Jonathan Sothcott is one of Britain’s most prolific independent film producers, known for bringing hard-hitting, uncompromising action, horror and crime movies to the screen. His latest film, Knightfall, delivers the kind of gritty, brutal action and emotional stakes that have become a trademark of his work.
He stopped by to chat with us about Knightfall.
So, today we are talking about Knightfall. It feels like a throwback to the classic British espionage thriller, what would you say the biggest influences on the film were and which movies are we looking to capture the spirit of?
Well, I think there’s one which is a movie called The Fourth Protocol, do you know that one?
Yeah, the Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan movie.
It’s a movie I really love and it’s finally getting some appreciation as the good movie it always was. It kind of went under the radar a bit, I think, when it came out and tonally that was always the picture that I aimed for. To be honest with you, really the inspiration for this was a previous film of mine, Renegades. The writers who sent me the treatment wrote it after seeing Renegades, so they specifically sent me this for Jeanine and Ian as a team up to play father and daughter and they also wrote a role which never made it into the finished movie. It was a sort of old veteran gardener to be played by Billy Murray, who of course was always in Renegades and other movies that I’ve done, but Billy’s retired now, so we couldn’t do that. So, that’s I guess where it came from, from Robert and James’s side, it came from Renegades and I thought yeah, this is really interesting. I’ve always wanted to do a kind of spy movie, The Fourth Protocol is a favourite of mine; there’s another Michael Caine spy movie called The Holcroft Covenant, which I stole quite liberally one element from. I don’t know if you remember the movie, but there’s a bit at the end, someone’s dog gets killed and Michael Caine says “how did you know the dog was dead?” or “I never said the dog was dead” or something like that.
Yeah, I just watched it last year.
Right, okay, so when you watch Knightfall, I got the idea for the bit where Jeanine says to Geoffrey “how did you know his name? I never said his name”. That’s straight out of The Holcroft Covenant, so I stole it liberally from there.
What do you think modern spy films have lost that you wanted to bring back with Knightfall?
Well, I don’t think it’s a case of what they’ve lost, I think the whole action genre in the mainstream has changed so dramatically and I look back to when I was a kid, when you were a kid, you know, James Bond, which is, let’s face it, the benchmark for spy movies, was an entirely different proposition because it was giving audiences things that they hadn’t seen before, things that were new.
People didn’t go on foreign holidays back then, so seeing Japan and India and Macau and all these amazing exotic places was all part of the sell; here was an Englishman trotting all over the sea and things that we today take as totally normal everyday things, ninjas, sharks, volcanoes, all these things; they were all new then. They were all really new and exciting and cool and all that’s gone, that’s all gone because the internet has allowed us to see everything we could possibly want to see in our lifetime and more. So, you have to find a different way into those stories and obviously with the Bond movies now, they’ve gone down the sort of Bourne Ultimatum route and made them these terribly hard-hitting gritty action movies, which I must say aren’t my thing, but obviously they made billions of dollars, so who cares what I think? I just wanted to go back to something a little bit old-fashioned; obviously we have this great history of spy movies and espionage movies in this country, not just Bond but also Harry Palmer and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and all kinds of other things and just tap into that a little bit.
There’s a bit of an interesting connection between Ian having played The Saint and Geoffrey’s father having played the Saint, which I’m sure we’ll touch on later, and the Saint is another one of those great, I mean I know he wasn’t a spy but he was a sort of gentleman spy, wasn’t he?
Oh yeah, definitely, and I was actually about to bring up Geoffrey Moore, who is of course the son of Roger and he has a pretty significant role in the film; how long had you wanted to work with him and what does he bring that audiences may not be expecting?
