David Lowerystarted with a knight and a horse.
“The finished movie is far bigger than what we set out to make,” Lowery admits.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I know that you first read the poem years ago.
Credit: Eric Zachanowich/A24
[Laughs] I knew the story vaguely.
I was also, as a child, a huge fan of Arthurian lore.
I was like, if for nothing else, it would be fun.
Alicia Vikander and Dev Patel in ‘The Green Knight’.A24
It wasn’t something I was thinking too much about.
It felt very personal to me in ways that I haven’t quite figured out yet.
What was it about the poem that resonated with you, hundreds of years later?
That’s something I think about a lot.
I think about posterity and how anyone myself included will be viewed by the generations to come.
I always am thinking,How will history look back upon me?
How will history look back on my generation?
But also, how have I supported myself as a human being?
Yet once you embraced that concept, it really had a relevance that I felt was worth digging into.
What was it about Dev Patel that made him the right person to follow on this quest?
When I wrote the script, I wrote the character of Gawain as pathetic as possible.
[Laughs] I really made him a spoiled brat.
So I met with a lot of great actors for the part.
It was a hard part to cast because there were just so many wonderful options.
The first time I met Dev, I just was like,I really like you.
I really want to just keep talking to you.
I want to hang out.He was such an affable gentleman.
I also loved the image of him as a knight on a horse.
That image in and of itself was incredibly beguiling.
They would just follow him through whatever came his way, or whatever I had him do.
How did you approach the look and feel of the film?
It has this gorgeous, almost painterly quality, and it looks almost like a piece of medieval art.
Were there any particular things you looked at for visual inspiration?
We were never going to make a strictly medieval history film.
There is no historical accuracy to the film whatsoever.
It is completely a fantasy.
It would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but that was a great visual touchstone for us.
[Laughs] And then Kenneth Branagh’sHenry V,we looked at that one a lot.
A lot of Shakespearean references, especially that one.
I know you filmed in Ireland.
Was there a particularly memorable day on set?
It’s weird because the first half of the shoot was just dreamy.
[Laughs]
I was unable to speak, and I literally thought I was dying.
It’s weird thinking back now.
But I was super sick for the second half of the shoot, barely holding anything together.
It was a nightmare.
I had to communicate through handwritten notes.
Our ambitions were huge, and we mostly pulled it off, but it was definitely a challenge.
Yeah, I mean, it was funny.
It was an all-hands-on-deck problem-solving thing, but it was also really fun.
note: Lowery is currently working on the fantasy filmPeter Pan & Wendyfor Disney.]
This film was originally supposed to come out last year, before being delayed by the pandemic.
Does it feel at all like you’re at the end of your own long quest?
Eventually, I had to stop because we just had to finish it.
I probably should not watch the movie again.
I should probably not think about it too much.
But I don’t know.
Maybe I’ll make a director’s cut a year from now.
