SERENITY (2019) Production Notes
Everything You Need to Know
Serenity is written and directed by Steven Knight. The film stars Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey, Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Diane Lane, Djimon Hounsou and Jeremy Strong. Producers are Steven Knight, Greg Shapiro and Guy Heeley. Director of photography is Jess Hall. Production designer is Andrew McAlpine. Editor is Laura Jennings. Costume designer is Danny Glicker. Original music is by Benjamin Wallfisch. Executive producers are Stuart Ford, Deborah Zipser, Karine Martin, David Lipman, Jeffrey Stentz, Carsten H. W. Lorenz, Paul Webster, David Dinerstein, Jason Resnick and William Sadleir. Co-producer is Andreas Habermeyer.
OVERVIEW
The tranquil cerulean waters of a tropical island are known as a vacationer’s paradise, but not to Baker Dill (Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey), a scarred fishing boat captain who earns a living by taking obnoxious tourists game-fishing aboard his twin-engine boat christened ‘Serenity.’ To make it worse, Serenity docks in a beachside village called Plymouth whose residents relish a little too much in staying on top of everyone else’s business – an annoyance to someone like Dill who makes it a habit to keep to himself. Dill’s only true companion is his first-mate Duke (Academy Award nominee Djimon Hounsou), an islander with an ingrained sense of responsibility that is only cultivated with age and hard-work. The two men could make a profitable living if it wasn’t for Dill neglecting his customers due to his obsession with catching a blue fin tuna that continuously eludes his grasp. After another vacationers’ excursion goes awry, Duke reminds Dill that if he intends to salvage their business, he has to give up on his blind obsession of capturing an elusive tuna and give the customers what they want: an escape from the realities and stresses of life. Dill refuses to listen to his friend’s wise advice and instead drowns his sorrows in booze at the local bar or in the arms of Constance (Academy Award nominee Diane Lane), who offers him solace as well as cash when he can’t quite make ends meet.
One day, out of
the blue, Dill’s ex-wife Karen (Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway), who
abandoned him years earlier for a wealthy man with suspicious business
practices, appears on the island. She reveals that her life has not been
idyllic and that their teenage son Patrick has become withdrawn, spending all
his time playing video games. On top of that, her husband Frank (Jason Clarke)
physically abuses her, and she is worried about Patrick’s safety. She wants
Dill to take Frank fishing, get him drunk, and push him overboard for the
sharks to feed on his corpse. In return, she will pay him ten million dollars.
Dill balks at her proposition and refuses to agree. But as visions of his son begin to haunt him
and Frank displays his true colors to Dill, Dill starts to re-think Karen’s proposal,
despite Duke pressing him not to give in to temptation. What complicates things
even more is the appearance of an odd traveling salesman named Reid Miller (Jeremy
Strong) and the eerie feeling that the locals know more about Karen and her
scheme than they should. While Dill weighs Karen’s unseemly proposal, he slowly
begins to realize that things are not all they seem – and uncovering the
mystery will determine what he decides to do next.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
The tranquil
cerulean waters of a tropical island are known as a vacationer’s paradise, but
not to Baker Dill (Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey), a scarred fishing
boat captain who earns a living by taking obnoxious tourists game-fishing
aboard his twin-engine boat christened ‘Serenity.’ To make it worse, Serenity
docks in a beachside village called Plymouth whose residents relish a little too
much in staying on top of everyone else’s business – an annoyance to someone
like Dill who makes it a habit to keep to himself. Dill’s only true companion
is his first-mate Duke (Academy Award nominee Djimon Hounsou), an islander with
an ingrained sense of responsibility that is only cultivated with age and
hard-work. The two men could make a profitable living if it wasn’t for Dill
neglecting his customers due to his obsession with catching a blue fin tuna that
continuously eludes his grasp. After another vacationers’ excursion goes awry,
Duke reminds Dill that if he intends to salvage their business, he has to give
up on his blind obsession of capturing an elusive tuna and give the customers
what they want: an escape from the realities and stresses of life. Dill refuses
to listen to his friend’s wise advice and instead drowns his sorrows in booze
at the local bar or in the arms of Constance (Academy Award nominee Diane
Lane), who offers him solace as well as cash when he can’t quite make ends meet.