Oh, a long, long, long time; I mean Geoffrey and I’ve been friends for a about 15 years, and I worked with his father many, many, many years ago. I did the DVD commentaries for two of his really, really classic movies, The Man Who Haunted Himself and The Wild Geese, and he was a wonderful, wonderful man and I actually asked Geoffrey, and I’ve become such good friends, I asked him if Roger might do a cameo in We Still Steal the Old Way. If you remember the part that Julian Glover did at the beginning, and that was very much written for him, you know, shoot it out in the morning, sitting down at a desk, we could have done it at his house in Switzerland or wherever, because he was just on the phone to Ogilvy, and he wasn’t able to do it unfortunately.
His health was very much in decline by then, and I worked with Geoffrey’s sister Debra a couple of times. She was actually in We Still Steal the Old Way, but we’d always wanted to do it, but because Geoffrey’s such an interesting proposition, because he’s this very, very striking, charismatic, handsome man, very different to his father. He’s a very different, very modern presence, whereas even at his peak, Roger was quite an old-fashioned presence on screen, even if you think about when Roger was Bond in the 80s, all the other action stars were Stallone and Schwarzenegger and Bronson and people like that, and Roger was like Cary Grant.
He was different and that was always part of his appeal, whereas Geoffrey is very modern, but the thing was waiting to find the right project, because I couldn’t just put Geoffrey in a horror movie, and I couldn’t put him in a London gangster movie. So, when this Knightfall project came across my desk, I felt there was something missing, which was another sort of character to it, another to make the triangle of character dynamics work. I felt there was another one, and I thought hang on, if I’m going to just make a spy movie with Ian Ogilvy, this has got to be the one to put Geoffrey into, and obviously, there’s a huge temptation to really lean into the Bond film thing and make it, not a tribute, I suppose, but tribute and pastiche blur the lines very easily.
At one point I have what I thought was a good idea of having Steven Berkoff and Julian Glover playing the kind of shady Whitehall mandarins in it, and obviously they’re both wonderful actors I’ve worked with before, and key villains in the in the Moore Bond era. Geoffrey and I talked about it and I said, “maybe that’s just a bit too much, maybe you’re enough”, and he was really, really keen to have Nick Moran in it. It was really funny, obviously that Geoffrey, his godfather’s Frank Sinatra, right, Starsky and Hatch used to pick him up from school, nothing phases him at all, but he was a little bit starstruck working with Nick Moran, because Nick was the star of Lockstock to him. So, it’s a different thing, which was really interesting.
So yeah, the part was perfect, it was very much written for him and developed for him, and I think it plays to him, and I think it’s enough. If you watch last third of the movie, the navy blue jacket that Geoffrey wears in the movie is the one that Roger wore for the last act of Octopussy, so we thought that was a nice little touch.
Unfortunately, I think when they shot Octopussy, all that stuff was shot at Pinewood in the winter, and it’s a very, very heavy jacket, whereas we shot ours in August, and poor old Geoffrey was suffering a little bit in it, but it’s a nice little nod and a wink.
I always like to ask a producer question, so what does the producer see in a movie that the average audience member doesn’t?
Well, I do it slightly differently, I think, to other people, because I love these movies, as you know, and I am very much an action movie aficionado. So, sometimes I think if I like it, then you’ll probably like it, and the people who read your website are going to like it, and there aren’t enough people making movies for us. We’re kind of like middle-aged guys and girls, and it’s a very important part of the Shogun DNA that we give opportunities to older actors. I feel like this obsession that Hollywood has with youth is totally fulfilled by Netflix and the other streamers; they just make these endless shows with young people, and we’ve got this amazing tapestry of actors with wonderful pedigrees from all over the world, who aren’t getting the work they should, so if I can get them to come and be in my movies, then why wouldn’t I? I mean, if I could put Michael Pare in every movie, then I would.
