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By Scott Meslow
The other global when Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Hero Fiennes Tiffin flew to Canada to shoot The Silencing last year. Coster-Waldau had just finished his seven-season career as Jaime “Kingslayer” Lannister on HBO’s Game of Thrones, while Fiennes Tiffin continued his role as a blunt mercurial in After, the successful adaptation for young adults.
Then, of course, came here the pandemic, which disappointed everyone, adding the same old procedure of selling a tense and sublime mystery like The Silence. By necessity, when The Silencing arrives for video-on-demand release and in some theaters, I communicate with Coster-Waldau and Fiennes Tiffin about our respective quarantines: Coster-Waldau in Denmark, Fiennes Tiffin in England and me in California.
Fortunately, The Silencing is precisely the kind of film that provides a welcome distraction to anyone who wants a break in the genuine world right now. Coster-Waldau plays Rayburn, a taciturn hunter who spends his days protecting a nature reserve and hunting the lost teenager, all assume she is dead. Fiennes Tiffin plays Brooks, a young homeless man with problems with a lot of secrets. And when another teenager’s corpse is discovered, the two characters are placed as central actors in an increasingly sinuous mystery.
Here, Coster-Waldau and Tiffin communicate about The Silencing, portray their brown teeth and what it is like when a director starts doing stupid things with a gun on set:
It has been almost a decade since screenwriter Micah Rahnum wrote the script, and won a scholarship, for The Silencing, however, he has not joined this task until the last few years. How did this script end up falling on your desks?
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau: I read it years ago and I think it’s a wonderful script. A very undeniable story, but a small twist on a family history. We started looking for a director … and it only took a while, the schedules lined up. And then I saw Robin Pront’s film, The Buljans, which was so smart and attractive and had some of the qualities we thought were wonderful to her.
So that’s what Array. Suddenly, it happened in a whirlwind. It’s a very, very small budget. We fired north of the border in Sudbury, Canada. Wonderful place. When I looked towards Sudbury, one of the first things that came out of me was that it was a position where other people came to perceive the effects of acid rain. Because it’s this huge mining town, and they had the worst acid rain in the world. Literally, there were no plants in the 1970s. But now it’s beautiful.
Hero Fiennes-Tiffin: Had just sold the first film After. I intended to stop by the house, but I kindly invited her to the Met Gala. I had an intermediate era where I moved from home to spend a great three-week relaxing time before returning to New York. And all of a sudden it came, and it fits very well into the calendar, besides being a role that interested me a lot.
Hero Fiennes Tiffin in The Silencing.
Rayburn is a true survivor, with a well-deserved reputation for hunting and capture. Do you have any of those yourself?
NCW: I hunted myself. I’ve enjoyed the outdoors. But Rayburn has a very express way of surviving. He used a bottle of Jack Daniels to spend the day. I’ve never done that. Obviously, this is the story of a guy who was already pretty screwed up, but losing his daughter five years before the movie started completely derailed him. This is a good starting point for an actor, if you can start in an excessive place.
It’s hard to believe how things can get worse for him, but it is.
NCW: At least he’s got a dog. There are dogs!
And Hero, I hope you might not take this as an insult, but you don’t seem to be the first call on the list to play a clumsy, drug-addicted Minnesota teenager.
HFT: It was great to play such a different role than After. Even as a supporting role, with such a charming cast … So, you know, just me and [Josephine Langford], and those are our first two movies. So going to play with Nikolaj and Annabelle [Wallis], in an absolutely different role that fits perfectly into the calendar, was just a dream come true. In fact, it was a short notice, but it was perfect.
I’m going to ruin anything, but we can say Brooks has demons. How did you get to the loose area of a guy with so much trauma?
HFT: Some roles are identifiable feelings you embody, and this is not so much for me. So I did some studies on the trauma of the training years and how it affects their behavior. Opioid orders and drug-related disorders: it’s something I probably had to figure out beforehand.
The brown ones were very pretty.
HFT: People hesitated a little, coming from after, to give me a black eye and brown teeth. And I thought, “Go ahead, guys! Let’s do it!” That was the suggestion of [director] Robin Pront, and I like the look we created.
Between Brooks, Hardin Scott and young Voldemort, you seem to expand a character skill with a dark side. Is that the kind of paper you like? Or is it just a coincidence?
HFT: I’m so early that I still don’t know what my preference is. I like to do a little of both. I guess you’ll see what makes it more productive or what’s most productive for. So far, these are less angelic characters. I need to keep looking for both of them. I don’t have a dream role. I’d love to break anything like Indiana Jones or James Bond, but there are so many genres and videos that I love. I don’t need to put myself in a position where I have something to do, because I know there’s a lot of price in all the other roles I’d like to play.
Nikolaj, you said there’s a small budget and a small window to shoot the movie. What’s the hardest thing about cinema?
So what is The Robin Pront?
NCW: Vaping a lot. Without his little steaming machine, he would have wrinkled, but would have kept him afloat. I shouldn’t say that. Is… Seeing. Constantly. He’s hunting all the time. And when he digs it up, he takes it to the next level. Then he likes to have a little chaos. Throw all the balls in the air. And then, all of a sudden, you have the moment of clarity. This has happened, more or less, every day.
Are you going to communicate with him, by any chance? You have to ask him a question.
NCW: No, no, no. I’m going to have to stay somewhere else.
That’s enough. But I’ll wonder now.
NCW: I know! I’ve met people. Oh, I’ll tell you. That’s right… it’s European. He’s more comfortable with some things. And, of course, in North America there are very strict protection rules. And we had guns on set. Of course, they’re not loaded. But there’s this scene, at the beginning of the script, where Rayburn catches those two hunters and takes their guns away. And Robin just thought the guns were great. So he went up the stairs and started pointing at them.
I shouldn’t tell you this. Someone’s going to have a central attack. He’s laughing at me! But the reaction … In Europe, you’re unarmed. You don’t have guns anywhere. And, of course, in North America, that’s another story. And I think the reaction he gave you when aiming a gun in the general direction of the Array people … much more powerful than I expected, let me put it that way. He’s not laughing. But I’m sure he’s laughing at that now.
With The Silencing coming out this week, what’s the next step in your show, Nikolaj? In another world, completing your Macbeth career at Geffen Playhouse right now.
NCW: I know. It’s postponed for a year. God knows, I’ve more or less memorized this damn work. I hope to come back It would be wonderful to do it next year. But I think if anything tells us about this strange age of our lives it’s: who knows? We need this vaccine that will magically solve all our problems. But who knows?
It’s the first anniversary of the game of thrones finale a few months ago, and there was a lot of discussion about it on the Internet. Have you done anything to commemorate, Nikolaj?
NCW: No, I didn’t. In fact, he was filming The Silencing when the series finale came. I saw him in Sudbury. But I didn’t do anything this year. You’re doing anything 10 years later, aren’t you? You don’t do anything a year later.
I think Game of Thrones is one of the things other people will keep talking about every year.
NCW: Oh, no! I missed a party. I’ll be there the year.
This interview is edited and condensed for clarity.
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