Exclusive Interview, Hugh Dancy, Beyond the Gates

Movies Online recently sat down with the very talented Hugh Dancy in an exclusive interview to talk about his new film, "Beyond the Gates,” an emotionally gripping, authentic and powerful recreation of a tragic real life story that took place during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The film, directed by Michael Caton-Jones and filmed at the actual location where this story took place, also stars John Hurt and Clare-Hope Ashitey.

In April 1994, a secondary school in Kigali, Rwanda called the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO), being used as a UN army base, became a refugee camp. Belgian UN troops, school children, NGO workers and over 2,500 Tutsi citizens and their sympathizers took refuge against a raging genocide while the Hutu militia, clad with machetes, clamored outside the school gates. Five days later, the UN troops withdrew from the school, taking the whites with them. Within hours, almost all of the Rwandans were dead.

Dancy plays Joe Connor, the naïve, passionate, and morally-conflicted young man who comes to teach at the ETO because he believes he can make a difference. When the school becomes a haven for thousands of Rwandans fleeing the genocide, Joe promises his brightest pupil, Marie (Clare-Hope Ashitey) that the UN soldiers will protect her from the hordes of extremist militia baying for blood outside the school. But when the UN abandons the refugees, Joe and the school's headmaster, Father Christopher (John Hurt), face an agonizing dilemma: should they leave or should they stand firm with the Rwandans.

Hugh Dancy was a strong pick for director Caton-Jones who felt he was ideal for the part of Joe Connor. "Hugh to me, apart from his intelligence and acting ability, had a kind of Englishness (sic) that I felt was kind of accurate. In terms of the type of people I met out there, aid workers, there were a lot of people like that, who had that kind of idealism and enthusiasm. Hugh naturally reflected that. There were a lot of people who wanted that part, but Hugh really stood out.” The director was impressed with Dancy’s interpretation of the role of Joe Connor. "To me, Hugh stood out because he embodied a certain type. John (Hurt) represented the old hand in Africa, and you wanted someone to contrast against that who was kind of the naïve yet willing youth.”

When the conflict and the film begin in April 1994, Joe Conner has been in Kigali just a few weeks. As Dancy says "He is naïve about the tensions in the country just before the genocide, and even once it does start, he doesn’t want to believe what he sees before his eyes. He’s an idealist and he keeps trying to return to that state of mind. He fights to try and maintain his world view which is a positive one, which believes that progress is inevitable. I think he is an optimist like that.”

In the film Joe witnesses scenes of unbearable suffering and horror, and must come to terms with his own desire to survive. "For Joe there’s a real difficulty – having survived, with all the huge questions this forces you to ask yourself. Maybe there is forgiveness for him but for me the dominant tone at the end is of personal emptiness.”

Dancy feels strongly that putting, "a human face to the genocide and the suffering, the choices and the failures, can be enriching beyond just educating people. I hope that it kind of lifts the lid off what most people in the west know of as a single word, which is genocide.” He continues, "what I hope it will be is a story that people will come away from with an understanding that the way these things are viewed from England, America, wherever, - that these things are so much more complex, and merit and deserve a much more complex investigation.”

He found the experience of working in Rwanda very demanding. "There’s a constant awareness, a curiosity, all the people, all the environments, every single street corner, you know – what happened ten years ago? It certainly filtered in on every single level.” Dancy was moved by the gravity of filming on location in Kigali. "You can’t ignore the fact that you are coming to work to tell a story in a place where the events of that story actually took place, or that some of the people you’re working with behind the camera are people who were in the school ten years previously and some of the few who survived.”

Dancy is currently in New York City appearing in the revival of R.C. Sheriff’s 1929 WWI drama, "Journey’s End” at the Belasco Theatre. In his Broadway debut, he plays the main character of Captain Dennis Stanhope. The ensemble cast also includes the Tony award-winning Boyd Gaines and Jefferson Mays.

Here’s what Hugh Dancy had to tell us about his latest film, "Beyond the Gates,” his play on Broadway, and other upcoming projects we can look forward to seeing him in:

Q: What attracted you to this project? What made you want to do "Beyond the Gates”?

