UK actor, writer, and director Craig Roberts doesn’t think there was one moment where he fell in love with making movies, but it might have happened while playing The Sims. Growing up in Wales where “it was all rugby, acting wasn’t an option,” Roberts played games and created his own worlds, much as a director does. But it was a successful career in front of the camera that brought him in contact with great directors and “opened the right doors” for filmmaking. After his writing and directing debut with Just Jim, Roberts is back with Eternal Beauty, a daring and visually striking follow up.
Eternal Beauty follows Jane (Sally Hawkins), a woman living with schizophrenia and navigating a relationship with fellow lost soul Mike (David Thewlis) and interference from her family. It explores love, the lasting pain of rejection, loneliness, the impersonal way society deals with mental illness, and the experience of the outsider. As you might expect, it’s soulful and deeply moving. What might take you by surprise is that Eternal Beauty is a comedy.
Roberts tells me it never could have been anything else. “Somebody I’m close to is living with [schizophrenia] and their angle on life – how they see things – is funny. They are very funny and I didn’t want to shy away from that. It’s a dark subject matter but I didn’t want to make a depressing movie.”
Where other films about mental illness might cast their protagonist as victims, Eternal Beauty and its creator sees schizophrenia “not as a weakness but as a strength, a superpower.” It’s a gamble that pays off. Not only does the dark comedy land but the more we laugh with Jane at the oddness of the “normal” world around her, the more we’re drawn in, the more affecting it is when she’s mistreated, hurt, and desperately fighting back.
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Just as Roberts was certain it had to be funny, so too was he determined to shoot it on film. “We were dealing with a character living with something that’s a result of a chemical reaction, so it made sense to make this with a chemical reaction and shoot it on film. Film is unpredictable, you can have a bit of hair on it or something that changes in the process and to me that unpredictability is exciting. That’s the way Jane is.”
Film also changed how Roberts and his cast worked. He remembers that when the cameras rolled on set “you could almost hear the money flying through the reel” but argues there’s merit in having limited takes. “With digital, you’re constantly recording – you can film to your heart’s content, and there’s a laziness that comes with that. People are not on their best game because they know they can stop and start again. I’ve done it as an actor – I’ve done a take on digital and been like: “Ah, let me do that again.” But with film, you can’t do it again; there is no “one more time” – we don’t have the money to do that. So, people really step up and do their best work.”
It also helps if you have Sally Hawkins, one of the most revered actors working. Roberts reveals that Sally was attached years before shooting, allowing him “the longest pre-production in independent film history”. “We had time to talk, share ideas, songs, anything that could be part of Jane’s world. By the time we came to filming we had a shorthand, we could communicate with just a look. And, of course, Sally has amazing ideas and her instincts are always spot on.”
When we talk about the process of directing Roberts reels off “really pretentious” references like Ingar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard and Paul Thomas Anderson. But he’s also unashamed about his love of The Mask and glad he didn’t come from a film school background. “I didn’t even go to drama school,” he says, sounding equally modest and relieved. “I’m grateful I’ve come from acting because anybody can read a book on filmmaking but not everyone can work with actors. I think I know the space they need and how they like to be treated.”
What to See at the 2020 BFI London Film Festival He clearly has an actor’s appreciation of other performers, describing the cast around Hawkins as “masters of their craft.” There’s David Thewlis as the wacky love interest Mike, Billie Piper and Alice Lowe as Jane’s sisters, Penelope Wilton as their mother, and rising star Morfydd Clark as young Jane. Writer-directors have a reputation for being precious with their script but Roberts was keen to let these actors make their mark: “If people had ideas that were better than what’s on the page, then absolutely go with it. I’d rather have a better movie than a movie I think is great but nobody else likes!”
Although he loves collaboration, it’s writing that he finds most freeing: “I love the first draft, when only I know it exists. I’ve written something better than There Will Be Blood, for all the world knows. But then you actually have to pass it to somebody; the bubble bursts and the hard work begins.” Why then is he taking a break from writing to direct someone else’s script? Roberts’ next project is Simon Farnaby’s biopic of Maurice Flitcroft, starring Mark Rylance as a hoaxer who fools the golfing establishment. “Before I started writing I was like: “I’m gonna make eight movies, all as good as 2001: A Space Odyssey.” But life gets in the way, you adjust your ego. Before, I would have said I wanted to be Paul Thomas Anderson and only direct my own writing. But The Fantastic Flitcrofts came along and the script was fantastic. And who’d not want to work with Mark Rylance? So, I think I’m learning that I’ll do whatever is right for me.”
Is there a through-line between Eternal Beauty and his next project? “I think it’s character and humour but I’m only just discovering this.” He also insists he might end up somewhere entirely different. “I really hope I’m always evolving.” And what about acting? He had his big break in Richard Ayoade’s Submarine back in 2010, but after starring in (criminally underappreciated) series Red Oaks, he has given most of his attention to filmmaking. Roberts reminds me that although he “doesn’t even look 20 now” he’s already put in two decades of acting. He “basically grew up” on the sets of Tracey Beaker, Casualty, and numerous other TV shows. There are no plans to stop acting but, for now, he’s glad it has led him to writing and directing. “I still love acting, of course. And if Richard Ayoade makes another movie, I want to be in it.”
Eternal Beauty is in cinemas from 2 October.
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