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《誘心人》監製反樸歸真
感動全球 無聲勝有聲
康城影展重點觀摩作品
揚威英國．蘇格蘭．西雅圖．蒙特利爾及香港國際電影節
【屢奪最佳影片．最佳導演殊榮】
榮獲「洛杉磯獨立電影節」最受觀眾歡迎國際電影大獎
《爸爸愛的回信》
Dear Frankie
一個9歲聾啞男孩與母親的摰情
由一封虛構出來的回信開始……
「把愛、辛酸、溫暖和無奈都交織在戲裡。」
- Variety
「淡然而深刻描述，輕易抓住觀眾的心。」
- Rolling Stone
「真摯演出，令全片充滿魅力。」
- Dallas Morning News
「一流的演員，初次啼聲的導演，充滿驚喜的組合。」
- Minneapolis Star Tribune
「謝拉畢馬在本片的演出，更勝《歌聲魅影》！」
- San Francisco Chronicle
「完全刻劃了母親的那份堅持與愛。」
- Newsday
「單純而簡單，加上一段意想不到的轉折，已令你我都動容。」
- Emanuellevy.com
《爸爸愛的回信》
揚威國際影展 影評一致熱讚
《爸爸愛的回信》不但贏盡英國本土影評口碑，更揚威康城影展，被選為重點觀摩作品。除此以外，橫掃蘇格蘭．西雅圖．蒙特利爾電影節最佳電影獎項。在「洛杉磯獨立電影節」被觀眾熱選為最受觀眾歡迎國際電影大?。
《誘心人》監製登格雷迪 (Duncan Reid) 今次以純真角度出發，將親情以一封封動人來信娓娓道來，電影徘徊有聲畫面與啞巴男孩主角的無聲世界之間。全片在蘇格蘭海邊取景，以溫柔的鏡頭、精煉的對白與寧靜背景，組成詩般畫面，卻又能激出澎湃震撼的情感。
故事大綱
小孩不笨 - 卻沒料到騙他竟是至愛母親…… 聽不到聲音的9歲男孩法蘭基 (積奇麥漢爾 飾)，自少家便搬個不停；小小腦袋中，從未相聚的爸爸是個橫越五湖四海、喜歡寫信給他的船員；不過這甜美關係，全來自母親莉絲 (艾美莉莫添瑪 飾) 一個善意謊言。
某日，法蘭基「追蹤」到爸爸的船，正要經過這蘇格蘭海岸小鎮！他歡天喜地要求相見，一直擔當書信代筆的莉絲，為隱瞞殘酷真相，竟想找個頂包爸爸瞞天過海，讓完美的繼續完美…
一個謊言 - 可以很美麗？
和兒子相依為命的母親，由兒子出生的第一天起便撐起半邊天。給他100%的母愛以外，更冒爸爸名義寫信給兒子，令聽不到說話的他相信當船員的爸爸正在周遊列國，總有一天船會靠岸，那時便是一家團聚的日子。
美麗的謊言受到挑戰，一天法蘭基得知爸爸的船即將停泊在附近港口，他深信和爸爸相見的日子不遠。莉絲得知法蘭基甚至和同學打賭後，急於「聘請」一個爸爸以及安排這次「一家團聚」。
這個「爸爸」的出現，不但帶給了法蘭基期待已久的那份父子間的愛，更為莉絲平靜的生活掀起了波瀾。短暫的相處，不期然令三人都感受到那份「家」的溫暖和愛。
《爸爸愛的回信》
兩個謊言 - 原來可以更美麗？
當莉絲以為謊言締造了幸福，最令她意外的是那一封法蘭基「給爸爸的回信」- 原來多年來法蘭基一直洞悉一切！他對母親的幕後代筆一言不發，面對這個頂包的爸爸，更樂於投入謊言之中…
天生殘缺的他雖然自小就聽不到聲音，但心裡比誰都更明白。樂於接受媽媽編造的故事，期待「爸爸」的來信，也給「爸爸」回信。原來編造謊言的不只是媽媽，而多年來法蘭基給「爸爸」的信就是和媽媽一直以來的溝通方式。
呵護兒子的媽媽
自看過艾美莉莫添瑪 (Emily Mortimer) 在《伊莉莎白》(Elizabeth)的演出後，艾美莉成為了監製嘉露蓮活迪 (Caroline Wood) 的指定拍擋。本片拍板由艾美莉擔演除了她和監製多年的默契外，原來另外一個重要原因是她的蘇格蘭口音。由於故事背景在一個風景如畫的蘇格蘭海邊城市，女主角必要說得一口流利蘇格蘭口音。導演和監製看過艾美莉在《亡情水》 (Young Adam) 的表演，深信她是注定當本片女主角的人選。
本片是艾美莉初次擔演女主角的作品，一直擔心表現未如理想的她，最終以其內憸的演繹，掀動了觀眾的心，更贏得多項國際大獎。
先天聾啞的法蘭基
今本只有10歲的積奇麥漢爾 (Jack McElhone) 在本片飾演天生聾啞的法蘭基。台前幕後一致讚賞這個天資聰敏的小演員，積奇不但要在短時間內學會手語，而且他的角色全片都沒有對白，全靠眼神和其他身體語言表達出內心的說話。
受聘的爸爸
在選角的過程中，最令人頭痛的就是這「爸爸」的角色。由於影片前半部一直在描述兒子和爸爸的通信，觀眾都會不期然地幻想到底這個「爸爸」會是甚麼樣子。曾參演《歌聲魅影》、《盜墓者羅拉2》及《滅絕反擊》的謝拉畢拿 (Gerald Butler) 的確是最俱說服力的人選。6尺3吋高的 謝拉畢拿，再加上面上的皺紋，十足十就是一個海員。謝拉畢拿在本片不慍不火的演出，得到各界的認同，《San Francisco Chronicle》更認為他在本片的演出比《歌聲魅影》更俱魅力。
《爸爸愛的回信》
Pathé Pictures、UK Film Council、Scottish Screen 呈獻
Lucky Gems Group Ltd. 香港榮譽發行
片長、級數、戲院：待定
| 導演/攝影指導： | 桑娜歐亞芭 Shona Auerbach | |||
| 監製： | 嘉露蓮活迪 Caroline Wood | 《兩顆繹動的心》 | ||
| 執行監製： | 登格雷迪 Duncan Reid | 《誘心人》《畫意詩情》 | ||
| 馬修格蘭 Matthew T. Gannon | 《畫意詩情》《凶洞》 | |||
| 法蘭奧斯艾凡拿 Francois Ivernel | 《愛鬥氣愛上你》《驚殺》《一樹梨花壓海棠》 | |||
| 金馬倫麥格臣Cameron McCracken | 《畫意詩情》《少年落毒事件簿》 | |||
| 聯合監製： | 格里安芭莉Gillian Berrie | 《亡情水》《人間狗鎮》 | ||
| 執行監製： | 史提芬艾雲斯Stephen Evans | 《兩顆繹動的心》《亨利五世》 | ||
| 編劇： | 安芝雅潔 Andrea Gibb | |||
| 配樂： | 亞歷士漢夫 Alex Heffes | 《仲夏夜之夢》 | ||
| 剪接： | 奧洛尼葛提 Oral Norrie Ottey | |||
| 製作設計： | 珍妮花格琪 Jennifer Kernke | |||
