A conversation with Nash and Joel Edgerton
Q: When was the first time you worked together?
J – I think the first time we worked on a film, Nash was a stunt man and I was an actor but there have been other times when Nash doubled me as an actor.
N – I think the FIRST time we worked on something together we were making something for Mum’s Birthday. when we were about eight.
J – That thing? Some of my finest work! Well Dad made a video.
N – Yeah.
J – I still haven’t been paid for that one, Dad made some longwinded thing.
N – It was actually for our Aunt.
J – Yeah, it was for our Aunt in America he made this longwinded two hour kind of..
N – Three hour.
J – Three hour thing, just videoing and ranting and raving behind the camera and going round to all the different family members and videoing them so he could send it to our Aunt in America for her birthday.
N – That was our first collaboration.
J – Yes that was .. I’m surprised you haven’t seen it actually.
Q: Did you make films together in the backyard after that?
J – We made a western, in the style of Ennio Morricone’s.. What’s that film Nash – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly?
N - Yeah.
J – We made that stupid western with our mate Rod and then for school I made a film called The History of Isaac Newton, which Mum taped over.
N – Did she tape over your film as well?
J – She taped over my film so she could tape one of those daytime soaps, you know, The Bold and The Beautiful which I was furious about.
N – She taped over the first thing I directed too, but not only mine, she taped over everyone else’s in the class. It was some video project for music class.
J – So she might even try to tape over THE SQUARE!
J – We’ll finish it and have the print and we’ll go to watch it and Mum will somehow have managed to erase it to tape Oprah or something.
Q: At what point did you go to Nash with the script of THE SQUARE?
J – When all the other directors had passed on it!
N – Ha ha !
J – We wanted to make a proper film and we’d been making short films together for a while. I thought that I could write it so I put my hand up, but then it took a long time because I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t know what I was doing and I hated writing. It was a stinking mess. I was trying to glue all these characters and funny scenes together to make a movie, so it was bad. Plus, it was a “caper/heist” movie and at the time Two Hands had come out and done ok, but all these other films were coming out and not doing ok that were “caper” films, so we decided to shelve it. I had been writing THE SQUARE for someone else and then decided to show Nash and Lou. I just said I am sick of writing this other thing maybe we could make this one and both of them got into the idea.
N – I think I passed on it the first time you sent it to me …
J – …so the three of us started working together seriously on it. I really consider it a gift I gave Nash to get him out of the wilderness of short filmmaking!
N – A gift?
J – Yeah (laughs) he was out there sifting through the fog of short film and video clip making and I thought I better get this guy a serious movie and make him a serious filmmaker.
N – It’s a painful gift I tell you that.
J – Let me tell you something about Nash. Nash makes these short films that he gets one of his mates to write for him. He says “ I want to make a movie about this” someone goes and writes it for him, and then he goes and shoots for two days, cuts it together and within a week or two has something really quite exciting to show everybody. Then he can enjoy the cool screenings and all that stuff. Now along comes THE SQUARE it’s taken us years to raise the finance, then 7 weeks of pre-production, 7 weeks of shooting and now he’s got this mountain of stuff to cut before he’s ever going to get to show anybody. Look at him…. It’s driving him insane ha, ha ha and I’m just back from South America, had a little holiday and I feel rejuvenated.
N – Hmmm.
Q: How was it directing your brother in the film Nash?
N - I can’t remember anything, it's all a blur. No seriously, it was fine, he’s my younger brother so he does what he’s told.
J – Nash said to Mum, “Joel’s only going to get the part if his audition goes well”, and Mum although she kind of knew that he was kidding would say “Nash he’s your brother you have got to put him in the film! He wrote the script you have got to put him in the film!” And Nash still said, “Well, if his audition goes well”.
Q: Can you talk about how working together on your first feature together went in general?
J - We had a pretty blessed kind of shoot. So much can go wrong and we were lucky. I think the worst thing that happened was David Roberts (Ray) kicked a truck and we thought he might have broken his foot and then we thought we might have to reschedule everything.
N –Yeah, it wasn’t Lost in La Mancha or anything! We did have a couple of hailstorms, but I have a hailstorm on virtually everything I do. In fact, every time I work with Drew Bailey, the 1st AD, it always hails, I think it has something to do with him….
Q: How about in terms of collaborating together as brothers?
J – I feel that there’s a lot of time saved in that we can be pretty straight up without getting offended – I think we understand each other pretty well.
N – It’s pretty easy telling him if I don’t like something, knowing that we’ll still be brothers at the end of it!
J – I remember a couple of interesting moments, you know, I am a little bit opinionated at times. So sometimes I would just say something to Nash and straight away he obviously thought that it was an ok idea but he didn’t have to turn to me and say “oh yes Joel that is a really good idea”, he just got straight up and did something about it. Other times Nash would just turn round and say “Look, I don’t have time for that Joel”. I’d never get offended by it I would just say “ ok ok ok “ and sit down, shut up and keep back.
N – Yeah it never got to the point where we had to get Mum in to mediate or anything!
