Posted in: Exclusive, Interview, Movies | Tagged: Charlotte Kirk, Duchess, exclusive, interview, neil marshall, Philip Winchester, sean pertwee

Duchess Dir Neil Marshall on Action Crime Drama's Six-Year Journey

Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers) spoke to Bleeding Cool about his action crime drama in Vertigo Releasing's Duchess starring Charlotte Kirk.

Neil Marshall developed a mastery of directing several genres across film and television. With his work on Dog Soldiers (2002), The Descent (2005), NBC's Hannibal, The Reckoning (2020), and The Lair (2022), he solidified his place in horror. In the sci-fi and fantasy realms, he's tackled episodes of HBO's Game of Thrones, Starz! Black Sails, Lionsgate's Hellboy (2019), NBC's Constantine and Timeless, and Netflix's Lost in Space. One challenge he wanted to take on is the crime drama in Vertigo Releasing's Duchess, which follows a small-time crook (Charlotte Kirk) who tries to enter the treacherous underworld of diamond trafficking and ends up left for dead when a deal goes wrong. Determined to seek retribution, she launches into an unwavering pursuit for vengeance. The writer-director spoke to Bleeding Cool about why it took six years to complete the project, casting, Kirk and Philip Winchester's chemistry, and more.

Duchess Director Neil Marshall on Tackling His First "Gangster Movie"

BC: What's the inspiration behind Duchess?

NM: I've always loved gangster movies, all genres, really. I'm a total cinephile, but the gangster genre is certainly something I've always enjoyed and wanted to have a crack at some point. It was like 2018, Charlotte and I were having a conversation about gangster movies, and something was thrown into the mix of like, "What would a female 'Scarface' be like?" It grew from there and evolved into something different, but that was the origin of it, wrote the script, and over the course of several years. I wrote it in 2018, made 'The Reckoning' in 2019, Covid [happened] in 2020, 'The Lair' (2022), and finally in the summer of 2022, we finally got to shoot Duchess and the script came a long way since then.

Can you break down the casting process and how everyone came together?

Charlotte was there from the start. I'd always wanted to work with Philip Winchester, loved his work on [the TV series] 'Strike Back,' which I almost directed at one point. I'd always wanted to find something to work with him on. He seemed a perfect fit for the role of Robert. I got to work with Sean Pertwee again as this is our fourth collaboration, because I loved him to bits and I got to work with my best mate on set, which is awesome. Stephanie Beacham is such an icon and getting her into that role [of Charlie] worked out perfectly. That was through as it turned out, the producer of the film, her mom was close friends with Stephanie Beacham, so it all worked out creatively for us. We also have Colm Meaney, who is a fantastic actor, getting him in for a little cameo role. The rest of it was through the casting process and seeing tapes. We found some amazing actors, like Hoji Fortuna. I'd never worked with him before, and he's a wonderful man. It was that whole thing of looking at tapes, trying to meet people, and putting it all together so we got a good bunch.

How do you describe the chemistry between Charlotte and Philip and why it worked so well?

It's what you hope for, isn't it when writing those characters? Then get the right cast and something clicks. Sometimes it doesn't always work out that way. In this case, it did. It was on-screen chemistry, and it was great. There's no planning for it. You can't, you get the luck of the movie gods more than anything.

What was the most difficult sequence to shoot?

There were several. They became difficult because of time constraints more than anything because we didn't have a lot of time to shoot the movie. We managed to make it work shooting. There's a difficult scene in the desert because it is so unbelievably hot. It was like 40 degrees (Celsius) out there and working in the sweltering heat is never easy. There's the car park shootout. That was difficult because I got Covid right in the middle of the shoot. It was my first time getting it, landed right in the middle of the shoot. That day, I had to direct from a tent. I was putting up a tent with a monitor and a radio, and that was it. I was isolated from the crew so that didn't make it easy. There's another shootout toward the end of the film where we literally ended up with two hours to shoot this entire sequence toward the end of the day. That was having everybody think on their feet, go handheld, the actors knew what they were doing, running the whole thing, getting in there with the cameras, and capturing as much of it as possible in a documentary style. That added to the film, but it wasn't easy on the day that's for sure.

Duchess, which also stars Colin Egglesfield, comes to digital on August 12th.

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