Interview with Director Kieron Hawkes
Interview with Director Kieron Hawkes
Published: 31 August 2017
The way we approached it and the way we shot it, we had to add a kind of energy to the literary world. We wanted to do something that was slick but grubby round the edges
Could you introduce us to the plot of The Silkworm?
The Silkworm is set in the literary world. It’s about a novelist who goes missing and is subsequently found to be murdered, and it’s about Strike and Robin investigating that murder.
Who is Cormoran Strike, what’s his background to you?
He’s J.K. Rowling’s brilliant rendition of the flawed detective. He’s got the Afghanistan war background and his father was a rock star. He’s an interesting character I think.
Did you and J.K. Rowling talk about how you were going to approach the book?
We spoke about how we would deal with the novel in the novel, this book called Bombyx Mori by the writer Quine. We get flashes of the world that he has created which is like a mad, murderous Jacobean landscape. The majority of my conversation with J.K. Rowling was about how we would approach that, stylistically and visually.
How complicated was the casting process, wrapping new characters around the existing ones?
It wasn’t complicated. The characters from the literary world are in their fifties, and actually the gene pool of actors there tends to be fantastic, they’ve worked a lot. So actually, the casting was a pleasure because I got to look at a lot of actors from that demographic and who we ended up with is wonderful.
There are a lot of characters who all have screen time. How do you strike a balance between them?
It was fun, because while the script has to take place from the perspective of Strike and Robin, you have to enter these other people’s worlds - and it was a pleasure working with those people to create that. But essentially, it’s from Strike’s point of view, or Strike and Robin’s point of view.
How did you approach the look of the show? Not just the look and feel of London, but also the mad, crazy moments we see it the book within the book?
Firstly, the fashion world of Cuckoo’s Calling is a gift because it’s bright, with camera flashes, and it’s a kinetic world. Whereas the literary world of Silkworm isn’t. The nature of reading books is not particularly visual.
The way we approached it and the way we shot it, to the way we cut it... we had to add a kind of energy to that world. We wanted to do something that was slick but grubby round the edges, so we wanted to find a visual flair in the literary world that isn’t particularly visual. So, it was about adding energy I think.
You have to jump from the reality of London to this fantasy book, how do you balance that?
To make it very different I think. With Bombyx Mori we needed to take it so far away from our other world that you see one frame of it and you know that you’re somewhere different. You are navigated somewhere completely different on entering it, so it is never confusing.
How was it bringing Tom into a new story? How much did you and he work together to ensure that there was a retention of the character and it doesn’t slip, and also that it reflects your story as much as you want it to?
I was lucky in the sense that I inherited actors who completely understood what they were doing, who they were and they completely lived those characters.
From my point of view of working with Tom, I had a sense of trust with him. He knows Cormoran, he’d lived with him for four or five months, so it was about me taking from him what he’d learnt and then working out how that sat in this new world. A lot of it came from my respect and trust of Tom.
How much work did it take to cut down some of the more fantastic and in-depth descriptions from the book?
An adaptation of something as dense as The Silkworm is always difficult to do. What you have to do is just streamline everything. I read The Cuckoo’s Calling when the project first came up and really enjoyed the world. Then I read The Silkworm and got the audio book and just entrenched myself in that world. I think Tom Edge [the writer] just did a really good job of defining the narrative for screen. It’s a very different thing. The books are very dense.
I want to mention Robin. What makes her interesting as not just a sidekick to our detective?
I think Robin’s interesting because she’s complicated. In some ways, she’s very three-dimensional. All through the books you get new information about her. I think Holliday’s an amazing actor, one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with.
She’s more than just a sidekick because she’s got proper desires, she knows what she wants, she’s a strong female character and I think Holliday did an amazing job of portraying Robin.
Did she surprise you with ideas that you hadn’t thought about when portraying Robin?
Holliday’s just a naturally brilliant actor. You feel like a bit of a fraud as a director when you work with actors that good, same as Tom. Really, you turn up and say, yep, do that, it’s really good. You know, how am I gonna tell her what to do, or Tom? They’re fantastic actors. All I can do is give them assurance and confidence that what they’re doing is brilliant. My job with someone like Holliday is just to encourage her to do what she does and I think by doing that, you naturally facilitate someone finding more complexities and being confident in what they’re doing.
How did you work together you make sure you got that progression from the first book, but that it didn’t jump too far ahead?
By the time we get to The Silkworm their relationship is simmering and it’s ambiguous enough; there’s something there, it simmers away.
