Hello, my name's Oliver Parker. Welcome to the DVD commentary.
I directed the film, and sitting with me is Hamish McColl,
who, for his sins, wrote it.
McCOLL: Hello, and sit back for the ride,
which begins with the "Sir" of Johnny English crossed out.
A starting point for the story for us was
Johnny, outside the service, returns.
PARKER: Yeah. Clearly, we saw him knighted at the end of the first one.
McCOLL: That's right. Yes, he was fêted by his nation.
PARKER: But we felt we wanted to start the film with a little more sense of
the hero in exile, a sense of mystery.
What happened to him? Where is he? And why he might be recalled for service.
McCOLL: Yeah.
He's the only one our contact will talk to.
PARKER: So, here we are, little clues. "Dismissed."
What awful things did he do in Doh-zambique?
McCOLL: And where's he gone? PARKER: Yeah.
- And where he's gone to is Ealing Studios, - (McCOLL CHUCKLES)
where a Tibetan monastery has been built
by the wonderful Jim Clay, who was our production designer.
And amongst these Shaolin monks who, in fact, are based in Archway, I think,
we find our hero facing the wrong way, Rowan Atkinson.
Now, Hamish, these monks were characters that you unearthed in research.
McCOLL: Yes, well, we were looking for a good place for Johnny to have fled to
after his troubles in Mozambique, which we find out about.
And the wonderful thing about the Shaolin monks is
the absolutely dedicated form of training that they do,
and we thought it was an ideal comic situation
for Mr. Rowan Atkinson and Johnny to find himself in.
PARKER: It's great, actually, being able to explain that they're real characters.
'Cause these exercises are, on the whole, genuine ones.
McCOLL: They're real. The one that we've just seen is real,
and this is also real.
PARKER: This is really a documentary we're showing you here.
- (McCOLL CHUCKLES) - There's very little in the way of comedy.
But the fun is, they...
These characters, some of them whom I think were at
the Australian premiere of the film, world premiere,
they turned up and did a little demonstration for us,
are incredibly intense and gifted and remote,
so it seemed like a great opportunity to give Johnny a chance to,
if you like, learn some extracurricular skills before the story begins.
WANG: You are not young.
PARKER: And as he says, he is not young.
So one of the things that Rowan has to, I suppose, accommodate
as perhaps a more veteran agent is
what age might give him as an advantage.
We know a few of the disadvantages. They're becoming clearer to me every day.
(McCOLL CHUCKLES)
McCOLL: But through the monastery,
he learns a skill set which he will use in the story.
PARKER: Now, that's also a real one, isn't it, this exercise?
McCOLL: It is also real. This is practised by Shaolin monks,
amid much screaming, I imagine, at the beginning,
high in the Tibetan mountains and Chinese mountains.
ENGLISH: Master, what is my destiny?
PARKER: So, yes. In a way,
what we were hoping to set up at the beginning of the film was
a degree of mystery.
Take us as far away, as opposed from where the story's going to go, as possible.
Though, of course, we return to these themes through the story.
Sort of shades, if you like, of Batman Begins.
McCOLL: Yes, and I think the crucial thing is that
Johnny is never gonna be a Shaolin monk for long.
He's a man who is dedicated to his country and the service,
and he's overjoyed now when he discovers
that he will return to Britain and he's been called back.
PARKER: Here we go. We're on the credit sequence which...
McCOLL: I haven't seen this. PARKER: You've not seen before.
- McCOLL: I've been looking forward to this. - It's Johnny English Reborn.
- McCOLL: Oh, yes. - Unfortunately, we've got to
guide our writer through some of these things.
You may recognise some of your lines as we progress.
McCOLL: Oh, yeah. "Dominic West." That was one of my best lines.
PARKER: (LAUGHS) Very good.
Obviously, we're going for something fairly... In a way,
there's a classic Bond feel. Maps and guns and gals.
- McCOLL: And a Bourne feel as well. - Yeah.
McCOLL: I like that. That's good.
PARKER: Yes.
Now the trick is, I suppose... I mean, we get the eyebrows and shooting the credits,
but trying not to be too jokey 'cause this is a very serious mission.
McCOLL: Very serious position.
PARKER: Yeah. So, here we are at the new MI7.
McCOLL: Which is changed from the one Johnny knew when he left.
Now sponsored by Toshiba,
a joke we long debated about who should be sponsoring.
To speak to an agent, press two.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
PARKER: Well, no. I think we were delighted to get Toshiba.
It was something that you were very keen to bring out,
wasn't it, Hamish, in the script?
The sense of the new world that Johnny has been absent from,
and the shock for him in returning,
and how it works as a satire for
so much of contemporary corporate Britain.
We cut down a certain amount of material.
We had some very good stuff that Hamish wrote which we just didn't put in the film.
- McCOLL: Yeah, to spite me. - To spite you, yeah.
And he's in tears here next to me.
But no, there was a lot more, I suppose, looking at
the world of Britain and how we've slightly lost our focus
in desperation to keep PC and health and safety,
but it slowed us down a little too much.
So, here we are with Gillian Anderson and Pegasus.
McCOLL: Yes, and at MI7, which is populated by highly capable women
as much as men now, which is different from Johnny's world.
He is a dinosaur in some senses. He's returning to a world which has changed.
- And there he is getting into... - PARKER: Deep water.
McCOLL: Trouble with a cat.
A joke which was also much discussed and finessed.
PARKER: Yes.
McCOLL: The exact mechanism of the window being the thing that we spent a lot of time on.
PARKER: And one of the debates, of course, when you're approaching a sequel is
what elements do you keep from the original and what do you change?
And I suppose we're trying to get a little more of an international flavour,
but we've had Bourne, we've had the new Bond in the form of Daniel Craig,
and so we were just trying to give it a slightly more energetic style,
and here we are also in widescreen
which, of course, helps perfectly just here for Rowan.
Of course, he uses every limb and is an extraordinary performer,
whether it's the widest angle or in close-up.
Always incredible control, like a little eyebrow coming up,
which actually used to be one of your stage directions.
It would just be "eyebrow," wasn't it? And here it comes right now.
- If I remember. Yes. (LAUGHS) - McCOLL: There it is.
PARKER: So he's an amazing clown in the ability to be working on that wide basis,
but also the broad comedy and in the minutiae as well.
McCOLL: And the task for the actors around him, like Rosamund Pike,
who we've just seen there, and Gillian, is to play as straight as possible
in the face of comedy onslaught.
PARKER: Yes, you had a very good phrase, which was,
"We have to prevent them from nibbling on the comedy cake."
McCOLL: Yes, I feel they've accomplished it very well because
if you feel that they're going for the comedy, we lose a lot of situation,
and Johnny relies for his comedy on the situation being
as serious and as intent as possible.
PARKER: Yeah, and we wanted to assemble, therefore,
a cast that was absolutely going to hold its own
had Daniel Craig himself walked into the room.
And here's a version of an alternative Bond, I think,
we're gonna see in the form of Dominic West,
who really does also bring a terrific dimension of, I think, charm,
but also nuance and a wit as well. He really hits the tone.
But all those leads we skated over, Rosamund there and Gillian Anderson,
they really offer Rowan an incredible support of calibre performances
and setting up that world of credibility and authenticity
which gives him genuine threat and something to play against.
Welcome to the toy cupboard.
McCOLL: And this, of course, is the Bond-inspired scene of
the weapons silo under the MI7, where everything is in development.
I mean, one of my personal favourites in all of the Bond films,
and therefore is an opportunity for Johnny, gadgets, which we then manipulated.
Here is Quartermain, with his tin legs and his high-speed wheelchair.
PARKER: And performed, of course, by an old mucker of Rowan's,
Tim McInnerny, from Blackadder, series two.
Good to see them reunited.
And he also, I feel, does a great job of getting the fun of the character,
but also the quirky enthusiasm,
both of the Bond-style film,
but also something very specific to this world
which, in a way, we want to avoid it being actual pastiche.
It's got to have its own identity.
So, he's another good and fruity character within it.
- Bonnet. - AUTOMATED VOICE: Command accepted.
PARKER: Here's the real love story.
McCOLL: Yes. Rowan's love affair with Royce, as we call her.
The Rolls-Royce Phantom and the V9 engine.
- V16, is it? - PARKER: Yeah, V16.
- McCOLL: V16. God, I've lost seven "V's". - I'm gonna pour a little more vodka for you.
Sorry, I'm not sure if we’re allowed to talk about vodka.
Yes, here we are with an extraordinary engine,
which we could have a whole DVD commentary from Rowan about, I think,
'cause he probably knows more about it than almost anybody.
In fact, there is a featurette about it, I think.
But it's an astonishing machine,
and Rowan, as we know, is a gifted driver as well as an incredible mechanical mind.
But I think for Johnny it represents, obviously, the Rolls-Royce of Rolls-Royces.
McCOLL: It's the pinnacle of motor vehicles.
PARKER: Yes, and very British, too.
Aside from the fact that it's owned by the Germans.
