SLINGSHOT: Director Mikael Håfström Tells Us About His New Sci-Fi Thriller!

(Edited for content and clarity)

Mikael Håfström:

Hi, Glen. How are you doing?

Glen Dower:

I’m great, as is your new film; I’ve had the pleasure of watching the press screener I received three times now because I’ve had such a good time with it.

Mikael Håfström:

Wow, thank you, that’s great. Three times, perfect.

Glen Dower:

Yes, and just after the summer we’ve had of cinema, it really got the gray matter going. I just really enjoyed it so much and I can’t wait to talk about it. I put it in the same genre as perhaps Alien, 2001, and Moon, of course, the Duncan Jones movie, which of course shares DNA with your film, having the co-writer Nathan Parker.

Mikael Håfström:

Nathan, absolutely. We had a script that I had for a few years and then we needed some work done. And I love Moon. So we asked Nathan and he came in and he did some great stuff. I really, really enjoyed working with him.

Glen Dower:

As I imagine you did with the amazing cast. Let’s talk about it. First of all, Casey Affleck. Now I approached the movie thinking, oh, this is new for him. He usually leaves the sci-fi, the superhero stuff to his big brother. But actually, his character, John, is very much in line with the other character he’s playing. He just happens to be in a spaceship. Did you approach him for the character of John?

Mikael Håfström:

Actually, no. We had suddenly after, again, a process that took some years. We were doing different things, me and the producer. But suddenly there was an opportunity to do the film and we got some money together. And so we sent the script to some agents that we liked that have interesting actors. And Casey Affleck happened to read that.

We didn’t reach out exclusively to Casey but he was the first one who contacted me, which was great. He was on vacation in Europe, but he called me and said, look, I read the script and I liked this character. And, you know, can we talk about it? Then we did. And, you know, so that was very easy. And we didn’t go out to 10 other guys who couldn’t do it. So we said, no, and Casey came on board very quickly. And the same thing with Laurence. He got the script from his agent.

We sent it to him. He read it and felt that he wanted to do this guy. Also, Casey and Laurence haven’t worked together before but they have a lot of great respect for each other and felt that this was a good opportunity to do that. So it came together quite easily. The casting process can be long and painful but not in this case.

Glen Dower:

Yes, Mr. Fishburne. Did you get to call him Fish, by the way?

Mikael Håfström:

Yeah, of course. I can call him Fish. Not everyone can do that!

Glen Dower:

That’s a cool honor. I was going to ask the same thing; if he maybe had some reservations? As the film could have been construed as being similar, even in the poster artwork to the cult classic of his, Event Horizon. But he came on board, like you say. And he’s amazing in the film as he is pretty much in every film. He can just walk that line between mentor and monster, sometimes within the space of a scene. What was it like to witness that?

Mikael Håfström:

You put it in the right words. Look, Laurence, have you met Laurence?

Glen Dower:

Sadly not, he’s on my Must List.

Mikael Håfström:

Yes, I’m sure you will talk to him one day. He has a great personality, obviously, and a big personality. And Casey is a much more low-key kind of guy and all of that. Also, the acting styles both have a big range, but they’re different, which is great. But Laurence, he came in with all of that and all this great positive energy and sort of became the captain of the ship. It was very clear who was in charge here.

And as you say, I wanted him to be, and he got that. I wanted him to be this very stable guy who’s running things, who is in charge, who has control, that when problems occur, he is the guy, the go-to guy. He is the one who makes the difficult decisions and all of those things.

There is something about this guy when we get to know him. And he just portrays that as very interesting. We’re not gonna do spoilers here, but he just does that very interestingly. I mean, he was 17 when he was in Apocalypse Now first, and I’ve been a fan since then. He had a tremendous career. And he’s a big actor and a big personality.

Glen Dower:

For sure. And we can’t leave out, of course, Tomer Capone, who everyone knows as Frenchie from The Boys. He was great. I got the idea from him that his character is The Audience. He reminded me of Lambert in Alien, the voice of the audience, of, ‘Let’s get home, let’s get out of there.’ No one listens to him. It must have been a thrill for him to be in the movie too.

Mikael Håfström:

You’re right about the connection to Alien. Absolutely. He has that sort of function. But after getting these two guys in pretty quickly, I needed this third passenger on the ship. So, I looked at a lot of tapes from different young actors. I didn’t know much about Tomer, but I saw him, somebody recommended watching a few tapes. And I saw him in some Israeli things he’s done. Obviously, he wasn’t as famous or popular as he is now, because The Boys is very popular. And so that’s great for us. But he came in, I talked to him and he had this tremendous attitude and fascination for this story. And he was just a blast. So I hired him on the spot!

