Behind the Lens: Duncan Jones, Director of Moon
Behind the Lens is a feature where we pose a series of short, offbeat questions to inspiring filmmakers, actors and artists in order to get to know them a little better.
Moon, the debut feature film from Duncan Jones, has been getting a lot of great buzz ever since it premiered at Sundance earlier this year. With a cerebral plot and an impressive solo performance by Sam Rockwell, not to mention amazing special effects on a shoestring budget, many critics have hailed it as the return of science-fiction for the thinking man on the big screen.
The film is currently playing in select theatres in the U.S., and it will premiere in Canada starting this Friday. For more info on where you can see Moon, visit the film’s official website, or follow Duncan on Twitter. Now, after the jump, check out our Q&A with writer-director Duncan Jones!
What are your current addictions?
Cupcakes and twitter. I now its weird, sad, I don’t know what. But for me right now, cupcakes are a big deal. I don’t know if its the chocolate, or the sugar rush, but they are just this little treat that puts a smile on my face when everything else seems so serious and important. As for twitter, its part job, part fun, all addiction. I dont know how Im going to break the habit, but Im going to have to at some point, cause I am on there WAY too much.
Recommend a movie that more people need to see and why.
You need to see Robert Altman’s Mash, and the reason you need to see it, is that it is the progenitor for all bro-mance movies. It has the ultimate friendship in it, and some of the most real, beautifully rounded relationships ever put on film. Not to mention its just damn funny!
What is your most prized possession?
The torc around my neck. Its Celtic, older than Britain itself and was given to me by my dad at a time in my life when I really felt no sense of home. Im no spiritualist, but psychologically, my torc has given me a tether to a time and place, and makes me feel connected to something and at home, wherever I am.
Name someone, living or dead, that you would most like to work with.
Oliver Reed. Talk about raw charisma! Ever since I first saw that magnificent beast of an actor, I have cursed his death, and the fact that he was not born 30 years later so i could have worked with him in his prime. He was and always will be to me, the definitive British Alpha Male, and no one else even gets close. its unfair there’s no one even on the horizon like him.
What upcoming projects can we look forward to from you?
That is a question! Possibly the question. As it stands, there are two possibilities, though a third has recently popped up. Either a sci-fi companion piece to Moon called Mute, that is a thriller based in a future Berlin, or a WW2 submarine story called Escape from the Deep that is based on an utterly amazing true story of a handful of American submariners who escaped their submarine at the height of the Pacific war while being depth charged by the enemy.