And here we have his new sidekick.
It was a difficult choice in trying to find the sidekick for Johnny .
Of course, Ben Miller played Bough in the first one, and was terrific at it.
But one of the things, I suppose, we wanted to bring to the sequel was
this new world of agent, and to find a young,
perhaps less experienced in the world of action,
and so he has his own story to go through.
And Daniel Kaluuya was an actor,
one of many who we auditioned,
and he immediately hit the floor with charm and confidence,
but also a kind of innocence which suited the character.
He was only 20, I think, when he...
McCOLL: Yeah, and he brought a lovely quality to the character
which we all felt was important, which was that he really loves Johnny.
I mean, he really respects Johnny.
He thinks Johnny is a fine example of a spy,
and despite the various mistakes that Johnny makes,
he looks up to him, and that gives him that quality of...
It brings a charm to the relationship.
PARKER: And unlike the other characters,
who we've strictly forbidden any sort of comic tilt,
apart from perhaps a little more enthusiasm in what they do,
you feel that Agent Tucker,
partly because he breathes the same air as Johnny,
is allowed just a little room for comic manoeuvre, I would say.
- McCOLL: Yes. Ah. - Ah, Pik-Sen.
McCOLL: One of my favourites, the killer cleaner, as I dubbed her on the page,
and a future opponent of Mr. English.
PARKER: Yes, she lives is Shropshire,
and is available for morning and afternoon work.
(McCOLL CHUCKLES)
PARKER: No, she's a terrific character, and extremely game.
And here we are in Macau.
This is actually part of a huge casino complex,
and Jim had to do very little work on this one, really.
Apart from the floor, filling the floor with tables and things.
Yeah, we were keen, I suppose, to give that,
as the first leg of the mission,
a sense of exoticism and mystery,
and Hong Kong and Macau gave us that opportunity.
McCOLL: Yeah, where they're searching for Fisher,
and everyone seems to be a possible contact.
At least for Johnny , anyone wearing glasses.
Unfortunately, he can't see that the biggest pair of glasses is behind.
Your grandmother is sick.
What?
Your grandmother is sick.
Well, she's dead. That's how sick she is.
PARKER: The music you can hear is written by Ilan Eshkeri,
who is a terrific young composer, who worked on Kick-Ass
and Coriolanus after that, and really brought an incredible energy
and lifted the film another level when his contribution arrived.
And again, he goes for quite a lot of the drama and excitement,
but adds that extra 5% which takes it to something which, I think,
encourages a slight smile, but, again, not opting for the obviously comic music,
but, if you like, serving up the scene with great energy.
I think, also, there's a commitment, if you like,
to the energy that is required from all,
whether it is in the storytelling or the way it has been shot.
Danny Cohen being the DP, with two terrific operators.
There's an intensity and energy to move the thing along, and not...
And be ahead of the audience, which, I have to say,
I found that in the very first draft of yours that I read, Hamish.
It was definitely the thing that attracted me,
that you'd gone for something which did play up
the world of the thriller. And the comedy, obviously,
being the most crucial thing, might be, if you like, served up better
for this stronger approach to storytelling.
McCOLL: Yeah, I think that was essential for us and Rowan as we developed it,
was to find a narrative that was really gripping.
And it's lovely to see this scene again, actually.
Just how gritty it is
compared to some of the earlier Johnnys that we'd seen.
This is a much more rooted world.
And as for Vortex...
PARKER: Yes, if you like, there seems to be a discipline
which is very much, I think, in Rowan's style of comedy, too,
where the situation is played straight, the main comic element is that
the killer is a cleaner and wearing pink gloves
and has just turned her Hoover into a deadly weapon.
But otherwise in the scene, we're playing it pretty straight.
So, this set was also another Jim Clay creation,
to match with the location in Hong Kong,
the Chungking Mansions, which we used for this scene
and for the rooftop chase which is to follow.
McCOLL: This is a classic moment of Johnny getting the wrong end of the stick.
His manners, putting her in the lift to save her,
and, in fact, he is saving the killer.
I mean, it's the quality that I love in Johnny.
His intention to do right will largely lead him to do wrong.
What?
PARKER: Yes, I think that's right. And I think, also, one of the things that I feel that
was an agreed upon approach in the sequel
was that he perhaps didn't cock up as many times.
- That there was... - McCOLL: That's right.
PARKER: Because in some ways, I have to say,
I was a little concerned when coming to the project
that the first film had done that pretty well,
a lot of very good jokes, but does one have to play the same klutz?
And here, I suppose, we were keen to make him more successful.
Which, I suppose, saved us the danger of repetitiveness.
That we knew that, "Oh, my God. He's about to step on that banana skin."
And lo and behold, he doesn't. He moves past it
and, actually, he catches the bad guy, and you think,
"Oh, he's done it." And then he steps on another banana skin.
McCOLL: This sequence is a good example of that, actually,
because we'll see here that he's actually
very capable, but as we saw from Tibet, he's learnt a different way to keep up,
and finally to get a hold of his opponent, which is...
He's older but he's wiser.
Here, he remembers the words of Ting Wang.
And instead of going over the top, around the side.
And he walks with a comic Terminator intent after his opponent.
PARKER: Yes.
And, in a way, Rowan, too, was absolutely determined to keep that
as the singular approach through this sequence, wasn't he?
Because we worked on lots of different alternatives for jokes here.
McCOLL: And he's brilliant at that, at absolutely analysing what the one joke is
and remaining as pure as possible on that, and I think that does pay great dividends.
PARKER: Yeah, absolutely.
McCOLL: Even if it means that several times I'm writing...
- Jokes that we never shoot, or we cut. - McCOLL: Jokes.
- The joke memorial. - (PARKER LAUGHS)
McCOLL: Now that was a wonderful moment, and this sequence, of course,
was long discussed exactly how it was going to take shape.
But that was a phenomenal jump
which really happened between those two buildings, Ollie?
PARKER: Yeah, Williams Belle, he's the parkour fellow there, and he's a terrific chap
and a great find, and we wanted to...
Obviously, there are one or two movies that one could think of
that use this technique and a similar sequence.
And he arrived at it, as he might say, full-tilt and fearless, actually.
You do have to wear a safety rope because of all sorts of reasons of insurance,
but he was desperate to leap off anything at any moment.
- McCOLL: I know, it's fantastic. - Yeah, he was great.
I like the look very much. It's kind of '50s.
The colouring and the look here feels like one of those '50s stars.
Yeah, so he was a great addition.
McCOLL: So here again, Johnny's solution is wonderfully pragmatic.
He'll take the lift.
PARKER: It's really interesting, the process of honing the jokes
because, as you say, there were a couple of other very funny alternatives,
but perhaps departed from the singular approach we wanted.
But then, within that...
I remember the debates of choosing the right music in the lift
- went on for some time. - McCOLL: Yeah, no.
There's endless nuances to getting that one joke sharpened correctly.
PARKER: And obviously, here we are, in Hong Kong,
and a great opportunity to show the scale of the film.
I am commandeering this vessel in the name of Her Majesty.
PARKER: The harbour here, with the great
needles of industry and commerce behind them.
This was a terrific couple of days shooting out here with the Hong Kong crew,
who were extremely able and hardworking.
Now, Rowan gets a chance to use almost every form of invented transport in this film.
- Doesn't he? - McCOLL: Yes.
PARKER: This is just one of them. We've come off a lift,
we'll find a Ski-Doo, of course we've got cars,
and he's extremely adept at handling most of them.
...by familiarizing yourself with this leaflet.
McCOLL: And here's Tucker, who is still trying, in the face of all the adventure,
to make sure that he's covered all the health and safety issues
that MI7 now demands.
I'm Shirley.
McCOLL: Shirley is my mum's name. I put that in for her.
(PARKER LAUGHS)
PARKER: It was very pleasing in some of the testing we did
to discover quite what a following Rowan has, actually.
Several of the mothers who were present commented on
- how they were surprised at how hot he was. - Yes, that was great. I remember that.
PARKER: And there was a lot of discussion about, various people were worried about,
"Should there be a little more dye in his hair?"
And actually, we think the George Clooney-Steve McQueen look
works pretty well on the fellow.
McCOLL: Yes, he doesn't trouble the line of a good suit, I must say.
PARKER: No. Well, yes. Beatrix Pasztor, who's a costume designer,
really had a great eye for just lifting
the look of Johnny himself, but also absolutely to get that new MI7 feel
through the whole thing, and is a great contribution to the film.
McCOLL: So here, when we were working on the comic aspect,
we were playing a lot on the expats' reactions, particularity on the page.
So, there's constantly an audience.
But again, we'll see that Johnny is not incapable when faced with the enemy here.
We're taking out that point that Ollie made about not finding the klutz all the time.
He's actually quite skilled, and these are skills that he's learnt in Tibet.
PARKER: Yes. I mean, his weakness is that
he's just not quite as good as he'd like to be, is he?
- McCOLL: No. - So, he just takes his eye off the ball there.
