Julia Leigh talks ‘Sleeping Beauty’

Sleeping Beauty might mark the directorial debut of writer Julia Leigh, but she is no stranger to the fine arts. Not only has Leigh written two novels (Disquiet and The Hunter, the latter of which was made into a film that screened alongside her directorial debut this past TIFF), but she has studied both philosophy and law in university, eventually getting her PhD from the University of Adelaide and serving on the Supreme Court in the New South Wales state of Australia.

It’s of little surprise that the soft spoken but well versed Leigh would make a drama based around the idea of a famed literary figure from her childhood. Initially inspired by the more Disneyfied version of the Sleeping Beauty myth, Leigh tells the story of Lucy (played by Sucker Punch’s Emily Browning), a university student willing to do nearly anything for money that finds her way into servicing rich old men with specific fetishistic needs. Rich johns pay good money not to have sex with Lucy, but to simply act out the fantasy of sleeping next to an unconscious young woman. As strange as the act may sound, like may unbelievable fetishes, it’s a truthful fantasy that some people spend quite a bit of money to live out.

Leigh spoke with Criticize This! by phone this past week to talk about the differences between her story and the original fairy tale, how making a movie differs from writing a book, and why the film isn’t necessarily voyeuristic.

Andrew Parker: Let’s start sort of near the beginning. Where did you first become aware of the real life concept of someone who could be hired as a “sleeping beauty”?

Julia Leigh: Well, I guess when it comes to a sleeping beauty the concept that I find is an enduring one. As a girl I grew up with the Disney fairy tale and then as I grew I read the original fairy tales which were far more brutal. Then I had read and loved two well known novellas, one by Yasunari Kawabata and the other by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and in both of those novellas the story is told from the point of view of an older man who pays money to spend the night in bed with a sleeping girl. Even in the Bible, King David set out to spend the night alongside sleeping virgins. I know there are sleeping girls now on the internet. So I suppose this concept and the ethos behind it was something I responded to and I transformed it.

AP: That literary influence comes across in the film. When you set out to do something like Sleeping Beauty for the screen as opposed to writing a novel, did you set out to tell the story as a straight fairy tale or did you think in more cinematic terms?

JL: With Sleeping Beauty what is unusual is that I never asked myself should the story be a book or a film, in that this project did come to me in cinematic terms. When I was writing the script I envisioned in my mind’s eye such things as the camera as a sort of tender, steady witness with the longer takes. I think even in the first drafts there was even reference to the point of view of the camera on the fourth wall of the bedroom chamber. A friend who read an early draft of the screenplay reminded me that an early cut where one of the men talks directly to the audience – that direct transmission was in the first draft. So I guess in that way, it always was a cinematic project.

AP: I take it that’s the role you wanted the audience to play in this film, kind of the role of the voyeur into this world.

JL: Yes, but it’s a strange thing, isn’t it? I sort of balk at the word voyeur. I think if I wanted to make this film a voyeuristic one I would have tried to do different things with the camera. You know, for example, in a movie like Klute, which is a very voyeuristic film you kind of have the camera shooting from behind things and around things. It’s a really peeping camera. I suppose with this film I prefer the term of the camera being a tender, steady witness, but I guess whatever way you want to call it the audience is aware of the act of watching and given the time to watch. That was definitely was something that was quite intentional.

With regard to that scene we were just talking about where the older client performs that direct transmission to the camera, I see him as transmitting his wisdom. Also, I loved the actor playing him. (laughs) I love his face and I love the experience on it. There is something about the scale of a big human face and being addressed like that that fits the movie.

AP: Let’s talk a little bit about the casting of Emily Browning. When you went into the casting process, what kind of qualities were you looking for in an actress to play the role of Lucy?

JL: I guess I was looking for somebody who understood the quiet and wilful recklessness of Lucy. I was looking for somebody who had a tip of the iceberg feeling so that you would sense something latent. I guess those were the main things. I mean, I find Emily very beautiful and that she has a strange beauty, a sort of cookie cutter Miss America sort of thing that appealed to me.

AP: What kind of bonding did you have to do with Emily going in? As a first time director it seems like you might have to have an actress put a bit more trust in you than you’ve necessarily earned as an artist.

JL: The first thing is that Emily is really wonderful to work with, and she did not really have any qualms about the role. I mean, she understood the character as scripted, so she knew what was required of her for the role, and like all great actors she really gave herself to the role. She embodied the character

In terms of trust, yes, that is something that’s absolutely vital. I guess that begins from the first moment you actually meet somebody. I tried very hard to develop a long term trust, but I think that’s something that also goes both ways between the director and the actor.

AP: I wanted to talk a little bit about the staging of the bedroom scenes and the scenes where Emily’s character is first getting indoctrinated into this world of paid fetishism. It’s something oddly surreal to mainstream audiences, but at the same time you can’t make the proceedings come across like the work of a cult because they aren’t. How much planning and forethought went into those sequences?

JL: Throughout the making of the film I knew that the chamber scenes really had to work for the film to work as a whole. By the way, I do think the portraits of the older men do give a sort of completeness and a wholeness to the outer narrative. You have a portrait of youth in release to old age.

In terms of preparation, yes, we did do a lot of preparation. I did an enormous amount for this. (laughs) And because we had to marry at the same time the camera, the performances of each actor in the scene at the same time, the longer takes, and the pace of the scene. You know, often in a film, you’re building the pace or the flow of the film in the edit, but in this case I actually had to be very aware of the flow of the film on the day of shooting. There was more than a little preparation that went into that.

AP: Was there any research at all that went into the crafting of the story?

JL: No. (laughs)

AP: It’s interesting that you call the character of Lucy “wilfully reckless” when a lot of people who have been critical of the film say that she’s simply aloof. But there really is probably a bit more of Lucy in viewers than they initially like to let on that might hit a bit close to home since Lucy is almost at this age where she thinks she’s invincible. Was that something that entered into your thought process during the writing and crafting of the film?

JL: I did see Lucy as having these characteristics and having this quite perverse sort of provocation to the world around her. I certainly don’t see her as passive. I see her as quite a radical person, but also, it’s hard to describe, but sometimes I think when you’re younger you can be too tough for your own good. You know, there’s that pleasure in self destruction. I can’t think of the word for it, but I think you’re right when you say that people don’t want to really talk about it. And maybe it’s something that I shouldn’t talk about. (laughs) But I’m glad that the film has that sort of reaction to it that it does.

Sleeping Beauty opens in Toronto and Montreal December 9.