Hugh Dancy: I suppose two things. I read the script. It was basically that. I just thought it was such a strong piece of material. The subject matter is so powerful but actually the subject matter never speaks for itself. It has to be treated right. It has to be written intelligently like any other movie. So I just thought it was. I thought it was really intelligent and that combined with the appeal of working with Michael Caton-Jones and John Hurt was irresistible.

Q: Michael Caton-Jones is a director who has previously delved deeply into relationships in ‘This Boy’s Life’ and ‘City by the Sea.’ What was it like working with him and how did he influence your work?

Hugh Dancy: He’s great, Michael, and I got along with him extremely well. We just kind of understood each other. You know what’s great about him is that he has – if I can say this – he has the most highly refined bullshit detector that I’ve ever come across which with a movie like this really was essential because you can’t afford to put a foot wrong. What I mean by that is there’s a responsibility to the realities of the situation. There’s a huge responsibility to get it right and the worst thing that you could do would be to allow any artifice to sneak in – you know, any kind of cinematic trickery. And the same is true for me acting. I just had to try and keep it as – well not to be called ‘acting.’ And I knew that and Michael knew that as well and so we worked together with that in mind.

Q: Did you stick pretty close to the script or did you have the freedom to improvise or try things that you thought might make a scene better?

Hugh Dancy: We went through the script beforehand and we talked it through and that kind of really pretty much stood in the place of actual rehearsals because so many of these scenes are about being in situ and in this school with thousands of refugees. To just sit and try in a hotel room and rehearse was not much help. I did a little bit with Clare who plays Marie simply because it was her first role in live action and for her to feel comfortable and for me as well. But I did talk it through with Michael. I talked through the whole script and by the time we came to film it, we knew what we were doing and to be honest, that’s where I had to be because we had a very tight schedule. There were enormous technical challenges in making the movie, and not just that but the changes in the movie, changes in my character, and the way that the situation unfolds is calibrated very, very carefully. This is what appealed to me in the script when I first read it. It moves almost undetectably from one scene to the next and just racks up the tension and the sense of danger. So if you’ve got something that carefully calibrated and that well delineated, you don’t really want to mess it up by playing around with it too much.

Q: How was it playing opposite John Hurt?

Hugh Dancy: It was great. Like everybody else, I know his work and I’ve always looked up to him so that was exciting and daunting and I had no idea. You know that can go either way. As it happened, when he arrived in Africa about a week after we started shooting – I believe it was a couple weeks after I’d been there – we went straight into it. We had three days of back to back of just me and him doing our scenes together. It was so easy from the first minute. It was just easy and enjoyable.

Q: I would think it’d be fabulous to work opposite a really great actor that brings out the best in you as well.

Hugh Dancy: You’ve articulated it perfectly. Working with good actors always makes you better. And I think that’s true no matter who you are. One of the reasons is that a really good actor doesn’t work in a bubble. You’re responsible for yourself of course and you’re looking out for yourself and your own performance, but particularly in a movie like this, it really is about connections and connecting with people. It’s not about showboating in any way.

Q: Do you find that your work on stage and your background and experience in theater is good grounding that informs your work in film?

Hugh Dancy: Well at this stage, I’ve done more work in film than I have in theater actually. But yes, I think that the two inform each other and I think for me – not necessarily for everybody – but for me it is helpful to be able to go between one and the other. You know both of them may be very different worlds but you’re [inaudible] which is kind of juggling spontaneity and honesty with technique. It’s just that the techniques are a bit different.

Q: What was it like shooting on location in Kigali? What were the biggest challenges? How was the atmosphere on the set?

Hugh Dancy: You know it was very different from what I’d expected. The welcome that we got and the enthusiasm of the people that worked on this movie really without exception – from the extras to the people working on the crew – all of them had never been involved in anything like this before, never involved in the making of a movie. The fact that they were completely new to it was an enormous challenge. I mean for them, for us, for everybody. But it was far outweighed by what they brought to the film which was their experience, their commitment, and their knowledge of the events that we were portraying. So it was actually – obviously there were harder days, there were days that were just very hard work, and there were days that were kind of upsetting – but by and large it was an uplifting experience, and I think I’m speaking for everybody involved on the set.