PARKER: Vanity being one of the keys to that weakness, I think.
But, at same time, the very unpredictability of the man, I think,
gives him just an extra asset.
Good old Tucker.
McCOLL: Here he is. And you think,
"Wonderful, this chap has come to the rescue.
"We're really gonna see something."
Daniel is actually someone who's trained in boxing quite a bit
and took that position, but took the fall just as well.
I'm afraid Tucker is no use to Johnny at this point.
And this is... Well, I'm a fan of the broader comedy,
and here we have an example.
PARKER: Straight out of Sense and Sensibility, that one.
McCOLL: (LAUGHS) It was cut from Sense and Sensibility.
PARKER: (LAUGHS) That was nonsense.
- McCOLL: It's in their deleted scenes. - Yes.
McCOLL: I love the music here, with the great sense of Johnny triumphing.
PARKER: Rowan did a lot of work in training for this stuff.
It was obviously crucial that we look after our star,
but that he was up to it.
He's very, very keen, wherever possible, to do all the stunts himself.
And, in fact, it's pretty important because it's very hard to find somebody who can,
even in wide shot,
copy Rowan. His body does do odd things.
It seems to have joints in different places than normal people.
And so, we really did get him in pretty good shape before the movie.
And he had his fair few scrapes, didn't he?
McCOLL: Yes, he had a couple of knocks, but he bounced back.
Barbara?
McCOLL: And here we see the great contrast
between Tucker and Johnny about the mission.
Tucker's filling in the forms, and Johnny is drinking champagne
and congratulating himself,
when in fact, as we see there, things are only going to get worse.
Vortex is finished.
But better still,
for years I believed what happened in Mozambique was my fault.
PARKER: And this is kind of the thriller structure you gave us.
And in working out how we use it,
we did try different places for these flashbacks, didn't we?
McCOLL: Yes, we tried them as a sequence at the beginning of the movie.
PARKER: Right at the beginning, that's right.
But it felt like we had too many beginnings,
so we did resort to more what you wrote, I think.
And we learnt in the end.
And that it is a sort of slow drip of information
which finally clears up exactly what he did wrong
and feeds into the current story.
McCOLL: And I think we found a great hook for it, you did,
Rowan's eye just blinking to suggest
the trauma that Mozambique has brought about in him, so.
Right from the beginning, we're seeing that there is a question mark over his past.
And here he is, about to take the laurels, he thinks.
Unfortunately, we know he's headed for another fall.
I hope you've got something for us, English.
The Prime Minister is extremely concerned.
ENGLISH: He has every reason to be so.
PARKER: One can feel the buttocks clenching
as the inevitable disaster is about to arrive.
Vortex.
Good Lord.
The danger, however, has been averted.
PARKER: Now, there was quite a lot of work, wasn't there,
put into absolutely making the thriller story add up.
- McCOLL: Yes. - And one of the techniques we tried to use
to deliver what might otherwise be a lot of information
was to make sure there was a comic situation
accompanying the explanation of the plot here.
There'll be the chair scene later.
- And I sometimes wonder why we bothered? - (McCOLL CHUCKLES)
PARKER: (LAUGHING) Because in the end, people are looking at that man's face,
or the ridiculous thing that's going on in the foreground.
McCOLL: It's true.
PARKER: But it's nice to know, if you were to look at the film again,
that on the whole what Hamish wrote does add up
- to a pretty solid piece of storytelling. - McCOLL: (CHUCKLES) Yeah.
Shoooshan.
PARKER: It's fun watching the movie again,
I find, probably for about the 3,000th time,
how certain jokes come back to you.
"Shoooshan" is one which sort of continues to tickle me.
McCOLL: Well, when we were writing and meeting Rowan a lot,
we'd talk through jokes,
and once I'd heard Rowan say, "Shoooshan,"
it was a joke that I always knew was going to probably make the final cut.
PARKER: Yes, you're right, because we did have to tighten the film.
Again, with a thriller story, there was a longer film to be made,
and, in fact, was made in certain respects,
that we had to find, inevitably, which bits to lose.
And it's quite different making those judgements
from something on the page to something you've shot.
McCOLL: Absolutely.
PARKER: And Rowan is quite extraordinary at bringing certain moments to life,
and into a comic creation
which you couldn't necessarily conceive of until you'd seen it done.
And so, it was great to have the opportunity to shoot certain things,
even if, in the end, we had to lose them.
McCOLL: This sequence is one that was also long thought of,
which is a classic "Johnny getting the wrong end of the stick,"
and indeed the wrong person, the wrong old person,
the wrong mother.
She's my mother!
McCOLL: But what was really fun was we developed it,
was that we decided to go for two bites of the cherry.
PARKER: And in the end, three.
McCOLL: And in the end, three. Thank you, yes.
PARKER: When you've got a good joke, you might as well flog it, Hamish.
McCOLL: Yeah, exactly. Well, I've only got so many in my head.
- PARKER: We knew that. - It's just all retreads, really.
So having got her once, he's about to get her again,
which is...
But again, we're still lacing it in with the story,
because the killer cleaner will make her appearance here.
PARKER: Yeah.
Well, the story was the great barometer of when we had to tighten the film,
which bits remained and which didn't.
And although we did argue about that little shot,
- should she stay in or not... - McCOLL: We did.
You've just seen a shot where the lady passed around the back of the shot,
and that tells us that this is the killer cleaner.
The question is, do you, A, agree,
B, disagree, that this, A, improves,
B, disimproves, if there was such a word, this scene?
- You can cut that. - PARKER: Yeah.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
PARKER: Or we could have a board meeting.
I think that the idea, again, of having the killer cleaner running through this
allows you to play the kind of action
more energetically and intensely just because you know...
McCOLL: Now you know he's going to make the most awful mistake.
And the delight in this was, I think, the extent to which he goes to.
He doesn't just fell her like that,
but it's the repeated bashing with the tray
that really seems to do it for me, comically.
PARKER: Well, quite a lot of this we bashed through ourselves,
didn't we, in the script stage?
Of course, you'd done a lot more. I arrived relatively late,
but we did have a chance to go through quite a lot of it.
And it was a very good...
I thought it was a very good relationship working the two of us and Rowan,
and Chris Clark was often there with us, too,
in just finessing these things
and bringing them to a state of readiness for the shooting.
But, again, I think your experience in that broader comedy,
and you've done a lot of theatre, I know, and as an actor,
in a way a lot of our experiences overlap, I felt,
and so it was a pleasure for me.
McCOLL: That was the most fun thing about the project,
is that sometimes when you write things you think you've written them a lot,
but, basically, I feel with this that I collated.
I was the collator of many, many people's,
particularly you and Chris and Rowan, of course,
putting it together.
So, constantly pushing the story, constantly pushing the comedy
to get better and better.
And I think that film is great like that.
It is very, very collaborative, and that's the fun of it, really.
If you enjoy the collaboration, and I think that's...
PARKER: It feels like it suits Rowan particularly.
I sometimes think that perhaps the memories of Blackadder,
where there was a real collegiate atmosphere and they were working together,
was a great moment for him,
and to have some sense of that in our working process was good.
Now Rosamund, I think, does a terrific job.
It wasn't easy, was it, to find how you put Johnny English
in a kind of romantic liaison?
But there's something about her as an actress,
I think, which fits it extremely well.
She is very interested in the offbeat, I find, Rosamund,
and she's not conventional at all in that respect,
and what makes people tick is something that clearly is a fascination for her.
McCOLL: She's very beguiling as an actress for me
because when you first see her, you're struck by, of course, her beauty,
but I fully agree that she's actually got an idiosyncratic,
very particular quality
which is about being fascinated in the strange.
And she's certainly fascinated by Johnny,
and used that for his character here.
PARKER: Which, of course, I think was a great invention
on the part of the script,
to give us an opportunity for us to understand what makes him tick as well,
and to enjoy, if you like, the vulnerabilities of the guy.
In some ways, I suppose, one of the intentions of the film
was to push him around as a character a lot more.
So, we did get to see him in situations which were genuinely perilous
and where we did even fear for his life.
And we are hopefully moved, and we care.
Not Ibsen we're after,
but just something that gives us a little more depth for him,
and, if you like, the intensity of the performances,
like Rosamund's, really helped for that.
McCOLL: Here we see the mistakes that were made in Mozambique
and which have changed Johnny's life and put him out of the service.
PARKER: So, the thriller question that's asked at the beginning is finally answered here.
McCOLL: Mozambique being Hertfordshire, wasn't it?
PARKER: Hertfordshire. Just outside Hertfordshire, I think,
at an extraordinary house which Jim Clay found,
which does have all the qualities of that vast colonial excessiveness,
and a Jacuzzi virtually at every turn.
McCOLL: Yes, I remember now, discovering the job,
Rosamund's job, was quite a big moment
because it allowed us to see Johnny in a different way.
PARKER: Exactly, yeah.
McCOLL: And not just in terms of his character,
but also give us that physical comedy of that scene as he goes back,
- with his facial expressions. - PARKER: Yes.
