DOME KARUKOSKI: Hello, this is Director Dome Karukoski.
I will confront this impossible task
that is called, "Director's Commentary."
And hope to give you some insight about his--
more insight about his life and experiences.
And also, dwell into his imagination.
Or how we portray his imagination, in this film.
And try to do that in the given time.
We open up the film with the battle of good and evil,
which is very essential to Tolkien's legendary--
his writings.
Which, of course, derive very much from his real-life experiences,
confronting evil in different levels of his life.
And I think that was one of the essential elements of it,
essential thoughts about how to make this film is
to find the emotional truth of Tolkien...
feelings or moments that he endured...
in his life that later on
helped him build his own mythologies.
And the opening scene between two knights,
it is not a specific moment in his legendarium.
It's more of an allegorical element of how he feels
in this current status, in war.
And confronting, you know, the Germans that are sort--
that are seen to be evil forces. But I think there was--
Tolkien had understanding towards the Germans.
I think, he came out from war...
refreshed about, you know-- Understand--
He would talk-- For instance, he would love talking.
He loved talking German to the German captives.
I mean, the prisoners of war that the English got.
And so, he had this very gentle spirit in him towards the enemy.
He-- he didn't see them as an evil. He saw--
I think he profoundly saw them
as young men that were kind of lured
into this nationalist craziness, as the war was.
And, I think, that also can be seen in his mythologies.
Go back to barracks. And wait for me there.
Sir, you really need to lay down.
The doctor said that the fever might get worse.
- I really don't think-- - Look, Hodges...
KARUKOSKI: And of course,
the defining factor of how the character behaves
in this film is trench fever.
That we early on start and slowly, slowly hinting that he has.
And trench fever is something that it's high fever.
Your body shivers, you have cramps.
You might have hallucinations. It's-- it's a very heavy--
It's, kind of, almost like a malaria level sickness.
And it took months and months, uh...
for Tolkien to recover from the trench fever.
I don't think the night will treat us well, sir.
KARUKOSKI: And then we have memories.
(silence)
In a way, like, when you are ne-- in a near-death ex--
near-death experience, urn...
you start thinking about your past life.
And I feel that, that must have happened to Tolkien.
He's sitting there in the war in the cold,
in a hole in the ground in his barracks,
in his bunk.
And... And then, you know, the past comes.
And Sarehole Mill,
or his childhood that, you know, at his own Shire,
was something that he felt was essential to his life and also, as we know,
that he, later on, held that dear in his mythologies.
And, urn... I think that, for him,
his childhood became quite fraught
because he had to move... urn...
from this beautiful and idyllic place, into the city.
And it was because his mother, Mabel...
wanted to sup-- the boys to have a good education.
And, actually, it was Mabel who brought them to King Edward's.
(silence)
Because it was-- it was Arthur Tolkien's...
To-- John Ronald's father's, school.
So, she wanted the boys to follow Arthur's footsteps.
And Mabel was a great inspiration or must have been a great inspiration
you know, she spoke several languages,
French, Latin, and taught the boys.
She played piano, she had artistic influences in her.
So-- and that's very natural. I mean, I have the same.
I didn't have a father. And I met my father at the age of 14
and I didn't know who he was.
And I relate that in Tolkien and his life,
that you grow a very special bond with your mother.
Because she is the one, she's the one you rely to.
And I wanted to portray that, you know.
The inspiration that Mabel had on Tolkien
and how tragic it must have felt
for that inspirational character
and to pass away in front of his eyes.
Mabel died because of diabetes and...
suffered, actually, di-- a diabetical coma
for six days before she passed away.
And that event defines Tolkien
as a character in my mind.
"Ubi bene, ibi patria."
Remember that my darling?
Wherever you feel happy...
That's your home.
MABEL: We will find our place. Sweetheart, we will.
KARUKOSKI: We tried, in Tolkien's young life, we tried to...
show moments of feelings
and emotions that must have, you know, built him as a young boy.
And... for instance, this arriving scene in Birmingham--
Birmingham, must have felt like a very Mordor-ous experience.
You know, you come from this very idyllic...
Shire and then you see these machines that he always hated.
How they destroyed the nature, and, kind of, how darkness prevails,
you know, over light.
And there are different--
there are different reads of how Mordor came into it,
and one of the reads is that this black country, this...
This Birmingham industrial area was...
kind of a part of this experience,
as World War I was.
But also, like he would see different elements, like,
that destroyed the world during his life.
And, in a way, how evil destroys something beautiful.
...find treasure, mother. Not in real life.
There's no fooling you, is there John Ronald?
Let's just say there's treasure,
and there's treasure...
And leave it at that.
KARUKOSKI: The Red Fairy Book, one of Tolkien's greatest inspirations.
He always used to say that he loved the story of Sigurd,
or the tale of Sigurd in the Vélsunga Saga.
Because of the dragon, because of the hero experience.
We actually had a magic lantern when I was young
and I think this idea for the scene kind of came from that.
That I would play this magic lantern
and kind of see the vivid images and the vivid shadows.
And it was kind of one way of portraying how his imagination works.
That how do you convey in a film
that a mind of a genius...
How it can-- How do you visualize that?
And you try to find ways that because there's not much documentation.
There are-- There are not like letters
where it explains, well, you know, then I saw something on a wall,
or how he built his mind.
And a lot of it derives from language.
But a person with an imagination, like Tolkien, he sees more.
He sees deeper.
So, for instance, in this specific scene, he starts to form a story of a hero.
It's not factual, it's not like factual that has happened in his life.
But I can imagine that he had these moments in life where,
you know, a story has been told, or he reads the Vélsunga Saga
and he kind of starts imagining a hero.
And...
that hero in our film, that later on turns
into this kind of fallen knight, a dark-ish, death figure.
YOUNG TOLKIEN: Do you know what that means?
KARUKOSKI: And a small thing about Laura Donnelly,
who I saw first in The Ferryman,
a play directed by Sam Mendes and written by Jez Buttervvorth.
And I loved her in it and that's why she's in the film, actually.
And she was pregnant on her sixth month,
and we had to find ways to cover it.
And you don't really notice it.
(silence)
KARUKOSKI: And it's a Wonderful, you know... fight
and you should be very thankful as a director that a person,
you know, does this and--
And I hear the baby is healthy and not too traumatized.
(silence)
KARUKOSKI: (chuckles) There...
There the idea, of course, continuing a bit of
how we form Tolkien's imagination
is that kind of this--
this beautiful story during the film this--
The beautiful memory of a heroic event, you know, Sigurd fighting Fafnir,
the dragon, in Vélsunga Saga.
It's an example of how Tolkien took his inspiration, so, you know,
there's not really one-on-one inspirations that Tolkien would say
that this is deriving exactly from this event or a specialist moment.
He would form them, you know.
He would read a story or he would hear a story.
And then other events or other stories would effect.
So, he would create his own stories through that.
So, in a way, this is
us trying to show how his imagination works.
That here's a story, see the hero.
Then that same story, slowly and slowly,
throughout the film starts to evolve
into darker images of beasts or flying,
you know, in this case, flying beasts, or dragons,
and in a darker place.
And this is how we kind of want to show that
how his stories of war
and going to the darker place
which is covering the light, of his own life.
Again, an emotional...
a very emotional, truthful element in his own life.
How, you know,
his own life and his light
turned into darkness,
and how that then is portrayed later on in his writings.
He's a bit tricky.
I found it as a director, actually, one of the most...
trickiest tasks I've ever had.
How do you portray a person's image without it being too clumsy, you know?
Without showing one-on-one inspiration,
so, okay, he hears something and then writes...
immediately that onto paper
which is a bit clumsy and it doesn't--
It doesn't really portray and it doesn't bring emotion.
(silence)
KARUKOSKI: But, you know, now we are--
I'm quite happy about this.
And thank you for our wonderful VX-- VFX department, one of us,
for making this journey together with me.
- Isn't that right, boys? - Yes, we hardly ever...
KARUKOSKI: Father Francis Morgan. So, this is a character
and Catholicism is--
is very essential and instrumental to Tolkien's life.
And, actually,
on the deleted scenes we have scenes
where the Catholicism is close, you know. He used to help Father Francis
and he used to spend a lot-- Tolkien used to spend a lot of time
in the Birmingham Oratory with Father Francis.
And, Father Francis Morgan was a very, you know,
he was very devout for the boys. He wanted to take care of them.
He was a guardian,
a good guardian for them.
He always sought the best for Tolkien.
And he...
he has this incredible past that he's also half Spanish.
And his-- Father Francis' family,
was in sherry trade.
So, I think he must have tasted it, you know?
A little bit of sherries in a lifetime.
And he was very-- Tolkien would describe him
as a very... loud person,
and also, a very funny person.
He would call his apartment in Birmingham Oratory, his cell.
And, I think,
we'd call Meaney--
I think, again, we are trying to capture...
the kind of the heartfulness of Father Francis.
And what it means to, you know, how important that figure is for Tolkien.
-(organ playing) -(boys singing hymn)
KARUKOSKI: King Edward's-- Tolkien actually said, in real life,
Tolkien was enlisted first into King Edward's by his mother.
But it was too expensive for them. And poverty, I see--
I see poverty kind of being one of a...
a building theme for Tolkien.
And he hated poverty.