| 服裝設計： | 嘉洛妮米勒 Carole K. Millar | 《不羈16歲》 | ||
| 美術指導： | 瑪嘉烈洛絲潘 Margaret Horspool | 《雷霆救兵》《101斑點狗》 | ||
| 領銜主演： | 艾美莉莫添瑪 Emily Mortimer | 《亡情水》《童心闖未來》《奪命狂呼3》 | ||
| 謝拉畢拿 Gerald Butler | 《歌聲魅影》《盜墓者羅拉2》《滅絕反擊》 | |||
| 積奇麥漢爾 Jack McElhone | 《亡情水》 | |||
| 莎朗史摩Sharon Small | 《單親插班生》 | |||
| 積迪莊遜Jayd Johnson | ||||
| 瑪莉尼格絲 Mary Riggans | ||||
| 桑伯亨 Sean Brown |
2005年6月16日 無言感動
DEAR FRANKIE
Releasing Date: June 16, 2005
Short Synopsis
Nine-year-old Frankie (JACK McELHONE) and his single mum Lizzie (EMILY MORTIMER) have been on the move ever since Frankie can remember, most recently arriving in a seaside Scottish town. Wanting to protect her deaf son from the truth that they have run away from his father, Lizzie has invented a story that he is away at sea on HMS Accra. Every few weeks, Lizzie writes Frankie a make-believe letter from his father, telling of his adventures in exotic lands.
As Frankie tracks the ship's progress round the globe, he discovers that it is due to dock in his hometown. With the real HMS Accra arriving in only a fortnight, Lizzie must choose between telling Frankie the truth or finding the perfect stranger to play the perfect father.
Long Synopsis
Nine-year-old Frankie Morrison (JACK McELHONE) and his mother Lizzie (EMILY MORTIMER) have been on the move for as long as he can remember. The two of them, along with his granny Nell (MARY RIGGANS), have been shifting from town to town throughout Scotland.
Lizzie is trying heroically to protect her deaf son from the fact that they are running away from his father. Frankie believes his dad is at sea, travelling the world on the HMS Accra. Every few weeks he gets another letter from ever-more exotic locations. What he doesn't know is that they are all fakes, made up by Lizzie to keep him from the harsh reality of the truth.
Their latest home is above a fish and chip shop in a Scottish seaside town. The woman who runs the shop, Marie (SHARON SMALL), forms a friendship with Lizzie. Despite being reluctant to reveal too much about her past, Lizzie impresses Marie enough to be offered a job in the shop.
They are beginning to put down roots-Lizzie has a job and Frankie is settling in at a new school. Even when he falls foul of class bully Ricky Munroe (SEAN BROWN) Frankie manages to make it plain he is nobody's victim.
Ricky is curious about the situation with Frankie's father, especially when he discovers that the HMS Accra is about to dock at a nearby port. Sensing an opportunity, he confronts Frankie with the information and makes a bet that his father won't show because he has no interest in seeing his son. Stung by the accusation, Frankie accepts the bet putting his prized stamp collection at risk.