PEGASUS: Artem Karlenko.
PARKER: So, second leg of the mission.
PEGASUS: Recruited by MI7 in Moscow.
PARKER: Mark Ivanir, a terrific actor.
McCOLL: Very good.
PARKER: A shame we shot him so early.
- PARKER: I blame you. - He's coming back for Johnny English Three.
- PARKER: (CHUCKLES) As a ghost? - (LAUGHS) Yeah.
McCOLL: It's called Karlenko's Revenge.
He's in a match play competition, sir.
McCOLL: And the Rolls-Royce featuring here.
And this was a big, big sequence, wasn't it?
Another sequence where we actually played around with the length of it
versus the imperative of the story.
PARKER: Yeah, there was a car chase, a sort of unwitting car chase,
where he didn't realise he was being followed.
It was, I think, a pretty good set piece,
but, in the end, it just felt like we were losing touch
with the narrative.
And so, it was one of the sacrifices we had to make.
McCOLL: This is an example where we were discussing... I think in the script
my first call, of course, was for ridiculous golf costumes for Johnny .
And that is an example of Rowan taking it away from the obvious there
and wanting something much more sober,
which you think,
"No, no, we're going to miss out on that opportunity,"
but, actually, it beds that character down.
He's not a fool like that, in the sense of him being utterly blind to things.
He will have sober intentions, they can just go rather wrong.
Maybe the belt is actually rather wrong.
Whoever you said you were.
PARKER: I'm trying to think, was it Johnnie Walker?
Is that the name of the South African golfer
that I remember we were looking at who always wore black?
- But you feel Johnny... - McCOLL: Gary Player.
PARKER: Gary, is that... I think it was Gary Player, yeah.
That's what we were after.
And you feel that Johnny does have a sense of style
- and knows he cuts a pretty good dash. - McCOLL: Yes, exactly.
A man who wears the suits he's wearing in Hong Kong
wouldn't be going for the loud.
Glove, sir?
I may not know much about golf, Tucker,
but I know how to hold the bat.
McCOLL: So, at this point, we wonder whether Rowan's pelvis
- should actually get a billing on the movie. - (PARKER CHUCKLES)
McCOLL: 'Cause what he does here is something I can't do.
(PARKER CHUCKLES)
PARKER: Maybe this should be a how-to.
I remember Daniel here having a hard time controlling his mirth.
This, of course, was shot on a freezing day
where Rowan, I think, has at least a couple of layers under that shirt.
McCOLL: Here she comes.
PARKER: And there we can see she comes.
In her own outfit, of course.
Mistress of disguise.
ENGLISH: So, what line of business are you in, Mr. Puddykin?
KARLENKO: I made my money in the removals business.
McCOLL: There's a golf scene in Goldfinger,
which we talked about with Rowan when we were discussing this scene,
where the language is always refracted
through the polite and the banal,
but underneath they're talking absolutely about the real business
of espionage and betrayal.
PARKER: It's quite hard to know how much Johnny understands of it or not, isn't it?
McCOLL: (LAUGHING) Yes, I think he understands the odd bit.
PARKER: Well, no. He's more interested in getting the ball in the hole.
In the back.
By his cleaner, of all people.
PARKER: Here's another of the great gadgets in the film,
the golf bag and the clubs.
Everything seems to have another purpose.
Just a key.
Break, left to right, I think.
Thank you.
(SPEAKS RUSSIAN)
PARKER: Ilan's music is giving us
that sort of Bourne-style excitement
to add to the scene.
Johnny completely oblivious, it seems.
(GRUNTS)
(STAMMERING) In the trees.
Come on.
(KARLENKO MOANING)
- Oh, my God. - He can't die. He mustn't die.
PARKER: You always have the difficult thing, when making a film for a certain certificate,
of how much you can show in the way of blood and injury.
McCOLL: Yeah, blood and comedy are not the best of bedfellows, really.
PARKER: They're not, no.
But it is a difficult balance, too.
What you want is to keep the tension up, isn't it?
McCOLL: Yeah, it's got to appear to have been as final as it is.
Well, he's not dead here, Karlenko, but he's mortally wounded.
And we now enter the helicopter sequence,
which was probably one of the most discussed sequences
- of the entire movie. - PARKER: Yeah.
McCOLL: I mean in terms of balancing comedy,
situation, and the sheer cost of putting it together.
PARKER: Yes, those saplings you saw were the subject of many a meeting.
And it was Framestore who did all our great CGI work.
Really were extremely diligent and effective in turning something which was...
It's always dangerous, I find, with CGI
to know whether you're actually gonna get to make it finally convincing.
And if your eye's even subliminally unconvinced,
then the comedy, I think, is eroded.
But they did some great work on that.
McCOLL: Rowan's first instinct with CGI
is to ask the question whether we can possibly do without it.
Because he is mechanically minded,
he has a great... And also his comic instinct
is that if you can see it really happening, then the situation is stronger.
The question was always, "Can we do it?
"Can we do it? Can we really put a helicopter on an ambulance?
"Can we really fly it at 18 inches?
"How do we enter a roundabout?" These sort of things.
PARKER: So we did, of course, do a lot of it for real.
This is happening at Mill Cross,
where we have a racetrack which we could use and populate.
But we do, in fact, use some CGI.
We created a CGI helicopter,
which, again, I think was a very good and satisfying result
that Rowan himself was surprised at how much it's come on, I think, now,
as a technique to really not distract at all.
Which is the last thing you can afford to do.
(BOTH CHUCKLING)
PARKER: This was a relatively late addition in the script, wasn't it?
McCOLL: Yeah, it was quite late.
I don't know quite where, in the recesses of my mind,
I remember the David Soul song,
but it just seemed, with that wonderful...
To be absolutely right for it.
And I'm often looking for just little things
that I can imagine Rowan saying that nobody else can say.
There is a moment when he's in Daniel's flat,
and I had to find out where Daniel's flat was,
Tucker's flat was,
and "Tooting" was a word that I wanted Rowan to say.
So it became Tooting, and much the same way here...
PARKER: So here we are.
This is, in fact, a CGI, am I allowed to say, helicopter.
McCOLL: Well, it is amazing. It really works.
It's fantastic.
Karlenko.
PARKER: This is one of my favourite little bits of your dialogue, too,
which is ridiculous.
McCOLL: Very, very silly.
PARKER: Yeah, and it was the scene we used to audition Daniel with, too.
And his ability to match Rowan for the deadpan, I think...
McCOLL: Yeah, the poker-straight way they all play this
is the only way to get material of this very broad quality
onto a large screen.
MI7.
Unbelievable.
PARKER: We were making this at the same time
as Tomas Alfredson was doing Tinker Tailor
at Working Title,
and I remember we had meetings where we overlapped and said,
"Do you think we could have Gary Oldman in the back of ours,
"and maybe you could have Rowan Atkinson in the back of yours?"
- (McCOLL CHUCKLES) - PARKER: It never quite happened.
But this particular scene, which I adore, the dialogue here,
there was a trailer I saw of Tinker Tailor which started with,
"There's a mole in MI..." whatever they have,
MI5 or something.
And I thought, "Someone's going to do a mash-up."
McCOLL: Yes.
Pegasus.
There's a meeting at MI7 with the Prime Minister.
PARKER: So, Hamish, what was the origin of this scene coming up?
McCOLL: The chair?
The chair was a conversation that started with Rowan and myself.
I can't remember its exact origins,
but it was something... I know it's something that I had wanted to do on stage
to a far more ridiculous height than this one.
I'm not sure if Rowan had another idea as well,
but, basically, as you said, it serves as a perfect foil
to undercut the serious narrative,
and you've really gone for it here.
I mean, it's delicious how everybody else is full of serious intent,
and Johnny would be,
but he's just got the one thing that isn't quite working.
...are of paramount importance.
PARKER: I think Stephen Campbell Moore's
performance as the Prime Minister is superb here.
How he keeps on with his intention,
and the little expressions and the little asides
are just enough to keep us in.
And the extra, whose name I do not know, on the other side...
- Yeah, he's poker-straight good as well. - PARKER: Absolutely.
Now this particular shot,
there was a moment when we were shooting the scene when I thought,
"My goodness, do we need any other shot in this scene?"
- McCOLL: Yes. - Because it was working so well.
And just the other little moments,
just catching a glimpse of Gillian on one side,
and of the foreign secretary on the other, I thought, "We've got it all, have we?"
But then, actually, you think,
"It's nice to go away and come back and see how high he's got."
But otherwise, it's nearly all in this shot.
McCOLL: It's true, and it really merits that focus.
I mean, it benefits from that focus.
And when we were putting it together, I remember our discussions were,
"How fast does that chair... How even does it go?"
- And also, crucially, "How high does it go - PARKER: Hmm.
- "and how low does it go?" - PARKER: Yep.
McCOLL: And the only thing that I still feel
that we would have gone really for the comic cherry,
would have been to just have Johnny
disappear from sight before he says, "Give me 24 hours."
