When Martin McDonagh made the transition from stage to screen with 2008’s In Bruges, it was fairly obvious that he was an artist with the ability to excel in both mediums. He had come from a run of lauded stage productions, including 2001’s ‘The Lieutenant of Inishmore’ and his first Broadway production, ‘A Behanding in Spokane’, from 2010. His abiding interest has always been in dysfunctional male relationships, especially in the professional realms of the military, assassins, gangsters and the like. He has always been interested in American culture, where violence is arguably more prevalent. The US provided the backdrop for both 2012’s Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, from 2017. Much of McDonagh’s work is designed to operate in a moral vortex, which often sparks debates about his motives and his objectives, and this was certainly the case with 2022’s popular hit, The Banshees of Inisherin, an Irish-set comedy about the abrupt dissolution of a close friendship. With his stellar new work, Wild Horse Nine, he takes John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as cynical CIA stooges to Easter Island in 1973 ahead of the fascist political coup in Chile.
LWLies: Tell us about your impulse to set and film a story on Easter Island.
Get more Little White Lies
McDonagh: It was probably the Moai – the big heads – that drew me there. The lush greenery was a part of it. The volcanic landscape. There’s lots of lava. But then there are wild horses everywhere too which was probably the biggest eye-opener. I didn’t know anything about that, and you wouldn’t unless you’d travelled there. I wrote about four different versions of a possible story for it. And the horses were always there.
As a former, and to some extent, current horse girl, I love this.
I’m always trying to put something from the animal or insect world in my stories. But horses specifically, there’s something sort of spiritual about them and kind. It seems like they can look into your soul when you’re holding their gaze.
There’s a nobility.
They also just look so beautiful. So putting a lot of that into it was just the connection between a very ill man and animal life – I guess that’s what they’re there for. Of course we had a donkey in The Banshees of Inisherin and I hope it doesn’t feel like it’s repeating the old tricks.
Alongside the horses, this is your fourth film that centres on the complex dynamic between two old friends. Your films are very good at dealing with the emotional minutiae of these relationships.
I think that’s the reason it’s not really shown too often. There are probably too many films about men, but not a lot go into the deeper, sadder, more depressing places. Or recognise the fact that we do talk to each other about that shit sometimes. I don’t know if CIA men do especially, or hitmen, but it’s just my kind of approach to character. I guess it’s novel and it’s surprising that these people can be emotional. It’s sort of a love story, or maybe it feels like a portrait of a marriage that has gone on too long.
That’s what’s always struck me about your filmmaking and the stories you wrote for the stage. It’s interesting to see the kind of outpouring of naked emotion that doesn’t feel saccharine or sentimental.
Those are two words you would never use about a Martin McDonagh play. Avoidance of sentiment is always paramount to me in all of the films. Working with actors like John and Sam, they’re just never gonna go there. John especially. But Sam especially too. It’s never gonna be a feelgood movie. It’s never going to appeal to the general box office in terms of straight-up feelgood comedy.
A feelgood comedy about the Chilean dictatorship.
We don’t even have to talk about not making it sentimental when we’re on set. It’s always gonna be a given that it’s going to be more fucked up than that.
It’s in the writing. The gallows humour of it all.
A lot of actors try to avoid ever being the bad guy in a film, even when they’re written to be the bad guy.
John Malkovich is one of the greatest actors of all time, and I think people take him for granted sometimes because he’s always been just seemingly on another planet. At what point did he come into Wild Horse Nine?
It was fairly late, actually. I had written Sam’s part for Sam. John was only maybe the year before we started shooting. I’d always loved him. I think we tried to do a play together back in the day, but I’d never met him personally until a year before we started making this, and now I was a little scared because he seemed a little scary. I was scared that he would be the scary John Malkovich, shouting at me for no reason because I wanted to offer him a really good part. He’s just like, you know, a proper actor. I think a lot of theatre actors don’t come with that kind of bullshit, you know. Yeah, they’re just interested in good parts or being truthful. He put me at ease and even though I was literally scared when I clicked on the link for that Zoom. But afterwards I was like, ‘Oh, this is actually gonna be okay.’ On top of that, I just don’t think there’s another actor who could do what he did in this film. It has to be hysterically funny and open and silly, but then we see this other side when he’s alone where he’s completely guilt-ridden and depressed and has been changed.
This is your third film with Sam Rockwell and you guys work so beautifully together.
And we did a play together before that.
Oh, did you?
Yes, ‘A Behanding In Spokane’.
Of course! With Christopher Walken. Have you and Sam got to that point now in your working relationship where you have a private shorthand?