And he-- One of his reasons of being--
'Cause I was very poor when I was a child,
and we didn't have running water
because we lived in this apartment
that my motherjust could barely afford,
which is very abnormal in Finland where I grew up.
And what happens to you,
when you experience poverty,
is that you never want to feel that again.
And you don't want to feel that for your own children.
And that motivates you to work even harder.
And, I think, in Tolkien's real life,
the feeling of poverty
made him, you know, he would-- later, in Oxford,
when he was a Professor, made extra lessons, you know.
He used to work so much.
And I think it comes from that emotional kind of experience of...
The not, you know, he liked actually King Edward's.
And then he had to change schools because of money,
not being, you know, couldn't afford it.
Going to another school,
and later on, he was able to, you know,
come back to King Edward's.
That feeling of losing things that you like,
because of not having money,
I think it defines him as a character very much.
(student reading text in Middle English)
KARUKOSKI: In real life, Tolkien actually met Christopher Wiseman first
and then Robert Gilson,
who was actually the son of the Headmaster,
who was also Robert Gilson.
And Geoffrey Smith joined their gang later.
And this bond, the T.C.B.S,
as we see in the film,
was for him the real immortal four.
There were other members of the T.C.B.S.
There were other boys that, you know,
came and went in, went out,
were in the club, were not in the club,
during his lifetime. But this kind of--
This essential, the four, the immortal four...
Was the core of the T.C.B.S.
And Tolkien loved playing rugby.
And later in his life, he actually,
I remember reading a letter where he wrote to his son Michael,
when Michael didn't make the rugby team in his own school.
And, you know,
kind of tried to be supportive about that.
And I understand why sports is very important for Tolkien.
And there's a sense, you know, there's a test of manhood.
There is something that is very physical about it.
There's this beautiful fight in it,
and being a sportsman myself, there is a lot of glory in sports.
There's a lot of emotion
that you can then again take into your literature work.
What is inspiring as a director to work with young actors like Harry Gilby,
Albie Marber, Adam Bregman, Ty Tennant, these young four boys,
is that they are often on their first or second role.
And then there's this love of life,
this energy that they have.
And as a director, the biggest job
is just to try to support that.
And encourage them to do things together
like plays, and sports a
and spend time.
And when I couldn't be with them,
we had this wonderful acting coach, Sarah Jayne Butler,
who worked with them and worked with their lines.
Because for a young actor,
it's very important that they remember the lines when they come on set.
Because you're nervous and the camera is there,
and the aesthetics and the emotions, on set,
are very different.
And that's intriguing as a director,
that you've rehearsed a scene
in a specific rhythm or manner,
and then it just changes.
The camera starts rolling, the lights are on,
and I think that's the magic of cinema,
is that what you've felt or heard before rehearsal,
it doesn't really--
It helps.
But the truth and how they are played and the energy,
And, especially, with these young boys,
enthusiastic about life.
You have to kind of reinvent to a certain level, with the camera.
Because the camera sees life differently.
Like, as a director you make choices that,
are you next to the camera? Are you behind the monitor?
And I often do both.
I often do--
I look at a take, behind the monitor.
Then I often look at a take next to the camera, if it's possible.
Because there are different energies in that.
A small anecdote.
The drawing we're seeing in this next scene is actually
drawn by Nicholas Hoult.
So, that's Nick's hand.
Cut to Harry Gilby.
And we had to take this shot from Nicholas' deleted scene,
because we didn't have enough material of how the drawing portrayed, you know,
his passion towards illustrating and telling stories.
And that... And that scene where we took it
was actually a deleted scene, post-World War I,
where Tolkien starts to write,
as he did in real life, again, his legendarium...
while he's in the hospital.
(piano playing)
Something about Mrs. Faulkner's relationship with Edith.
Mrs. Faulkner, most likely, wasn't a monster.
But she did have problems of Edith playing piano
and I think Edith felt very suffocated.
She actually wrote a letter at a later time that,
when she found a new home, post Mrs. Faulkner,
wrote to Tolkien saying that all that horrid time
at Duchess Road seems only a dream now.
So...
her feelings, her emotions,
how she felt living with Mrs. Faulkner,
are quite real in this film.
And, you know, and it's sad.
You know, these two orphans are thrown into the place.
I mean, Father Francis, of course,
sees this as a good place for Tolkien and Hilary to grow.
And Mrs. Faulkner must have...
you know, been somewhat a good person, taking these people in.
Yet, at the same time, as an orphan
you're cast in this place which is not your home.
It's just a place, it's housing.
(inaudible)
KARUKOSKI: And...
And I think that emotion,
wanting to find a home,
wanting to find belonging and importance of home
is something that I see very clearly in Tolkien's work.
How important it is for his characters
to find a home, to find a place.
And I think he yearned for that and, you know,
later in life he basically found a home with Edith.
And their love story is, you know, magical, even just because of that.
(inaudible)
KARUKOSKI: The library at King Edward's was a very important place
for the T.C.B.S. and...
You know, they would have tea in that library first,
and after that they would go to Barrow's Stores.
And, of course, our production designer, Grant Montgomery,
and his team found this amazing, beautiful tea set,
old tea set.
And we... basically,
see it
in... there.
You know, they-- Someone has actually... found it,
brought it, rented it.
And I think that's one of the nightmares for production designers.
And, you know,
kind of the privilege of being a director or a cinematographer is
that you get all these beautiful props or trinkets
that you almost want to take home.
And then, for some reason, you just don't show them,
usually for dramatical purposes.
And this is how the boys are first in Manchester.
They're walking in this beautiful courtyard
that which we built to look like a Birmingham Street.
And...
they're talking and chatting in Manchester.
And now...
cut to Liverpool.
Liverpool Centre, where we shot the Barrow's exteriors.
So, that's also the magic and difficulty of...
making Birmingham alive
was, of course, the Second World War,
which basically destroyed a lot of old buildings in Birmingham.
So, we had to find these locations
in Manchester, Oxford, Liverpool, Rochester,
that would look like Birmingham at the turn of the 19th century.
And the Barrow's interior was actually built under a gym
in a desolated location somewhere in Liverpool.
The walls were there but everything else,
Grant Montgomery and his team built.
And the idea was to kind of make it Tolkien-esque.
The real Barrow's was quite boring, if you look at the pictures.
The brief with Grant was that everything,
every location here has a magical tone in it.
So, you can, as an audience member, escape into this world
just looking at the film.
...She values poetry.
KARUKOSKI: And here, there are Easter eggs.
For instance, the old gentleman in the background who is sleeping,
he's reading Karamazov Brothers...
Brothers of Karamazov,
because that was a book I had to read in school
and I was just felt, you know, I just slept.
We have old ladies, we have...
warriors in there, you know, in some shots.
And during the Barrow scenes,
kind of that was...
We wanted to, with Grant and with the team,
we wanted to make Barrow's kind of this place
of his... inspiration.
A place of where these young men,
they would spar each other, they would listen to their story.
And Tolkien, in a way, found his emotional home
with these boys, you know. There was a place where he could speak
about his poetry and--
and they would read the things together and...
it must have been a very inspirational time for him as a young man,
feeling this group of intellects.
This scene we're seeing, I believe, is actually true.
Which is that they had to hide their friendship,
and then later their relationship, in secret.
And also, you know,
try to find ways to feed themselves better
because I believe that Mrs. Faulkner didn't really nurture them with food.
And Mimi Keene, who plays young Edith,
I think she does a wonderful job
in portraying the dreams of,
you know, like, you're poor. And, you...
What happens then is you want to dream you want to be in some place.
You want to be in rich--
You know, rich people's cafes or places,
experience things that other people can, which they can't.
And this kind of society
which is filled with classes, and things that--
Things that their class, at the moment, can't do.
I think, is very pivotal for Tolkien's life.
Let's talk about the batmen in World War I.
Tolkien, as he came from, not really a high-class
as most of the officer came from.
He used to-- I remember reading that he used
to be very friendly with the batmen and very friendly with the, you know,
with the privates.
So, he didn't--
I-- I remember, I'd been reading
that he didn't want them to call himself the Lieutenant,
or he wanted to be very close to these people.
And, of course, I don't believe he had actually a character,
a batman called Sam.
But it was something analogical about his admiration,
that we see in his writings that-- or I see in his writing.
Admiration of these helpers,
these men who are with their officer's,
you know, side by side, and--
And Greg Roberts,
we discussed about the language or the dialect and...
and what was luck was that he is Welsh.
So, we can go like, you can just do it with your own dialect.
Which is always helpful that
because it helps you come near to that character.
And... And I...
My feeling is that we could have written more scenes for Greg.
I think there's something really interesting about that character,
you know, going side by side on this journey.
But yet at the same time, the difficulty during the script phase
was always balancing the friendship of the T.C.B.S.
And then the friendship
that these two people start slowly and slowly building.
Because you're emotional--
emotionally you have to be more attached to the T.C.B.S
and for the journey of finding Geoffrey.
If you're not, and you don't care about that,
then I think the kind of the core of the film is...
not really working.
When you're doing a biopic or, you know, a film about a true-life character, again,
the difficulty is to...
somehow portray his inspirations.
Somehow to show them without it being too underlined
or too anecdotal so it doesn't become just a page from Wikipedia
or an Encyclopedia.