- (BOTH CHUCKLING) - McCOLL: But this was much discussed,
and there are different schools of thought.
PARKER: Absolutely. No, I can see there's a lot of temptation for that.
The fun also was... That chair itself, as a creation,
was quite a piece of work.
It had to be drilled into the ground.
McCOLL: Yes, and I remember them saying to me,
"Well, we couldn't go down because it wouldn't go that low."
So there were good reasons for it.
Yes. You.
And bring two spoons.
McCOLL: Gauche Johnny with charming Ambrose.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
PARKER: In a way, one of the things I suppose
we were looking at in Johnny's character,
which is something that Rosamund's character identifies,
is his complete obsession with Agent Number One,
and in that you see his own insecurities.
And here we really bring together, in the story,
a great moment of him completely sycophantic
and adoring this man.
McCOLL: 'Cause it's dinner for two.
- PARKER: It really is. - It's the candlelit romantic dinner.
McCOLL: He would love, love to be Ambrose, really.
Everything that he sees in Ambrose, he admires.
And he's therefore blind
to the fact that Ambrose is going to shoot him.
PARKER: Yes, in a particular place. The restaurant.
McCOLL: And this line we went as close to it as possible,
"I have to ask you something face to face."
Do you have any idea who it might be?
McCOLL: 'Cause Johnny doesn't.
(BOTH CHUCKLING)
PARKER: Any ideas on a postcard.
- ...accuse me. - No! I mean, honestly.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
- What? - Simon Ambrose, the evil mastermind!
PARKER: I love the way Dominic manages to be chummy
and also so deprecating...
- McCOLL: Yes. - ...to Johnny through this.
Oh, dear.
(MOBILE PHONE BEEPS)
PARKER: In the background we caught a glimpse of Burn as Slater,
who's a terrific actor who plays the sidekick.
And that was quite an interesting decision, not to get a great, heavy piece of work,
but somebody who just oozed nastiness.
McCOLL: He played Bill Sikes to Rowan's Fagin in Oliver in the West End.
- PARKER: That's right. - And that's where they met.
He's the third man in Vortex.
Simon Ambrose?
He went to Eton.
PARKER: Quite a big discussion about whether we should shoot in this set
'cause it's actually quite small.
Or whether you build it or find a bigger one.
But there was something about the claustrophobia of it that we felt,
if the cameraman didn't mind standing in the urinal,
it was worth persevering with.
You said you never knew Karlenko.
McCOLL: How is that lawsuit going?
(BOTH CHUCKLING)
I hacked into Karlenko's computer.
PARKER: So here's a moment where we really do feel
Tucker's character is coming on leaps and bounds,
and he does a great job of making us care about that, I think.
Which also sheds good light on Johnny.
Not in this scene, where he completely ignores him.
But in terms of how, in a way,
they really do become a kind of buddy team.
McCOLL: Well, they share a dedication to their work,
but then this mission brings them together.
Sometimes I have trouble myself, old boy.
(BOTH SNICKER)
McCOLL: This comic episode works as a complete... What do you call it?
Semicolon in the middle of the sentence of the scene.
- PARKER: Yes. - It's a suspension
which, again, we discussed. Did that break the situation too much,
or does the reprise work?
PARKER: In a way, so much of that comedy comes from ramping up the thriller
to such an extent that you can afford to take the break.
And then you link back into it with the music and the camera style, too.
But it is always a question, in the making of this film,
as to whether you push a little firmer on the comedy pedal or the thriller pedal.
And that one we did try without, once or twice,
and, of course, it barrels along, but it did miss quite a lot of charm.
McCOLL: Yes.
What's it called?
Armitage.
A secret secret Secret Service called Armitage?
We answer only to the PM.
It's extraordinary, Simon...
AMBROSE: Indeed, it is.
PARKER: Wonder whether Tucker has held a gun before like this.
Quite a nice sort of triangular scene, this,
in terms of each of them has their own little story.
And you don't quite know what Johnny's is, 'cause he keeps changing his mind.
McCOLL: Ultimately, he'll always come down to Ambrose's side.
He can't see anything but goodness in Ambrose.
He's lying.
You've let me down, you've let the Service down.
McCOLL: And this is deeply patronising, at some level, to Tucker.
PARKER: Certainly, in all the test screenings,
there was a huge groan of sympathy for poor Tucker.
Patch Quartermain, of all people. Blowing his own legs off?
PARKER: One of my personal favourite lines of yours.
And to think how much I admired him.
He hates you.
- Really? - He always has.
He thinks you're a moron...
- PARKER: Of course, Dominic did go to Eton. - Yes, he did. Yes, yes.
And there was a line about him being President of the Chelsea Flower Show.
Ambrose. I don't think Dominic was that.
...go rogue and take him down on your own.
PARKER: But a very interesting combination of acting approaches, these two,
because Rowan is such an amazing polisher of his work
and really likes to nail everything down, and will keep honing and honing.
And Dominic's style is quite freestyle.
- So it's quite a different approach. - McCOLL: Yes. He plays faster and looser.
PARKER: Yeah, and it's quite nice to see them together,
and I think there was quite a lot of respect for each other.
Bingo.
- Arrange a meeting with our client. - MADELEINE: Of course.
PARKER: So, Joséphine de La Baume playing Madeleine.
Not sure which name sounds slightly more invented.
(McCOLL CHUCKLES)
PARKER: But she was a relatively late addition as a character, wasn't she?
McCOLL: She was, actually, because we felt we needed some female presence there.
PARKER: Aside from the gorgeous killer cleaner, of course,
who has her admirers amongst the assassin community...
ENGLISH: Hello, Patch.
Looking for forgiveness?
PARKER: Here we are, a church in Kilburn.
One of the few churches which allowed us to wield a gun.
It's the end of the line.
PARKER: Things have changed.
Yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you, Patch?
PARKER: This is actually one of the first things we shot.
And it was really interesting to play it for a kind of intensity,
to really see Johnny as a man on the run,
and that sort of desperation to him.
No, Johnny.
McCOLL: I remember this, at script stage,
drafting the fact that they don't understand where the other is coming from
and how to best write that comically,
but also so that it had some tension to it.
And, in the end, I didn't put any tension.
It's all tension in the situation, not lyrics... Dialogue, sorry.
PARKER: It could've been a musical. It might have worked quite well.
McCOLL: Now there's a thought.
(GRUNTS)
McCOLL: The wheelchair sequence,
the speeding wheelchair which we're about to see,
was one of the earliest things that I can remember about the movie
because we'd had long discussions about car chases,
and I'd written something with electric cars.
And then there was another version where there were toy cars
in a high-end department store.
And then we stumbled on the idea of the wheelchair.
And so, it was tracing that back all the way back, so it finally became
something that would belong to a character like Quartermain.
And funnily enough, those can actually be quite guiding principles
in your story in the end.
PARKER: Yeah, absolutely. It's great that it knits in so well, I think.
And we've just had a moment where our hero's been shot.
So, it's quite high drama, but then to plunk him into the wheelchair.
McCOLL: And it makes sense because it's been seeded in from the beginning.
- PARKER: Yeah. - We hope it does, and satisfies.
PARKER: Yes, but there were a number of wheelchairs
that they worked on to get this one right.
And, of course, there was a kind of electric version as well.
And then this one, where the outriggers come out to give it more balance,
which we needed, in fact, because it did reach pretty great speeds.
And Rowan, of course, was determined to do as much of it as possible.
And Universal, inevitably, had to oversee it with an eye to his safety.
But there were certain moments where the eye, I think, blinked a little,
and allowed us to do one or two wider shots.
I don't believe it.
McCOLL: That's certainly one of the most exciting things in my job.
When you write, if it's something like that, an object,
and then you go and see it being created by hugely inventive and talented people,
you suddenly see your imagination made concrete. It's very exciting.
PARKER: Yeah, and those guys were very much, and the special effects were very like
the silo scene where Rowan goes and gets his gadgets to go to Hong Kong.
They were going around in their white coats, obsessed with these wonderful details.
Sprockets and valves and gears.
But it's all taken with incredible seriousness, as it must be.
- Weren't we lucky to get this place? - McCOLL: One of my favourite shots.
PARKER: That one? McCOLL: Yeah.
Love that, and I love that flank of cars.
And this was shot on The Mall at, what,
6:00 in the morning or something, wasn't it?
PARKER: Yeah, well, it was incredibly, I think "fortunate" may be a word,
to have got this location.
Although I think the fact that Rowan is a much-loved national treasure
helped in getting it,
because when we were looking for locations,
we weren't really coming up with something that had sufficient iconic status.
And I remember Tim Bevan, particularly, the producer, was very keen
that we found some moments for this. And looking for it,
I remember describing something. I said, "Something like Admiralty Arch,"
as a way of getting away at the end.
And I said, "Why don't you just go and ask the question?"
And, amazingly, we had a small yes,
like a couple of hours you could shoot on a certain day,
and then it grew into a larger one,
and they gave us the whole day and it was spectacular.