There’s a really tender moment at the end of the whole thing, at the end of the two hours, where Tom kisses her hand and it’s a sign of closeness and friendship and also, it’s a kiss, there’s an intimacy to it. We talked about that and I guess that at first, we were nervous whether that was slightly too much and whether that was going to push it forward and force it in a romantic direction. But I think the way they managed to perform it meant that the ambiguity to it was enough that you could read it either way, but not too much.
How much did you want to avoid the clichés of the detective shows that we know?
The thing is when you’re working in genre, your audience expects you to deliver genre. So there are clichés and then there are necessary tones and moments and styles that you have to hit. So, there’s a fine balance, because you don’t want to be clichéd, but also you have to satisfy the people who like that genre.
If you’re doing horror it has to be scary, if you’re doing comedy it has to be funny. So, there’s a fine line between not delivering and being clichéd and hopefully we hit it.
Do you think that detective stories have been lacking, and that this might give us a resurgence of the genre?
I think it’s a welcome return to this sort of thing and I think that Strike world is interesting because there is something that’s timeless about it and there is something that nods back to that detective world and it’s also quite fresh. So hopefully yeah there’ll be a resurgence.
It seems to be unhampered by technology as well...
Yeah, it is. That’s what I mean. It’s weird, I thought that about the books, it could be almost be period, it could almost be the 70s or the 80s. But it’s not, it’s modern. I wanted to reflect that in the way we shot Denmark Street. It’s this weird place that’s in the middle of the growth from Covent Garden and that sort of 70s, 80s, rock and roll thing. It’s a very odd place and I think Strike typifies that. His very character does, so it’s the perfect setting I think.
Did you have to research the publishing world, or did you rely on what Tom Edge’s writing and J.K. Rowling’s research?
I spoke to Jo about the publishing world. What’s fascinating about The Silkworm is that it’s Jo's take on the literary world. A lot is about the fact that writers can’t hide their true feelings, and in that sense, to me, The Silkworm was very revealing.
I tend not to go too far beyond the parameters of the script. For me to understand the total machinations of the literary world isn’t 100 percent necessary. Strike’s world is one I understand - I play guitar and I was always into rock music so I understand that. But it’s Jo’s take on the literary world, it's her filter. if I researched the literary world that would not necessarily be what the book is about.
There’s an interesting thread about identity and shifting between different worlds. Do you think London is the only city that you could have done all that in, to get that kind of scope?
I imagine the publishing world is very similar, no matter where you go. We talked about it, it’s a very white middle class world. That’s what The Silkworm reflects. It’s not something that’s discussed openly, but that’s kind of what it is. I think that’s probably true of the literary world everywhere.
As far as techniques go, because you’ve got a number of different suspects you’ve got to balance that quite cleverly too. Was that a concern while you were on set, to make sure that the look is right and reactions from certain characters is right?
I worked with each of the actors. Every one of them has a moment of suspicion. We talked about that, like: "This is your flash of ‘I murdered him’ " and you have to do that, you have to presume all of them are the killers.
In the edit we leant on that - or didn’t - depending on how suspicious they became as we watched the show.
Geographically you get to see quite a bit of London. Was it a great opportunity to celebrate bits of London that we don’t always see?
One of the great things about The Silkworm is that it does show all the different parts of London and one of the biggest coups we had on this was that Jo’s publishers allowed us to shoot on the roof of their building. It looks out over the whole of the Thames. Texturally, visually, it’s fantastic, because you’ve got the sort of grime of Soho and the West End and the neon, and then the huge vista of London and the London Eye and the Southbank on the side.
For me, as a Londoner, it was lovely to be able to show that off. I don’t really shoot in London that much. So, it was a kind of a thrill to show both the grime and how stunning it is as well.
Did it make you think, they’re doing quite well in the literary world?
Yeah! There’s a great quote from Strike when he says: "No-one reads books any more and you look around and think, well someone’s earning some money from somewhere!" It was amazing, I thought, "Yeah I could work in publishing".
What makes this different as a show from other kinds of detective series?
I think it's the complexity of the characters. Just how well-rounded Strike and Robin are, the complexity of their relationship, the slow growth of whatever it is and wherever they’re going. Jo’s writing another book and I think there’s plans to write others and I’m interested to know what their destination as a couple of people is.
What makes it different from other work that you’ve done? As it’s a standalone story does it give you a freedom that you’re not having to follow suit with other design?
Yeah. What was satisfying about this, directorially, was that it begins and ends with the world of publishing. The Silkworm starts and ends unto itself. So, it was nice to be able to investigate that and not have to follow a look.