And, I think, this is a wonderfully written scene,
where in the actions of the characters,
the Norse Mythology, and in this case, a character called Hel,
who is the daughter of Odin,
is written in their lives.
And kind of...
Norse Mythology was one of Tolkien's biggest inspirations,
and if you look at his mythologies,
there's a lot of parallels there that I at least can read, to be.
And, Helheimr,
is an actual place and I--
Of course, Helheimr is a place
where you don't want to go.
You want to go to Valhalla.
Valhalla is where the warriors who died in battle, that fought,
you know, that lived bravely.
And...
And, I think, there's something beautiful in the ideal of--
Helheimr was, you know, was invented by us.
I don't-- I don't believe it's actual word that the T.C.B.S. used.
We invented it
to portray how these boys,
how they wanted to change the world
because they actually wanted to change the world with art.
They actually looked upon life
with enthusiasm, with energy.
You know, they had everything ahead of them
before war came. And--
And I remember that was one of my first emotions
when I read the script, a couple of years back,
was that how it captured
this youthful... excitement.
And how this captured the meaning of friendship
and the meaning of going together to,
unfortunately, in their case, into war,
but together, go in together into life.
And it was something for me it felt that it was kind of the core
and the heart of the film, when I read the script.
(silence)
KARUKOSKI: Thomas Newman, um...
As a thought of a composer for this movie came very early on.
Because I think in his instrument, and the way he, you know...
plays music, or he creates music,
it's very ethereal, it's very magical.
It feels like it's coming from an unearthly place.
He often uses instruments that I've never heard of.
And this cue is one of, I think, is Thomas' favorite,
or at least one of the favorites in the whole film.
Which, we guess, expresses the excitement, expresses the inspiration,
expresses the growth of young men.
And also, at the same time, using the certain, you know,
Elven-ish sounds
and the choir that we had at Abbey Road
when we were recording.
It somehow...
portrays the T.C.B.S. so well that,
it was probably our first and only choice,
as I remember, to be the end role at cue.
...Changing the world.
We will.
Helheimr!
- Helheimr! - Helheimr!
KARUKOSKI: Mrs. Faulkner's was shot in a house,
a three-story house in Liverpool,
And we walk in this beautiful, amazing location, which had
you know, tapestries.
It looked wonderful, very Victorian.
And then, Grant Montgomery just changed everything. (laughs)
All the tapestries, everything.
And, I think,
that's the beauty of a production designer.
Even though I can sometimes feel like this is perfect,
this location is perfect, he can see--
He and his team can see more.
And, of course, we had a, you know, a long... made plan
of how to bring in certain colors and how certain locations,
like Mrs. Faulkner, would have this golden-ish feeling in it.
And you have to be in control.
You have to control the film's aesthetics
and the color palette of the film.
And that's why even some locations might feel amazing,
and you might know those locations from real life.
And to be in control of the color palette, and to be in control of the emotional feel
that we're delivering, you change these places,
because colors especially, affect the human mind.
For instance, Edith's dress.
That color has been taken out of an illustration from Tolkien.
Our costume designer, Colleen Kelsall, had this idea
that she would use a lot of the color palette
from Tolkien's real-life illustrations.
Finding, you know, certain locations, where all the colors
of each dress or suit
had been taken out of the color palette of the specific illustration.
So, that again is something that generates
an overall feel of it being authentic to the character.
So, for instance, not-- You know, in this film,
there's a lot of poetic license taken.
A lot of the scenes have been re-written or they have been changed.
Place or events have been done in different order,
which is very normal for a biopic because“.
When a certain scene which is amazing in real life,
and there are several that I would have wanted to bring in
from Tolkien's real life into this film.
It doesn't necessarily work as a sequence or a chapter in his film.
So, otherwise, you know the worst biopics are
that you have a lot of individual scenes but they don't play together.
So, that's why usually a lot of biopics are...
you now, they are fictional in many ways so that you make the drama work.
But the main...
the important thing, what you want to do
is to be emotionally true to the character.
And part of the emotion, as I said, is the sound,
as Thomas Newman's music, I believe, is very true to Tolkien.
And colors, as the colors, I believe,
are very true to Tolkien.
So, the overall emotion of what you get from the film
is showing who Tolkien is,
you know, this warm, intelligent, playful person,
that we, for instance see in this scene.
And we can see Edith, again,
we try to be as true as possible for Edith.
She was intelligent,
she was, you know... she had a will,
and she was also playful,
and together they found this...
beautiful and magical relationship, and...
which became eternal because Tolkien later on wrote,
or he, you know, let her describe that
she was his LUthien, an Elven lady.
So, this lady we see here becomes eternal in his mind.
Tell me a story.
- What? - The story.
KARUKOSKI: And they did spend time in the Grand Hotel,
they did spend time in café's
throwing sugar lumps on people.
And I think that tells a lot about their relationship in real life.
And this scene with Lily and with Nicholas Hoult,
we... from very early on, I knew--
especially because it was meaningful for their relationship in real life,
but it is a strong scene that kind of embodies
everything about Tolkien in the creation,
their love, the love of language.
So, we actually shot this scene for almost two days in row.
So basically,
these two actors were sitting on the same stool for two days
uttering seven minutes of dialogue.
And, if for some technical reason we would have to reshoot, I think I...
would have had to bribe them with candy, and gifts, and great words to do it.
What I love about this scene is that we see
how Tolkien's mind works with language.
He takes a word from English, then he uses his knowledge
about different you know, Celtic or Gothic or Scandinavian, or even Finnish,
words and then he combines and...
kind of that inspires him to tell the stories.
And in this case, we see how he sketches.
The whole idea of the film is that he's sketching in his life.
None of the fantasy elements in the film-- in this film are yet ready.
They are something that he sees, sketches, ideas
that later on,
he then, you know, creates or modifies to fit his mythologies.
By trees.
EDITH: Trees?
TOLKIEN: One of the purest black, Black Ebony, the other...
white as bone.
Each contain a deadly poison...
KARUKOSKI: The two trees are of course essential in Tolkien's mythologies,
and, and the love of trees-- It was a known fact that he loved nature
and he loved the trees, and he was-- he felt sad,
you know, in his childhood, there was a...
there was a tree that was cut and just left there on the ground
and for him, I remember...
I remember him describing that it was a very tragic moment
that he actually felt with the tree because in his--
in his youth he would climb trees, talk to the trees.
He had a special relationship with them.
And we can of course see that in his books.
(inaudible)
I think I always saw...
kind of the two trees, being in love,
and there is this beautiful thought about them, you know.
Like two trees-- and trees together when they shed light upon each other,
they work together in perfect harmony.
I think there is something that...
must have been in their relationship also.
And the next scene
we are about to see
is a pivotal moment in Tolkien's life.
I believe it happened in 1914.
He wrote in a letter
that Edith danced to him,
and that's where the idea
and the story of love between a mortal man, Beren,
and an Elven lady, LUthien,
came into his mind, which he wrote,
and which is an essential part of his mythologies.
And if you haven't read the story, you must.
It's a beautiful story of sacrifice and love.
I asked Lily, what's the music you want to be playing,
I mean, while you are dancing?
Because there's gotta be something that helps her,
there's a crew around you, and it's a very cold place
where, you know, people are looking at you,
there's machines, and it's, not something that you--
that would feel spiritual or Elven, in a sense.
The music she wanted to have was Florence and the Machine.
In real life, the maid for Mrs. Faulkner was named Annie.
And...
And I think also Edith somehow
made Annie smuggle food from the pantry, for the boys,
and so, she was very mischievous in her...
her line of everyday life.
But it was intriguing how they were caught.
That's-- this shot is of course trying to portray somehow
because Father Francis somehow got to know...
that they were having a relationship.
And even though in real life,
they would be very secret-- trying to do that in secret and...
and I never, I never found out, I think that maybe
it's because of the Catholic Parish is very small in Birmingham.
So, you know, people would recognize Tolkien
because he must have attended Church from time to time.
(inaudible)
KARUKOSKI: But it never got out so we trying--
I don't think it is factual that, it was the maid Annie who then, you know,
was the scoundrel who told Father Francis but it's just the vision that they are...
they-- they are kind of under someone's gaze all the time.
I don't believe in examinations.
I write what I think,
if they want to give me a mark, it's up to them.
What a revolutionary approach.
Why, thank you.
I-- I would love to hear you play the piano sometime Miss...
Edith.
KARUKOSKI: It was intriguing, in the script for a long time,
for dramatical purposes, to make our lives easier,
all the four boys were put in Oxford.
And we of course--
the script was a couple of Tolkien experts
read the script, and...
I believe especially here in England,
the importance of which school,
was felt that it was blasphemy,
if we put two Cambridge kids into living in Oxford,
so we had to change that, and it felt wrong.
So, we almost made a fatal mistake and,
I-- I would have not been allowed to the country again, I believe.
(inaudible)
KARUKOSKI: At this phase, we're trying to
shed a little light on Edith's character.
It's always difficult when you, you know,
your protagonist is a male protagonist, and...
most of the characters are written for him,
so that the film functions, so we follow our protagonist's emotion,
our main character's emotion.
But Edith always felt...
a very important character, of course, in his real life
but also, that kind of how she was suffocated.
That was a very
patriarchal time, you know,
women were basically for men, they didn't have those moments
that things, especially in their class.
