The celebrate the screening of the Oscar-nominated A War at this year’s Sydney Film Festival, Danish actor Pilou Asbæk sat down with Fergus Halliday to chat about everything from the rules of engagement to Game of Thrones and the American election.
I won’t take up much of your time so, I’ll jump right into it. The thing that, sort of, stuck with me about the film was there’s always this sense of intensity, especially with your character. It always feels like something’s about to happen. Was that draining, as an actor?
Yeah, because… all right, you’re watching a film and you can see the man wants to cry and he’s struggling because he doesn’t want to cry and there’s that inner conflict, which is interesting. The moment he starts crying he releases that inner conflict and it becomes flat, it just becomes a guy who’s crying. You know?
So, that’s why it is hardcore not to give in to your emotions but if you’re seeing ten scenes with me crying, me crying at home, me crying with my daughter, we would rather see a guy fighting not to cry, not to break down and not to give into the pressure until the final moment when his best friend is witnessing in the courtroom and he breaks down.
I noticed as well, in the film, a lot of careful direction over special effects. The camera is always very closely focused on you, did that affect your performance at all?
It’s a very different approach than the big American films. The big American films want the explosions. We don’t have the pocket for that so we need to think in terms of this as very small, this is what’s here, and this would be like a non-budget Indie film in America. I think our budget was, like, three million dollars, or something. So, we had to do something else, it had to be within the character’s eyes, it had to be within the character.
We wanna portray the horror of war, we can’t do it with ten thousand dead people or six battle scenes. So, it’s a different set of skills, when you’re acting in something like that as to other projects and it is interesting because you can’t hide.
As an actor, you wanna hide and the older I get the more films I make and the more films I make, the more I wanna hide me. Not the person, Claus, but his character I’m portraying. I want to make him not so frontal, visually or emotionally, for the audience.
Yeah, that’s very interesting. One of the things that also stuck with me was how the film, sort of, explored the visible lines that determine what is and isn’t allowed on the battlefield.
That changes every week, more or less. What was allowed fifteen minutes ago is not allowed five years later let alone five minutes later and we’re asking these guys to go down and defend our borders – and we say it’s our borders even though it’s in Afghanistan – but they are fighting in the name of democracy. I’m not going to say if I’m pro or against the war because I think it’s very difficult to say that, war is not black and white; every war needs to be talked about and analysed before we can understand what it is and what it isn’t.
But we’re asking young guys all over the world to follow this convention that keeps changing. I don’t think the Taliban are fighting with a convention. Do you? No. But we’re still, nonetheless, asking these young guys to follow the rules of engagement and they have to because if we don’t we’re just as barbaric as they are. You know, we have to protect our own as well but it’s difficult. I don’t know what I feel about war. I don’t know what I feel about these rules of engagement. It’s so difficult.
There’s a lot of times that this film plays with the tropes and images of how we usually represent war. Claus returns home to his family earlier than either of them were really expecting. Were you intending to play that aspect of the film as subversive?
I’m a father. He’s also a father. He’s also a husband. A brother. A son. So, he has much more freedom than just being one thing. Like, you are not just a journalist you’re also a son or whatever, and that’s the same thing as Claus and the reason why we didn’t make him a big entrance when he came home was that the children came first.
You don’t wanna – I dunno if you have any kids but – you don’t want to do anything that seems weird in front of your children because you know they’re gonna be sad, and your children’s happiness is your happiness. So, that’s the reason why we underplayed that sequence in the film.
Obviously, the film navigates a lot of conflict of morality, how do you feel about the decision that Claus is making? Do you feel they’re the right ones in the end?
Okay, this is gonna be weird, it’s not even an answer but it’s more an emotion. I think he thinks he’s innocent but he knows he’s guilty. You know what I’m saying? We did an alternative ending for the film, kind of on me being guilty as well and actually the scene that they used it was me, where I don’t do anything, I just sit down. We actually shot it chronologically and we shot my scenes first and we didn’t know the end. The next five pages weren’t there. Am I innocent or not innocent?
So we shot the whole film and he had to make sure he had enough material to do both endings. Because what would be the ending? Saying that you’re guilty, four years in prison, and then you’ve done it? Then it’s over? You have paid your due, instead of saying you’re innocent but now you have to go home and think about all the things that you’ve done and whenever you see your child you will think of those eight innocent children that would be much, much more devastating but we didn’t know if we had enough material for it.
I didn’t know which way he would go so when I was sentenced, she actually said behind the camera, the real life judge that we used I the film, along with real life soldiers, said, “guilty”. And this was a guy that been so involved in the character for two months, I didn’t know what to do. So, that’s the reason why I just sit down. That’s a 100% naturalistic result of the consequences.
I did also want to drop in and ask a question about your recent appearance on Game of Thrones. Your character, Euron, he comes across a bit cryptic in the books. How did you, sort of, approach him? Did you know much about the material?
I read some of the chapters in the books. I haven’t had a chance to read all of the books. I know it’s gonna sound idiotic and stupid but I’ve been working so much but I did as much research as possible at the time. Dan [Weiss] and David [Benioff] wanted to go a different way with him than as he was in the book.
They wanted to make him more close to the Greyjoys than a pirate because if he came back as a pirate, as he was described in the books, waltzing into the Kingsmoot no one would vote for him because they wouldn’t be able to identify him as Iron born. They would see a guy who’s been gallivanting off and doing other stuff.
Some people like it and some people don’t and that’s part of my job. You can’t satisfy all but you have to satisfy the writers and the directors and that’s not always the audience. But I like it. I like the character. I like what they did with him.
There are some viewers who have drawn parallels between the Kingsmoot and the American upcoming American election. Do you feel like there’s an element of that at play there?
Donald Trump is for real. Euron Greyjoy is a fictional character. Guys, please, the American election is not a joke. This is gonna determine so many destinies in the Western world, take it seriously. I love Game of Thrones, I’m a major fan of the TV series, I love being a part of it but we’re here to entertain and for people to enjoy an incredibly good story. Please, let the American’s write a good story of their own with the next election.
A War is screening at this year’s Sydney Film Festival. For more information about the festival and screening times, click HERE.
Game of Thrones screens in Australia on Foxtel every Monday at 11am.
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