Australian director Warwick Thornton was sitting on the script of his new movie for 18 years.
But it was a meeting with Cate Blanchett that got The New Boy on the road to being made – and re-written.
Originally a film about a priest, Dom Peter, looking after a remote orphanage of young boys, the Australian actress inspired the famed writer, director and cinematographer to do a gender swap.
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In making a nun his central character instead, Thornton moved the story away from any paedophilia connotations that had been plaguing the Catholic church in Australia which, he says, was the main reason producers were turning down the movie.
“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, where the movie is 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 is an Executive Producer on the film, worked on the script together over video calls during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when Thornton was in Sydney and Blanchett was in 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 amazing. She had a lot to give for the character Sister Eileen in a delicate way.”
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 writer/director says.
“Because there was a lot of points that I’d missed in the script, like when you overwrite or you’d underwrite and the moment should be bigger or the moment should be less.”
Adding that the playwright is “unbelievably good with structure and missed opportunities 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 “old friends” rock stars Nick Cave and Warren Ellis came on board for the music.
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”We’ve never worked together but I’ve hung out with Warren a bit in Paris and spent a little bit of time with Nick in Sydney,” he tells 9Honey Celebrity.
“We’re just old friends and this one arose and I asked Warren – I was too afraid to ask Nick, you know what I mean – so I asked Warren if he’d compose it and Warren goes ‘Oh Nick wants to compose it too’ and I’m like ‘really? 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.”
While Blanchett was on hand at the movie’s Cannes Film Festival premiere in May, as well as a screening in Melbourne before the film’s Australian release in July, she’s been unable to promote the film at the London festival due to the on-going actor’s strike in Hollywood.
Though Thornton, an Academy member, is understanding about the situation 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 way I see it is, what Cate and the rest of those actors are doing is securing a better future for Aswan [Reid – the 11-year-old making his acting debut in the movie] if he wants to keep acting, which he does.
“He will have a better future and a better deal and that’s why this is actually important. They’re not doing it for themselves, they’re doing it for a generation to come.”
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 problem [is they’ll] have to triple the red carpet, she’ll be so ready to walk, it’ll be one of the longest red carpets in the world,” he laughs.