The UK is well known for producing pretentious period costume dramas or sweary crime thrillers, and while the latter are usually woefully filled with a forever familiar rogues gallery, director Craig Viverios’ latest genre caper is thankfully genuinely refreshing. Tim Roth leads as an aging hit man who is forced to pair up with Jack O’Connell’s loud-mouth lackey on the job in the North East of England after getting on the wrong side of step dad kingpin Peter Mullan. However, the darkly comic plot involving the mismatched duo hides something surprisingly sinister with the enjoyable banter giving way to some genuine hostile intensity. It’s a gripping road trip that is anything but ordinary in the well-worn genre.
We were able to put some questions to the director Craig Viverios about his vision.
How did you become involved with THE LIABILITY?
I became involved in the film after my cinematographer James Friend had shot a film for the producers. We were just introduced through mutual friends and at the time of the meeting I was screening my first film GHOSTED at BAFTA in Piccadilly in London. We were showing it to people who wanted to see it and the producers popped in to the film for a couple of minutes, saw a few of the scenes and in their own words, were “blown away”. They wanted to see the rest of the film so my agent sent them a copy. They called me a couple of days later to say they had a project that I might be interested in and so they sent me a script for THE LIABILITY. Obviously I read it and thought it was a great premise and I spoke to them to say if you let me get a reign on the script, change a few things, add some more body to the characters, change the location to make it more visually interesting, change the ending (laughs). So pretty much everything (laughs). If you agree with the stuff I wanna do, then lets go ahead and do this and thankfully they did!
You’d worked with a number of well-known British actors in your previous film but was it daunting being alongside actors like Tim Roth and Peter Mullan?
When you’re working on something like this you’ve got to forget about that sort of stuff. Throw away the preconceptions. You’re there to do a job and you’re there to make a film. Luckily Tim and I got on really well and from the first phone call we had together we were on the same page about the character from day one, so that made it a lot easier, and very similar to our approach in that process. The thing is, Tim is represented by the same agent who represented John Lynch, so when the selection came round she loved what John had done in the GHOSTED and knew it would be a film that would push Tim and we would work well together, which is why Tim was suggested. Also, Peter Mullan is with the same agency so this all came though initially from GHOSTED. So, yes it’s daunting when you think about it but if you’re always thinking about it, you’ll never get the thing made. It’s like talking to a mate down the pub, there is no sort of worshipping.
Was the mix of humour and intensity always present and deliberate in the script or was that something yourself brought to the project?
There was already some of that humour in the script but I really wanted to try and reign it in. Make it a lot drier. Make it a quite awkward situational comedy and the scene in the woodland that I’d re-written. Just kinda playing them off their characters a bit more, adding bit more body to the script. Giving the characters a touch more eccentricity like Tim’s love of tuba music and a bit more back story. Just working on that kind of relationship to really need it so that it blossoms towards the end. That was something that was slightly lacking in the original script which I was quite keen on doing in my re-writes for the film and again just trying changing, developing and introducing more of the location to the script and giving a sense of grandeur to the location. Initially the whole thing was set in the woodlands and that was something I was not keen on doing and wanted to introduce the North East setting.
As you can probably tell from accent I’m from the North East. Was the film shot on location or just set as the base for the narrative?
It was shot there. I came up to Newcastle and Northumberland for about 2 months to do prep work and familiarisation. Just finding the places we needed to shoot and I actually fell in love with the place, I really did. It was amazing. I just wanted to put some of this charm into the script so it was key for me to bring some of those locations like Ryhope, Bastion, the blast furnace at Redcar. All these beautiful locations in the North East and just show some of these places. The whole ideas of these flailing industries will essentially be representing Tim’s characters own industrial climate. The fact his economic path, or work if you like, is receding. He’s retiring. It was a link to help tidy up the characters and the means of their journey. That’s how I wanted to expand it and really show off the landscape. I’m a sucker for anything industrial.
Tim is also on board as a producer. How helpful was he in that aspect as well as obviously being the lead actor?
Oh he was great! It was an independent film, I was leading the project with me and my HOD’s on set everyday and faced with everything that was coming, we were just left to get on with it by my producers really. Having Tim there as a producer was really helpful. We all bonded as a family and it was good to have him there.
Being only five main actors, were they always on board from the beginning or was there an audition process?
Yes, there was an audition process for some parts. I know Tim’s work. I know Peter’s work, I know Jack O’Connell’s work and Kierston and Tallulah’s work. We did heavy casting for Adam and the girl and we went through a casting agency but I always wanted Jack to do it. I think he’s great and is just an untapped bundle of energy. He really is a natural talent and is really great to work with. Peter of course is just an enigmatic force of nature and I love him. Tim, Pete. Tallulah and Kierston have all just got great credits and I was massively over the moon with the results I had.
Are they any upcoming projects you’re allowed to talk about?
I’ve got a lot of things lined up. I’ve got a couple of projects in development. One is an epic sci-fi project and another is an neo-noir detective drama set in contemporary London. There’s also a couple of only potential other projects happening in the US. So, lots of things going on at the moment.
THN would like to thank Craig for his time. THE LIABILITY is released for a limited time in UK cinemas on Friday and will be released on DVD and Blu-ray from 27th May.