They didn't have those moments or...
hobbies for themselves.
And I believe that Edith, you know, she found this beautiful family life
and beautiful love from Tolkien, you know, he loved...
he loved her so dearly.
But at the same time, you know,
that time was quite sad and tragic for her,
you know, she had these dreams of becoming a piano player or...
or, basically, or a piano teacher, or you know doing something of her own.
And... it just wasn't the turn of that century,
it just wasn't the right time for her, for a spirit like Edith.
And I am not implying that she lived a tragic life but...
there is just something there that she had to sacrifice in her life
for Tolkien,
and for their family also,
and to find also as I said, the beautiful family life that they had.
In this scene, you know, in the mythologies,
almost always, dragons are implied as the biggest fear or...
the biggest danger that we confront.
And of course, when you talk about memories
and the memory of a loss,
you know he, in a way, Tolkien believes in this scene
that he is going towards his death.
And...
that he is not going to survive, he is very sick.
He is not going to survive.
So, that fear, and that thought, the allegorical thought
of the dragon coming into that moment,
felt that it would best portray his inner emotion.
So, we're not implying for those who want to nit-pick,
we're not implying that the flamethrowers...
inspired Tolkien
to ride his dragons.
It is-- It is something that we are trying to convey, his inner emotions, it is...
kind of his inner struggle at this phase of the film.
And of course, you know,
how he himself in a way, sees this army of dead people and...
that later affects his mythologies.
And the visions and the colors that he must have seen were amazing.
We-- we see World War One as black, white images.
But, for instance, Grant Montgomery did this research that, you know,
there was so much chemicals in the air that, that, would tint,
actually the air to look a bit yellowish.
And for instance, the pools of water would be red from oxide.
So, you don't really know
whether it's blood or actually oxide that is generating the red.
And... the idea that we had, you know,
that World War One would be very colorful, almost it's like--
so it's not gruesome and grey
but it's actually something that again,
you know, it wasn't a direct inspiration for him to create Mordor,
but in my mind, or how I saw it when I read Mordor and that you know,
the elements of Mordor when I was young,
there's something that's war-like texture of it.
And...
bringing that emotion, again is helping us,
somehow show that Tolkien,
kind of experiencing his own Mordor in different levels, you know,
coming to Birmingham, seeing the machines,
going to war, seeing the fire shadow,
you know, colors there.
And then that somehow made him picture
this-- this place of evil
in his mythologies.
GEOFFREY: Out of remembrance that never dies.
KARUKOSKI: The poem from Geoffrey here is, not exactly word from word
as the poem then later would be in his book.
Because the idea, again, like with Tolkien's fantasy elements,
these are sketches.
So, none of the writings,
or the music, or the paintings, none...
that we see in this film is yet finished.
So, in this scene, Geoffrey is still, you know--
we changed the words a bit
so that again, you know,
it shows that when they,
you know, when they spar or when they comfort him
that, you know, it's great work,
that allows him to work more on the poem.
So, you have to actually read, Geoffrey's poem, poetry book to read
what the finished poem is.
ROBERT: Copied, unfortunately.
KARUKOSKI: Patrick Gibson, Anthony Boyle,
Tom (Hymn-Carney,
and of course, Nicholas Hoult,
it is my strong belief, and I can wager a bet,
that these gentleman will make great things as actors.
There is this-- sometimes the director, when you put a camera,
when you put, you know, lens on a person's face,
it just lightens.
Kind of it's just-- it comes into flames,
or there's just this shine.
And these young men, you know, they are in their '20s,
they've done enough camera work at that point
that they can just enjoy the medium, you know, they're blossoming.
For instance, this scene
on page for Patrick Gibson, who plays Robert Gilson,
the older Robert Gilson, you know,
you could go so awfully wrong with, you know, how you play
the victory that you have over your father.
Or, like Wiseman, you know they're good friends.
Christopher Wiseman is not, you know,
a nemesis for Tolkien.
They are really good friends, they would spar each other,
but, you know, sometimes friends have conflict,
and the T.C.B.S, I read somewhere
that they did have conflicts with each other and...
Tolkien would sometime elude himself from the other guy's and be a loner,
he would not-- which I understand him because,
you know, being an orphan sometimes there is this mistrust,
sometimes there is this, want to be alone also,
yet for him these...
these boys meant everything.
This is-- So it's not coming--
these arguments are not coming out of...
any true conflict.
It just happens when you are, you know, with someone for a longer time.
And I think Wiseman and Tolkien
were best friends at some point.
Also, I believe...
and part of that is with a best friend is that,
at least I've had sometimes,
how do you say, scores of muteness,
they don't talk for some reason,
you have a fight.
...circumstances have changed, however.
And now, they will go home.
KARUKOSKI: Owen Teale-- I've seen Game of Thrones, of course,
the whole show,
and Owen Teale was very much, you know,
his figure and the-- the authority that he has--
has in himself already as an-- as a person...
was something that very early on,
I felt that he is a perfect fit for that role,
for Robert Gilson, the older Headmaster.
And, thank you for Nadia Stacey and her make-up team,
for making him actually...
...look quite astoundingly
similar to the real-life Robert Gilson,
Headmaster Gilson.
Sir...
I prefer not to go back on my offer of hospitality.
KARUKOSKI: And he was an inventor of machines, I believe,
headmaster Gilson,
and he liked to invent, he was very mathematical.
And... he would like to invent small gimlets I remember reading.
So, it must have been a slight conflict with them,
that younger Robert then chose art
as his platform.
And...
young Robert's step-- stepmother
was a fan of his art.
But sometimes you do cut the characters,
so that it's possible to make this film work in two hours,
so we, we never really see the stepmother.
Very well.
(laughing) -(shushing)
KARUKOSKI: The music in this moment
is what I call a foreshadowing moment.
So, this small bit of music
we then later hear
at the last Barrow's scene with Mrs. Smith.
So, when Tolkien remembers the young boys, it's kind of--
it adds to the emotional feel
of remembering that wonderful scene with...
with his friends.
"In the wake of an argument, Dracheniukker."
KARUKOSKI: The dragon joke,
“So. I'm a dragon”, was a surprise for Nick.
So, Lily whispered to me like, “Can I say like, 'So, I'm a dragon”',
and try to kind of, you know, drop Nick out of character?
But of course, he's too much of a professional,
he didn't fall, we didn't get a blooper.
You sometimes do that you-- (chuckles)
things actors do to each other and...
you try to drop them from character but...
Mr. Hoult has done too much camera work to drop out of character.
Wagner...
actually, Tolkien didn't-- he didn't appreciate,
he wrote in a letter, I remember reading,
that he didn't really appreciate Wagner's...
how he read the German mythologies.
So, for instance, The Ring Cycle is not...
a direct inspiration
to The Lord of the Rings trilogy
or the story.
I mean, usually, of course, artists at that time,
they would take a lot of inspirations from different mythologies
and so did Wagner,
and so did Tolkien.
He must have seen the play, he didn't like it,
he didn't like Wagner's interpretation of the...
of the story.
But there are elements that you can see,
of course, that if you've seen or read--
and he's read the original material,
there's something there...
that you take without necessarily...
knowing exactly
that you are taking.
Lord of the Rings is inspired by many things and...
and there is a very Catholic underlying in that-- in that story,
a very religious underline in there.
Lord of the Rings in my mind,
which of course is not part of this film because he wrote it in an older age.
And this scene is my favorite scene.
It was the most horrifying almost to shoot, apart from the trenches.
It was cold.
These actors were cold.
We only had a couple of hours to do it,
and then they had this dance choreography.
And-- and we had a Steadicam operator, Karstan Jacobsen, a Danish Viking.
Without him, this scene could have not been done.
Well, you have to understand about the Steadicam,
it's a very heavy, heavy piece of equipment.
I think it's like sixty kilos.
And this Danish Viking would just hold it all the time for this...
four hours of what we shot
and he would just hold this sixty kilos on him,
and create these amazing Steadicam shots.
And Karstan is famous for a specific Steadicam shot
he done in the Eurovision that was held in Copenhagen,
and I think you can find it on YouTube
as "the most amazing Steadicam shot ever."
where he actually holds this equipment on a Segway,
and in a live show, which are watched by millions.
There is long, long shot, jumping from the Segway to the stage.
And we of course, you know, played it among the crew too,
and he became quite an idol amongst the British crew,
this Danish Viking.
And from here starts my almost favorite part of the movie.
And Thomas Newman created this...
such a wonderful piece of music to help it that...
I do not know if I...
ever in my life will achieve,
a higher level of...
love in a film.
-(opera music playing) -(Edith pretending to sing)
KARUKOSKI: One of the themes we discussed
was that...
you know, there is light inside darkness,
and Edith of course represents that.
And of course, this shot is an analogy,
to you know, in my perspective how I read Tolkien's work or his life
amongst a lot of darkness, there is usually a light.
And...
for me, it was very early on,
it was very important when we edited it to hold onto the whole length,
and especially the ending...
ending composition, which we see in that Karstan delivers us.
It's kind of this-- just this love among darkness
that is in his memory.
And... and in true life
he actually did fail his first Oxford exam.
(Professor speaking)
PROFESSOR: Good luck.
KARUKOSKI: And in true life, Father Francis, and I think
that's one of the tragic events in his life that Francis--
Father Francis forbade him of meeting or even writing to Edith,
until the age of twenty-one.
