Francis Lawrence On Directing Spy Thriller Red Sparrow

In an interview with Coming Soon, Francis Lawrence spoke about directing the spy thriller Red Sparrow, which was released today. Here are highlights:

On if he made a choice to tackle R-rated material after the Hunger Games sequels: “I didn’t decide, ‘Oh, I’ve done ‘The Hunger Games’ which was PG-13, I want to do something darker.’ It was really the fact that I was finishing ‘Mockingjay 2’ and this book landed on my desk and I read it and I loved it. The hard-R tone came at me from the book. It was just that I found something I loved and I thought it could come together really quickly. It felt cinematic and I had it laid out in my head how the story would work. Hypothetically Jen was interested at the time when I read the book, and we started to develop it and it came together really quickly. I was quite passionate about it, but it wasn’t something where I said, “Oh, now I must do something dark and R-rated.'”

On making it different from the Hunger Games: “You know it’s funny because I only really after working on the movie for awhile discovered any sort of similarities to “The Hunger Games,” because it’s such a different world and she’s such a different kind of character. But then, when you look at the basics of her getting inducted into the world against her will, somebody that’s doing what they’re doing to protect their family, that it’s truly a survival story, there’s training… you’re like, “Oh wow, there are actually some similarities!” Look, I’m attracted to stories about isolated people on these lonely journeys that have visceral, relatable dilemmas. I think that’s what drew me to this movie and “The Hunger Games.” I never felt like I was trying to avoid comparing “The Hunger Games” anyway because it already felt so different in terms of world and character.”

On if he had to tweak it due to Russia-US tensions: “No, not really. I never went into this making a political movie, but I remember when we started this about three years ago there were conversations where the studio would say, “Hey, the Cold War, Russia/America thing feels a little passé,” but it was such a sub-sub layer to us with the countries involved. Then the election happened and all this stuff started coming up in the news, you go, “Oh wow, it’s a little more topical than we thought!” We never held back on anything because of that, and we also didn’t accentuate anything because of that. It just suddenly felt like, “Oh remember that stuff we said wasn’t relevant? It gets to be more relevant now.'”