Evan Rachel Wood Across the Universe Interview

Not everyone likes musicals, but then not everyone has seen a Julie Taymor musical. Her award winning Broadway production of A Lion King is one of the most successful stage musicals around. Cinematically she's just as gifted. Frida, won two Oscars, and Across the Universe is just as visually and dramatically rich.

Set entirely to Beatles songs (33 in all) Taymor set out to "investigate the 60's". Her goal was to translate the passion and feeling of the era and have it resonate in a way that made it feel as contemporary as possible. The reason to make a film like this, in her mind, was the immediacy of the themes. "That era is explicitly important to our time now," says Taymor.

Starring Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen, Running with Scissors) as Lucy and newcomer Jim Sturgess as Jude, Across the Universe is a tender love story set against the politically and socially charged 60's. Combining live action with animation and puppetry and featuring cameos by Bono, Joe Cocker and Eddie Izzard, Taymor deftly manages to combine singing with drama but never at the expense of story and emotion. It's an unconventional psychedelic re-imagining of the Beatles music that will hopefully, says the director, inspire conversation about how we can all take control and change our universe. Gaynor Flynn caught up with Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess, at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.

Gaynor Flynn: Do people know you can sing?

Evan Rachel Wood: No, not really and this is why this was actually a dream of mine to do a movie musical because I've been singing as long as I've been acting so I wanted to combine the two and that's why I've done so many music videos because those are my two favourite things.


Gaynor Flynn: Have you ever had any formal training?

Evan Rachel Wood: No I just listened to stuff and tried to mimic certain female voices that I liked.


Gaynor Flynn: Like who?

Evan Rachel Wood: Alanis Morissette kind of started it and its' kind of hard to sing like her so I'd have habits to break but then like Janis Joplin and Joni Mitchell and then l love people like PJ Harvey.


Gaynor Flynn: Nice strong female role models.

Evan Rachel Wood: Yeah a lot of my role models are singers and they're strong women and outspoken and they've got opinions. Very rock n roll. (laughs)


Gaynor Flynn: Would you agree this is your first grown up role in a film?

Evan Rachel Wood: Yeah I think so.


Gaynor Flynn: Was that part of the attraction, because you often play younger.

Evan Rachel Wood: Yeah and I play younger in King of California as well and in Bronte so I think nobody has seen this me.


Gaynor Flynn: Was it a difficult role?

Evan Rachel Wood: Yeah it was probably the hardest thing I've done but I don't think I can call it that because it was also the most amazing experience of my life. So it was incredible but it was very hard and stressful because not only are you acting and the story line is great and its deep and emotional but on top of it you've got to sing live. So you can't mess it up and on top of it they're probably the most famous songs in the world so it just kept on piling on our shoulders. But I think it was so much pressure that it didn't seem real and we could somehow get over it.


Gaynor Flynn: How did you come to be cast? Were you familiar with Julie Taymor's work?

Evan Rachel Wood: I love visually what she does its just insane but I still didn't realise how special she was until I met her and I realised that unlike most directors that make really good interesting work she's not really sitting there going how can I make this different? How can I make this look cool. Honestly she is what she does it's a part of her so she would just sit there and close her eyes and listen to these songs and whatever came into her head that's what we would film and it didn't matter what it was. If it was a poster coming to life or it was something floating in the sky she's like I don't know how we're going to do it but I'm going to find a way so it was incredible.


Gaynor Flynn: Was the audition tough?

Evan Rachel Wood: Well it was weird. I went in and read for her just one time and I was drenched in sweat by the end of it because I wanted it so bad and I was so nervous, it was insane. And she's kind of hard to read sometimes but she's so honest in a way that I appreciate. So when I came out I was like that was either the best audition I've ever had or the worst audition of my life, I had no idea what was going to happen.


Gaynor Flynn: Did you know Jim Sturgess beforehand?

Evan Rachel Wood: No not at all, but now we're good friends.


Gaynor Flynn: Jim was that really you singing and did you have any training?

Jim Sturgess: Yeah it was me singing. All of us sang our own songs. I hadn't had any training and I think that was something Julie was looking for. You know people who hadn't been trained out of their natural voices. I was in a band back in London so I had been singing and I was into singing and music and stuff like that but as far as being professionally trained I hadn't had anything like that.


Gaynor Flynn: What kind of band were you in?

Jim Sturgess: I'd guess you'd call it an indie band, we were like inspired by the bands of the Manchester scene in the late 80's.


Gaynor Flynn: Joy Division?

Jim Sturgess: Yeah Joy Division and the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays' and New Order and that kind of stuff. There were seven of us in that band so it was very electronic, big sound.


Gaynor Flynn: How was it singing Beatles songs, and were you a fan?

Jim Sturgess: Yeah I was a big fan of the Beatles before I did the film. And I guess it's the same for everybody but certainly coming form England everyone is very aware of the Beatles or at least I was and my friends were. Also a lot of the bands I would listen to were very vocally inspired by the Beatles so it was just a process of finding the foundation of the music so I would listen to albums like Sargent Pepper's as early as maybe six years old. My parents certainly had the records lying around the house.


Gaynor Flynn: What have you acted in? We don't know much about your background.

Jim Sturgess: I was just like a kind of jobbing actor like a lot of actors back in London. I was just trying to get work anywhere. I'd done some short films and some independent films and some TV stuff.


Gaynor Flynn: What was the experience to be in such a big production?

