The Nice Guys Shane Black Interview
Lethal Weapon legend Shane Black sits down in London to talk about his latest 70′s set buddy film The Nice Guys, pairing Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling
So let’s start with how the film came to being made?
For me the sort of bone-deep kind of DNA of this thing started when I raided my father’s bookshelf when I was a kid. I had a friend, Anthony Bagarozzi my writing partner, and together the two of us decided there weren’t enough private eye movies, not enough old-school, tough guy sorts. So we set out to write this movie, sharing characters – which isn’t how you can write a film – and we came up with something over the years that in various variations managed to fall upward, got the right actors and 13 years later you have The Nice Guys. We are actually quite happy with the result.
A lot of the films you’ve made are set at Christmas, The Nice Guys it is set in October, any reason it isn’t set at Christmas?
The idea is, I had various reasons for setting things at Christmas but the one thing I didn’t want to do is keep doing it once people noticed, because it was my little delicious secret and had meaning for me. Then questions like this one…
There are some brilliant surreal moments within the film, specifically the bees. How do you have that first sketch meeting and introduce such a surreal, brilliant concept?
Here is the good news where that is concerned. The pitch consists of a man, Joel Silver, if I can convince him (laughter). He would look at me sometimes and be like, what? But he gets on board and we have a similar sensibility that goes back 30 years. Even after I had done a very successful film, Iron Man 3, afforded an opportunity to do something with it I went back to Joel. Joel who I have enjoyed my best financial, no that’s not true (laughter)…
What was it like to work with the younger cast?
We can’t say enough about this little girl, I confess I have read a few reviews and they mention her. I went to her and said “are you aware of the press you are getting, you stole the movie”, and she said “I haven’t really read…really?” She doesn’t even know she is good, she is just this wonderful, guileless little girl and God bless us we found her when we did.
You have alluded to the fact that if this film is as fantastically successful as we know it should and will be, you have some quite specific ideas for where you might like to take the characters forward?
All I can say, as I have a bit of canoodling to do on that actually, I love this idea of a sort of time-locked franchise, which means it will never catch up to us. So the sequel will be something in the 80s on an issue of that era, so we can throw these guys up against that wall and see what sticks. I think a fun idea is a timeless private eye who proceeds through a series of historical in incidents but will never get to the present day.
BAFTA TV Awards 2016 Winners List
Here is a full list of winners for the 2016 BAFTA TV Awards 2016. Wolf Hall, Doctor Foster, Thi is England and Peter Kay’s Car Share were among the big winners on the star studded night, with the awards ceremony attended by stars like Anna Kendrick, Mark Rylance, Justin Timberlake and Tom Hiddleston.
Leading actor
Winner: Mark Rylance, Wolf Hall
Idris Elba, Luther
Stephen Graham, This is England ’90
Ben Whishaw, London Spy
Leading actress
Winner: Suranne Jones, Doctor Foster
Claire Foy, Wolf Hall
Ruth Madeley, Don’t Take My Baby
Sheridan Smith, The C-Word
Supporting actor
Winner: Tom Courtenay, Unforgotten
Anton Lesser, Wolf Hall
Ian McKellen, The Dresser
Cyril Nri, Cucumber
Supporting actress
Winner: Chanel Cresswell, This is England ’90
Michelle Gomez, Doctor Who
Lesley Manville, River
Eleanor Worthington-Cox, The Enfield Haunting
Entertainment performance
Winner: Leigh Francis, Celebrity Juice
Stephen Fry, QI
Graham Norton, The Graham Norton Show
Romesh Ranganathan, Asian Provocateur
Male performance in a comedy programme
Winner: Peter Kay, Peter Kay’s Car Share
Hugh Bonneville, W1A
Toby Jones, Detectorists
Javone Prince, The Javone Prince Show
Female performance in a comedy programme
Winner: Michaela Coel, Chewing Gum
Sian Gibson, Peter Kay’s Car Share
Miranda Hart, Miranda
Sharon Horgan, Catastrophe
Drama series
Winner: Wolf Hall
Humans
The Last Panthers
No Offence
Single drama
Winner: Don’t Take My Baby
The C-Word
Cyberbully
The Go-Between
Mini-series
Winner: This is England ’90
Doctor Foster
The Enfield Haunting
London Spy
Soap and continuing drama
Winner: EastEnders
Coronation Street
Emmerdale
Holby City
International
Winner: Transparent
The Good Wife
Narcos
Spiral
Entertainment programme
Winner: Strictly Come Dancing
Adele at the BBC
Britain’s Got Talent
TFI Friday Anniversary Special
Comedy and comedy entertainment programme
Winner: Have I Got News For You
Charlie Brooker’s Election Wipe
QI
Would I Lie to You
Scripted comedy
Winner: Peter Kay’s Car Share
Chewing Gum
Peep Show
People Just Do Nothing
Features
Winner: The Great British Bake Off
Back in Time for Dinner
Kevin McCloud: Escape to the Wild
Travel Man
Radio Times Audience Award
Winner: Poldark
Doctor Foster
The Great British Bake Off
Humans
Making a Murderer
Peter Kay’s Car Share
Current affairs
Winner: Outbreak: The Truth about Ebola
Jihad: A British Story
Children of the Gaza War
Escape from Isis (Dispatches)
Single documentary
Winner: My Son the Jihadi
Bitter Lake
Life After Suicide
Louis Theroux: Transgender Kids
Factual series
Winner: The Murder Detectives
The Detectives
Great Ormond Street
The Tribe
Reality and constructed factual
Winner: First Dates
Gogglebox
I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
The Secret Life of 5 Year Olds
Specialist factual
Winner: Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners
Grayson Perry’s Dream House
The Hunt
Rudolf Nureyev: Dance to Freedom
News coverage
Winner: Channel 4 News: Paris Massacre
BBC News at Six: Paris Attacks Special
ITV News at Ten: Refugee Crisis
Sky News: From Turkey to Greece
Sport
Winner: The Ashes (Sky Sports)
The Grand National (Channel 4)
MOTD Live: FA Cup Final (BBC One)
Six Nations: Final Day (BBC One)
Live event
Winner: Big Blue Live (BBC One)
The Sound of Music Live! (ITV)
Stargazing Live: Brit in Space, Tim Peake Special (BBC Two)
The Vote (More4)