I think they had a protest for fathers' rights or something
straight ahead of us at the same time.
McCOLL: This was obviously a much-discussed cherry-on-the-cake sequence
of how he escapes.
- I kind of wish I had a wheelchair like that. - (PARKER CHUCKLES)
PARKER: We did sometimes have what we called a "Bean alert",
- didn't we, going through some of this? - Yes, we did.
PARKER: Where we didn't want to have Johnny
slipping into some of the more obvious mannerisms
that connected with his other character, Bean.
- Don't know if you've heard of Bean. - McCOLL: No, I've never heard of him.
PARKER: No, but, yeah, he's quite funny.
But this was obviously an attempt to,
if you like, flesh out Johnny's character more.
Inevitably certain things do overlap, and why shouldn't they?
I think an audience has a private conspiracy with Rowan anyway,
as a figure they want to see in these situations.
CHI HAN LY: How will it be done?
Same as in Mozambique. One person, apparently working alone.
McCOLL: Here we are, in the depth of the thriller genre.
PARKER: Yes, exactly.
It's very odd to have a scene without Rowan in it.
McCOLL: Yeah, everyone in black macs.
- PARKER: Yeah. - I love it.
PARKER: There was quite a discussion as to whether 500 million was right,
when there were three of them.
- McCOLL: Yes. - (BOTH LAUGHING)
PARKER: How were they going to split that?
McCOLL: We should've made it six. I'm sorry about that.
You've been out for hours.
PARKER: Here we have another scene slightly similar
to the chair scene with the PM,
where more of your diligent work in getting the story straight
is almost completely unheard
as we're watching the shenanigans in the background.
McCOLL: Although I think one of the successes for Rosamund's character
is that she is capable of providing something that Johnny isn't.
And although we do have the delicious comedy
of Johnny in one of the most glamorous pair of underpants
- seen on the screen for some time... - (PARKER CHUCKLES)
PARKER: They are available, actually, I think, in different sizes.
McCOLL: I think the moment where she identifies what will be our seed into
the next element of the story
- works well. - Yeah.
McCOLL: I remember when we cut it, actually, we were quite against it,
and then actually found that
understanding it clearly through these images...
PARKER: It felt important to set up where Johnny was going to go to
at a later point.
Someone was talking to him.
I don't think he had any idea what he was doing.
I think Vortex's secret weapon...
PARKER: So, we did have a scene that followed this,
the cooking scene,
which does appear at the very end of the credits of the film.
I think it will appear as a DVD extra,
which is a terrific bravura piece for Rowan.
But, in the end, we took it out of the film
with our kind of mantra
that everything had to drive the story forward.
And although it was a wonderful comic interlude,
it was too much of an interlude.
And while it worked in its place, it seemed to detract from
the engine that was driving us towards the end of the third act.
That's where we suffered.
McCOLL: So, it was just there. You've just missed it.
PARKER: It was very good. Shorter than it was.
McCOLL: Yeah, and we killed many a vegetable in the rehearsals.
Hacked them up with all kinds of knives, but here we are.
Well, the man's a god.
Well, I prefer mortals.
Pure, complicated, maddening mortals.
I've come to realise that what's really exciting to me
is great loyalty.
PARKER: These are, I suppose, the characteristics
which we were working quite hard to identify in Johnny.
The reason why we felt like it was important
that the audience did enjoy his company
and valued him and wanted to see him succeed.
McCOLL: And that quality of loyalty and of bravery
are two of Johnny's greatest qualities,
and which some people find irresistible, by the looks of things.
...leaking.
(DOORBELL RINGS)
PARKER: In fact, all that behavioural therapy, emotional leakage,
was something that Rosamund herself was extremely keen to track down
and keep as authentic as possible.
All the designs, Matt Curtis, who did a lot of our graphics work,
did for us on the screen,
really a lot of them are what they use in the FACS. The Face...
McCOLL: Analysis... Oh, I can't remember it now.
PARKER: FACS, anyway, that's what it is.
So, again, it's bedded into, if you like, the real world as much as possible.
You?
We're trying to track down Johnny English.
There's some questions we want to ask him, about Vortex.
I don't suppose you've seen him, have you?
No.
Not hiding him away?
Not my type. (CHUCKLES) Shall we?
PARKER: So, here again is a fabulous set constructed by Jim Clay.
We sometimes wondered how Kate could afford such a thing,
but it certainly fits the style of the film,
and Jim, I think, is incapable of building a small set.
But I think the scale was hugely important to us,
and he was an incredible asset in the making of this film.
So, Johnny finally cottoning on here.
McCOLL: This is also a great shot when you suddenly see
that the third man
is his hero, Simon Ambrose.
Ambrose.
(VACUUM CLEANER WHIRRING)
PARKER: Yeah.
You've abided by the kind of three-act structure pretty closely, I would say,
in terms of turning points and revelations.
McCOLL: Yes, I think that, that largely happens if you're getting your story right.
I'm no great student of it, but I think...
And certainly we talked very much, when we were making the movie,
about how to end the Johnny movie,
what the final scenes were going to be.
PARKER: And here he is, having been completely worshipping Agent Number One,
now finds himself not just on the run,
but that whole image shattered and he's completely alone.
Apart from perhaps Kate and, of course, he'll rediscover his partner in a moment,
in Tucker.
We shot this in a different order, and there was a question once,
having done the nappy addition to that last shot,
whether Mrs. Tucker should've been
perhaps more conscious of the smell arriving into the room.
- (McCOLL CHUCKLES) - PARKER: Something we missed.
There's a Mr. Adams to see you, Colin.
McCOLL: I think she should've been playing
the David Soul Greatest Hits in the background.
Every agent in the country is after you.
We were right about Ambrose.
PARKER: So, do you remember Rowan soldiering on through this?
He had an attack of laryngitis, I think.
McCOLL: That's right. He was quite ill in this scene.
- But, actually, you wouldn't know it. - PARKER: It's a moment...
And he could almost afford to be at this stage, couldn't he?
To me, he sounds very like...
I don't know if you remember Michael Jayston?
McCOLL: Yes, yes.
PARKER: You feel a whisky or two has passed down that epiglottis.
- McCOLL: Has enriched the tones. - Yes, exactly. It sort of adds to this.
We are in Tooting.
McCOLL: There's my Tooting.
...because my country needs me.
McCOLL: It couldn't have been Maidenhead, you see.
And because it needs you, too.
McCOLL: I love that moment. And he gives that to Tucker.
'Cause it matters to them both.
PARKER: So, we haven't mentioned, of course,
the addition of the voice to Royce.
McCOLL: Yes, voice activation.
PARKER: Yeah, we had to think of who might play it, of course,
and there was something about Mariella Frostrop
which seemed to be the perfect image of womanhood for Johnny English.
McCOLL: Absolutely. I don't think there could've been a better choice.
PARKER: So it's almost like The Magnificent Seven here,
but down to The Magnificent Three, being Johnny, Tucker, and the car.
McCOLL: Yeah.
PARKER: Starting us into, you could say, act three.
McCOLL: Yeah, I mean, obviously, we talked a lot about the Bond movies,
and we talked early on about
how many of the Bond villains have their secret hideaways,
sort of whether they're in volcanoes or on desert islands.
And although this wasn't the residence of a villain,
we wanted somewhere that was remote and difficult to access.
Movies like Where Eagles Dare and Guns of Navarone
had given us a sense of an alpine location,
and something that was just impossible to get out of or into.
Le Bastion. One way up, one way down.
Come on. Let's get the stuff.
PARKER: "Let's get the stuff" is an ADR. line. I never thought it would work.
McCOLL: (LAUGHING) "Let's get the stuff."
PARKER: Sorry, that was done without you, Hamish,
- and I apologise. - That's fantastic.
McCOLL: The technical language.
...while you were stringing conkers.
PARKER: Somehow in keeping with the schoolyard conversation there.
McCOLL: And we, of course, had many different gadgets
that they use to get in
that we discussed.
PARKER: Jim Clay is great at this great kind of monolithic environment,
- which feels... - McCOLL: Love that shape. Wonderful.
The P-8 grapple hook?
Check.
- ENGLISH: Estimated height? - Thirty-five feet.
PARKER: And here's a moment that seems to...
Can I just say, sir?
PARKER: Seems to bind them, I find.
This is just great.
PARKER: The two of them really, for a moment, share their enthusiasm.
Johnny not one, of course, to indulge. Moving on.
The D-16 ascender, and up we go.
PARKER: Now I'm wondering about the voice on this alarm.
- McCOLL: Yeah. - Because there was a lot of discussion.
PARKER: That does sound remarkably like your voice.
McCOLL: I have to admit that I snuck into the ADR
and laid down some alternative possibilities.
PARKER: That's your main job, I've heard, is adding to the alarm.
McCOLL: That's right. I do the voice on burglar alarms when I'm not writing scripts.