It’s funny, I was talking to Ian Ogilvy about that the other day, and he says he really appreciates that you bring him in to do work, because he just doesn’t get the same calls that he used to…
Yeah, it’s a weird thing with Ian. I mean, I don’t think he’ll mind me telling you this, when we made the first We Still Kill the Old Way, we never started that project with a lead actor in mind. One night I met Timothy Dalton when I was out, and I got on really well with him, and I said “I’m doing this movie, We Still Kill the Old Way; it’s about an old gangster, but yeah, you’d be great”, and he said “yeah, fantastic”, and then obviously the cold light of day, his agent looked at it and realised that his fee would be probably double the whole budget of the movie, and it didn’t happen. But I made the cardinal mistake of saying to the distributor who was funding it that I’d met Timothy Dalton, and they really struggled to come down from this idea that Timothy Dalton or that level of star was going to do it.
We were really struggling, because all the actors I was thinking of were dead, Edward Woodward was dead, Lewis Collins was dead, Simon McCorkindale was dead, so I was going through this list, and the reason that Ian was never in my mind is because I knew that he lived in Los Angeles. So, to my mind he wasn’t available, and Martin Kemp called me up one day, and said “I’ve just been watching Tales of the Unexpected on ITV3 and I saw Ian Ogilvy. Why don’t you use him in that gangster film you’re doing?” and I said “well, he lives in LA Martin, why would he want to fly over and do that? He’s obviously got loads going on” but as the shoot date got nearer, I started to think maybe this isn’t a bad idea, and at one point Craig Fairbrass said to me, “if you can’t cast this part, then you’re going to have to rewrite the script, it’s going to be me, Martin and Vince Regan playing it, isn’t it?” and I thought actually you’re not far wrong, because it’s difficult. Anyway I go into Anchor Bay, and I say “guys Ian Ogilvy is brilliant, I mean why wouldn’t we have him? They go “no, no, no, not sure about him at all; he’s The Saint, we want a tough guy, we don’t want that kind of actor”. I said “listen he’s an actor, he can play anything, he’s great, have you seen Witchfinder General? are you crazy? and I essentially leveraged the looming shoot date to get my own way with that, and Ian was delighted to do it. We got on like a house on fire; he’s such a nice guy, and then obviously we made a sequel.
We had a great time doing both of those, and then he came back and did Renegades, which we both know isn’t the film that we hoped it would be; it’s alright, but it wasn’t a great movie. I think Knightfall is far superior, and it’s lovely to have Ian playing so well in it, and he is so good, and it’s just a pleasure to watch him work, and it’s a privilege to facilitate and give him a platform really.
I think this is probably your best film to date; I really enjoyed it, because I like the action and home invasion side of things. Can you talk about putting together that whole final set piece?
Yeah, yeah, I mean it’s very kind of you to say that, and thank you, I certainly think it’s the most enjoyable, that’s one thing I’m really happy with. In terms of putting together the set piece, yes, it’s also a film, I mean if ever a film was made in post, it was definitely this one; I was very lucky, I worked with a great editor called Mike Myshko, and a great sound designer called Ryan Hatton, and those two guys really were a key part of this. We would go back and tinker and tinker and tinker with different bits and pieces, and trying to sort of hide the big reveal, which I won’t spoil, but obviously you know because you’ve seen the movie, was tricky, and some people have spotted it and some people haven’t. Either way I think it works very well, and my two favourite scenes in the movie are: I love the Michael Pare scene, I really like that, and I really like the last two scenes with Jeanine and Geoffrey. I think that’s their best scenes together; I think they really work, but to get to that was a little bit tricky, and to be honest with you, we had to in post stitch together some of the continuity issues, because you might have noticed that the room that Ian was tied up in was supposed to be a basement, and yet there’s very clearly a big window that shows that it’s not the basement, so I had to edit around that.
(Laughs) I didn’t notice that actually…
(laughs) The fact you haven’t picked up the bits and pieces is testament to the fact that hopefully it worked. The guy who plays Robert Kavanagh is the main villain, his sidekick, the captain, is the stunt coordinator Darren Lefevre, and Darren is the best stunt guy I’ve ever worked with. We have a really good relationship; a lot of these young stunt guys, or younger stunt guys, very sort of Zen and chilled, and trendy I guess is the word, whereas Darren’s like one of the old stunties that were around when I first came into it. They were all sort of bank robbers and things like that before they were stuntmen; Darren wasn’t, he was a fireman and a nightclub bouncer, and he has that same attitude. I really just trust him to get on with it, and he’ll work it out. He’ll come to me and say “what do you think?” we’ll have a chat, and he’ll go and direct those scenes, and it was great.
