought me here. My mother's side of the family is British so I got it kind of in my DNA. I just really fell in love with it. I've always just felt very close to it. And you know for somebody who doesn't live here full time, I see it the way an outsider sees it. So as a filmmaker, I felt like I could really show off how beautiful London is, the way I see it personally.
The film is shot at many wonderful locations in London. Was it difficult to film in places like Covent Garden where it's crowded most of the day?
Well, it was hard. I mean, what happened was that the first three weeks, since we were in all these really populated locations, we could only shoot in the middle of the night. We had to start shooting at 2am. So yeah, Covent Garden, it's normally just so packed with people. But in the middle of the night, we had full run of it. Then we brought in extras and actors to make it look crowded.
Can you share some of your experiences working with Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding and Emma Thompson?
Yeah, they're all so wonderful. Emma Thompson is absolutely wonderful because she's so smart and so caring. She's very much a motherly figure, you know, to the point where every day she would come to set with giant boxes of chocolates and hand out chocolate to the crew and the cast. And then Emilia Clarke is such a lovely person. I was such a fan of hers from Game Of Thrones. At first I kind of expected her to be very serious, but she was so funny and full of energy and all that. This was my second time working with Henry Golding [after] A Simple Favor. When I read the role of Tom... this is really who Henry is. [He's] just such a nice positive person that it really was important to me to let him show that side of himself in this character.
Can you name some comedy films that you wish you had directed?
Oh gosh, I would have loved to have directed The Hangover. I thought that was a really brilliant film that had a whole second layer of kind of excitement to it. There's an old movie called What's Up, Doc?. It's one of my favourite movies of all time because it's like a tribute to the old screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s.
Kate (Emilia Clarke) and Tom (Henry Golding) in Last Christmas. Universal Pictures