He immediately writes a desperate letter to his father. When Lizzie reads it she realises how important the bet is to Frankie. Should she come clean or continue the charade? Lizzie's mum, Nell, disapproves of the lie but has always supported her daughter, even though now would seem to be the perfect opportunity to tell the truth.
Still desperate to protect her son Lizzie can't bring herself to do it, or at least not yet. She reaches a compromise. She will ask her new friend Marie to find a man who can be hired to act as Frankie's father for one day. The Stranger (GERARD BUTLER) agrees, for a price.
The day is a success and Frankie is beside himself. Not only has his "dad" spent the whole day with him, he has also won his bet with Ricky. Lizzie, who has kept discreetly out of sight while maintaining a watchful eye on her son, is relieved. But relief turns to shock when The Stranger suggests he spend another day with Frankie, and that this time Lizzie should come along too. Despite her concerns, the day turns out to be everything she hoped it might be and there is an obvious but unspoken attraction between her and The Stranger. At the end of the day The Stranger leaves. Only after he has said his goodbyes does Lizzie realise that he hasn't accepted payment.
Lizzie isn't the only one with a secret. Nell knows that Frankie's real dad, Davey (CAL MACANINCH), has been trying to find them because he is dying and wants to make his peace. Lizzie realises she will never find peace herself unless she grants that last wish. She goes to the hospital taking with her a picture of Frankie and a card he has made for his father.
Lizzie knows Frankie believes that The Stranger is dead but the boy is coping surprisingly well. That's when Lizzie realises that she, not her son, is the one who has been holding on.
There are more revelations for Lizzie. First, Marie reveals that The Stranger is actually her brother. Then, as she makes her last trip to the post office box, Lizzie finds a letter from Frankie to The Stranger in which he tenderly reveals he has known the truth all along.
It seems perhaps there might be a new life together for the three of them after all.
Pathé Pictures, in association with the UK Film Council and Scottish Screen, present DEAR FRANKIE, a Scorpio Films Production in association with Sigma Films, produced in association with Inside Track Productions. It stars EMILY MORTIMER (Bright Young Things, Young Adam), GERARD BUTLER (Tomb Raider 2, Timeline), SHARON SMALL (About a Boy, Glasgow Kiss), JACK McELHONE, MARY RIGGANS, JAYD JOHNSON and SEAN BROWN.
It is the feature directing debut of SHONA AUERBACH, a successful commercials director whose short film SEVEN won several awards including the UIP/Paramount Award for Best Short Film and the British Council Award for Best Short Film at the British Short Film Festival. Shona is also the director of photography.
DEAR FRANKIE is produced by CAROLINE WOOD of Scorpio Films on behalf of Inside Track. The screenplay is by ANDREA GIBB.
JENNIFER KERNKE is the production designer. ORAL NORRIE OTTEY is the editor and ALEX HEFFES the composer.
Pathé co-financed the production with the Film Council and Scottish Screen. Pathé Distribution will distribute in the UK and Pathé International will handle sales throughout the rest of the world.
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
I first read DEAR FRANKIE as a short script in 1997. The story hit me so hard that I couldn't get it out of my head. For me the story was so life-affirming. I was fascinated by the lengths to which a mother would go in order to give her son a father, the father she felt he wanted and needed. I was also interested in how that gave her access to her son's thoughts and how her lie filled a gap in her own life. But lies do not come without their complications. I wanted to explore these complexities and the reasons behind them. This fuelled my passion to direct this story.
Owing to the sensibility of the story and the quality of the writing, a strong cast was of paramount importance to me. I was lucky in having the luxury of working with such fine and committed actors whose talent gave me the chance to fulfil my vision.
The visual elements play a crucial part in creating the right setting, mood and atmosphere. I intentionally kept it uncomplicated and natural. My inspiration for the colour and light in the film came from artists around the turn of the century known as the Glasgow Boys and the lesser-known Glasgow Girls. The aspect of their paintings, which attracted me, was that they captured the particularly harmonious hues and gentle light found in Scotland, and so their colour palette became the film's colour palette.
I have had a love for this project from the start and directing it has been a life-changing journey. I hope that this film will touch people the way its story touched me.
Shona Auerbach October 2003
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
DEAR FRANKIE was the little film that just grew. Screenwriter Andrea Gibb had originally conceived the idea as a 15-minute film for Scottish Screen's Tartan Shorts series. When it wasn't accepted she set it aside but it simply refused to leave her; she became more and more fascinated by a story which sprang from her own childhood experiences with a father who had been working away from home for long periods at a time.
Gibb explains: "My dad worked abroad. He was an engineer in Africa and he was away for great long periods when I was very young - four or five years old - before we actually went out to Nigeria to live with him. I first communicated with my dad via letter for a long time when I was young so that was kind of the starting point. What would it feel like to have a parent that you wrote to as opposed to having a parent who was actually physically living with you every day?"
As it happened, Natural History, the short script Andrea Gibb had written as her Tartan Shorts entry, had since been sent to director Shona Auerbach as a writing sample. Auerbach had made her own short student film Seven and was looking around for something else to do. This coincided with meeting producer Caroline Wood who had been impressed by Seven.