Q: What was it like working with the cast and crew, some of whom were survivors and were closely linked to the events in Rwanda that are portrayed in the film?

Hugh Dancy: I know when you say that you’re probably referring to the credits at the end of the movie. The truth is that everybody in Rwanda that you meet is a survivor in one respect or another. The country is in a state of ongoing survival really and they’re still working out how to achieve that so everybody has a story. We only got a chance to show the tip of the iceberg and that was amazing and very easy to fly off into just an enormous number of adjectives but it was humbling. It’s a word that gets overused but it truly was because I think for obvious reasons of what they had experienced and the dignity with which they were attempting to deal with it. It’s just that it was outside anything most of us have ever or hopefully will ever experience and that’s why we couldn’t have made the movie anywhere else.

Q: Do you think this film will raise people’s social conscience? What would you like an audience to take from this film given that a lot of this is occurring right now again in Darfur in the Sudan?

Hugh Dancy: Well that’s exactly right. What you set out to do is engage people and maybe they come away and they have learned something, but not through just facts and numbers, but through what film can do best which is to engage people emotionally and imaginatively. So hopefully this film will put you in this situation for a couple hours. It’s not going to be easy all the time but it will be very affecting. I know from watching audiences how powerful this film is. And yes, definitely the obvious reflection is that this is happening again elsewhere and being allowed to happen again elsewhere. It’s not just about Hutu and Tutsi. We always find a new way to distinguish ourselves from our neighbors and then use that as an excuse to attack them which we seem to be doing forever.

Q: At the end of the film there’s a very powerful moment between your character and Marie in the final scenes when she finds you in England.

Hugh Dancy: That’s right. There was a lot of discussion about how best to end the movie. My feeling – I’m always hesitant actually to tell people what decision my character makes because I think it’s important that as an audience member you’re carried along – not carried along with him, not necessarily identifying with him – but that that decision is alive right up until the last minute. I think in my opinion he’s just gone off and the only way he’s been able to survive is just to put his head in the sand and really just run and hide, and it’s the bravery of the Rwandan character that pulls him back out.

Q: They’re both very heartfelt performances.

Hugh Dancy: Well thank you. Without making it too great pains about it, it wasn’t difficult to be heartfelt on this movie.

Q: Can you talk about your upcoming projects? "Savage Grace” is based on a real murder case in London.

Hugh Dancy: "Savage Grace” is a movie which is about the Baekeland family who was kind of a wealthy American family. The film takes place in the 50s through the 70s which culminates in this very sensational crime. That family is played by Stephen Dillane, Julianne Moore, and Eddie Redmayne is the son, respectively. I play a character who comes in about half way through, just when the family’s been turned on its head, and becomes involved in a rather questionable way both with the mother and the son. It’s a pretty astonishing story.

Q: You’ve also got "The Jane Austen Book Club”?

Hugh Dancy: "The Jane Austen Book Club” is coming out toward the end of the year. Before that there’s a movie called "Evening” which is from the novel by Susan Minot which was adapted by Michael Cunningham and stars just this incredible list of mainly actresses actually – in no particular order, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Claire Danes, Eileen Atkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Toni Collette, Natasha Richardson, Mamie Gummer.

Q: Wow, what a cast!

Hugh Dancy: It is an astonishing cast and a really beautiful script. We made that at the end of last year, and then yes, "The Jane Austen Book Club.”

Q: Isn’t there another project you have called "Bronte”?

Hugh Dancy: Yes, but it doesn’t exist. I don’t know why. I’ve been asked about that a lot but I don’t know anything about it.

Q: How’s your play, Journey’s End, going on Broadway?

Hugh Dancy: It’s going very well, thanks. Very well. We’ve had great luck.

Q: Do you enjoy working on stage as much as you do in films?