(PARKER CHUCKLES)
PARKER: A lot of discussion about different sounds,
and how much variation there should be,
and how much voice, and how much noise.
Incredibly rather sort of specific decisions.
And different versions we tried. Took us a long time.
(SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
MAN ON LOUDSPEAKERS: Intruders in Sector Four!
PARKER: One of my favourite lines here.
Dear God, let me not die at the hands of the Swiss.
PARKER: Now where on Earth did that come from?
(McCOLL CHUCKLES)
McCOLL: Well, I mean, I am a great fan of Switzerland and the Swiss,
but I wouldn't want to die at their hands. Shall we just leave it at that?
PARKER: We did take it out once, in one cut, and
and there was a huge hole in the heart of the film.
Come on, harder.
PARKER: Yes, as you said, Daniel Kaluuya, playing Tucker,
I'd just seen him, before we cast him, in this play called Sucker Punch,
where he played a boxer and was incredibly impressive and convincing
doing huge monologues while skipping and doing press-ups.
So, actually, he's coming into his own, finally.
Agent Tucker!
It's Johnny English.
Bag him.
PARKER: Yes. Is that Hampshire? I can't remember, was it Hampshire?
- That was Hampshire, I believe. Yeah. - PARKER: Alpine Hampshire.
McCOLL: That's a wonderful shot. Look at that.
PARKER: Yes, here we are in...
McCOLL: That's another example of your imagination made concrete.
- It's been delightful. - Yes.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
PARKER: It is exciting. Though it's always a little nerve-racking until the final
- contribution of the shot. - Yeah, you do all the hard work. I just write.
A simple sentence which is then the gauntlet thrown down.
PARKER: Sweat for us for months.
...refreshments to your room when you're ready, Pegasus.
Thank you, Agent One.
PARKER: You're in the Gillette building off the A4 here,
where Jim Clay did a terrific set for us here,
where we're able to look at the climactic scene
from all different angles with a load of glass,
which is obviously a cameraman's nightmare.
But a little more about Danny Cohen, who was the DP,
who some people know from his Oscar nomination for King's Speech,
who really did bring great invention...
- He was wonderful. - PARKER: Yeah.
...and style to the piece, and had a great crew with him, too.
Quite a lot of it was shot with two cameras, which is not always easy for comedy,
but it certainly helped for some of the action sequences.
McCOLL: This is another sequence that was quite long,
we've had for quite a long time, and I love this sequence.
(GRUNTS)
McCOLL: Yes, it's broad, there it goes. But it also has a great charm to it somehow.
- I love that, Ollie. - Yeah.
(PARKER CHUCKLES)
PARKER: I don't think that was my idea, actually.
I think that was the guy who was inside.
Are we allowed to say that isn't Rowan inside?
He did most of them, but that one.
McCOLL: It wasn't? PARKER: No.
- McCOLL: I didn't know that. - I don't think so. He did most of the stuff.
PARKER: But here, I think, we were filming simultaneously.
Sir? Sir?
- English! - Pegasus.
They're going to make you kill Xiang Ping!
You're insane!
PARKER: Somehow that reminds me of Saturday Spanish soap opera that,
throwing the vase.
McCOLL: I thought you were going to say Saturday coming home from the pub.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
PARKER: What do you know about my Saturdays?
Here to give you some Timoxy bubby...
(STUTTERING) Timoxy bubby...
McCOLL: Timoxeline Barbebutenol was another Tooting for me.
PARKER: Yes, absolutely.
McCOLL: Another word that I just relished the idea of Rowan saying or not saying.
PARKER: Again, it's that similar rhythm of racing through on the tension
and just taking a break in the rhythm for a moment.
How exactly were you going to administer it?
McCOLL: When I first saw this with my 11-year-old son,
I was delighted when Johnny started drinking this
and my son shouted, "You idiot!"
(BOTH CHUCKLING)
PARKER: Yes, it's a huge relief, isn't it? I have a son who's about to be 10,
and it's quite a burden to make a film for these young men
- because they love the first one, don't they? - McCOLL: Yes.
PARKER: So, my main motivation through making this is clearly not to disappoint him.
I seem to have got away with it.
(SCOFFS) I have to warn you that I've been trained to resist this kind of thing.
(STUTTERING)
You swine.
Agent One, what's going on?
He's quite harmless at this phase.
The drug will kill him, but just before it does,
there'll be a short window where he'll do everything I tell him to.
PARKER: Again, here's a platform for Rowan
to do some of the stuff that only he can really do.
Poor Johnny.
You were never really MI-7, Johnny.
You were never really one of us.
Now you're about to become our most famous agent.
PARKER: I find he does the robotic stuff incredibly convincingly, Rowan.
I mean, as a performance, I think he gives us here,
well, in the whole film, quite a range.
There is something genuinely creepy,
although comic, obviously, in some of his attitudes here. I love this.
Ready.
McCOLL: Yes, that's really quite alarming.
(PARKER CHUCKLES)
You had a pleasant flight, I trust?
I was just asking the Premier...
McCOLL: I love the way he repeats that, "I was just asking."
PARKER: No, he seemed to have some pretty clear models, I think, Stephen,
when giving us his performance here.
He's standing in for Pamela. Isn't it great?
PARKER: Andrew Woodall is the foreign secretary.
He also gives us some great stuff in his little asides
and his perspective on the whole thing.
So much is made for the performance by the reactions around him, isn't it?
Tucker.
McCOLL: Yes, at one level, we were working backwards
to a situation where we could get Johnny isolated and alone,
and yet witnessed. So, this is a sealed room that you can lock from the inside,
but nobody else can get in.
So he has all the delegations round, watching
what will turn out to be a fiasco.
PARKER: Interestingly, I find that the style of it, too, that mainly Jim has given us
in terms of, there's something, obviously, hugely high-tech
with the computer room and security room behind us here,
and all the bulletproof setup,
but at the same time, there's something kind of '70s, isn't there?
McCOLL: Yes, that's true, actually.
PARKER: About the world of Manchurian Candidate-y kind of thing, which I enjoy.
Slightly the suits, too, which have a very current but also just a hint of retro.
Classic, I suppose.
(SWISHING)
McCOLL: I think here that the grape's a lovely touch.
Stand up and go to the water table.
PRIME MINISTER: Premier, I believe the present danger...
PARKER: It was a relatively late addition to make Rowan a translator, wasn't it?
McCOLL: That's true, actually. We tried a number of different ways,
but, in fact, the more we pared down the people within the enclosed space
so it was just the two premiers and two translators,
the more focus we could give to Johnny in this sequence
and less opportunity for him to be stopped or overwhelmed.
PARKER: Oliver there is a translator, actually, rather than an actor.
...China does not respond well to advice...
Pull out the barrel.
Now, Johnny, I want you to kill Xiang Ping.
Oh, dear God, no.
PARKER: Ilan's music has a shade of Mission: Impossible around here
I've always enjoyed.
TUCKER: Ambrose.
PARKER: So Tucker is now a fully fledged agent, I believe.
McCOLL: Yes, he's come into his own.
When we see him there, and from now on.
Mind must be master...
McCOLL: And now Johnny calls on the resources
that he learnt high in the Tibetan mountains
and starts the war with himself.
...is fighting the right hand.
Come on, Johnny.
TUCKER: If I can interrupt the frequency,
I could stop Ambrose from communicating...
PARKER: Rowan was most game in this, wasn't he?
In terms of hurling himself around the place.
McCOLL: Absolutely.
- Beating up his poor hand, I remember. - McCOLL: Yeah.
PARKER: Swollen.
McCOLL: And again, like the drug in the room where he has the manic phase,
this is all an opportunity for our best physical comedian
to play in a way that only he can.
TUCKER: Come on. Come on.
He'll be dead in 50 seconds, sir.
PARKER: Interesting, trying to get the tone of this right,
to get that balance of hopefully genuine excitement, tension,
and then something slightly more farcical, Radio Montreux.
I'm sure Radio Montreux has its serious side though.
And the danger, obviously, with this was whether we'd completely blown the tension,
but hopefully we can salvage the situation
and bring us right back into the immediate jeopardy.
Ten seconds, sir.
Fire!
(GRUNTING)
PARKER: Always an interesting moment, too, here,
we're almost trying to turn the story around
into something where hopefully there is some real concern for him.
Stand down!
McCOLL: Yes, because he's given everything by this stage,
and it seems that he will give his life.
PARKER: Then you have this shot.
McCOLL: Despite the fact that he's not wearing a very attractive lipstick.
PARKER: Exactly. "I'm not sure it's his tone."
McCOLL: You see, we're undercutting the drama here with a nice cherry red.
His pulse is dropping.
Don't lose him!
Come on, sir.
PARKER: And these two really give us
some pretty sterling drama to play against the situation.
Again, it was quite a tricky thing to work out
how much one plays the kiss being the lifesaver
or the education via Ting Wang, the monk.
- And to get that balance right, wasn't it? - McCOLL: Yes, exactly.
It was whether it was one or the other or both,
which I think we finally settled on.
