Red Carpet Interview with Adam McKay
Interviewer: Zoe Ball.
Q. Two of the BAFTAs, a great haul. It could be a good night for The Big Short.
A. It could be, we're just thrilled to be nominated. This is crazy, I've never been here before.
Q. I love that you arrived just after Leonardo DiCaprio.
A. Of course, I always do because I want to make sure there's a downer before I show up and then everybody goes crazy.
Q. I love the story, I hope it's true, that you read Michael Lewis' book, The Big Short, and said to your wife, “I'd love to direct this but I'm not sure they'd let me?”
A. That is true, I read the book in one night and couldn't put it down. I thought I'm kind of known as a ‘comedy guy’ so it will never happen. About two years later my agent said to me “if you could do anything what would you do?” and I said “I want to do The Big Short”, and sure enough it happened. It's amazing.
Q. It's an incredible film and it's such a task to take on, to explain to everybody how this works. There are a couple of times I had to stop and have a cup of tea and regroup, but I love the fact that you break the fourth wall in this film, which kind of needed to happen.
A. It did. We all know the first rule of film school is ‘show don't tell’, but when I read the book I thought you have to break the fourth wall. I give a lot of credit to Michael Winterbottom who had done it so well in 24-hour Party People and that's what made me think it might work.
Q. Talk to me about the brilliance of Christian Bale who is nominated tonight?
A. He's amazing, that role was one of the central roles of the movie. I needed an actor with no ego who would just transform. When you think that way, you immediately think of Christian Bale and sure enough he did it. He really became ‘the guy’, it was amazing.
Q. How was it to work without Will Ferrell, was he on the phone for support most times?
A. He was. There were tough days when I looked around and said, “where is Will?” He would call me and be there for me. It was strange, I'm very spoiled, he's a delight to work with but fortunately we were producing a movie, ‘Daddy's Home’, for him which worked out really well.
Q. Good luck tonight. It's an incredibly strong category but I hope you get some wins.
A. Thank you, it's great to talk to you.
