Q&A: Edgar Wright

Spaced, Hot Fuzz, Sean of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim.. all your projects seem to start with breakups. What’s the deal with that?

I think that all breakups usually mean that the writer has something to prove afterwards. In the case of Spaced, Simon had just broken up with someone and still felt very sore about it. Hot Fuzz is about whether you can be obsessed with work and still be a good boyfriend. In the case of Sean of the Dead both me and Simon felt like we’d been bad boyfriends, so I see it as an apology to my ex-girlfriend saying, “Sorry I was a lazy c**t.”
The book of Scott Pilgrim was obviously written by Bryan Lee O’Malley, but he reminded me of what I was like when I was a teenager. Scott causes a lot of heartbreak, but he thinks of himself as a victim. That’s sort of the problem; he lives in this solipsistic bubble where he is the master of his own universe and therefore can do no wrong.

You were just 24 when you started directing Spaced. Were you ever worried that you were too young?

You know, you can either be Sam Raimi and make Evil Dead at 18, or you can be Quentin Tarantino and make your breakthrough movie at 32. In fact, I’m sure there are people who will have made their first film later than that.

When I was working with Tarantino on Grindhouse [Edgar made the spoof horror trailer DON’T! to go between Death Proof and Planet Terror], I spent about an hour telling him about Fistful of Fingers, which I made when I was 20. At the end of it he said to me, “I’m so jealous. I would give anything to have made a film at 20.” So I said, “I’d give anything to have made Reservoir Dogs. I think you came off better.”

How did you get in to filmmaking?

I grew up in Dorset and Somerset, I went to comprehensive schools, both my parents are teachers, and I didn’t know anyone in the film business at all. So, really, I just got into it by making amateur movies. I went to art college for two years, but that’s really the only education I got.

Do you have any advice for young filmmakers?

Shoot as much as you can and don’t worry. When you’re not making things in public, you can do whatever you want, you can keep experimenting. When I meet people who want to be directors, one thing that ends up holding them back is that they put too much pressure on themselves to do something amazing first time.

If you have the means, just have a go. And everybody can have the means these days. I mean, I didn’t even own a camera. I used to steal my school’s VHS camera and do stuff on that. And then I won a camera on Going Live, which was great. I used to do things like make a camera rig out of a ceiling tile, with the camera in the middle, and four bits of string like a cradle, so I could hold it by my feet and run along, filming other people from ground level.

The way I learnt was I’d just watch movies and then try to replicate the shots on my little video camera. I’d watch something like Goodfellas and think “How did they do that shot?” If you’ve got the chance, just try everything.

Scott Pilgrim will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on 27 December.

Image courtesy of Space Pirate Queen on Flickr.