" Just before that I had seen the Czech film Kolya that had won an OscarR in 1997," Wood recalls. "When I saw it I thought: 'That's the kind of film I want to make. I want to make a film with a child at the centre of it'. So I met Shona, and had a chat and she happened to have seen Kolya as well, she'd seen it twice I think, and absolutely loved it. So we set about finding something to do together involving a child."
One of the first questions Wood asked at that meeting was whether Auerbach had read anything good lately. As it happened, she had.
"I had read this beautiful short script by Andrea which Caroline also fell in love with. Caroline then commissioned Andrea to write it as a feature. We wanted to do a film about a relationship between an adult and a child and this was perfect. That was six years ago and it's come a long way since the short script."
Shona Auerbach felt that this short piece was "bursting at the seams" with ideas and was crying out to be made into a feature. Caroline Wood shared her enthusiasm for Andrea Gibb's writing.
"I found it incredibly moving. The sort of moral dilemma of Lizzie's character was really, really interesting to me. A mother lying to her child, which is wrong, but doing it because she loves him so much, I thought that was really fascinating. And I also thought the relationship with this man who is there for one reason but it ends up turning into something else, that was very sexy because there's always going to be this child in the middle. There's always going to be this kind of distance, a barrier to the relationship and I thought that had the potential to be very interesting and unusual."
The task of turning a 15-minute short into a 90-minute feature fell to Andrea Gibb, working closely with Wood and Auerbach.
"We've worked together incredibly closely," says Gibb. "I've tried to write something that I know, gear it to the way I think Shona is going to work as a director and they've been incredibly and enormously influential in helping me shape the script."
It's hardly surprising that the script has gone through a lot of changes in that time but there are some scenes that Andrea Gibb says haven't changed at all.
"Until very recently where we added an extra scene, the ending is almost intact from the first draft. The last four pages I would say are intact. There are certain scenes that are still in existence from the 15 minute short; like the scene in the kitchen where the Stranger arrives for the first time, we've added bits to it but in essence the scene was always there. The kind of sign posts and the significant moments are very much in evidence."
One of the key moments in the film's production came before it had even gone before the cameras in a script reading organised by The Script Factory at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
"It was mainly to hear the script being read and for us to judge it in terms of its pace and believability," says Caroline Wood.
"The reading did help us on the script, but what it helped us with most was the casting and how we needed to adjust our approach when we came to casting the film for real."
FRANKIE'S WORLD OF SILENCE
The biggest change in the transformation of Andrea Gibb's short screenplay into a feature film was that the character of Frankie became deaf. For Gibb, one of the key concepts of the film is just how much Frankie knows.
" How much of the truth does he know. How much does he accept. And it suddenly occurred to me that he knows without having heard, nobody has ever told him that his father is on that ship but inside deep down he knows, the little boy knows what we find out in the end. From that I thought 'What would that do if the communication between Frankie and Lizzie was restricted in some way?'
That's how I came up with the notion that actually he was deaf. And that gave me something else, something interesting to explore between Frankie and his mum. And I was quite interested in that."
Gibb reveals that as a writer, she is inclined to incorporate aspects of her own life into her work and so it was with the character of Frankie.
"I do have a cousin who is both deaf and mute, and I grew up with him. He was very much in my head when I was writing Frankie. Memories of having to play with him when we were children, that kind of thing. Most of the stuff I write finds resonances with people that I know, or people that I love, or people that I'm close to. They usually crop up in some form or other in stuff that I'm doing. I just hope that I do them justice."
However Gibb stresses that Dear Frankie is not a film about coping with a physical challenge.
"The fact that he is deaf is just incidental, and I don't mean that in any way to denigrate the nature of his deafness, because the nature of his deafness obviously informs exactly who he is. The fact that he is deaf informs everything he does and thinks and feels, so his deafness is everything but at the same time it's not about deafness."
Producer Caroline Wood admits she had some reservations about such a radical change in Frankie's character. She was concerned that Frankie might be seen as a victim but was reassured once she saw the quality of Andrea's screenplay.
"It was something I was nervous about, but I think the fact that he doesn't speak is very beautiful and makes the film more unusual. Andrea hasn't emphasised the deafness in any way, he's still a normal, lively little boy in every way."
When she was writing the screenplay Andrea Gibb had done a lot of research into deafness and had consulted several times with a teacher of deaf children. Once filming started two deaf advisors, Lucy Warnes and Derek Todd, were brought onto the production to coach the cast in signing.
Jack McElhone, who plays Frankie, worked mostly with Lucy Warnes but says he didn't find too many problems with his new form of communication.
"It was okay. I got this video and a couple of weeks into filming when I had to do my first signing, I just kept watching it the night before. Lucy sometimes asked me to sign for her before I went on set. It would only normally take five minutes because I had remembered it."
As Frankie's mother Lizzie, Emily Mortimer also has to be able to understand sign language. She was in America at the time and did her research with a friend who has a three-year-old son who happens to be deaf.
