Stuart Townsend

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

When you think of most actors who become filmmakers, you think of established performers like Robert Redford, Mel Gibson, or even Ron Howard or Rob Reiner. However, Stuart Townsend is far from what you would call 'established.'

He has gained recognition for his roles in films like Queen Of The Damned and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as well as a guest role on the beloved sitcom Will & Grace. Now, Townsend plans to establish himself in the world of filmmaking, as both screenwriter & director for Battle in Seattle, which focused on the most unlikeliest of subject matter, the 1999 protest of the same name against the World Trade Organization.

The 35 year-old actor-turned filmmaker shared with us what first motivated him to tackle an underreported subject like the anti-globalization movement into a dramatic film.

'Well, it was visual,' Stuart explains, 'And I figured the idea was basically to make an action movie about something. That was sort of my overarching intent. And, then, instead of making a doc that was sort of factual, maybe a little staid, try to hire talented actors, that people, particularly young people, I'd love young people to see this film more than anybody else, that would be my audience.'

'It's hard to get them in the cinema, but I felt like all the girls love Channing Tatum, Andre Benjamin, everybody loves Andre, Michelle [Rodriguez's] in Lost, Charlize Theron is amazing, Woody [Harrelson's] you know,' he continues, 'That was kind of the plan was to try and get these actors. You know, people love going to the cinema and you can be inspired by cinema and I have been, so that was really it. They might not have gone to see a film about the WTO, but they might see a film with Andre Benjamin in it, you know.'

Townsend shared with us what first got him interested in the subject of globalization in the first place.

'It started with the environment and meeting with a lot of environmental activists, hearing about erosions, hearing about our forests, freaked out, it's like a Pandora's box,' he remembers, 'But I didn't really connect that. I thought it was just really educating myself on the environment, but I didn't realize it was so connected to politics and connected to globalization. And I read a book by Anita Roddick called Take It Personally. It's sort of an idiot's guide to globalization. Very simple and I can read it and I could understand it.'

'And I just realized that, fuck, this globalization is really at the root source of a lot of our modern ills,' Townsend adds, 'I really felt that. I felt the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, were these institutions were mechanisms of a system that was pretty unjust and the Battle In Seattle event was this clearer illustration of all these issues and people fighting against this system. So I felt it was pretty cinematic when I started to read an article, I saw these pictures of it. I was like, wow, it's riots, there's colorful, creative protests, there's an escalation of violence. That's a movie, so that's what I tried to do.'

We asked the Ireland native how well-aware he was of the Battle In Seattle, a movement largely underreported now recognized as the firing shot in the now bubbling and ongoing debate against globalization.

'Barely,' Townsend recalls, 'I think I watched it on BBC World. I didn't watch the US coverage till I sort of researched it. The whole local coverage, like station KYRO 7, did this whole exclusive, actually it was a whole 45 minute special, it was really good. But, in general, I have a feeling that most people really don't remember the event, don't know what the WTO is, and don't know why 50,000 people were on the streets.'

'And that's kind of why I wanted to make it, which was to bring it to an audience when the people go, holy shit, because it's real footage,' he continues, 'It has that feeling of 9/11 or Katrina or an American city that you just can't believe, like, is this America' I think, particularly democratic America, because it's all about democracy and it's sort of being taken away.'

However, Townsend says now that his mind is a wellspring of information on globalization itself, as shown in the meticulous research he did on the subject matter prior to filming Battle in Seattle.

'I was just putting in the hours,' Stuart recounts, 'I spent about a year and a half researching the event and just reading all the books, like pro-free-trade books like Thomas Friedman and [Jagdish] Bhagwati and middle ground sort of Joseph Stigletz kind of books and books like Lori Waloch's Who's Trade Organization', which is sort of very in-depth analysis on what this organization was. I was just doing all the research from both sides and making my own opinions. I'm still kind of doing it. It's six years. It's been an education and now I'm just interested.'

He also notes how the U.S.'s recent economic crisis on Wall Street also contributes itself to the problem of globalization.

'You look at the recent financial crisis, that's the same economic sense that people were warning against and fighting against in 1999 and the media acts like it's a big shock,' Townsend claims, 'It's like, no, it's not a shock. People have been waiting for this bubble to burst for a long while. It continually evolves. The world food riots, that was about IMF policies, structural adjustment programs, flooding local markets with imports, and killing off the local food.'

'They've gotten from self-sufficiency to not being able to feed themselves,' he adds, 'Most people would say that was from bio-fuels and oil prices. Yes, it was, but it was also from a clearly designed system that doesn't work. And, so, that's heavy, heavy stuff and most people are not going to go there with that. But a film, you can watch a film about an event and it's a different way to connect. And then, if you want to go learn, then you can go to our website, which is where all the content is.'

We asked Townsend if he himself has been a longtime advocate of political causes.

'Yes, as a matter of fact I have, but it's only been sort of a recent thing,' he replies, 'I actually wasn't political at all. But, yeah, I actually did fight in Ireland. There's this hill called Tara Hill. It was where 140 of our kings were crowned. It was where the religious economic center of our land was for 5,000 years and now they want to put a motorway through it or near it. So I fought that for a few years and lost the battle.'

'I don't think you can be like, I'm for every cause in the world,' Stuart continues, 'I think that if you have to get involved in something, you have to be really passionate about it. Obviously, Tara Hill was something that I was really passionate about. I was really hurt when we lost the battle. It was really fucking painful actually. So I'm not involved in a million different causes. It has to be something that like if somebody comes up to me and says this is happening and I go, fuck, I really care about it, I'll jump in. But otherwise, I think it works against itself almost.'

