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Behind the sexual scenes on the Heath
It’s not often a small budget film is backed by big-name actors. Dan Carrier talks to Ewan McGregor and writer Aschlin Ditta about a Heath-based romantic drama
DAME Eileen Atkins was desperately trying to keep a straight face. The actress, whose credits include Oscar winners Cold Mountain and Gosford Park, was filming on Hampstead Heath in which she is talking to a lover she has not seen for 50 years.
In the background, was a man watching the action. Naked.
Such were the occasional distractions that faced filmmaker Ed Blum and writer Aschlin Ditta as they produced Scenes Of A Sexual Nature, a series of short love stories based on the Heath currently in the cinema and filmed through the summer.
Ed says: “We got the crew to stand in front of him so he wouldn’t be in shot but he just kept moving so he could see what was going on. Eventually I went over and said, sorry, do you mind? He seemed to have forgotten he was starkers. He apologised profusely and promptly pulled out a thong with fig leaf stuck to it to spare his dignity and our blushes.”
It was this type of experience that prompted writer Aschlin, who lives in Kentish Town, and the director, Ed, from Tufnell Park, to make the film.
Aschlin, who wanders across the Heath regularly, said: “I always find parks sexually charged places. I think that’s where people go when they have affairs. I tried to project that fantasy onto these couples.”
He had already began work on a series of short stories based on the Heath but then Ed said how he wanted to make a film on the Heath, the two ideas met and Scenes was born.
Aschlin is the co-writer of the Catherine Tate Show. He used this as a lever to persuade Catherine to join a cast that includes Ewan McGregor and Sophie Ekonodo.
As he puts it, it wasn’t too hard to get her on board, as “Catherine owes me, big time.
“I also wanted to write about a good divorce. I think it’s possible to have a good divorce and I think sometimes people should get divorced. Sometimes people stay together for all the wrong reasons. So I wanted to write about two people who are very much in love, but just can’t be together.”
As for assembling a stellar cast for a low budget flick, he and Ed went to work on the actors agents.
It meant when scripts were sent to actors they were not left to linger on desks or in pigeon holes.
“We got them on our side and that meant the actors gave it their attention,” he said.
It was the script that got Ewan McGregor on board, and with him Doug Hodge. The pair were appearing in Guys and Dolls at the time and they would turn up to their shows earlier than they needed to be to rehearse their scenes on the stage.
McGregor, who lives in Belsize Park, plays the role of Billy, a gay man in a long-term relationship. We meet the couple as they discuss what it would be like to adopt a child with his partner Brian.
But there is also a frivolous side to Billy.
Ewan McGregor explains: “There’s something quite free about him. He’s got a brilliant partner and they have this great relationship. He goes off with other guys and has nights out with them and that’s in the make-up of their relationship. Brian, his partner is sensible and bookish, while Billy is more of a fun-loving kind of guy.
“I think he’s a very lucky guy and yet there’s this one nagging thing in his life: he thinks he wants to have children and he believes that it’s a possibility.”
McGregor says he decided to take part in the film because of the strength of the script.
“The writing was very good and I think the whole idea that the film was being made really appealed to me. Many films these days don’t get made and so many films struggle to get financing.
“I thought the structure of the film worked really well. I’d liked the debate in it. I liked the discussion about these two gay men adopting a child and what that would mean in their lives.
“When I first read the script I just thought this could actually be any couple. It didn’t really matter if they were gay or straight. There is a potential for both those characters to commit to one another and to bring up a child and I think it’s believable.”on |
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