The Lake District isn’t in the original story. Having lived there yourself, did you already know that you wanted to shoot part of the film there?
When we were expanding the story, Ben [Shattuck] and I, originally, he wrote a sequence that was set in the Alps, where Lionel gets lost in a blizzard. But of course, the producers were like, “We cannot afford for him to get lost in the Alps.” So we decided that we wanted to put him somewhere that Ben and I had both either been to or had some memory of. We had both briefly lived in the Lake District at different times in our lives, and that became the perfect place.
I remember our production designer went on Google Earth from New York City. She wanted to find the most remote house that she could find in the Lake District. She found this stone cottage that was on the top of a mountain overlooking one of the lakes. And she was like, “We have to shoot it here.” We were immediately told that it is virtually impossible to get there, because it’s literally up a horrendously treacherous ravine, but we just persevered. It was one of the most exhausting days of shooting because every single person had to be taken up in a 4×4 in small groups, with all the gear. But you get onto this mountain, and you see this view. It was a no-brainer. It was only one day of shooting, but it was a major operation. But if you’re going to go all the way to England, to the Lake District, you might as well do it properly.
What was your experience like in the Lake District?
When I lived there, I was an apprentice photographer, learning how to frame photographs. I would run a lot—you could run into the hills. There were a lot of sheep. I was very young. It was the first time I’d ever been to England. I just graduated from university and it was just beautiful and empty and desolate and dramatic. And it was a really formative experience. And I’m very glad that I got to go back and photograph it as a film.
I don’t think Paul had ever been there before we shot those scenes. We actually finished the film there. That was our last shoot, so we had a mini rap party on a jetty into one of those lakes. I had brought my JBL speaker onto the jetty and we were just all on this jetty, dancing and drinking. And then at some point, somebody just knocked the JBL into the lake, and you just heard the music sink… It was a very lovely, hilarious party on a very narrow jetty that none of us will ever forget.
Where else in Europe did you shoot?
We were in Italy for a week in the town of Tarquinia, just outside of Rome. We had pretty much taken over this town. We had a lot of control there to be able to shoot in the square and recreate 1920s Italy. There was a lot of set dressing. That was also lovely. It was the beginning of summer, so it felt like we were on an Italian vacation. It’s also like it’s close enough to Rome to be accessible. Josh O’Connor had shot La Chimera in the same town, so that was how we came to know it as well. And it’s amazing how two different films were shot in the exact same town, but La Chimera is a different period and a totally different feeling.