Alluding back to his mentioning of juxtaposing the film with real-live footage from the actual Battle In Seattle, Stuart shared with us this process that he said helped to shape his vision for the film.

'It wasn't as difficult as you may think,' Townsend says, 'I kind of gone through a lot of footage. Sometimes in the script, I'd write 'anarchist montage' and somehow, I knew I would find all these anarchist shots, put them together after the fact, but all I needed was an in and an out. So, for example, with the anarchist, he would spray with the screen, OK, once he sprays the screen, it would go almost completely red, I'll use that as an out.'

'But there was other times where I shot purposely, like when Ella, Charlize Theron's character, loses the baby, the camera sort of moves up and finds this policeman and he sprays the lens,' he adds, 'Again, I knew instantly that I would cut into this shot of a policeman spraying into the lens and you know when it's a double mirror image, I thought it might work, because there's so much chaos and stuff. So it was really about how do I get into the real footage, blend it nicely, and how do I get it back out to my real stuff. A lot of it is actually lights, policemen shining light on a camera or anarchists spraying on a camera. I like that the camera is sort of, we are the watchers. In camera, there is a presence is.'

Townsend also adds that this process added much-needed energy as well as a great corner-cutter to a film financed with only an $8 million budget.

'It's really fun doing that,' he says, 'As a first-time filmmaker, that is one of the reasons I wanted to do it. It was like, oh, if I could get the real stuff, put it together with our stuff, connect it up. Obviously, the crane sequence, as well, It also helped our budget. We didn't have the money for thousands of people.'

'The crane sequence, our insurance company was like, no way, you can't have two actors 300 filled up on a crane, so we shot them on a 15 foot crane rig,' Stuart continues, 'And then, intercut with all the wide shots is the real footage and that saved us. We wouldn't even have been able to have done the scene without the real footage.'

We asked Stuart if he found it difficult to center a dramatic film around such an all-encompassing event like the Battle in Seattle.

'That's kind of most of the process in that you could make five movies about this,' he notes, 'There's so many issues, so much happened in the event, so many characters. And that's kind of where I went with all the different characters was that there were so many different viewpoints.'

'And they understood it was risky, ensembles, it's much easier to follow a protagonist and connect with one direct through-line than it is to sort of this decentralized structure,' Townsend continues, 'But I felt that was in keeping with the chaos of the events and just jumping around would give it that energy and that momentum.'

Townsend also adds that wrapping an intensely dramatic film around such a large event was not without its drawbacks as the first-time director claims he had to reluctantly cut a lot of good scenes.

'The first cut that I did, which was sort of all the film I really wanted to do, it was two hours,' he says, 'Then, we ended up slicing another half hour after that as the film is so intense, there's so much going on, that it's exhausting. And anything longer than 98 minutes, one second longer, and it's like, 'Auggh! My brain is going to fry!' So yeah, I had to leave a good dozen scenes on the cutting room floor, definitely.'

'Joshua Jackson's there,' Stuart adds, 'He's the anarchist there with a bandana on his face. He was in two scenes. I actually had to cut where you see his face. I had to cut one scene, a scene that I really liked, including one of Channing Tatum's. I had to really cut a lot of my favorite scenes. I had to cut the funniest scene in the movie, I had to cut one of the most visual scenes in the movie, and then, I had to cut this lovely scene with Channing and Woody just acting their hearts out and doing beautiful jobs. But, you got to do it!'

We asked Stuart how much level of realism he brought to each character in the ensemble cast. One cast member includes Charlize Theron, who also happens to be the newly-minted director's girlfriend, who plays an innocent bystander caught in the fray, which adds an unusual fish out of water element to an otherwise politically-charged drama.

'Charlize's character, there was a report of a woman who had a miscarriage,' Townsend replies, 'I don't know if it was some incidental hitting in the stomach or CS gas, which can cause miscarriages, which is a military standard gas that they used on the streets. And I don't even know if it was real. I only had read it once. But actually, there was a lawsuit against the city that got won a year ago and she appeared in that lawsuit, so I was like, OK.'

'Then, her character was an innocent bystander, like us, not there for any protests, just working,' he adds, 'And I really felt that we could sort of connect with her. Everyone's been to a Gap and when that window smashes through, I think people can put themselves in that situation. Maybe people can't put themselves on top of a crane, but they can put themselves in a Gap. And so, that was her role. The mayor, the governor, the Doctors Without Borders character, the African delegate, they were all based on real characters.'

In a country currently undergoing not only one of the biggest presidential elections in recent memory, but a burgeoning economic crisis on Wall Street, we asked Townsend what he hopes Battle in Seattle will add to the current, already heated-up dialogue in American politics.

'Just, you know, that you think that you can make a difference,' he believes, 'It's kind of a people power movie, the power of the individual. I think, the last eight years, the people don't feel like they've been listened to. Most people feel like they can't make a difference and bad stuff keeps happening and there's nothing you can do. This was a very clear example of people from different groups, labor, fighting for workers' rights, and students and farmers and teachers and just regular Americans.'

'It wasn't just the rich college kids they said it was,' Stuart continues, 'It was diverse, regular Americans that kind of shut down the world's most important trade organization. It still killed them, a month ago, a direct collapse, as a result of Seattle, and emboldened countries around the world to stand up against this system and they really made a difference. I think when you're tactical about things and you're joined together, you can make a difference and that's the message.'

We finally asked Stuart if his directorial debut has inspired to have him tackle on more films in the future and if so, what kinds.

'I'd love to make another movie, yeah,' Townsend enthusiastically responds, 'I have a few ideas, but I cannot really say yet. But I like nonfiction definitely.'