Glen Dower:

Great. There’s such a good trio together because they’re so different, so disparate and they just work so well together.

Mikael Håfström:

Yeah.

Glen Dower:

Let’s talk about the story itself. Like we say, we can’t do too many spoilers. The idea was that, after seeing this film three times, I as an audience member, had to deconstruct and then reconstruct what I had seen. We’re dealing with paranoia, we’re dealing with confusion and we know we’re not going to have a straightforward ending. How much fun was that to play with? And were there many discussions about the conclusion? Because on my first viewing, I thought when (spoiler)…but then…the show ain’t over…

Mikael Håfström:

It was always there. I mean, it’s still paranoia, obviously, and it’s also a quite complex story and it’s a complex character, John, and you can’t make a simplistic ending if you have such a complex story and a complex character. So the ending needs to go hand in hand, I think, with sort of the general attitude of the film.

I think it’s always interesting as an audience member to be part, you know, not to be written on the nose, but sort of be part of the creation of what’s going on. And it’s also, as you, as an individual audience member, can see this in a very different way from your friend or your wife or your husband or whatever. And I think that’s great.

You know, you can have very different takes on what happens there in the end, depending on who you are and your own experience. Some other films, you know, need a much more sort of definite ending or, you know, who, this is the killer, or, you know, blah, blah, blah. But in this case, I think we tried to create something that went hand in hand with the general attitude of the movie.

Glen Dower:

When I was walking down the street, a day after watching the film I stopped and had another realization about the film: ‘Oh he said that before, so that led to that.’ So days after, it’s still marinating in your mind.

Mikael Håfström:

Yes, there is still a science here and there. It’s a puzzle. And yes, exactly, as you say. This was my wish, or this was my hope that people would sort of re-see and read the film like you described and enjoy the ride for those reasons.

Glen Dower:

I just want to pick up one thing on Casey Affleck’s performance. And I can ask you as a director, was the movie filmed in sequence? Because he seemed to deteriorate and deteriorate.

Mikael Håfström:

Yes! you rarely have the opportunity to shoot the film in story order as we did here because we had a ship, we had a ship built and we had actors. So we could start from the beginning. And we started to shoot the stuff that’s not on the ship first. Everything on earth was shot beforehand. And then we went into the ship and shot most of it in story order. That was great for Casey and the film and important because as you say, he deteriorates and his mind takes in places. And we were very lucky that we could do that as a process and not throw ourselves back and forth in the story.

Glen Dower:

Yeah, definitely. Because it just, every time he comes out of hibernation, he looks so terrible. He just gets worse and worse and worse. Either take this poor guy home or put him out of his misery!

Mikael Håfström:

Yeah, yeah.

Glen Dower:

Let’s step away from this film for a moment, just while I have you here. I just want to talk about the other actors you worked with. So of course you were the guy who brought Sly and Arnie together for their first full movie together, Escape Plan. What was it like working with them? Because there’s a really sweet behind-the-scenes photo where they look like two school boys and you look like the teacher.

Mikael Håfström:

Yes!

Glen Dower:

Did they behave for you on set?

Mikael Håfström:

That’s exactly it. They were like two very happy schoolboys on set. They were coming eagerly every day and wanted to play in this schoolyard. ‘Where should we go today? Where do you want me to be? Or, where do you want me to stand?’ The best example is when Sly came one day 45 minutes early and I said, what are you doing here? We’re not finished with prep. We have to set up and stuff.

And he was like, yeah, I know, but I’m a director myself and I hate when actors are late. That was the attitude. And it’s hard work making a movie and you know, and all of that. It always will be. But so I’m not being overly polite to these guys, but I always be thankful for them because they show so much respect. They had so much fun and they were really sweet with each other!

I mean, they had all this with their careers, and they were fighting about who’s gonna be the biggest star back in the day. But now they were older, and they were so much fun and they had so much fun together doing this. A great experience. One of the most fun movie-making experiences I had actually.

Glen Dower:

Oh, that’s perfect. I’m so glad to hear that. That made me happy!

Mikael Håfström:

Yeah, true story, true story.

Glen Dower:

Well, sir, it’s been an absolute pleasure.

Mikael Håfström:

Well, thank you for taking your time and we’ll talk next time.

SLINGSHOT will be available in theaters nationwide on August 30, 2024.

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