Not so much that he can’t give feedback that I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of. For this specifically, his character is always the kind one – he’s taking care of his friend in this. But he still wanted a couple of moments where you see the killer. There’s a scene with an English couple where, from nowhere, he just goes off and they haven’t done anything. You kind of see that he’s capable of something dangerous – and that wasn’t in the script before Sam. With Sam, there’s an ease to our relationship. We get on great. But on the first week of this, we weren’t quite gelling like we used to. And so on the first weekend, we just sat in his hotel room on the island and just said, ‘Well, like, what’s going on? Why isn’t it as much fun?’ And we worked it out because I realised I was coming in with notes after the first take. With me, like, I’ve usually written the film two years before or longer sometimes. So I’ve already sort of heard it in my head. And when you’ve written it for Sam, you’ve heard his voice and how he should do it exactly in your head too. I think, with this, you often get that out of the way with rehearsals, but we didn’t have a lot on this. I was coming in and being a bit heavy-handed, literally after the first take. So in my head I was like, ‘Why can’t you do it properly? Haven’t you even read it? It’s like the previous ones.’ But he said, ‘If you just give us a little bit more room…’ And we did. So, from then on, we did two takes at least without any notes. And weirdly, they would always get to the place that was in my head anyway, but having been allowed to be completely free to get there. So it’s weird that, as friendly and as well as you work together, it’s always evolving and interesting.
Those are the ebbs and flows of any friendship. You do find yourself occasionally butting heads. It actually takes a lot to be like, right, let’s see what’s going on here and try to work things through.
Exactly, yeah.
As someone who writes for the stage and the screen, do you always know when you start working on something if it’s going to be a play or a film?
Completely. But I’ve just started something and, for the first time ever, it could go that way, or it could go the other way. Usually, if there’s a wider cinematic canvas – and for me it’s usually place or location or whatever – and if it jumps around in time, it’s going to be a film. Basically, if it’s not four blokes chatting in a room, it’s gonna be a film. If it is four blokes chatting in a room, it’s gonna be a play.
With The Banshees of Inishirin was it that you needed the island itself to be… because I mean it without sounding like the cliché – it feels like the island’s a character in the film.
I mean, it’s a cliché, but it’s kind of true, and it’s similar forWild Horse Nine. But in all my plays, all my films are quite play-like, you know. But there’s no way that In Bruges could have been a play, even as theatrical as it seems, and I think that is the reason the places become the fifth character, or however many.
A lot of your work is set in America or explores the concept of Americana. Living in the UK, we are infected by American culture. What perceptions of America did you have growing up and how did they shape your interests?
I guess American cinema was probably the first love that I had. When I got into films it was through all of the De Niro/Scorseses, Terrence Malick, which was only two at the time. American cinema was – and still is – at the forefront of what I love about cinema, I suppose. But also music from Nirvana to early rock’n’roll. Good American influence is okay. It’s just when it becomes fascist it’s less engaging. Also novels – JD Salinger and people like that were always a big influence.
The cinema of the Seventies did really delve into the political darkness of the time.
They were freer to be more downbeat and more honest about things because America was going through a dark patch then. But I wonder if, because it is again now, more films like this might start cropping up. So many people are questioning all that stuff in America now that maybe it’s right for films like this to start coming out. I love American movies and music and all that. I don’t think this film is anti-American, for instance. But it’s not pro-CIA and it’s not pro that American government.
I was particularly moved by the speech that Chris makes about the assassination of the Congolese prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. I was struck by that inclusion because he speaks out at length, and that speech is really quite harrowing, but it’s very touching. It feels like it’s really the crux of what Chris is going through – this moment of deep clarity.
That was always in there. That was always part of what I’d been interested in about what the CIA had been doing around the world. I think, with Chile, I read a lot more about it way back in my teens and twenties, but the Congo stuff I didn’t really know as much about until the last 10 or 15 years. That was definitely something that fell into place really when that part of his character came up. Especially in connection to the Kennedy thing. One of my favourite lines is where he talks about that, who’s remembered and who isn’t. But it’s also the main moment where you are alone with him and see how much of what he’s done has destroyed him.
It almost feels like you’re in the confession booth with him, because you’re listening to this man admit one of the worst things that he’s ever done. Which I think is jarring for an audience, because we want to believe that these people should be prostrating themselves about these incidents. But at the end of the day, even if they feel guilty, it’s never that clean.
Absolutely, absolutely. I’m glad you like that bit. I think that’s one of my favourite sections in it.
Finally, I would like to touch on Tom Waits, because he comes in for his one scene and…
Steals the movie.
He steals the entire movie. The casting of him and John as brothers is inspired.
I’m not sure if it was before I started, but it was definitely, like, as soon as it was written it had to be someone iconic and who could, you know, stand up to John. They had to have just the presence and a look that was cinematic and that would just grab you. And having loved him since my teens and worked with him a bunch of times and stayed in touch with him over the years, he was completely my first choice and he said yes straight away. His scene was the very last day of shooting as well.
Oh, really?
We finished all the South American stuff and then went to Monument Valley for the last couple of days, where we did Parker [Posey]’s stuff and then the final morning was Tom Waits and we finished by, like, noon I think.
I’m sure that he was happy. He seems like a man he would like to finish by noon.
Yeah, but Tom is such a gentle, beautiful, kind, open, almost shy kind of person that he’s just always a joy to be around. I wouldn’t say he stole the film, but yeah, you’re not expecting him to pop up at that moment, I think.
Is it still as exciting for you when you hear him open his mouth and it’s Tom Waits.
Yeah, just being in a room with him…. I always think that directing or even just talking to Tom Waits is still something that’s beyond my wildest dreams.