Hugh Dancy: I do, I do, yeah, although the risks are… Well I don’t know if the risks are higher, but when it works, the feedback is obviously immediate. And there’s nothing like getting to run through something from the start all the way to the finish every night. It’s not like… you don’t do it in little pieces and then hand it over to some other guy to chop up and do whatever he wants with your performance. So you feel a little bit more in control oddly enough even though you’re in front of a thousand people who might potentially just cry out for your blood at the end of the night.

Q: That must be daunting. If anything doesn’t go right, you just have to keep going.

Hugh Dancy: Yeah, you can’t stop and reload the camera and have another go. You’ve got to keep going. But then after awhile – and I’ll tell you I’m knocking on wood while I’m saying it – but after awhile and our show is up and running and we kind of know the shape of it, there’s also a feeling of control that you don’t get in film. I know that I’m a few steps ahead of the audience. I don’t mean that in a patronizing way. It’s just that you know what you’ve got to deliver and how best to kind of put it across and that’s a good feeling.

Q: What’s it like working with an ensemble cast that includes Boyd Gaines and Jefferson Mays?

Hugh Dancy: [Laughs] It’s funny. Everybody always talks about an ensemble cast and then picks out a couple of names. It seems like a slight contradiction. But yeah, it is a genuine ensemble. It’s a very strong cast and like to a man just really good guys so we’re having a good time.

Q: Do you see any parallels in it to the war we’re currently embroiled in and specifically how people fighting in that war was might be feeling?

Hugh Dancy: The nice thing about this production is it doesn’t need to force those parallels for them to be apparent. We just present the play and let the writing do the talking as it were. What I mean by that is it’s written honestly about the effects of conflict on young men away from home who signed up to a war because of a certain amount of patriotic fervor and then go out and suddenly face the reality of that conflict. And it was written by a veteran of the first World War [R.C. Sheriff] so it’s not pushing any particular political opinion and it’s neither pro-war or anti-war. It’s not pro or anti the first World War and it’s not pro or anti the Iraq War. It just forces you to accept that you cannot avoid the effects of the war on the young people who actually have to go out and fight it. And in that respect, yes, the parallels are apparent.

Q: So how did a guy like you who went to Oxford get into acting? What drew you into acting?

Hugh Dancy: Oh, I was into acting before I went to Oxford. Oxford was an afterthought in a sense. I studied acting at school when I was about 13 or 14 which again was kind of an accident. I knew which direction I was trying to go in. I just wanted to go to college.

Q: What kind of music do you like to listen to?

Hugh Dancy: That came out of the blue. [Laughs]

Q: Yes, it did.

Hugh Dancy: [Laughs] Like almost everybody else, I’ve got my iPod and it’s just on shuttle. What was I listening to this morning? Stevie Wonder.

Q: Stevie Wonder?

Hugh Dancy: Yeah.

Q: Do you have any favorite groups that you like to listen to?

Hugh Dancy: Well, I tend to get obsessed with one song or one musician that I’ve forgotten about for a few days and just play them until I’m just sick to death and move on.

Q: What do you do for fun when you’re in between films? Do you like soccer?

Hugh Dancy: [Laughs] Are you asking me that because I’m British?

Q: Yes!

Hugh Dancy: No, I’m more of a… If I was going to watch any sport, I don’t particularly play soccer. I actually prefer to watch the rugby which is very difficult out here because if soccer doesn’t quite have an audience yet, then I don’t know where rugby is. What do I do? You know the nice thing about being at the moment in New York is I’ve kind of got my days largely free to myself except that I’m talking about this film and so on. But I still have something constant which is the play every night. That can be one of the toughest things is that you’re busy, busy , busy if you’re filming and then suddenly nothing so this is kind of a nice middle ground and you have a reason to be.

Q: Have you found some fun things to do in New York while you’re there?

Hugh Dancy: I’m just looking for an opportunity to stop eating. [Laughs] So yeah, I’ve gone out and about but it’s funny -- just at the moment everyone is gearing up to go out, I’m going off to the stage. But, yeah, there’s plenty of chances to look around.

Q: Thanks very much for your time.

Hugh Dancy: Thanks very much.

"Beyond the Gates” opens in theaters on March 9^th.