" I got in touch with her and she took me to his school for a couple of days and I hung out with them. I spent time just observing their relationship, which is incredibly close because he relies on her for everything. I think, you know, a child/mother relationship is always close, but if the child has a disability it is mostly the mother who is just relied on for everything. So that was really interesting.
"I think it would be very difficult if I was having to do expert fluent signing," she continues. "It's like any language, you can pick up a few phrases and words really quickly but I think to be fluent in it takes years. But they decided, rightly I think, that Lizzie wouldn't have been to signing school, she would have just picked things up maybe read a couple of books, and she and Frankie had a way of communicating and signing to each other that was quite their own."
While Jack and Emily were learning about signing, Gerard Butler was excused the extra tuition.
"As The Stranger I've only just met this kid," he says. "The whole idea is I don't know how to act in front of deaf people so it didn't seem to be essential. I'm thrown into this situation with a deaf kid and I've never had any experiences with deaf kids, so I didn't have to do any active research."
CHARACTERS
LIZZIE
Emily Mortimer was always producer Caroline Wood's first choice to play Lizzie. Wood had been an admirer of the actress since seeing her in Elizabeth. "I think she just has a wonderful spirit," says Wood, "which I particularly liked. I didn't want to go for somebody too heavy and depressing. I think it's very easy for Lizzie to be unsympathetic and when we did a reading of the script at the Edinburgh Film Festival that was the danger that became very clear.
"So we wanted to counteract that by casting somebody who was very expressive and subtle but who wasn't going to be self-pitying. Someone who was very intelligent and who was going to understand the complexities of this character and bring all of that intelligence to bear which Emily has done. I also knew she could do a Scottish accent because of Young Adam."
Although she had no preconceived notions of who should play the various characters, Shona Auerbach was convinced within minutes of meeting Emily Mortimer.
"My only concern was could she do the accent, and then of course I saw her in Young Adam and her accent was flawless so that was great. I think she's wonderful."
Screenwriter Andrea Gibb's input into the casting process was invaluable; she had lived with these characters longer than anyone and no one knew them better.
"In my head Lizzie was always dark and always looked like Emily," she reveals. "Emily wasn't even in my consciousness when I was writing it. But she is exactly how I envisaged Lizzie to look, which is extraordinary."
For Emily Mortimer, Lizzie was the largest screen role she had had to date and that brought its own responsibilities.
" I've done big parts in television but I haven't had a film part this big before. Just in terms of feeling the responsibility of sustaining the story it's quite intimidating. I worry about whether I'm boring, and if I'm boring is the film going to be boring? That's the sort of responsibility I haven't quite had to contend with before."
THE STRANGER
Everyone knew from the outset that the key role of The Stranger, the man who is willing to act as Frankie's father, would require careful and very precise casting.
Caroline Wood and Shona Auerbach saw a lot of actors, not all of them British, before they finally met Gerard Butler.
Caroline Wood recalls: "Gerry Butler walked into our office and we immediately felt 'He's the one'. He was in the middle of shooting Tomb Raider 2 and he'd just had his hair all chopped off and we thought 'He's The Stranger, we've got to have him'. "He's not a boy, he's a man. He's 6ft 3 and I could believe he was a sailor. He had enough lines and character in his face."
At this early casting stage it may have appeared that Butler's lack of star profile may have been a slight drawback. Knowing that the young Glaswegian was filming Tomb Raider 2 and had already shot Michael Crichton's Timeline, Caroline Wood was not troubled by such concerns. She realised that Butler was a genuine star in the making.
Like Caroline Wood, Shona Auerbach knew "within about five seconds" that Butler was perfect and no one was happier when it all fell into place.
"Even though we had looked at a lot of actors for The Stranger and everybody had something, Gerry had it all."
FRANKIE
Although he is only ten, Jack McElhone is a seasoned film veteran. DEAR FRANKIE is his second film after shining in Young Adam as the son of Tilda Swinton and Peter Mullan. He started acting on an impulse and before long found himself cast in the successful Channel 4 comedy The Book Group.
"When we started testing," recalls Caroline Wood, "we had close to a hundred boys auditioning for the roles of Frankie and Ricky. Then we whittled them down and did workshops, whittled them down some more and put them on film. The one person who came back and back was Jack and there is just something about his face on camera. He has amazing screen presence and he felt very believable as the deaf boy. He just seemed to be Frankie."
Screenwriter Andrea Gibb was struck by Jack McElhone's assuredness throughout the whole process.
"He's got a fantastically developed sense of self," she says. "And that's not to say he's an arrogant boy, absolutely not at all. He's just so obviously got such a fantastic relationship with his parents, with his mum, which you could see every day when you saw them together on the shoot. He is just totally sure of who he is and the fact that he is loved. And I think he really brings that to Frankie. You feel the love between Frankie and his mum really strongly"
"Jack was the one who I couldn't get out of my head through that whole time, " says director Shona Auerbach. "So yes, he's very special and he's very clever as well. He's incredible actually."
Jack developed an easy working relationship with both Gerard Butler and Emily Mortimer. Butler, he says, made him laugh while Mortimer bought him lots of presents when his birthday fell during shooting.