He also played the biker that Ros has the fight within the marina, and I thought that scene was really really good, and we talked about it a lot. I’m a big believer that these films where one small woman beats up 10 guys, it’s just unbelievable; it doesn’t work for me as an audience. We decided right from the beginning that if that fight played out, then obviously she would lose, because yes she knows a bit of karate or whatever, but he’s six foot four and 18 stone; he’s just going to smash her to pieces. The fact that Hugh runs in and shoots him in the head was the right out, but I really like that.
I love the fight she did with Michael Pare as well…
Again Darren orchestrated all of that, and he’s very good; he works these things out on the fly, we shot Michael’s scene when we were making another movie, Helloween, which he was over here doing for me. We just took a day out of the schedule to shoot Knightfall in the toilets of the marina; it’s all glamour on Shogun Films (laughs). Some stunt guys would be like, “oh I’m not doing that”, but Darren’s just great; he’s really game, and he gets on with it, and just terrific, exactly the kind of guy you want to have around in a pinch.
If Knightfall connects with audiences, would you be interested in returning to these characters in a potential follow up?
Yeah, I don’t know what it takes to get a sequel made nowadays, the world has changed so much, and the market has changed so much. All I can tell you is that I was very lucky to make a film that I love, with people that I love, and I would obviously love to work with Janine again, Ian again, Geoffrey again, Nick Moran again. I mean, it’s all my favourite people in this movie, so I don’t know about a sequel, but sure we have another Geoffrey project simmering away, we have a couple of Jeanine projects simmering away. Ian and Nick are both always very much on the radar here, so yeah, I mean you can certainly expect to see more action and thrillers, and probably less horror from Shogun going forward.
Yeah, excellent, actually I’ve always wanted to ask you, what’s your favourite Bond film?
My favourite is probably Moonraker.
YES! I love Moonraker, finally somebody, that’s one of my favourites as well. Hugo Drax is the best.
Hugo Drax is the best, and also it’s by far the most ambitious; there is so much going on in that movie, and I think that the stunt with the airplane at the beginning is probably the most ambitious stunt in the whole series. I think Moore is on absolute top form, all the actors are great, the music’s great, everything comes together, and if you like Bond as a sort of big spectacle, Moonraker’s the one. I think the best ones are probably the Lazenby one and For Your Eyes Only; I think they’re the two best made films.
I really like them, yeah. Moonraker has the best dialogue as well, with dialogue like “Mr. Bond to show up with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season”. I mean, what a brilliant line.
Fabulous stuff, he’s taking a giant leap of mankind. No, I love Moonraker, very underrated. There’s a magazine here called Infinity, I don’t know if you know it, it’s kind of like cult TV and movie magazine, and journalists said to me he’s doing a retrospective on Moonraker, and would I be an advocate for it. I said “yeah, sure”, he said “be really controversial”, so I said well, “who cares about Ian Fleming books? so yeah, Moonraker’s where I got into Bond, so I think that’s the best thing, and Moonraker’s great, and blah blah”, the letters page, my god, they were angry with me. I mean, I’m expecting letters written in crayons in my home, to be honest with you, but oh well, you only live twice (laughs).
Oh no, I’ll take it, hey, at least he doesn’t die in the end.
(laughs) Exactly, well, exactly, exactly, but to be honest, I was glad to see the back of that particular one.
So was I, yeah, that was never really Bond for me.
No, they’re good films, and they’re very successful, but it’s not my idea of James Bond.
Exactly, yeah. All right, well, great to finally meet you at last.
You too, and I really appreciate you going the extra mile and getting us all on this, it’s really great.
My pleasure, chat again soon.