TOA Fraser talks about directing Dean Spanley, the tale of an estranged father and son and how they come to be reunited over the confessions of a reincarnated dog! He explains why the themes felt so personal and what it was like to direct icons such as Peter O’Toole.

Q. How did you approach this subject matter when you first read it?
Toa Fraser: Well, Matthew Metcalfe, the young New Zealand producer of the fim, sort of pitched it to me as this sort of quirky tale about an Anglican dean who used to be a dog and drinks a lot of wine… I thought it sounded interesting enough but I was fascinated to learn a bit more about it. So, I read it and for me the real kicker in the script is the father and son story. It is a story that has all this fantastical, whimsical, quirky, crazy elements but at its core it’s a real heartfelt story about family. And I felt that was really quite audacious of the script to drop that kind of surprise on you. Reading it, I felt it was a great twist. So, I was flattered that Matthew, the producer, saw a connection between this and my first film, No.2.

Q. How easy was it to attract a cast of the calibre of Peter O’Toole and Jeremy Northam?
Toa Fraser: I worked with Ruby Dee on my first film and that was a really amazing, life-changing opportunity. So, I was really determined with this very human script to get a great cast. But I don’t think any of us dared imagine we’d attract a cast of the calibre we did. To be honest, I don’t know how it all fell into place! I knew Sam Neill and Bryan Brown a bit from before… and Sam had supported me as a playwright in New Zealand and on No.2. Actually, Sam was anxious about it… he’d turned it down three times. But Peter O’Toole read it and loved the script and came on board almost immediately. I loved what Jeremy Northam did in The Winslow Boy.

Q. So how did you convince Sam to do it?
Toa Fraser: I don’t know how it ended up happening. We had a lot of conversations. I think Mr O’Toole came on board at some point… He was worried about how he’d do it and it was important for him to know how the director was going to handle it, because you could do a kind of Eddie Murphy/Nutty Professor version of this movie. But that’s now what I was interested in doing. We were going to go for the more lighter, more subtle touch. I also think he came to his own conclusions… he has a very fond relationship with his own dog, so he studied his dog and figured out how he was going to do it. I was really excited to work with him because I knew him and I knew that he’s a really funny, kind of light guy. But I’m not sure that audiences are familiar with that… they’re really aware of his buttoned up character that he’s made his own. So, I was excited about the opportunity to take a buttoned up guy, like we’ve seen him play before, and subvert that with something a bit more cool.

Q. Is it true that you’re allergic to dogs? And if so, how was filming with so many?
Toa Fraser: It was alright actually, I took a lot of hay-fever tablets [laughs]. It was fantastic in the sense that they have extremely strict working hours – even stricter than Peter O’Toole. So, after having spent six weeks in the Norfolk winter, going back to New Zealand in the height of this great summer was amazing. And if the dogs were too tired, it meant we couldn’t shoot anything so we all had to sleep under a tree and wait for the dogs to be less tired, which was a very reasonable way to make a movie.

Q. It’s a pretty universal theme, the parent-child dynamic. Have you had much feedback from people concerning how it’s affected them?
Toa Fraser: It’s reasonably early days. But certainly when we were making it… I think part of the reason these actors came on board was because they could relate it to their own experiences with their parents. Certainly, something that was a very powerful attraction for me was the fact that this story was very similar to my mum’s family… my English family, which is in stark contrast to my Pacific Island family. I’ve got hundreds of cousins in New Zealand and literally 12 aunties and uncles… just my father’s brothers and sisters, whereas my English family is miniscule – as is the family in this story. So, I really related to those empty rooms.

Q. Where do you stand on the issue of reincarnation? Did you research it more?
Toa Fraser: No, I didn’t research it. It’s kind of the maguffin of the story, though. The heart of the thing is the father and son story, and regardless of whether they believe in reincarnation or not, it’s doesn’t matter so much. But the fact that my dad’s from Fiji and I grew up for a long time in the Pacific, these things are very common to us. We don’t think twice about the fact that your auntie says that your grandmother turned up at your funeral in the form of a heron. People argue whether or not that’s true, but the only reason they dispute that is because they think that it’s your uncle and not your grandmother. It’s weird because people ask me about that issue now, but I guess it didn’t really occur to me too much when we were making it. I look back at it now and think: “Wow, this is actually quite a Pacific story in a way.”

Q. How does Peter O’Toole take to directing this days? Were you at all intimidated by him at first?
Toa Fraser: I don’t know if you guys saw that programme with Sean Penn and the guy that wrote the Into The Wild book and they were talking about fear? It’s kind of like if you’re going to work with Peter O’Toole it’s going to be intimidating… but you do scary kinds of things every day and they’re more scary because you don’t want to do them. Whereas this is like: “Well, if you want to do what you want to do then you’re going to have to face that at some stage.” So, I guess it’s like rock-climbing or something. But I fell in love with the guy. I can’t say enough about the generosity of spirit that he brought to the set. That was partly because we had a really relaxed set and a really great group of actors who all supported each other.

We respected him and he and I built up a level of trust between each other very quickly, which was about doing things in an old fashioned way. I mean, I don’t watch the monitor at all when I’m directing. I stand right by the camera and I think he appreciated that. I also tried to foster a working set that was quite theatrical. The crew was a real audience. But at the same time, he was very generous to me. On our second or third day, for instance, he dragged me into a screen room and gave me a bit of advice that David Lean had given him.

Q. Did you have to give him much direction to create the character?
Toa Fraser: I whispered one word in his ear if I wanted to and that would completely change his performance. That was a real joy to behold. Regardless of whether he’s acting like an asshole or being the most charming character in the world, it’s still an amazing, charming performance.

Q. How many takes did it require Sam Neill to do the monologue at the end of the movie?
Toa Fraser: Well, it was over five days for a start… but not too many takes. We were shooting on digital, so we were able to do really long takes. It was great to be able to put a camera in the corner of one room and watch a terrific group of actors such as these play out the whole scene and find the rhythms within it. I think probably seven takes was the very most we ever did – but that’s taking into account the first sort of three after my rehearsals. I think often Sam might have liked to have done a few more. He’s quite a lot like Ruby Dee… she never quite felt like she got to the level of performance that she wanted to. And Sam was a bit like that sometimes. I don’t like the actors looking at the monitor, which is another thing. So, Peter found that just fine and didn’t need to look at the monitor at all. But I think Sam is used to a different filmmaking process. And when you’re looking at the list of directors that these guys have worked with before – from Spielberg to David Lean to Bertolucci – you can imagine that they have some fairly strong arguments up their sleeve for why they want to look at the monitor. So, I was pleased that I managed to persuade him not to.

Q. So what was the David Lean advice?
Toa Fraser: Well, he taught me about lighting an actor’s eyes. I was very humbled that he’d taken the time to share that with me. And I hope you can see that in the film… that Peter’s eyes, in particular, do a hell of a lot of the talking.

Read our review of Dean Spanley

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