And I don't' see that as a... many people read it as
because Edith was Protestant,
and you know, and maybe and perhaps
it bothered Father Francis that she was a Protestant.
And, you know, later in life she converted to Catholicism
because Tolkien wished so, and that would of course be a scene if...
if we would portray that sequence of their lives.
But I don't think it's the core of the religion
why he forbids.
It's possibly part of it
but for Father Francis he was...
I believe that very strongly that as a father figure he wanted the best
for these children, for Tolkien, and for John Ronald, for Hilary.
And as me as a father myself,
I can see that, you know,
that you know he's a young-- he's a young man,
is this love, is this true?
You know, should he just focus on school?
And I think it's very relatable to today's parenthood where you,
you know, does love come in front of your future?
And because they were poor,
and even Father Francis did get some money
from his Sherry ownings in Spain,
and he was able to support
John Ronald and Hilary with that money.
Still, in essence,
Tolkien needed the scholarship.
He needed to succeed and get the grades that he would get the scholarship
so, otherwise Oxford would have been an impossibility for him.
And at that time, at that era,
it was very much a societal element
that if you're guardian, or your father or your mother,
you know, kind of, made a decision for you, as in this case,
you're not allowed to meet your love.
You would respect that at that time.
I mean, Tolkien, he would respect Father Francis
even though he felt that it was wrong,
but he did dearly love, and also, you know,
admire Father Francis.
And, you know, he would go to Church often,
which again, is something we don't-- we don't have a scene
where he goes to Church but we're trying to imply here that their...
their mutual admiration is very strong.
And... and I...
myself, I get a feeling when I watch this scene
that, "Oh but they should continue in secrecy and he should hide the fact."
But then reading about that era, you understand--
you understand Tolkien's choice
of respecting Father Francis' command.
Edith, it's just until I reached my maturity.
For God sake, Ronald.
Don't be so dramatic.
It doesn't matter.
No, don't say that. Of course, it matters.
EDITH: [don't know why you taking it so hard.
Things are just returning to normal. That's all.
KARUKOSKI: We had the idea of actually shooting this in the hallway,
so it would have been more exposed
and more,
how do you say... ruthless.
I think it was even...
I think that could have worked also,
just being so this beautiful,
magical relationship ending in this
just a hallway kind of been cold.
And somehow it would have
shown how it feels for Edith.
(inaudible)
KARUKOSKI: But I think for a technical reason
we had to move it into the bedroom
and I'm haPPY-
Sometimes those accidents happen. It wasn't based on a vision.
'Cause this is a level of intimacy that our cinematographer, Lasse Frank,
and his lighting team could build in this specific location.
It's a level of intimacy with the lights and that...
that you could have not achieved at the hallway.
It would have been a different scene.
And I think that's a part of the wonderful, you know...
privilege of being a filmmaker is that something you envisioned
can so strongly change
because of a purely accidental element.
I need your help.
TOLKIEN: I need to rest.
The idea of the bomb crater, I can't remember where it came,
but the idea that the--
a bomb has hit.
This is not-- it is not a grave that we are seeing here.
It's basically the working title
for the location was "bomb crater."
That a huge bomb--
they had this World War One bombs that could destroy even hills.
And the shelling in the World War One
was something that traumatized people.
They would just put everything in there.
So, an idea rose from there
that a bomb has hit a place where there has been a lot of soldiers,
and in a way that, of course, is...
it is...
there's there is a long, long analogy of it being Helheimr, that, you know,
they have been resting there
and then a bomb hits and it is accidental.
So, in a way, he is lying in his own Helheimr here...
even though the warriors have gone to war
and seeing this army of the dead himself.
...inspired by the architecture of Trinity.
Sorry, chaps.
- What is it about? - Well, it's--
And you are the poet?
No...
KARUKOSKI: Very early on,
for me, it was obvious that we have to shoot in real life Oxford.
For production reasons we did scout for locations in Liverpool
and Manchester so we could, you know, be in that area,
but it became obvious that if you want to shoot Oxford,
as he himself saw or felt the golden city,
it would be quite impossible to do in the North.
But this specific scene has--
is shot in Liverpool,
so we just took the bus, and probably the only bus
that was possible to find and shoot from England,
and drove it to Liverpool.
There is a real-life story. I don't know how true it is
but it does read in some--
one of the books about him
is that he actually did steal a bus in Oxford with his mates
and this was the only bus in Oxford at that time.
And they did drive around Oxford with his mates.
And Tolkien was that during the Oxford years,
he was very merry.
How do you say, they would have long nights,
he would...
he ended up-- there's was a myth, that he ended up in a pub fight,
you know, ended up, you know, talking to the police as in our film.
So, We try to convey his Oxford years as also kind of a young man
finding himself,
probably grieving for Edith as he did in real life.
He really waited for that first day
to be twenty-one to write her.
About the punch.
So, of course you have stuntmen waiting
and there was a stuntman
who had rehearsed taking Nick's punch.
And then you have actors
who are eager to do it themselves.
So, of course they did it themselves.
That is Torn Gylnn-Carney actually going down.
- You alright? - For an intellectual, you're...
KARUKOSKI: And I don”: think Nick hit him
but the danger is always
when you don't use stuntmen,
the danger is always
that if Nick would actually hit him,
Tom would break his nose,
that would stop production.
And that's why you use stuntmen.
In our case, it does help that Nick happens to be in the X-Men,
and he has done a couple of punches in his time
previously in films.
So, you could kind of rely
and I think he might have actually said that to the stunt-coordinator.
Or maybe it was me.
The better myth is that its Nick who said
but I do believe the stunt-coordinator-- I do--
I uttered a sentence
when the stunt-coordinator was worried that if Tom breaks his nose,
and I might have just said "Look, he's one of the X-Men,
he'll know how
to make the hit."
And luckily, I wasn't wrong that time.
They let you out in one piece?
I know they're speaking to the Rector in the morning.
KARUKOSKI: There is a wonderful exhibition,
The Maker of Middle-Earth
that is now going at this time in different countries.
And I went to go see in Oxford and there it kind of points out
how Geoffrey Smith slowly--
You know, he was younger--
he was one year younger than Gilson and Wiseman.
But slowly during the Oxford time he became, which is of course natural,
Tolkien's closest friend.
And we tried to convey that emotion, you know.
Wiseman and Gilson, they would come for weekends in Oxford and...
I remember vaguely that Tolkien and Geoffrey
would have visited them in Cambridge.
And they would try to hold this T.C.B.S meetings
and they would try to hold this immortal four together.
But it's also--
It's only natural that you grow closest to Geoffrey.
And they shared-- Geoffrey Smith and Tolkien
shared the love of languages.
So, Geoffrey Smith actually being a poet, as he himself, I--
I believe he was-- He loved Celtic language himself also.
She's gonna lose her mind. So, that's that.
ROBERT: Well, Geoffrey's only lost his career.
And what did you get Tolkien?
KARUKOSKI: Ruth Smith, Geoffrey's morn.
So, there was a connection actually between Ruth Smith and Tolkien.
So, Ruth would write to Tolkien
and later in his life he would meet Mrs. Smith.
And... And as we...
see from the film, Tolkien, Ruth Smith,
when she published Geoffrey's poetry,
Tolkien and also Christopher Wiseman actually helped,
to get that poetry together
and Tolkien wrote the foreword.
Actually, I remember that the Smiths were coming from a textile family and--
and they--
kind of Geoffrey's sentiment of them wanting him
to be an accountant or, you know, focus on mathematics.
There's some truth in that
and I think that's very natural in that era, that arts--
And it-- There are not many ways of actually earning money or...
there's not-- there's no society,
there are no grounds that you can achieve as an artist.
So, you know, dreaming of a life of being a poet, of being an artist
for these kids as that they had,
it is seen as a futile dream,
like a stupid juvenile dream at that time,
and I have-- hold huge respect
for the artists of that era that they fought for that dream,
you know, often in poverty.
And this scene here,
it is kind of trying to show a famous rugby match
that these boys, the T.C.B.S.,
had their last rugby match in Oxford
and the Cambridge kids came down to play that game.
And I vaguely remember Gilson,
who wasn't a huge fan of rugby himself,
but he took part on the game
because it was kind of the last--
last game in their minds before war.
- He ran a total fault on us. - So, what was the score, Wiseman?
(men chattering)
Well played, lads.
- Hello, Mother. - Well played.
KARUKOSKI: Genevieve O'Reilly, who plays Mrs. Smith--
I also saw her in The Ferryman.
So, The Ferryman, actually generated me three actors.
Torn Glynn-Carney, Genevieve O'Reilly and Lauren Donnelly.
And so, that's actually a great play.
You can't see it with the original cast but I was privileged enough
to see with the original cast.
And Genevieve is one of those actors, you know, they come
and you don't really have time to rehearse them.
But she did an audition tape
and that audition tape is astounding.
Just astounding.
It was like one take
and you knew immediately that this is--
She's our Mrs. Smith.
She came on set,
goes to her make-up,
I shake her hand.
You know, most of the actors are rehearsed,
we gone through the lines, maybe, you know, done some
funny stupid things that you do in rehearsals, you know,
experiencing and finding, you know,
emotions about yourself and improvising and which help.
