Interview: Rising Star Ross Anderson On ‘The Silent Storm’, ‘Unbroken’ and ‘Macbeth’

I first encountered newcomer Ross Anderson when THE SILENT STORM premiered at the London Film Festival earlier this year. I was so blown away by his performance (and the film!) that I knew then and there that people would be seeing much more of Anderson soon enough. And I wasn’t wrong.

He has been busy promoting UNBROKEN, which premiered in London recently. Angelina Jolie’s second directorial project is based on the life of Louis Zamperini and sees Anderson play a prisoner of war along with the film’s star Jack O’Connell, Garrett Hedlund, Luke Treadaway and many more incredible young actors. If that wasn’t enough, Anderson has also finished working with the likes of Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, David Thewlis and Paddy Considine on next year’s MACBETH which promises to be an incredibly dark take on the Shakespearean tale.

Miraculously, Anderson found the time to stop for a quick chat about these very different projects and how he’s handling his new-found fame, including the moment he and his UNBROKEN co-stars all dressed up as women…

Considering it would become his feature film acting debut, Anderson’s audition for THE SILENT STORM certainly snowballed quickly. The initial audition moved writer/director Corinna McFarlane to tears, a reaction which caught Anderson a little off guard it seems. ‘I thought “Why is she crying? Is it that bad?”’ he laughed. He could see, though, that she was moved and she asked him to stick around. He was then asked to do another audition, this time with Damien Lewis. After that, he hung around a little longer while others watched, including producer Barbara Broccoli. ‘At that point,’ Anderson laughed, ‘my stomach was just dragging along the ground.’

Despite its iddylic backdrop and beautiful story, there were some pretty intense scenes for Anderson to shoot in THE SILENT STORM, especially with Damien Lewis. When it came to shooting a particular fight scene between the pair, it was Lewis who suggested Anderson just ‘get in there’, and the pair really went to town with it (as can be seen in the film!). ‘We both just went for it – it got you fired up!’

The film itself was shot in a pretty secluded location with a very small cast and crew, no phone reception and no internet. ‘We were just thrown into this little bubble,’ Anderson explained.

Despite female directors making up a shockingly small percentage of directors working today, Anderson is clearly impressed with what he has experienced to date, his first two film experiences being under the guidance of a female director.

‘Corinna [McFarlane] was great at creating that environment. Angelina [Jolie] is the same. She has this ability to create a very nurturing environment. You just feel safe and comfortable and able to go a little bit further.’

In UNBROKEN, Anderson plays a prisoner of war called Blackie. ‘I just felt so elated that I’d been asked,’ Anderson said. ‘[Louis’] journey and the message within that is universal.’ There were a couple of months of preparation – before heading off to Australia – during which time Jolie was in touch to discuss Anderson’s character: the physicality, backstory and mental aspects. When he finally arrived and met his new director in person, he said: ‘She just wanted to get straight to work.’

‘She was the first one in there,’ Anderson said of Jolie’s directing. ‘To be able to go from orchestrating massive amounts of crew and set pieces, to then come down to the actors and take the time to concentrate on the little details… It was clear that her focus was on the human element of the story, to get across what these guys were feeling in relation to what Louis was going through.’

‘To be able to go from orchestrating massive amounts of crew and set pieces, to then come down to the actors and take the time to concentrate on the little details… It was clear that her focus was on the human element of the story.’ – Anderson on Angelina Jolie’s directing style

‘It’s an uncomprising performance’ – Ross Anderson on Jack O’Connell’s portrayal of Louis Zamperini

Anderson was full of praise for lead actor, Jack O’Connell too. ‘A lot of the time, we’re watching Jack [O’Connell] – who did an amazing job of portraying Louis [Zamperini] – being put through hell and we were really affected by watching that. It’s hard, on a human level, not to be affected by it . . . It’s an uncomprising performance on Jack’s part.’

With such a high level of intensity and with the wartime setting, you’d be forgiven for thinking UNBROKEN might not be all that cheerful. That’s not the case, though, Anderson insisted. ‘You don’t come away from [the film] feeling sad about it,’ he said. ‘You just feel completely inspired.’

‘[Jolie] always wanted to emphasize the fact that it was an ensemble piece . . . although it is Louis’ story. It was important to know what the other guys were going through, to be able to care about them and what they’re feeling.’

From what Anderson said (and from what Jolie has said in her many interviews about him) Louis Zamperini was an incredibly humble man. Anderson explained that Zamperini always said: ‘Don’t make a film to show how great I was, make a film to show how great everyone else is.’

‘You don’t come away from [the film] feeling sad about it . . . you just feel completely inspired.’ – Anderson on UNBROKEN

This very personal approach to such a large-scale production was clearly not lost on set. ‘Angelina would always remind us of the emotions that we were going through during the scenes,’ Anderson explained. ‘To have that to focus on took the vastness of it away.’

There certainly were some laughs on set. When I asked what bloopers might be on the UNBROKEN home cinema release, Anderson laughed and told me he knew exactly what would be on there – a panto! A pantomime in a war film might seem just a touch out of place but he insists that it was part of the script and was great fun.

One of the things soldiers would do at Christmas time, Anderson explained, was to put on pantomimes for each other, just to raise morale. There were no women in the camp so the men dressed up in female attire. In the script, it just said that a Christmas panto was performed – without anything actually written. Being the resident Brits on set, Luke Treadaway and Anderson were called upon to come up with something. Treadaway wrote a pantomime, loosely based on Cinderella, and then it was rehearsed during the breaks. There was a little stage, ‘with curtains and everything’, for the performance and the actors performed the panto for all the extras. ‘They were roaring with laughter,’ Anderson said. ‘They loved it.’ After seeing the film for the first time, Jolie told Anderson that she wants the pantomime to be on the DVD extras . . . in its entirety!

O’Connell may be the star of UNBROKEN, but it seems like Anderson and Treadaway (and their co-stars, John Magaro and Garrett Hedlund, who also appear in the panto) might be the stars of the DVD!

UNBROKEN is released in cinemas on Boxing Day