"Emily and Gerry both taught me stuff. If one day we were meant to be exhausted we jumped 10 times before a take. I thought that looked stupid, but I did it and it worked. Learn from other actors, that's the best way."
MARIE
Although it is not the biggest part in the film the role of Marie, the woman who becomes Lizzie's best friend and introduces her to The Stranger, is another crucial character.
When Sharon Small originally heard about the script she was in the middle of filming her hit TV series The Inspector Linley Mysteries. She wanted to play either Lizzie or Marie, but since the role of Lizzie was already earmarked she concentrated on the other one.
"When I saw the script I really loved it," says Sharon. "I thought both parts were gorgeous and I just really wanted to be involved. I don't think they were quite sure they were going to give it to me but they did and that's how I got involved."
Having watched some of her work in the acclaimed BBC drama series Glasgow Kiss, both Caroline Wood and Shona Auerbach decided to screen test Sharon for the role.
"Sharon has fantastic energy," explains Wood. "She has quite a different internal energy from Emily and Gerry and she's really bringing all of that gregariousness, and sexiness and humour to the film. It's really good that we've got that contrast to Emily's stillness, and she's great, she's lovely."
Sharon Small says she was attracted by Marie's openness and generosity of spirit.
" I think Marie hasn't had it easy but she's found happiness and good stuff and she's worked hard to get where she's got to. She came to this community some time long ago as well and I think she was in a similar frame of mind as Lizzie. I think she recognises a kindred spirit in that way. Marie can fix things and she creates this fairytale scenario and she helps to bring that about and I like that."
ABOUT THE CAST
EMILY MORTIMER (LIZZIE)
Emily Mortimer has won acclaim for two of her most recent roles. She starred opposite Ewan McGregor in the highly praised drama Young Adam and shone in an ensemble cast in Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things. Before that she played the role of the assassin, Dakota, a tough beauty with a sniper rifle in Ronny Yu's 51st State co-starring Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle. Her performance in the family drama Lovely & Amazing won her an Independent Spirit Award in 2003.
She is equally at home working in Europe or Hollywood. Her other feature film credits include Disney's The Kid opposite Bruce Willis, Wes Craven's Scream 3, Kenneth Branagh's Love's Labour's Lost, David Keating's The Last of the High Kings; Shekhar Kapur's award-winning Elizabeth; Phillip Noyce's The Saint, Stephen Hopkins' The Ghost and the Darkness; Guy Jenkin's The Sleeping Dictionary; and Helmut Schlepp1s independent feature A Foreign Affair.
Emily says part of the attraction with Lizzie is that it was like nothing she had ever been asked to play before.
"It's very held back which is both a pleasure to play but can also be quite frustrating sometimes. It's interesting, you adopt the personality you're playing. I haven't really thought about it until this job and I've realised I sometimes came home at the end of every day feeling that I wanted to yell or dance around my bedroom or something because I'd been closed up and closed off and very self protective all day.
"In the scenes I have you can't be loud and jolly and gregarious because it doesn't suit the mood that you have to get in to for that day, so there's something quite held back and repressed about the character that I really think is interesting. And it means that the moments that she does break out are so exciting."
GERARD BUTLER (THE STRANGER)
Butler is one of Britain's fastest rising stars with a burgeoning Hollywood profile. Born in Paisley near Glasgow he was an enthusiastic amateur as a child who channelled his acting ambitions into a legal career. After seven years he decided the law was not for him and headed for London to seek his fortune.
After talking his way into a part in a production of Coriolanus and following that with the lead in a stage version of Trainspotting he was well and truly on his way.
He made his film debut as Billy Connolly's younger brother in Mrs Brown. More theatre and television followed including the lead role of Attila the Hun in the mini-series Attila. His big movie break came with the title role of the Lord of the Undead in Wes Craven's Dracula 2000.
During 2001 Butler divided his time between the Irish locations of Reign of Fire with Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey and the ITV television drama The Jury with Derek Jacobi and Antony Sher.
Following that, he was cast in the lead role of André Marek in Michael
Crichton's time-travel adventure Timeline, directed by Richard Donner. Butler followed that with another Hollywood blockbuster as Angelina Jolie's love interest in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.
After returning home for DEAR FRANKIE, Butler - who sang in a rock band in his youth - is now exercising his vocal chords for Joel Schumacher in the title role of his adaptation of Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera.
For Butler, films like DEAR FRANKIE remind him of why he became an actor in the first place.
"It's a blast to do Tomb Raider - how can you complain when they take you to Hong Kong and Greece and Kenya and you do all this crazy, crazy stuff. But some of that stuff can be incredibly uncomfortable and you forget that you sat 10 days in your trailer waiting to do it. Here, for a start the crew is like 30 or 40 people instead of 500. You're dealing with a small city in those action films; here it's just about the performance, as it should be. You're not talking about time travel. You're actually talking about stuff you understand and not gibberish to Chinese gangs hiding up in the hills. That's all fun but it's great to do something meaningful and powerful - that's what really excites me about acting."
SHARON SMALL (MARIE)
Although she is one of Britain's best-known television faces, DEAR FRANKIE is only Sharon Small's second feature film. She made a big impression in her debut as Hugh Grant's sister Christine in the international hit About A Boy.