Jim Sturgess: It was mind blowing. It changed my life completely.


Gaynor Flynn: And was it the same for Evan Rachel Wood?

Jim Sturgess: Yeah, I think we had very similar experiences. I don't think anyone had ever done anything like this before and I think everyone was just ready to just indulge and have the most incredible time they possibly could because they knew it was real once in a lifetime opportunity to just one be playing around with Beatles music, some of the greatest music ever written. Two to be working with a director like Julie Taymor who is one of the most visually stunning amazing people out there and then to just be with a young cast all living in New York at the time. We all moved to New York and all lived in the Village and we all stayed in the same neighbourhood and we were all absolutely best friends even with the crew and we just lived in this bubble, this Beatles camp and we'd just sing these songs all day every day.


Gaynor Flynn: You said the film changed your life, in what way?

Jim Sturgess: In the way that I was unemployed, living in London with really not much to do and now I'm here, it's kind of a pretty mad roller coaster.


Gaynor Flynn: The film is premiering here at the Toronto International Film Festival is this your first film festival experience?

Jim Sturgess: Yeah and I didn't know what to expect. I'd never been to a film festival, so it was great walking around and see all these people gather around these cinemas and all these great films; it's an exciting thing. And we were walking past this hotel and there was all this screaming and I thought god, something terrible has happened like an attack or something like that and then we found out that Brad Pitt had just got out of his car two blocks down the road, so it was fun.


Gaynor Flynn: You said you didn't train as a singer, so did you train as an actor?

Jim Sturgess: No I wouldn't say I trained. I did a course in Manchester. I moved there to be in a band but I went to do this course. It was two year course in filmmaking, boom operating, video making, editing a bit of acting and I really got into it when I was there and I was also hanging out with a lot of people who were interested in acting and I ended up writing a short play with three characters and I put that on in a small theatre in Manchester and that's when someone saw me in that and recommended me to his agent back in London and that's how it started off professionally.


Gaynor Flynn: Bono, who has a small role in the film, said you have a great voice, so are you torn between the acting path and the singing path?

Jim Sturgess: No I mean I've always done both and music for me is so, self gratifying and you can sit in a room on your own and play music and I enjoy writing music, and performing music even if its to myself and I'm really, really enjoying acting.


Gaynor Flynn: Speaking of Bono, what was it like to work with him?

Jim Sturgess: It was amazing and for me it was great to have someone like him in the film, one he's a huge rock star but two he carries the same ideas as the people from the 60's. He's very into changing the world and he's a big personality with a big mission and he was in our film and that was just the most incredible thing. And his message is really the same message as all these amazing people who came out of the time the film is based around. I've just been working with Bono again, me and Julie and Evan were just workshopping, just messing around for her because she's doing a Spiderman musical which is written by Bono and The Edge. So I had to sing all these songs that he'd written, which is a whole different ball game. He can hit some f****** notes so you realise what an amazing singer he is when you have to hit songs that he's written.


Gaynor Flynn: Did you have difficulty reaching those notes?

Jim Sturgess: Yeah well I was out of shape because I hadn't sung since we had done Across the Universe cause I've been doing a lot of acting so I hadn't had a lot of opportunity to be singing. So I turned up and I sang like two songs and my voice was shot, like I couldn't even talk. Like when we were doing Across the Universe we were singing all day, every day, 14-hour days, which is unheard of. Even in a band you might sing for like two hours and rehearse but to sing for like 14 hours days like all day you rally have to get your voice to a strong place.


Gaynor Flynn: What were your favourite parts of the film, to experience?

Jim Sturgess: There were two that really stick to my mind, one was when we did the Strawberry Field scene, it was the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's' death that day and Julie took me aside and she reminded me of that and we talked about that and she said listen, this is your studio, and we're going to play the music and you're going to sing and you just do whatever you like, you're the artist, and this is your studio just sing it as many times as you want and just get stuck in. So me and Don Nace the artist I'd been working with, we injected all this red paint into these strawberries and we had these huge canvases which they brought to the set and they had three cameras rolling and the camera guys were in these body suits because I was going to get busy with the paint and they just played the song and I sang and it was very emotional because it was John Lennon's' death.

And the other was the peace march we did down 5th Avenue. As research we'd all watched so much footage of the 60's and so much footage of Vietnam protests and we turn up on the set and I was like fuck its exactly like how I've seen it on screen, with everyone with banners and The Bread and Puppet Theatre Company that did the parade and it was just so mind blowing and there were 500 to 600 extras that day. And me and Evan were at the front of the march and we started marching down 5th Avenue and 600 people were chanting this chant behind us and then they kicked in the music over this massive loud speaker and we had to start singing and I remember my legs were like jelly and Evan was squeezing my hand so it was pretty amazing.


Gaynor Flynn: What's next for you? The Other Boleyn Girl right?

Jim Sturgess: Yeah with Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana and Natalie Portman. That was the film I did straight after and its finished and its set in Tudor England and Henry the VIII and life inside his court and it's about the rivalry between two sisters and their love for the king and it's a beautiful story and a beautiful script.


Gaynor Flynn: And what's next for you Evan?

Evan Rachel Wood: I have a film called Bronte and we're supposed to start in November. It's a film about the Bronte sisters.


Gaynor Flynn: Which one do you play?

Evan Rachel Wood: Anne, the youngest.


Across the Universe is out 1st November