Chris Morris Four Lions Interview

Chris Morris Four Lions Interview

Cast: Kayvan Novak, Riz Ahmed, Nigel Lindsay, Adeel Akhtar
Director: Chris Morris
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rated: MA
Running Time: 101 minutes

Synopsis: Chris Morris' Four Lions is a funny, thrilling comedy that illuminates modern jihadism through the prism of farce. It understands jihadists as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous. What This Is Spinal Tap did for heavy metal and Dr Strangelove the Cold War, Four Lions does for the modern face of terrorism.

In a British city, four men have a secret plan. Omar (Riz Ahmed) is disillusioned about the treatment of Muslims around the world and is determined to become a soldier. This is the most exciting idea Waj (Kayvan Novak) has ever heard. Better still it's a no brainer because Omar does his thinking for him. Opposed to Omar and everyone else on earth is the white Islamic convert Barry (Nigel Lindsay). He'd realise he joined the cell to channel his nihilism - if he had half the self knowledge of a duck. Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) is the odd man out. He can make a bomb - but he can't blow himself up just now coz his sick dad has "started eating newspaper". Instead he's training crows to fly bombs through windows. This is what Omar has to deal with.

They must strike a decisive blow on their own turf but can any of them strike a match without punching himself in the face? Four Lions plunges us beyond seeing these young men as unfathomably alien. It undermines the folly of just wishing them away or, even worse, alienating the entire culture from which they emerge. The film is neither pro nor anti religious. The jokes fly out of the characters' conflicts, excesses and mistakes. Crackling with wit and tension, Four Lions is the essential response to our failure to engage with reality and a high toast to the idea that laughter is better than killing. br>
Release Date: 19th August, 2010
Directors Statement
A bomb goes off. We tear about like headless chickens. Then we try to calm down. We lock the door on our dread. We go shopping. So now our dread works in the dark. It infests the fabric. We change our laws. We restrict our freedoms. We lash out at strangers. Brilliant. Of course we long to laugh at our fears but we don't know how. Where's the joke in terror? Actually, as Four Lions will demonstrate, it's staring you right in the face. At training camps young jihadis argue about honey, shoot each other's feet off, chase snakes and get thrown out for smoking. When 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta was teased for pissing too loudly, he blamed the Jews for making thin bathroom doors. A minute into his martyrdom video, a would-be bomber grinds to a halt and asks the cameraman, "what was the question again?" Terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohamed spends two hours looking for a costume that won't make him look fat on camera.

In three years of research, I have spoken to terrorism experts, imams, police, secret services and hundreds of Muslims. Even those who have trained and fought jihad report the frequency of farce. On millennium eve, five jihadis planned to ram a US warship with a launch full of bombs. In the dead of night they slipped their boat into the water. They stacked it with explosives. They stepped in. It sank. Terrorist cells have the same group dynamics as stag parties and five a side football teams. There is conflict, friendship, misunderstanding and rivalry. Terrorism is about ideology, but it's also about berks.

Interview with Chris Morris, the Director

Question: How did the film come about?

Chris Morris: I was reading about a plot to ram a US warship. In the dead of night with the target moored just offshore, the cell assembled at the quayside, slipped their boat into the water and stacked it with explosives. It sank. I laughed. I wasn't expecting that. You know the Hamburg cell was lead by Mohamed Atta - but did you know he was so strict that the other plotters called him "the ayatollah"? That every time he formed an Islamic discussion group he was so critical he fired them all within a week? The unfathomable world of extremism seemed to contain elements of farce.

Cases in the high court and meetings with Muslims only confirmed the impression. People go to training camps in the wrong clothes, forget how to make bombs, fight with each other and then fight again over who just won the fight, volunteer for the mujahedeen and get told to go home and "do the knitting". They talk about who's cooler - bin Laden or Johnny Depp.

The more I looked, the more reality played against type. Then the penny dropped. A cell of terrorists is a bunch of blokes. A small group of fired up lads planning cosmic war from a bedsit - not a bad pressure cooker for jokes.


Question: What interested you about the subject matter and why did you want to make it?

Chris Morris: Well the subject matter is turning a massive global wheel at the moment. How could you not be interested? Once you've had your preconceptions flipped - and discovered it can be funny too, how could you not make a film about it?


Question: How much of the film is based on real events and situations you discovered through your research? Are there any scenes which are actual recreations?

Chris Morris: No actual recreations - though sometimes it was tempting. Sometimes reality was almost too ridiculous. Like the jihadi who disguised himself as someone from MI5 to try and trick his parents into letting him go to Pakistan. I heard a surveillance recording of two suspects in the middle of the night. These guys have had 600kilos of fertiziler in a lock up for two months. The 17 yr old wakes up the 20 yr old and says "brother - that fertilizer's not for gardening is it?" Moments like that can work as a starting point. They give you a clue about the set up of the group - who keeps what from whom - who's on the ball and who's not.


Question: Did you have any advisors attached to the film?

Chris Morris: A crew is always a committee of advisers - design, photography etc - and our crew was superb - but if you mean a specific "cultural adviser" on the team then no. Often a production will have a rather bolted on "cultural adviser". I figured if I didn't know something then I'd better go and find out the answer first hand. And for that I needed help from all sorts of people. As a result I built up a network of friends and contacts with different specialties and they helped introduce me to ex fighters, secret services etc... So we ended up with a network of absolutely essential guides. The most indefatigable of them became permanent members of crew - and worked as producers - helping out with every aspect of production. The film simply wouldn't have been possible without them.


Question: Did you have any difficulties raising the finance to make the film and get a producing partner on board? Did you make any concessions?

