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A&E: What has changed since the
first Horatio Hornblower movies?
Andrew Grieve: What's changed is that it's
much bigger. The ship is bigger. It's a 74-gun battleship rather than 36-gun
frigate. And the look of it is much bigger. We've got 32 cannons instead of
little pop guns. So it's bigger. Meaty. (Laughs)
A&E: What went into researching this series?
AG: We did a tremendous amount of research
before we started. I've got shelves of books on the subject. I think it's very
important that we know how it all worked. Every now and then you have to bend
this or that a little bit further for dramatic purposes, but it's very important
that you know which bits you're bending. So we've researched it as much as
possible and I think most of us know pretty much how it all worked, as much as
you can. That's a very exciting part of the whole process.
A&E: Let's talk about the characters. Is there
one in particular character who really evolves during the course of the story?
AG: The villain who turns into a good guy,
par excellence, is Hobbes in this particular episode because he makes a full
journey from loathing Hornblower to really admiring him. I think he sees a
quality in Hornblower that he admired in the captain that he so fond of at the
beginning. I think it's very important that you don't have cardboard characters
and that they do have depth. Not everybody is evil. I mean, people say that I'm
pretty evil but I assure you that there's a little touch of goodness about me
here and there. (Laughs)
A&E: Regarding the rebel slaves: Inside this
swashbuckling adventure, there is a really interesting social commentary, isn't
there?
AG: The rebel army is in the book, but it's
only just sketched in, and we felt that if you're going to do it you might as
well explore it a little bit. Those were the events that were happening in Santo
Domingo at the time, a rebel army led to victory against the Spanish. We always
like to beat the Spanish. (Laughs) And, so it was important to us to at least
explore it a little bit and to get something more out. We tried to incorporate
them into the story.
A&E: The most palpable tension, the climax,
comes not in the heat of battle but in the courtroom. It's very cerebral. It's
very tense. And, it's not told in a traditionally linear manner. Can you talk
about that?
AG: One of the problems that we've had is
incorporating characters that we love back into the drama. Robert Lindsay's
Admiral Pellew is somebody that everybody loved in the first series. In order to
have him in the story, we've interlaced the courtroom right through the whole of
the drama, so that it comments on some of the action It's also a very useful
device, because you don't have to explain everything during the action
sequences. The exposition can come in the courtroom. It also enables you to have
quite dramatic scenes away from the main action. So, it works very, very well.
A&E: Why do you think the
Horatio Hornblower movies are so popular?
AG: I think probably because they're
different. They're not what's normally seen on television. It does have a movie
quality to it, I think. We try hard to do that. Obviously, our budgets are not
quite as large as Spielberg's, but within those parameters we do try and do them
big. There are not many shows which do that. There are a lot of shows about
mundane life, about cops, about doctors, about vets. This isn't. This is about
Nelson's Navy. So it's something different for people.
A&E: What are the future plans for the series?
Are there new areas you would like to explore with the characters?
AG: Yes. The areas I'd like to explore with
Horatio are when he gets his first command. I'm particularly interested in doing
that because I wrote the script. It would be nice to direct one that I also
wrote. He goes through lots of changes. He gets married to someone he shouldn't
get married to, he's in his first command. It sometimes goes well, it sometimes
goes badly. He has a new first lieutenant who used to be senior to him in Bush,
whom we meet in this episode. And, he's growing up all the time and the war with
France carries on.
A&E: What is it like to work with this cast?
AG: They're a fine bunch of lads. They need
looking after sometimes, because if you get a bunch of boys together you can
imagine what that's like. You know, they goof around a bit and they don't like
being told what to do. They're like any bunch of young men, really. But they're
very nice to work with. Very good guys.
A&E: What appealed to you when you were
originally asked to direct the first series of Hornblower?
AG: The appeal of directing Hornblower, I
think, came from my love of the books. I read them when I was very young. The
first book I read was Midshipman Hornblower and that was published, I
think, in the late '50s, even earlier than that. I remember reading it when I
was quite young. It was serialized in the newspaper, and I used to wait for it
to arrive in the Sunday newspaper. I think in fact, I went into the navy as a
result of reading Hornblower.
A&E: Was it like the books?
AG: No, it was completely different. The
navy had become very technological. But I was in the Merchant Navy, not the
Royal Navy.
A&E: What was your reaction when you were asked
to come back and direct this second series?
AG: I was delighted, because I think
Hornblower moves on. He's older, he's more mature, he's had different problems.
We don't have a ship this time, so any technical problems that we have are
different. They aren't about how to sail a ship and get shots on the ship,
they're about how to recreate a ship on the land. And that challenge has proved
very exciting.
A&E: What do you think makes Ioan Gruffudd such
a great Hornblower?
AG: Ioan is a great Hornblower. First of
all, he physically resembles the Forrester character in almost every respect.
He's also a quite grounded kind of guy. He's very centered and he's a fantastic
young actor. So, it was perfect.
A&E: Is it easier to direct this time around? So
many of the actors have played their characters before, does that make it
easier, or does it bring up a whole new set of challenges?
AG: I suppose directing the actors is easier
because they all know who they are, but the technical challenges are different
this time, like trying to make the ship look like a ship. Trying to recreate a
storm sequence at sea on a set and make people believe that it's going up and
down and if you got on it, you'd be seasick.
A&E: What goes into staging such a huge
production?
AG: Well, in order to plan and stage it,
you've got to be very, very well prepared. All of the action scenes really have
to be thought about in advance and, if you get the script in time, story
boarded. And then, when you come to do it, there's never enough time. But at
least you can see what you're supposed to be doing. So, a lot of work,
basically.
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