Almost there.
PARKER: So, here's the soppy bit.
Thank you, Kate.
I was passing.
TUCKER: Sir.
Tucker!
Welcome back, sir.
Thank you, Tucker.
I won't kiss you, if you don't mind.
Well, whatever.
Where's Ambrose?
- McCOLL: And now we're back in. - Yeah, exactly.
PARKER: So that was the work of Framestore
in creating the Bastion up there on the real rocks that we found
in location searching.
So we're jumping from different studio spaces, and then that was out in...
I can't remember fit was Hampshire. Probably in Hampshire.
McCOLL: And in the Toshiba colours,
"Spying... For You", which we discussed much
in terms of its exact typography on top of the parachute.
PARKER: We did.
Very keen, too, when we came to this sequence,
that we included Rowan as much as we could
because it's classic stuntman territory,
but we were able, of course, to get Rowan onto one of these Ski-Doos.
He was like a duck to water.
McCOLL: Yeah, there he goes. I mean, he really is master of it.
PARKER: It's been quite a long time since Johnny English has cocked up.
McCOLL: Yes, indeed.
PARKER: I remember we had a series of potential jokes here,
but we tried to hold our nerve, didn't we, and keep the story going?
McCOLL: I think here, this is where he really
comes into his own agent-wise, as we can see.
PARKER: A valid claim for Agent Number One's slot.
McCOLL: And this fight sequence we discussed a great deal
in terms of what he had learnt in Tibet,
and how we would pay that off. So the skill set that he had learnt in Tibet
with the... I was gonna say shiatsu monks! (CHUCKLES)
PARKER: Shaolin.
McCOLL: Everything he'd learnt with the Shaolin monks,
he now uses to great advantage and comic.
PARKER: It was a slightly longer sequence which had some rather quite good elements,
but it felt like there was a danger
of slightly outstaying our welcome at this point in the film.
Although it's a great sequence,
it's sort of the curtain call to the finale in the room at the Bastion.
Ooh.
What's the matter with you?
PARKER: Not to be tried at home, of course.
And so, as far as Johnny not making a mistake,
- pretty good up till here. - It's true. He has not made a mistake,
but, as always, he will make the final mistake.
We've constantly tried to finesse that down to just the one thing.
And here he is. He's got everything he could possibly need,
except something to walk on.
(SCREAMING)
McCOLL: One foot wrong.
PARKER: I love the intensity with which Dominic goes for these things.
Absolutely, you feel there's a real kind of...
- Action-packed, but also great determination. - He has a great appetite, doesn't he?
PARKER: Yeah, I agree. Exactly.
The bulletproof shield!
Hey! It's not working!
It's the T-2, sir!
- Is he... Oh, he's alive! - It's the T-2!
Close it. Close it!
PARKER: I think these are now available at high street stores.
McCOLL: Yes, they're the number one Christmas toy, I believe.
Oh, Johnny.
McCOLL: Right from the beginning, we were talking gadgets for Johnny ,
and it was something that Rowan was concerned
that he didn't have too many gadgets, particularly in the body of the film.
And therefore it seemed right in act three
that he would be allowed a couple,
thanks to the boot of the Rolls-Royce, and I think they work well.
But then I would, I suppose.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
PARKER: I wouldn't contradict you there.
McCOLL: The final scene and, as always, tonally, one to get right.
- We discussed several locations for this. - PARKER: We did, yeah.
And also, it was a reasonably late addition, too, in terms of working out
what would be most satisfying,
what elements of the story were working better.
And as she said, "It would mean the world to him,"
and having set up the crossed-out "Sir" at the beginning,
it seemed to have some yin and yang about putting things right
before we put them wrong.
McCOLL: And I do love this shot of the killer cleaner.
(SCREAMING)
PARKER: There goes Rowan's chance of a knighthood.
McCOLL: I don't know.
- PARKER: Not yet. - (BOTH LAUGHING)
Gotcha! Gotcha.
PARKER: Oh, dear!
Got you!
(McCOLL CHUCKLING)
McCOLL: Well, if you're gonna to go for it, really go for it, that's what I say.
And we couldn't possibly leave Johnny achieving everything
without underlining that wonderful ability of his
to get everything utterly wrong in the last resort.
PARKER: Oh! Oh!
...over, over!
PARKER: So just as Rowan's eyes are about to fall out of his head,
I'll say thank you for listening from me, Oliver Parker.
And me, Hamish McColl. Thank you.
- You're Hamish? - Yes, I am.
PARKER: You've done a good job. There you are. See?
McCOLL: (CHUCKLES) And that's why it's there, to remind me who I am.
Thanks for listening, everyone.
PARKER: Thank you for Debra Hayward,
who basically was the one who cornered me into doing this bloody job.
- Am I allowed to say "bloody job"? - McCOLL: And Ronaldo.
PARKER: Danny Cohen, Danny "Oscar-nominated" Cohen, of course.
Jim Clay. Sterling work.
Guy Bensley. Hadn't had a real chance to talk about Guy
who really was a great voice in this, I think.
McCOLL: He was excellent.
PARKER: He really had a great handle, both on the comedy and the action,
which, of course, is what you need.
This is Rumersinging, and the song written by Eg White.
And again, I suppose we were quite keen to find something that did,
if you like, celebrate what is great about our Johnny
and that we do finally believe in you.
A lot of great support from the cast here for Rowan.
Lily Atkinson, girl with the crash helmet.
- That's a coincidence. - McCOLL: Can't possibly be related.
- No. I wouldn't have thought so. - McCOLL: No.
PARKER: Paul Herbert, who did a lot of the stunts,
was, again, a great contribution to the film
and always on it and really came up with some terrific ideas.
Very good to work with. My first AD, Ben Howarth,
who's a remarkable first AD, actually,
and really done some... A lot of support for me all the time,
and extremely inventive and hardworking and a great pleasure to work with.
There's so many people on this film, aren't there? Do you think they all got paid?
McCOLL: No, no. PARKER: I hope not.
McCOLL: Yes, of course, I think they did. PARKER: Yeah.
Storyboards. There you go. Doug had a lot of work to do.
There's quite a lot of set pieces you landed us with here.
McCOLL: Yes. One of the intentions we had making this
was to get the action sequence up,
and it's one of the elements of the film that I'm most satisfied with.
So there was a lot of things that we needed to construct
and build, which were brilliantly done to bring that element to the story.
I don't think we'd seen Johnny as much an action figure in the first movie,
and that was something that we were able to address in this one.
PARKER: We went past the whole editing team there,
who really had a lot of...
Again, trying to get that balance of when we push the fast cuts
and moving quickly through the story,
or when we allow for the long-held single camera take on a scene.
It was always a question we debated till the end.
Now here we have a scene that was cut from the film.
- Here's where it fitted. - McCOLL: Cooking.
PARKER: Cooking, yes.
McCOLL: Rowan had spoken about In the Hall of the Mountain King
as something that he felt
would be something he could... He would like to do some cooking to.
And the real challenge for us was to get it on the music,
- wasn't it? - PARKER: Absolutely.
McCOLL: Which obviously dictated the length of the piece
which finally mitigated against its inclusion,
but it was whether it could be done in time to the music.
So, a kitchen set was built.
PARKER: Yeah, and a lot of great rehearsal, too, went on here,
which you were extremely instrumental in.
And we were very pleased with where we'd got it to.
It just, as a sequence within the film, felt like it was almost out of character
with the film around it. But we liked it dearly,
and so we have included it for the delight of those
who managed to stay this long through the credits.
McCOLL: Yeah, even if you don't like the sequence,
you'll at least know how to cook a casserole.
PARKER: Yeah, in two minutes, 20 seconds?
McCOLL: In two minutes, 20 seconds, exactly. PARKER: Yeah.
Rowan is astonishing at managing to keep all this in his head
and to the rhythm of the piece.
- It's a formidable thing... - It's quite a feat.
...which one gets used to because you see it rehearsed.
McCOLL: Lovely little hip movement there, Mr. Atkinson.
PARKER: But we had a lot of expert advice, didn't we?
We had various cooks come along...
McCOLL: Yes, absolutely. People who could sort of slice things in the air
and slice things to incredible fineness.
PARKER: We ended up using Rowan doing it all though.
McCOLL: We did, actually.
Ultimately, it was not something we wanted to cut into that much.
PARKER: No, absolutely.
And also, seeing him do it has its own pleasure.
McCOLL: Yeah.
PARKER: And just the little addition of the tip of one of his fingers in the stew is probably
not necessarily gonna detract from the taste of the thing, I don't know.
McCOLL: What we found was that, despite our best intentions,
the ability of a celery and a leek to spread over the surfaces
was greater than we'd first imagined. But this was wonderful at the end here.
(McCOLL HUMMING)
I love that meticulous use of the root vegetable.
And always a good stock.
PARKER: You see, Jamie Oliver doesn't have to do it at that pace, does he?
McCOLL: No, eat your heart out. PARKER: Yeah.