#daniel fitzsimmons

“Rupert [Graves, one of the movie’s leads] immediately got it when I sent it to him, he immediately got it. He loves music and he’s a musician himself. He’s got a little recording studio in his back garden!“

Exclusive Interview – Director Daniel Fitzsimmons on his new movie Native, his love of smart sci-fi, and more

The characters in the film are from a society who are constantly connected to each all the time through telepathy. So, there’s no need for expression, there’s no need for art, there’s no need to make sense of the abstract, because there is no abstract, because everybody’s feeling what everyone else is feeling all the time anyway. In that sort of immediacy there’s a numbness, which I found quite an interesting subject to explore through, through these two characters.

Every so often, after I’ve done an interview, I realise there’s a question I should have asked but didn’t. In this case it was “do you think all art is an attempt to express an abstract concept?” 

Of course, what I’m not going to do is edit the interview to make it seem like I said something I didn’t. Because that’d just be ridiculous. Wouldn’t it?

The Filmmaker’s Podcast was a great interview with Rupert and Daniel Fitzsimmons, Native’s director. Loads of great chat on how Rupert got started, what he looks for in a script, how Native got put together and they finished by asking some of the fan-submitted questions that were asked for last week.

I was really delighted that mine was one of the questions asked (I hoped it would be since I tried to tie it to a central aspect of Native) and I loved Rupert’s answer! :)

Filmmakers Podcast: Do you remember the first piece (or one of the first pieces) of music that you felt [you] really connected with?

Rupert: In life?

FP: In life.

RG : <exhales loudly>

Daniel Fitzsimmons: You go first...

RG : Bowie... Abba.. The Wombles...

FP & DF: The Wombles?

RG: I remember really being deeply struck by Remember You’re A Womble, when was it, yeah, I think it was Remember You’re A Womble. I think the first piece of music was sitting on Mike Thurger’s front room in Weston-super-Mare, listening to probably Ziggy Stardust and looking at the words going “Oh my God, I didn’t realise people could write stuff like that in a pop song” and looking at his words and just my mind blowing in a kind of Cane like way.

DF: How old were you then?

RG: 10, 11, 12, something like that.

I genuinely can’t tell if he’s joking about The Wombles or not - I really really hope not!

"I would much rather watch a film that is bold in its ambition than a film that feels like it has one eye on the opening weekend box office." 

Read our interview with NATIVE writer/director Daniel Fitzsimmons