And Genevieve comes and...
we shake hands, we drink a cup of coffee,
talk a little bit about the character, maybe fifteen minutes,
and then she just blossoms on screen.
And Tolkien, actually in real life, didn't enjoy the Greats.
It was practical for him to study the Greats, but he didn't.
And, we got some information, for instance, from the library records
that during his time when he studied Greats,
he actually didn't take--
I think it was-- I think he took one or two books...
from that section of the library.
So, he didn't-- who actually care at all about his studies.
And, for us, it's a true fact that without Professor Wright,
we might not have the John-- J. R. R. Tolkien that we know now,
because the change to the Philology department,
with the help of Professor Wright,
with the help of also Tolkien's other teachers,
that was a turning--
major important career turning point for Tolkien.
And there's a small cameo here.
The next Professor shouting, is Andy Orchard,
who holds the same chair
as a Professor of Anglo-Saxon in Oxford
that Tolkien held.
And the small Easter eggs and cameos
that we have in different places in this film.
And... Eérendil,
this piece of poetry, actually derives from Beowulf,
one of Tolkien's favorite mythologies.
And...
he loved this piece
and we wanted to include this in this film.
(speaking unknown language)
KARUKOSKI: But that is what Tolkien is about and his life's about.
The language comes first and the love of language.
And then that from those words
and the meaning of the words and the history of words,
he then slowly and slowly creates his...
you know, own worlds,
his own stories.
And this is how we continue in terms of that,
this is how we continue the arc of the fallen knight.
So, the hero--
The story-- The heroic story
that his mother has told about Sigurd.
He's now--
He sees, you know, in three different time levels,
he sees that in his mind, as a darker vision,
almost a vision of death.
So, that-- that hero is gone
and has just become a fallen knight.
Then again,
I kind of see him sketching in his mind, this character,
our film's characters.
These aren't actual events, of course,
that he would see this lying on Oxford.
Albeit I said, you know, he might have been a bit drunk
from time to time at Oxford.
But...
that is how we tried to portray that he's sketching in his mind.
Kind of as-- as an artist, he's kind of drawing lines slowly
and slowly during his life,
so he can then later
write his legendarium.
She's getting married.
Oh, John, that's...
It's awfully bad luck.
(quivering voice) I'm sorry. I'm in a bit of a mess.
Hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. It's okay, it's okay.
KARUKOSKI: There's a small anecdote.
I mean, the boys were in there, you know, their pajamas.
We-- It was very hectic on set
and Professor Wright, I mean, Derek Jacobi,
he was also in pajamas and I wanted to find a place to rehearse
and talk about the scene.
And at the base camp where the trailers are,
or a peaceful place, was an hour away.
So, the only place was the nearest pub.
So, you know, we will go to the nearest pub in our pajamas.
Albeit, Derek Jacobi, after asked,
"Do you wanna go to the pub with us to talk about the scene?"
He would then say, “But look, I am in my pajamas.”
And we understand, Derek Jacobi is maybe not an actor
that we could take to the pub in his pajamas.
But then, me and Nick and Anthony Boyle went to the pub.
We had a juice and...
discussed about the scene.
And even though it must have looked very funny for the bar tender,
you know, these guys in their pajamas talking about this,
it's very important, you know, it's very difficult sometimes on set
to find a place where you can
be relaxed, where you can be alone and
and be in silence.
At least, that's what I cling to, anyway.
KARUKOSKI: There are different theories about Geoffrey's Smith's sexuality and...
and either way, regardless if he's gay or not,
I think there was a very strong bond between each other.
And...
I mean, we can't-- The film can't really tell out loud
that he was gay because it's not known information.
And, there's something beautiful in his poetry that--
that... this kind of love towards... his fellow,
you know, friends and I think that, urn...
his friendship and their-- their experiences in Oxford,
how close they must have been,
is very special.
And how important, you know,
these friends must have been to Tolkien
to go through that very dark phase
of not having Edith and actually in, you know,
having to witness the fact that he chose Oxford because of...
his future,
because of, you know, wanting to respect his father figure.
And then Edith finds another man.
And I don't know how that...
that pain that he must have had,
that must have built him in so many ways.
And I think that's something that... that...
as a storyline,
if they would have been, you know, thirty minutes more
to be able to include in that film.
I think the story line would have been very intriguing, you know.
The...
The character's name was George Field.
This fiancé.
And I vaguely remember reading that they actually met.
Tolkien met with George Field to kind of shake hands that, you know,
I'm taking Edith back.
And that would have been an amazing scene but as said,
it just takes too much screen time and it's not the story. George Field
is not the story of this film.
WRIGHT: The child points.
KARUKOSKI: We had a bit in this phase.
We had a bit where we explain Tolkien's inspiration
of Kalevala, the Finnish mythology,
but it never survived the... the...
final cut.
It felt a bit overbearing,
kind of talking about a specific inspirational element.
Because the way that we approach the film
was that the inspirations, specific inspirations, I will not touch.
We try to be--
We try to hold onto the overall emotion of the character.
And...
you know, talking about a specific, whether it's Cynewulf's "The Crist,"
which was a big inspiration for him, or Kalevala.
It becomes cold in a way, it's-- it's factual.
It's more like reading Encyclopedia
rather than being...
you know, honest and pure and it's emotional for him.
And for instance, this scene...
For me, it's more relevant how they speak about the love of language
and how language is almost like music.
It's more relevant for me to show that emotion
rather than speak of specific instru--
You know, instrumental or inspirational elements.
And Professor Wright was this character for Tolkien.
He was kind of a mentor.
They shared this love of language.
They would sit-- They would sit in different,
you know, pubs or cellars or places
to discuss-- and they discussed in different languages and--
and this bond-- And in a way another father figure for him...
was very, very important for Tolkien
that he had with Professor Wright.
Layer upon layer.
And a word without meaning, I would-- ls what?
Merely a sound.
Someone else once said that to me.
With a good deal more economy, I shouldn't wonder.
There are one or two original Gothic texts in the...
KARUKOSKI: Professor Wright was actually from Yorkshire, I believe.
And we discussed with Derek Jacobi
that, you know, the normal--
how we see this Professor, they speak this very high
and old arde-English.
And what we loved about it that Derek Jacobi,
actually I believe, is from Yorkshire.
So, he can use that...
dialect.
And if you got to the Bodleian Library,
I do believe
there are some original writings from Joseph Wright himself,
which I have to admit I didn't do and I didn't have time to do
while in production.
So, one of those things to tick the box
when I am retired and have time for these things.
(inaudible)
KARUKOSKI: The difficulty of...
kind of, you know...
how the T.C.B.S has said,
how they kept on
spending time with each other in-- in the weekends.
And, you know, the Cambridge boys would visit them in Oxford.
And, we wanted for this--
This scene is, you know, it's probably not factual.
They probably didn't sit in the library in Oxford,
but they might have.
But it is here to portray
how emotionally, and how important emotionally
and the support that the T.C.B.S was for Tolkien.
So, whether or not, it was a factual event that happened,
it is the importance of it, that's the feeling
that he took from these boys that he's spending his youth with...
youth with.
No, no, I'm-- I'm studying Greats but I would like...
KARUKOSKI: The Fellows' Lawn...
So, for those who don't know,
students are not allowed
to walk on that lawn and it's actually a ten-pound fine
when you walk on that lawn nowadays.
So, when we shot scenes
on that lawn
and we would have the camera crew there, and we would have extras there,
and supporting actors on there,
there was this guy that was in control of this place, the faculty master.
I can't remember the title.
A wonderful man.
And he was looking at this, you know,
a crew of 20-25 people on the lawn
and as you can see, we didn't really help the lawn to grow.
I think we... we caused some damage there.
And he was...
You know, I was asking, “How are you?”.
And he's looking at this crew and I wanted to be--
And he was like, “Yeah, I'm just calculating the ten pounds.
I think we're gonna have a great Christmas party this year”.
- Tolkien. - Yes, sir.
- German origin? - I think so, sir.
From the Anglo-Saxon, perhaps.
- Exactly. - TollkUhn.
I'm assuming you don't need me to translate that particular word for you.
Foolhardy.
Professor Wright. - My class is full...
KARUKOSKI: This is one of the best written scenes in the film.
I just love this bit in the script.
How you use-- how the writer, I think it's, in this case, Stephen's--
Stephen's scene where the writer
just uses a real-life factual event
to bring it into the-- into the scene, Tolkien.
Tolkien, Tollkilhn.
Tolkien in German, as you said.
And then using the word, "Foolhardy".
And what is intriguing about these two people is that,
Professor Wright was a bit of a--
you know, playful, maybe even hobbit himself
in that sense that he would speak odd languages
while walking on the street. He would call his--
He would speak to his dog in Gothic languages or Celtic languages.
Just can't remember which it was.
And that was always described
whenever we visited Pembroke College and Exeter College.
The people we met, you know, the faculty masters or the...
They would always describe this Professor of Anglo-Saxon's
and the Professor of these weird languages and they're being these bit of goofballs.
Being, kind of, almost an attraction of themselves in Oxford.
And Tolkien was that.
Later on, when he became a Professor, he was actual attraction.
He loved-- His passion for language was so...
vast and so big,
that actually some students that weren't even students of this class,
they would just come to watch his lectures.
