The actor will premiere this Friday in theaters ‘Sundown’, of the Mexican Michel Franco, an uneasy story in which nothing is as it seems
Tim Roth (Dulwich, London, aged 61) tells via video conference that one of the most complicated and difficult things for an actor is to “do nothing” and eliminate what the public sees as acting. “It doesn’t matter how comfortable you are in front of the camera, it’s a presence that’s always there, it’s the fourth wall, and one of the most complicated things is breaking it, getting rid of it and, for example, that the viewer feels with me on the beach in Acapulco».
It is fundamental what the Brit achieves in ‘Sundown’, the latest film by Mexican director Michel Franco, which hits theaters this Friday. Nothing is as it seems in this film that collects the holidays of a British couple with their children, at one of the resorts in the paradise of Acapulco, in full swing. Days of drinking and recreation are suddenly interrupted when a loved one dies and the family decides to return to London. Not everyone, as Neil, played by Roth, claims to have left his passport at the hotel and says he will catch the next flight.
What follows is the story of an apparently empty person, without any soul or expressiveness and oblivious to all that is happening around him, who decides to drink up the days posted in one of the beach bars. Original and intriguing, the film plays on the confusion with the viewer, who never ceases to ask himself questions and guesses as he watches in amazement each of the character’s uneasy decisions.
Did the same happen to Roth while reading the script? “That never happens with Michel,” explains the actor, who had previously worked with the Mexican director on ‘Chronic’ and on ‘600 miles’, of which Franco is the producer. “Michel will never give you a script to read and decide whether to make the film or not,” he continues. “Usually the starting point is a phone call where he tells you he wants to make a movie on a particular topic,” Roth says. Then a creative exchange begins, with copious conversations, where all kinds of ideas arise, until one beautiful day Franco gets away from everything and writes the first draft of the script. “We threw that first version away and started again with more transactions, but it didn’t stop there. Also during shooting we are constantly changing things until we are done shooting. Michel’s is a really creative and unique process,” says the actor.
Interestingly, Roth hasn’t seen the movie yet. “I will. There is something very special about the way it films that it fascinates me, so I will definitely see it, but I want to see it the right way, which is in a cinema, with a group of strangers in a dark room, not at a festival. I’m sure I’ll be very surprised.”
The truth is that the interpreter is not very fond of being seen on the big screen. “I stopped watching the movies I’m in a while ago,” he says. “Sometimes you do things that you think will be great and when the movie comes out you find out it’s the disappointment of your life. Other times you do something that you think will be terrible, and the result is amazing So you never know what’s going to happen.” Over time, Roth decided that once his work on a production was done, the film would become part of the audience. “No matter how much it appears on screen, whether it’s in the movies or on television, it’s not part of me anymore. I’ve learned to get rid of them and for me, in a way, it’s like moving forward,” he analyzes. “Before I took what they said about me as something very personal and it affected me a lot whether it was good or bad, so I made the decision to stop taking it. I think it’s much healthier to get away from the film,” says he says that reviews of his work have already been read, “neither good nor bad,” he adds. He doesn’t read this text either, he laughs. “In fact, when I give the interviews, I I’m more interested in what the journalists have to say about the film than I am, who hasn’t seen it, and the interviews are more interesting this way because we can have a much more pleasant conversation,” he concludes, amused.
Source: La Verdad
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