The Glasgow-born actress has a string of theatre successes behind her. On television her best-known roles include the popular dramas Cutting It, Sunburn, The Inspector Linley Mysteries, and Glasgow Kiss.
"Marie is just fantastically warm and open and generous," says Sharon of her character. "She's just incredibly generous in her spirit and she recognises that someone is in trouble and she very gently says 'I can help you if you want, it's there'. By offering Lizzie a job, by realising that Lizzie has this deaf child, and just thinking 'There's something in that girl', I think that speaks to me. I think Marie hasn't had it easy but she's found happiness and she's worked hard to get there."
JACK McELHONE (FRANKIE)
Young Jack McElhone is already becoming a seasoned veteran. After attending dance school in Glasgow he was spotted by casting director Des Hamilton. It was Hamilton who gave him his first role in Channel 4's hit comedy The Book Group. When Hamilton was casting Young Adam he thought of Jack for the role of Tilda Swinton's son, and again when he came to cast DEAR FRANKIE, Jack was at the top of Hamilton's list.
MARY RIGGANS (NELL)
Mary Riggans is one of Scotland's best-loved actresses. Her role as Effie in Scottish Television's weekly soap High Road has endeared her to audiences of millions both here and overseas. She is also a versatile stage actress, as much at home in pantomime as she is in prestige productions such as Bill Bryden's The Ship.
Her role as Nell, Frankie's grandmother, in DEAR FRANKIE marks her film debut. According to Mary, Nell has her own reasons for wanting Frankie to know the truth.
"She wants the boy to realise that he had an abusive father and just tell him the whole truth because she thinks moving from flat to flat and house to house, is very confusing. She also feels her daughter is living a lie and she's making the boy live a lie too. I think Nell believes the longer it's put off the harder it's going to be to tell him all about this."
THE LOCATIONS
Like most writers, Andrea Gibb writes about what she knows and in the case of DEAR FRANKIE she knows about Greenock, the Clyde Coast town where she grew up.
"Weirdly enough I think I'm not writing about Greenock and I always am," she explains. "I don't know why that is and I don't know why it has such a pull, or what it is about that particular place you can't seem to shake off, but it's in everything that I do. Even if I don't name it as Greenock I know that what I'm writing about is about Greenock. I can't define it any further than that.
"All my uncles and my grandfather, they all worked in the yards, so the shipyards are a huge thing in my life. You look up that hill towards all of that industry, and you turn your head and there's just the water and the hills. It's just the juxtaposition of those two images I think there it's like nowhere else."
When it came to finding locations for shooting, locations manager Beverly Syme was given the brief that they had to be nostalgic but contemporary. That's a description that fits Greenock very well with its old tradition of shipbuilding and its modern hi-tech computer industries.
Andrea Gibb's input and local knowledge was invaluable to Beverley Syme.
"A lot of exterior stuff we did in Greenock because it had the backdrop there, it had the hills it had the docks it had the sea," says Syme. "It would have been silly to do some of that in Glasgow where there wasn't that whole lovely expanse to see. So we did a lot of the exterior stuff in Greenock because of that lovely backdrop, but a lot of the interior stuff was scheduled depending on the scenes."
Syme is full of praise for the help they received from the local authorities.
"I think in general we were very lucky. Greenock was really great. The people were really friendly, and the council were great and really helpful. The council in Glasgow was also great. Everybody was very helpful and there were no huge problems."
"I think a lot of it was written with the view from the docks in mind," Syme adds. "I asked Andrea's advice on that, whether she had a picture in her mind for that, and she told me there was a specific hill she had been thinking of."
No one was happier than Andrea Gibb with Beverley's final choices. Everything happened as she imagined it.
"Every single location," she says. "I wrote the football trials to happen at the Battery Park and it happened at the Battery Park in Greenock. I wrote the meeting between The Stranger and Lizzie to happen in the Corinthian in Glasgow and they filmed it in the Corinthian. Things like that for a writer are sheer utter magic.
"Caroline and Shona and myself are so passionate about the material, and the way we work together has been so amazing. They actually went to the places I named and they filmed them. Just because that's the sort of people they are. That's what sets them apart."
And for Andrea there was one final touch of magic in the locations.
"When I was small I sailed to Nigeria on a boat and when I was thinking on the name for the ship I was thinking 'I wonder if I could use the name of that boat that I went on?'
"The boat that I sailed on was the Accra and I came back on the Appapa, but never used those names in the script. In the end I called my ship The Empress of Scotland.
"But then I got a phone call from Shona and she said we couldn't use it. We could only use the names of boats that actually come into Greenock because that's where we were filming. There were only two appropriate boats that came in to Greenock during our shoot and they were called the Accra and the Appapa, and it just felt like it was meant to be."
"These were the actual boats I went on as a kid. So the fact that Frankie actually watches that boat come in just makes it more special."
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
SHONA AUERBACH (Director)
Shona Auerbach began her career as a stills photographer. She studied film at Manchester University, and cinematography at Leeds completing her MA at the Polish National Film School in Lodz. It was during this period that she made her 35mm directing debut with the short film Seven. This was named Best Short Film at the British Short Film Festival in 1996.