Because the passion that he had
and the way he talked about language and the way he talked about mythologies,
was, you know, in a way just entertainment for them.
WRIGHT: (reads Old English)
KARUKOSKI: And...
in all honesty, talking about the classes,
so we had Andy Orchard here watching this scene
and kind of helping out Derek Jacobi
to portray how a class would go.
And, Derek Jacobi with his
108 movies on his belt,
does this amazing job.
And I asked Andy,
"Was that-- you know, "Was that right?"
And Andy said, “I don't think ever in these halls,
any lecturer has been as Shakespearean and interesting
(chuckles) as Derek Jacobi just portrayed us.”
TOLKI EN: "They bid their dear kinsman through words
that they had to endure there in time of need,
make use of their weapons without weakening."
The way you...
An intended mistake.
Those who know Fili and Kili, of course, not written with two L's,
but that's the idea that he is still...
We're trying in small hints,
we are trying to, you know, show that it's not ready yet.
His legendarium, and his mythology is not ready yet.
He's building. He's building poems
and that's how he's character building.
He-- Either it's songs or it's poems or it's words and it's bits by bits
that are slowly creating this world in his mind.
And what is tragic about the war is, that I read that the nationalist
kind of part of England was very high on war.
Actually, that was, of course, way of the government
to get young men to enlist.
But war, which is so tragic and awful
and, you know, it stops these youth
of living their life.
It's seen and--
It's seen as a great thing that we're gonna go kick some German ass,
and you know, we'll come back in two weeks
after being victorious and we'll get all the girls
and this mindset of believing that
and not understanding how horrifying it is,
is something that we wanted to portray
that there's actual excitement. I mean, of course,
sometimes the excitement is actually there
to hide the fact that you are afraid,
as we see in this next scene.
That you're trying to con--
convince others that everything's gonna be fine.
We're gonna be back home in two-- two weeks.
I believe even Robert Gilson wrote a letter to Tolkien
because Robert enlisted to the war for-- first.
I believe he even wrote a letter
saying that yeah, this thing will be over and,
you know, in no time...
Or it was-- maybe it was Geoffrey Smith.
I can't remember which one of them.
But that feeling of convincing yourself
that this thing will be over in no time
and then the reality of World War I being one of the most brutal,
one of the most tragic wars
in the entire, I mean, human history.
And... the Battle of Somme being one of the biggest,
the most tragic battles in English--
the army of, you know-- the England history.
(inaudible)
KARUKOSKI: And, you know, we can see the sadness,
we can see this fear in these young men.
They're trying to hide that
with their excitement.
Should we make a toast?
To all the future T.C.B.S meetings,
all across Europe.
Cheers, gentlemen.
Gentlemen, may I...
KARUKOSKI: The last time the T.C.B.S. met, was--
at least it was documented
that it was held in London and it's called The Council of London.
And, for dramatical purposes, again, the poetic license that we sometimes take,
we chose it to be in Folkestone, so...
so we could, you know, get these characters together.
In truth, Tolkien did arrive in France later.
So, Gilson, Wiseman and Smith were already...
in war, when Tolkien arrived.
The Council of London-- And again, it would have been just an anecdotal scene
if you have that scene,
and then you follow Tolkien life in Oxford.
What happens is that...
unfortunately, sometimes the real-life events,
they just don't fit the film.
It becomes too long and...
you can't make dramatical sequences
and work in sequences for the film.
But I am a bit sad,
that, I couldn't portray
the George Field events of Edith's fiance.
There's something there,
that could have been intriguing to explore.
And in real life...
Tolkien and Edith met a couple times
before the war and they-- I believe, that got even engaged
or married before the war.
And you know, the meeting with George Field-- George Field...
had been held much before this departure from Folkestone.
And, and that--
It is beautiful when you read it,
but we could never make it work on paper,
so that it would be dramatical,
so it would work for the film, so the flow of the film...
would succeed.
And when you have to make a choice, as a director,
do I do the better film or do I follow the factual events?
You always make the choice of-
it's a better film this way.
Kind of-- Because this captures the essence.
Tolkien was very persistent, you know, he wanted Edith back.
So, when he was 21, and he was allowed by Father Francis,
he would fight for Edith.
And, you know, meeting her several times.
And we see that persistence here, from Nick.
So, they can be written in one scene.
(chatter)
KARUKOSKI: And unfortunately, we'd-- I never found out whether it's Ascanius,
we had so many people trying to dig what was the name of the boat.
We know that it's Asturias
that brought Tolkien back from war.
But we-- As we didn't find the real name boat...
Ascanius, we just chose name of a boat that took actually soldiers--
soldiers to war in--
to France, and...
some name that would sound like a Tolkien-esque--
Tolkien-esque name.
They can't.
MAN: (shouting) Lancashire's on the Ascanius!
I'd better...
This has been so nice.
'(birds squawking) -(people talking)
Goodbye, Little One.
KARUKOSKI: Tolkien actually called Edith, I believe, we--
I remember reading that called Edith, 'Little One'.
And...
I think there's so much in that phrase. We wanted to include it somehow with Nick.
You know, we talked what is this scene? Where do we put Little One?
And repeating it felt a bit...
Patronizing?
Easily it felt like it, in a contemporary sense.
Because, you know, Edith is three years older.
But this was the scene where it felt like you can--
You can put it in, so that it doesn't feel patronizing.
It feels warm and it feels intimate.
- I love you. - I love you.
- I love you so much. - I know.
KARUKOSKI: In sound...
We--
What was amazing about our sound-- sound engineering team
and sound designer team was that...
they started losing these sounds,
other sounds, except in some scenes there's silence.
So, you just hear kind of characters and humans,
so slowly and slowly these soldier's that are surrounding--
We see that in Oxford, when they are celebrating the...
beginning of war, we see it here.
So slowly and slowly
soldiers are turning to rates or spirits.
You know, they're all kind of becoming ghosts...
ghosts, in these scenes through sound.
And then I had this idea that...
that this is where the dream sequence of the film begins.
So, I always played with the thought that this actual,
whatever happens after this in war,
it's not less in the scene.
The silence and then steps come in.
Kind of that moment for me-- I felt like...
I don't wanna think about whether this...
- MAN: Fire! - KARUKOSKI: ...is truthful,
or is it just, you know...
Always felt that it can be both.
That he-- That's the place that he passes out
and he's taken to a hospital and all this is like, imagined.
MAN: This way. This way.
And how they trained these... supporting actors
in this is that Billy Budd, our military adviser,
will take these actually-- these young blokes
and hold a boot camp,
a training camp for them, for several days.
So, they are already in the mud before they can actually be two weeks
in the mud, in the cold.
And they are trained to-- These young men,
in this case in Northern England, trained to be World War I soldiers.
And I have to give a lot of thanks for these guys, they were--
They were amazing.
Just jumping in and out from water.
Yes!
- MAN: Hold on! - Yeah!
KARUKOSKI: And I-- This-- I never understand the stunt guys.
How do you do that?
There's a bomb and just-- You just run into it.
And they would do that several times. They would do it once and then,
you know, just pat their clothes a bit and do it again.
And, it is--
(screaming)
KARUKOSKI: I think they could held
really amazing bachelor parties for grooms.
Come and learn how to step on a bomb.
SOLDER: (shouting) Tolkien!
- Yeah. - SOLDIER: Tolkien!
'(9Xplosions) -(gunfire)
KARUKOSKI: When you look at Tolkien's writings,
you can see characters,
at least I read characters
that have somehow been inspired by war, or things he saw.
And as I said, there is no one-on-one.
I can't claim that they are one-on-one inspirations.
But if you talk about a creature of fire and shadow,
you can sense that they are moments or inspirations
coming from war into his writings.
And of course, just even seeing innocence turned, you know--
facing darkness and evil, ultimate evil,
and whether it is specifically spirits
or, you know, hallucinations,
I don't know.
But, for instance, the crucifix.
I saw photographs from World War I,
where the Church had been stripped,
but the crucifix of Jesus has been left.
So, nobody wanted to touch Jesus.
So, I believe strongly that he and his friends
must have seen that. You know, this--
Amidst this horror,
there's this wanting to believe,
you know, want to believe-- wanting to have faith
that, you know, Jesus or...
someone is watching for us from above.
And when you read Tolkien's writings,
you get this feeling that it is a person who endured and experienced
these horrifying images, went into darkness
and came out from that darkness into the light.
And that fight between darkness...
and light,
the fight between evil and good
is something that is portrayed through--
Through this fallen knight figure.
That, you know, the battle, the internal battle of the--
of the hero that we see in the beginning,
and then fighting kind of internally against itself.
The fallen knight kind of fighting itself.
It's kind of the core of the--
his images and the core of, somehow, all of his mythologies.
As I read them to be.
I mean, I am no Tolkien, but...
but as a fan, that's how I see that
and that's the beauty of...
of these experiences in all this tragic form,
is that there is this epicness
and mythology aspect in it that--
that sadly or luckily, we can just--
you know, witness through a movie and not experience them ourselves.
And, for instance, the ending shot of this great battle scene, it's--
For me, somehow, I read that--
That's a feeling you take out of war.
That how I read his books is that there are several characters
that go to this...
futile, almost futile,
fight against a lord of evil or an ultimate evil,
like almost a satanic creature,
and, are overwhelmed or overcome.