Chris Morris: Considering how much it's influencing the world at the moment, people know incredibly little about this subject. When it came to funding, a lot of people were unable to think beyond their jumpy gut reaction.

The people who ended up funding the film were those who could spot the difference between what we were doing and the desire to cause trouble. They could see the film was not racist, was not attacking a culture, but may just be suggesting that killing people is not a good idea. So we made no concessions. Anyone who wanted to "change the ending" got very short shrift.


Question: Do you think people will feel you are trying to shock and offend? Might they feel you are mocking Islamic beliefs?

Chris Morris: Only if they haven't seen the film. You might use shock to mock overblown public attitudes to things that don't matter. But terrorism does matter. We're trying to make you laugh - to entertain - to surprise - to move even.

You don't have to mock Islamic beliefs to make a joke out of someone who wants to run the world under sharia law but can't apply it in his own home because his wife won't let him. About someone buying bomb making materials and then forgetting how to make a bomb. About someone performing elaborate "anti surveillance" techniques including running in circles and wearing a cowboy hat - in full sight of two surveillance teams. Or indeed about an intelligence officer setting up a surveillance station in the boot of a car - which is then jacked by joy riders.

Interview with Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, the Writers

Question: How do you make terrorism funny?

Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong: In the world of terrorism there are a lot of comic angles to explore - grandiloquence, ambition, incompetence, male machismo, small-group hierarchies and dynamics, superiority/inferiority complexes, and through it all that brittleness you get when any kind of idealism hits the compromises of real life - that's very rich comic territory. What we came back to again and again when we felt we were drifting off was - what's the truth of this situation? And to that end we used Chris' extensive research a lot - court transcripts, newspaper reports, books, tapes, conversations, it all went into the mix as we talked about what appealed to us and what the attitude of the film was.


Question: Due to the subject matter do you feel you had to restrain yourself in the writing?

Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong: Not in the sense I think you mean. Obviously all writing is about restraining yourself from writing a load of crap - but we didn't feel there was anything we wanted to write but couldn't or shouldn't. It's about what's funny. So we were only restrained in the sense that we didn't want to write anything that strayed from comedy.

Interview with Riz Ahmed

Riz Ahmed plays Omar in Four Lions.

Question: What research did you do?

Riz Ahmed: I read a lot of books and watched a lot of films that my character would have watched. I was also given a stack of Jihadi DVD's and reading material by Chris and the team to familiarize myself with the whole "scene". It really is like a die-hard scene in the fashion or music sense in some ways, there's lots of debates and a sense of community based around a way of life and looking at the world.


Question: What was it like working with Chris Morris?

Riz Ahmed: I thought he was incredibly detailed in helping me prepare for the role, which makes you step up your game and go all out. Then on set, it was just a huge amount of fun. Scripts changed several times a day and Chris works in a very free wheeling way from how he shoots a scene to what he allows his actors to do.


Question: And was there a strong group dynamic that developed?

Riz Ahmed: Yes there was, we all really got on and this whole vibe developed not too dissimilar to that in the film. There was a lot of piss-taking and a lot of jokes that came out of it. Something about the intense male group-dynamic in the film leaked into our lives. It was slightly deranged and claustrophobic, and a lot of fun.

Interview with Nigel Lindsay

Nigel Lindsay plays Barry in Four Lions.

Question: How did you feel about the subject matter?

Nigel Lindsay: During the research and rehearsal period it became clear to me that there was never an intention to mock Islam or its followers. Rather we are following five confused individuals whose homespun sophistry takes them on a comical and ultimately disastrous journey.


Question: Describe your character in the film?

Nigel Lindsay: Barry is a tortured soul suffering from an ironic psychosis: he feels he should be a Master of the Universe even though time and again the world proves to him that he has absolutely no masterly qualifications. Equally at home in the BNP or Al Qaeda, so long as he gets to use violence.


Question: And was there a strong group dynamic that developed?

Nigel Lindsay: It was a brilliant ruse to put us together in student digs away from home. We felt like we were in boot camp together.

Interview with Arsher Ali

Arsher Ali plays Hassan.

Question: Describe your character in the film?

Arsher Ali: Hassan is an outsider, a wannabe. But the most dangerous thing about him is his lack of understanding, his ignorance. To him, radicalization and its commitments are akin to the college boy who suddenly picks up a skateboard and declares he was "always a skater" - it's a fad in a way. But I think it's all born out of his desire to be accepted and to be liked or respected - something we can all relate to.


Question: What research did you do?

Arsher Ali: The "As-much-as-we-could-without-being-suspected of-anything" amount.


Question: And was there a strong group dynamic that developed?

Arsher Ali: There was a huge sense of togetherness, mostly because we'd all improvised together and fallen on our backsides now again in said improvisations and that takes a lot of trust.

Interview with Kayvan Novak

Kayvan Novak plays Waj in Four Lions.

Question: What research did you do?

Kayvan Novak: I spent some time up north hanging out with some Muslim guys. And I watched a lot of footage of everyday northern Muslim lads just larking about. I also spent an excessive amount of time recording and listening back to myself trying to nail the accent.


Question: Had you worked with any of the other cast before?

Kayvan Novak: Not only had I never worked with the cast before but I also had never heard of any of the cast before which for actors is not only humiliating but also embarrassing. So I made sure I looked all of them up on imdb beforehand for a little last minute revision on their CVs.


Question: How did you enjoy working with them?

Kayvan Novak: We were pretty much shooting together everyday for seven weeks up in Sheffield and I can honestly say I was laughing for most of that time. They are an obscenely talented bunch as well as being wonderful human beings.. We became a close band of brothers during the shoot.