She has directed a number of successful commercials before making her feature directing debut with DEAR FRANKIE. Unusually, as well as directing, she also acted as her own Director of Photography.
"I'm sure that's both a help and a hindrance. But I would say more than anything it helps because it comes so naturally to me because that's what I've always done. I'm from a stills background where the stills photography is essentially the director and the DOP. I've never known anything else. For me to let go of that would be really weird. I'm sure I could do it but I would feel I would have some part of me taken away. It's part of my style if you like."
CAROLINE WOOD (producer)
Caroline Wood's entry into the film industry came as associate producer on the OscarR-nominated The Wings of the Dove, directed by Iain Softley.
From there she went on to produce The Luzhin Defence starring John Turturro and OscarR nominee Emily Watson, and The Reckoning, which stars Paul Bettany and Willem Dafoe.
Her experience with Renaissance Films, where as head of the development department she oversaw a slate of up to fifteen films, made her an obvious choice to join Stephen Evans in setting up Scorpio Films. DEAR FRANKIE is Scorpio's first feature.
"I immediately saw the potential of it," says Wood. "It took quite a long time to develop it in to a feature, and it's origins as a short stayed with it for a long time. The whole story of The Stranger was sort of the end of the short, it wasn't an integral part of the story and it took us a long time to expand that. The first draft of the feature had a 60 page first act, but in terms of the potential of the story you could see it immediately."
GILLIAN BERRIE (Co-producer)
Gillian Berrie has become one of the most influential figures in contemporary Scottish cinema. Through her company Sigma Films and its co-production deal with the Scandinavian Zentropa Films she has been responsible for films such as Dogville with Lars von Trier, Wilbur with Lone Scherfig and the upcoming Dear Wendy with Thomas Winterberg.
She has also been responsible for developing the careers of exciting talents such as director David Mackenzie, acting as producer on The Last Great Wilderness and associate producer on Young Adam. Her other screen credits include the acclaimed Song for a Raggy Boy. She currently has seven other films in various stages of development.
"I first heard about DEAR FRANKIE through Des Hamilton who had met Caroline Wood with a view to casting the film. He asked me to read the script before Caroline came to Glasgow for her initial recces, meetings with Scottish Screen and the Glasgow Film Office.
"Andrea's script jumped the queue to the top of my script mountain and I have to say I loved it. It was the best piece I'd read for ages and was similar in tone and sensibility to Wilbur, which we'd just shot in Glasgow.
"So, when I met Caroline a few days later, I told her I'd do whatever I could to help and my role in the production was really as advisor in all things Glaswegian; crew, cast, locations, studio space, equipment, production offices and facilities."
ANDREA GIBB (writer)
DEAR FRANKIE is Andrea Gibb's first feature film. However while it was being filmed in Glasgow another of her screenplays Afterlife, also went into production in the city. The film has played to acclaim at the Edinburgh and London Film Festivals and was chosen as one of the six films to make up the LFF on Tour season.
She has written extensively for television and radio. At the moment she has three other screenplays in development.
ORAL NORRIE OTTEY (Editor)
Oral has worked with some of the biggest names in the British film industry on the big and small screen. On the small screen his credits include the award-winning documentary 28 Up with Michael Apted, as well as high rating dramas such as Cracker and Prime Suspect.
His recent film work includes Bhaji on the Beach for Gurinder Chadha, Twin Town with Kevin Allen, Plunkett and Macleane for Jake Scott, Circus for Rob Walker and There's Only One Jimmy Grimble for John Hay.
JENNIFER KERNKE (Production Designer)
One of Jennifer Kernke's earliest screen credits was Set Director on Jane Campion's Sweetie, which was selected for competition at Cannes. After several other shorts, working with such names as Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy, she was the production designer on The Plague and the Moonflower. This adaptation of Ralph Steadman's contemporary opera won the 1995 Music and Arts Indie Award.
Her work since then has included Angels and Insects, starring Kristin Scott-Thomas and Patsy Kensit, and another modern opera Powder Her Face.
CAROLE K.MILLAR (Costume Designer)
Starting her career making costumes in the Kings Theatre in Glasgow, Carole has become one of the most in-demand contemporary designers in the Scottish Film Industry. Her work has been seen in Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen and the upcoming Ae Fond Kiss, as well as Richard Jobson's award-winning directing debut Sixteen Years of Alcohol.
Her television credits include Glasgow Kiss, Monarch of the Glen and Cardiac Arrest.
PATHE PICTURES
Present
In association with the UK FILM COUNCIL and SCOTTISH SCREEN
A SCORPIO FILMS PRODUCTION
In association with SIGMA FILMS
Produced in association with INSIDE TRACK PRODUCTIONS
DEAR FRANKIE
EMILY MORTIMER
GERARD BUTLER
SHARON SMALL
JACK McELHONE
MARY RIGGANS
JAYD JOHNSON
SEAN BROWN
Directed by SHONA AUERBACH
Produced by CAROLINE WOOD
Written by ANDREA GIBB
Director of Photography SHONA AUERBACH
Production Designer JENNIFER KERNKE
Editor ORAL NOTTIE OTTEY
Original music ALEX HEFFES
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