And in that sense, war is so futile.
And then Tolkien and his generation had to watch again,
a generation of men and women going to war
with World War II.
How-- And how tragic that must have felt.
Tolkien spent months in a hospital,
to recover from trench fever.
I believe, it took almost a year, or even over a year.
So, it is-- It is a really gruesome illness.
And he used that time to continue writing his legendarium.
A scene that was deleted.
And...
I think, he was in hospital when he did receive the news...
of Geoffrey's death and I believe, it was Ruth Smith
that delivered this news.
So, there was a connection between Mrs. Smith and Tolkien.
There was probably, you know, respect and...
and...
Geoffrey is...
is dead.
KARUKOSKI: And the tragicness of having that group
and you know, fellowship going to war and then...
seeing their lights extinguished.
Christopher Wiseman and Tolkien wrote letters to each other...
post war,
until slowly and slowly their relationship started to fade,
and they drifted apart.
EDITH: Well, I'm so sorry.
About how, you know,
Robert Gilson and Geoffrey Smith...
they were...
just took-- taken away that--
in a way that Tolkien and Wiseman were privileged to witness
to these two children of God,
as I remember them,
portraying them,
experience and their light being extinguished.
And to carry through your life...
For the rest of his life,
Tolkien did remember Gilson, Smith,
and all those other boys that from Oxford died.
And there is...
And, for us, as fans,
I think there's a stroke of luck
that Tolkien got trench fever
because most of his division, most of his battalion,
died at the Battle of Somme.
So, there is a very, very--
Even though as a-- as a signaling officer,
you're not really in the front--
front row of the battle, so to speak,
but I had to believe, also the signaling--
signaling officers and almost all of those men died.
So, there's-- Without the trench fever, I don't--
we probably wouldn't even have his writings.
And I love this moment
because even though a horrifying thing is what that Father Francis does--
you forbid your foster son of meeting the love of his life,
and even almost ruining their relationship or the future of their relationship,
they grew very close, Father Francis and Edith.
Father Francis baptized their kids.
Their oldest son, John Francis Reuel,
was of course named after Father Francis.
TOLKIEN: "My dear John Ronald.
n is my chief..."
KARUKOSKI: And he was an-- He was good man.
He just wanted the best for Tolkien.
This letter is word from word from the actual letter,
from Geoffrey Smith to Tolkien.
GEOFFREY'S VOICE: "...cannot, I am determined, dissolve the T.C.B.S."
KARUKOSKI: Even encouraging Tolkien
to follow the mission of the immortal four.
And art can prevail,
after men have died.
GEOFFREY'S VOICE: "...and may you say the things, I've tried to say
long after I am not there to say them."
KARUKOSKI: And there Was--
Somehow, I wanted to portray that...
that Geoffrey Smith, that you know, he was this witty,
wise-cracking,
smart, intelligent character.
And when you read that letter,
you know, we cried with Nick, when we were on set, you know.
I was reading the letter to Nick so that, you know,
he could feel that he could hear the voice...
in his head.
We couldn't get Anthony to the set that-- that particular day.
But when you read that letter and have this man
thinking that every day, when he goes over the top,
he might die.
That, you know, just the pain of that, that...
knowing the character Geoffrey Smith,
knowing the excitement,
the full of life man he was
enduring that.
And then still wanting to convey that to Tolkien,
wanting to convey the-- Believe...
believe, you know, have a voice.
Continue on a mission.
I think so, stunningly beautiful.
And Tolkien had a phase, kind of a block--
It wasn't a writer's block, he continued writing as we see, that he--
you know, but he had these phases where he has disbelief,
and I think in partly, he himself was...
his own antagonist.
He had some difficulties of getting published
and often which is, of course, beautiful about when you read his letters,
there is a certain
sense of disbelief about his writings.
He sees them often as, you know, kind of...
He kind of hopes that people aren't bored about them.
He also apologizes, "I hope that you weren't bored."
And I think that's something very beautiful about him.
That he...
But also, often as an artist, you have that disbelief...
about yourself.
I hope you had some.
I'm sorry, I...
I'm sorry.
KARUKOSKI: It's... It Was difficult to...
portray Edith in one scene.
It's just the question of screen time.
Unfortunately, I mean, I'm not gonna be defending our choices, but...
it would have been intriguing to include more scenes
about their marital life,
with Edith and John Ronald.
But it is--
I do believe that to some extent she did sacrifice.
She chose love.
She doesn't choose a profession.
But there are some beautiful, beautiful sketches
from Tolkien, from John Ronald, when he--
He has sketched Edith just walking or playing the piano.
And I mean, that love,
that love that he had towards Edith...
must've been-- They-- It's...
Marriage is always difficult.
That comes from an experience,
that sentence.
But...
at the heart of it, there must be admiration.
And I think Tolkien admired Edith on so many levels.
And respected. And she was there to spar.
She was there to help and she was always there.
And I think that scene is vital
for us to show that, about their relationship.
Mrs. Smith.
It's wonderful to see you. Thank you for coming.
Robert Gilson was the...
son of the headmaster at King Edwards.
TOLKIEN: This is right.
I remember the stepmother, I think.
And Christopher...
KARUKOSKI: In real life, Ruth Smith,
I do believe, contacted Tolkien about the poetry.
So, we took some poetic license here, again.
But it's there because that's not dramatical.
If you look at the setting, you know, if somebody writes a letter
then you'll be getting help with the poetry,
that is not a dramatical setting.
You have to build scenes
on top of a conflict.
So, emotionally for Ruth...
for Mrs. Smith, it must have been difficult.
So, you try to capture something of that emotion.
And how do you... And how do you...
bring that love of the parents, the tragedy and the loss of the parents,
that war brings.
And so, poetic license is there for us artists,
to be able to...
show the truth in a way that people are interested.
And this scene, which I believe shows
the sadness and tragicness of losing a son
for war for almost nothing.
It's-- For me, it's more important
that the factual truth that she wrote to Tolkien.
TOLKIEN: I was wondering with your permission...
KARUKOSKI: And I remember when we shot this, you know, again,
praising Genevieve O'Reilly here,
and praising Nick.
It's just when these two actors started doing it, we just--
"Okay, I'm not gonna rehearse at all. I'm just going to shoot it.
I'm gonna put the camera on, you guys just go."
And just those are wonderful moments
as a director, when you just...
let them flourish.
I think it's the greatest--
The greatest thing about directing
is you have this silence, you know, these 100 people around you,
the crew goes silent and two actors start creating,
and words they--
The words, they just become poetry and they become magic.
And then a small eye-- and the movements, and small face movements...
that make you cry.
I cried, the crew cried. With just every take,
I thought that you know,
the next take can't be better and then it was.
I never knew Geoffrey.
KARUKOSKI: And, I hope, I can again someday achieve
that emotion with actors,
what I achieved on that day with those two.
Did he know love?
I was an orphan,
when I came to King Edwards.
And even at the beginning, even...
before we were friends,
Geoffrey was gentle.
Kind.
(voice quivers) He was, I think, of anyone I've met, the person--
He was the person who most embodied,
what it means to love.
And to be loved,
truly loved.
KARUKOSKI: If you read Geoffrey Smith's poetry,
I had to believe that that's true.
There's so much beauty in that poetry and there's so much...
yearn for love.
And... And to think...
for those young men, for Geoffrey Smith, never experiencing it,
you know, to die as a young man,
and then not having the...
you know, the life of the love as Tolkien had with Edith.
And if you think about fantasy, literally, you can say, "Well, you know,
some people say it's not really art and...
how can that change the world?" But it does.
For me, being a Tolkien fan,
reading when as a young boy I was, you know, bullied,
I would read Lord of the Rings when I was 12 or 13, I can't remember.
I would read Hobbit a bit later.
Those were stories that became my friends.
You know you escape to them.
You're living a bit of life of misery as a young man at that point and...
you can escape to his, you know, J.R. Tolkien's world.
And he allows you with his writing,
with his art,
that is so profoundly important for him,
for you to heal.
And that is change.
That is what, in all its beauty, art can be.
And as one of the main motivations I did this film
to honor... to honor that...
ideal that the T.C.B.S. had.
The ideal that J.R. Tolkien had...
to let me, you know-- let me continue that work by...
letting someone escape for--
into a movie for two hours.
- TOLKIEN: I hope so. - MICHAEL: ls it long?
KARUKOSKI: And this is what storytelling is.
This specific scene,
Tolkien did actually did kind of--
He read stories to his children.
He loved his family, he was a family man.
And he would read these stories, he would read The Hobbit for his children.
And basically...
one could say that they were his first story editors.
And he would see how it'd work.
When he worked with children, it would work.
And I do, of course,
now read The Hobbit as a night-time story for my son who is five.
And yeah, I skip some parts.
(Karukoski chuckles)
I would say, I choose the best segments for him.
And...
and I can somehow relate to this scene.
You-- You see the eyes and the spark of a young child
listening to this story that...
sounds so amazing.
And you can see his eyes imagining these worlds
and creating his own world in his mind.
And that's what the...
the story is about.
It's about a young man, a young boy,
experiencing darkness,
finding light, finding a home,
and everything he experiences in life he used.
He conveyed them into his stories.
That's how I read his...
you know, amazing,
very cinematic and dramatic...
life.
Hobbit.