Australian director Warwick Thornton was sitting on the script of his new film for 18 years.
But it was a gathering with Cate Blanchett that acquired The New Boy on the highway to being made – and re-written.
Originally a movie a few priest, Dom Peter, taking care of a distant orphanage of younger boys, the Australian actress inspired the famed author, director and cinematographer to do a gender swap.
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In making a nun his central character as a substitute, Thornton moved the story away from any paedophilia connotations that had been plaguing the Catholic church in Australia which, he says, was the primary motive producers have been turning down the film.
“If you are re-writing something specifically for a character and you put someone like Cate in your film and you do a gender swap, you gotta rebuild,” Thornton tells 9Honey in London, the place the film is a part of the London Film Festival.
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“We kept some of the arc of Dom Peter and what he’d have to do every day as the head of the orphanage… [but] a nun who’s actually not allowed to do all that sort of stuff, you know, Baptising children – a nun’s not allowed to do that. Giving mass, a nun’s not allowed to do that. So it eventually became much more exciting.”
Thornton and Blanchett, who’s an Executive Producer on the movie, labored on the script collectively over video calls in the course of the COVID-19 lockdowns, when Thornton was in Sydney and Blanchett was within the UK.
“When we were writing it, she was very careful that she didn’t try and impose her character to become more important – the film’s called The New Boy and it’s about the new boy and she really did understand,” Thornton tells 9Honey Celebrity.
“[Cate] was really, really beautifully conscious of not stealing the thunder of the other character and being Sister Eileen, slightly elusive, slightly thoughtful … [and] not trying to steal in the writing process the scenes from the new boy character.
“She was superb. She had lots to provide for the character Sister Eileen in a fragile means.”
While Thornton had high praises for the Oscar-winning actress, he had even higher praises for her husband Andrew Upton, who also served as an Executive Producer on the project.
“He was an absolute lifesaver,” the author/director says.
“Because there was loads of factors that I’d missed within the script, like whenever you overwrite otherwise you’d underwrite and the second needs to be greater or the second needs to be much less.”
Adding that the playwright is “unbelievably good with construction and missed alternatives in a dramatic arc”.
Blanchett and Upton weren’t the only high-profile Aussies attached to the 1940s set movie, which was shot in Burra, South Australia – about 160 kilometres north of Adelaide.
Thornton’s “previous buddies” rock stars Nick Cave and Warren Ellis came on board for the music.
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”We’ve by no means labored collectively however I’ve frolicked with Warren a bit in Paris and spent a bit of little bit of time with Nick in Sydney,” he tells 9Honey Celebrity.
“We’re simply previous buddies and this one arose and I requested Warren – I used to be too afraid to ask Nick, you realize what I imply – so I requested Warren if he’d compose it and Warren goes ‘Oh Nick desires to compose it too’ and I’m like ‘actually? Awesome’.
“It was funny because it is a big score and I think they were thinking they would assemble a jug band or something, it’ll be violin and piano and suddenly, it’s seven cellos and 27 violins, a whole orchestra … they did an incredible job.”
“They actually said they felt really out of their comfort zone but that’s why they’re so proud of it.”
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While Blanchett was available on the film’s Cannes Film Festival premiere in May, in addition to a screening in Melbourne earlier than the movie’s Australian launch in July, she’s been unable to advertise the movie on the London pageant as a result of on-going actor’s strike in Hollywood.
Though Thornton, an Academy member, is knowing in regards to the state of affairs and applauds what the actors are doing, he tells 9Honey the actress “keeps texting me apologising”.
“It’s important what they’re doing,” he says.
“The means I see it’s, what Cate and the remainder of these actors are doing is securing a greater future for Aswan [Reid – the 11-year-old making his acting debut in the movie] if he desires to maintain performing, which he does.
“He may have a greater future and a greater deal and that is why that is truly vital. They’re not doing it for themselves, they’re doing it for a technology to return.”
He hopes that come Easter next year, when the movie’s officially released in the UK, Blanchett will be able to get out and about.
“The downside [is they’ll] need to triple the pink carpet, she’ll be so able to stroll, it’s going to be one of many longest pink carpets on this planet,” he laughs.
