The ghosts of Mrs Ross
JANE GOLDMAN, the pink-haired screenwriter of Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class, and better half of TV host Jonathan Ross, is contemplating what makes a good scare.
As the writer of the startlingly effective new screen adaptation of Susan Hill’s classic ghost story, The Woman In Black, Goldman has thought about the craft of frightening audiences.
“It’s about pacing and building tension,” she says. “I tried to draw on the things that genuinely scared me. I collect Victorian automatons — the ones that dance — and in the dark they do give you a little shudder. Those kinds of things are a little unsettling.”
Films that scared her include Jacob’s Ladder, “parts of The Shining, The Vanishing, and Exorcist III, oddly. That has one very specific long shot down a hospital corridor that is incredible,” she says.
Hill says: “It’s easy to write a short story and frighten people for five pages, but it’s different trying to do it as in The Turn of the Screw or A Christmas Carol,” she says.
“With a book, chances are that people will be in a safe place, with the curtains drawn and doors locked, when they read it. You, as the reader, give yourself that delicious feeling of being terrified. But being frightened when you’re not sure it’s alright is another thing. I tried to play on the suggestion that perhaps you’re not as safe as you think.”
The Woman in Black wears its thrills proudly on its sleeve. It stars Daniel Radcliffe — in his first film role post-Harry Potter — as Arthur Kipps, a young, bereaved father and solicitor, who travels to an isolated village to sort out the estate of a recently deceased elderly lady.
But once Kipps is holed up in the woman’s rambling mansion, he — along with the community — finds himself tormented by visitations from a menacing, ghostly woman in a black dress.
The book was a modest success when first published, but found its audience when it was adapted for a touring stage production that has since set up residence in London’s West End for the past 25 years. It’s also taught in schools.
How did it take so long for a big-screen adaptation to be commissioned? (There was a TV version in which Kipps was played by Adrian Rawlins, who then starred as Radcliffe’s father in Harry Potter).
“Several scripts were commissioned, each one worse that the previous one,” Hill says.
“What some screenwriters seemed to do was to take the book, tear it up, and start again. I thought, ‘Why bother? Why not just write your own screenplay?’ But then Jane came along, and her treatment was totally different.”
Goldman had seen the play when young, and read the book, but didn’t think about it until approached for the job by the resuscitated Hammer Studios.
“I was very excited about adapting the book because the stage play, while true to the spirit of the original, is adapted so much for the theatre that I felt a film had ground that hadn’t been as well-trodden,” Goldman says. “The play uses the stage to its advantage. I wanted to stay true to the spirit of Susan’s book using cinematic language.”
In casting Radcliffe, director James Watkins (who directed Eden Lake) was apprehensive about the film being short-handed as ‘what Harry Potter did next’.
“It would be disingenuous to say that you don’t consider those things,” Watkins says. “You know there’s this huge 10-year industry, and all these associations that people have with Dan.
“But, ultimately, when casting a part you have to look if it’s a good fit. I put that baggage aside and met with Dan. He’s a very bright guy, a committed actor, and very focused and determined. He’s trying to create, and I think will have, a long and varied career.
“Dan looks different in this movie and he has a different air about him. I think it’s a proper, grown-up performance.
“The Potter thing is always going to be there, but if you start worrying about actors in terms of what they’ve done, the pool of talent you can cast becomes negligible.”
The Woman in Black script was the first Radcliffe read after shooting his final Potter scenes; he whizzed through it on the flight home.
“I couldn’t see the stage play beforehand — I will now — for the same reason that I didn’t watch the TV movie, because I copy,” Radcliffe says. “I know that’s what I do, so I know I have to stay away from other interpretations of the part if I want to give my own.”
The 22-year-old is too humble to admit that having his name attached to the project was the deciding factor in it getting made. “There are very few actors — even me and Rob Pattinson, who are at the moment ‘bankable’ names, whatever that means — where just their saying ‘yes’ will get a film made,” he says. “Maybe Clooney, Pitt, and Depp are the only ones.
“But it’s also nice to know that you are going to be able to help get films made that might not otherwise get made.
“I’m in a position now where I’m very fortunate, financially, from Harry Potter, so I don’t have to work for the money. I can just do things that interest me. If I want, I can keep doing indie projects for the rest of my life, and I’d be perfectly happy.”
Next up for Radcliffe is one such indie project, Kill Your Darlings, a Beat Generation tale that will be shot in a 30-day schedule, in which Radcliffe plays a 19-year-old Allen Ginsberg alongside Jack Huston and Elizabeth Olsen, white-hot star of the just-released Martha Marcy May Marlene.
“It’s very exciting,” Radcliffe says. “It’s the director, John Krokidas’ first feature. Everyone wants to work with Scorsese and Spielberg — and who wouldn’t? — but I find it equally exciting the prospect that I might be working with the next Scorsese or Spielberg.”
The other in-demand talent involved with The Woman in Black — screenwriter Goldman — is also in the thick of her next projects.
She has so far denied being involved with any potential sequel to Kick-Ass, while another writer, Simon Kinberg, is working on a draft for the next X-Men prequel.
Though reluctant to discuss what she’s working on, Goldman says: “There are two different American studio projects, neither of which have been officially announced,” but it’s believed she’s teaming up with Tim Burton for an adaptation of the children’s book Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
* The Woman in Black is released on Feb 10.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