One day, out of the blue, Dill’s ex-wife Karen (Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway), who abandoned him years earlier for a wealthy man with suspicious business practices, appears on the island. She reveals that her life has not been idyllic and that their teenage son Patrick has become withdrawn, spending all his time playing video games. On top of that, her husband Frank (Jason Clarke) physically abuses her, and she is worried about Patrick’s safety. She wants Dill to take Frank fishing, get him drunk, and push him overboard for the sharks to feed on his corpse. In return, she will pay him ten million dollars. Dill balks at her proposition and refuses to agree. But as visions of his son begin to haunt him and Frank displays his true colors to Dill, Dill starts to re-think Karen’s proposal, despite Duke pressing him not to give in to temptation. What complicates things even more is the appearance of an odd traveling salesman named Reid Miller (Jeremy Strong) and the eerie feeling that the locals know more about Karen and her scheme than they should. While Dill weighs Karen’s unseemly proposal, he slowly begins to realize that things are not all they seem – and uncovering the mystery will determine what he decides to do next.
Serenity is written and directed by Steven Knight. The film stars Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey, Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway, Jason Clarke, Diane Lane, Djimon Hounsou and Jeremy Strong. Producers are Steven Knight, Greg Shapiro and Guy Heeley. Director of photography is Jess Hall. Production designer is Andrew McAlpine. Editor is Laura Jennings. Costume designer is Danny Glicker. Original music is by Benjamin Wallfisch. Executive producers are Stuart Ford, Deborah Zipser, Karine Martin, David Lipman, Jeffrey Stentz, Carsten H. W. Lorenz, Paul Webster, David Dinerstein, Jason Resnick and William Sadleir. Co-producer is Andreas Habermeyer.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Writer/director Steven Knight came up with the idea for Serenity when he was out on a fishing boat about three years ago. “The captain of the boat was a particular character. Fishermen are quite obsessive about catching fish, and an idea appeared about someone who’s obsessed about catching a particular fish, so I explored that character and his story, who he was and why he was there and where he was.”
A year after first coming up with the idea, Knight and producer Guy Heeley were talking about what their next film would be. Heeley mentioned an idea he had for a film that was set on the sea in a very confined setting, which prompted Knight to explore further the idea of Serenity . “I had previously produced Steven’s film Locke , which was all set in a car, and we enjoyed the innovation that came from that and then he told me of his idea for a film that was set at sea.”
Once Knight had a draft, he then contacted “the usual suspects” to then help make the movie. “These are people who I’ve worked with on other things I have written and directed, and after the last two films that I’ve directed, which were largely in rain and at night time, I said to the people I worked with ‘I promise the next one is going to be on a beach.’”
Knight, who has previously written and directed Locke starring Tom Hardy and Redemption and written many other scripts including Eastern Promises, Burnt, and Allied, knew that he wanted to direct Serenity . “Certain things that I write I know that I’m going to direct…certain ideas I think ‘I’ll have that for myself.’ And this was one of those times ten - I really wanted to do this.”
Casting began about six months prior to shooting Serenity , and the central role to first be cast was of Baker Dill. For Knight, Matthew McConaughey was always the only choice to play Dill. “I think Matthew is the best there is. Dill needs to be slightly heightened, larger than life, he needs to be a sort of character that doesn’t give off himself too readily, someone who’s closed in, and I thought that was Matthew.”
Heeley further adds, “Dill is a guy who has had a life, he was in the army, and he’s washed up on this amazing paradise island, but we need to feel that this is a guy who has really lived a life. He’s not trying to hide from what has gone on in his life, but he certainly wants to protect other people from what was within him. We loved the idea of Matthew from the start. Matthew loved the script and we had him on board very quickly.”
McConaughey knew immediately that he wanted to make this film. “I remember writing to Steven ‘Please don’t change it. Please don’t change a word.’” McConaughey continues, “He put together a great script. One that I found thrilling. One that I said, ‘oh, that’s a film I want to see.’ One that I have enjoyed reading over and over through pre-production and now.”
Once McConaughey was cast, the producers then built out the rest of the cast. Anne Hathaway loved the script, and the fact that she had worked with McConaughey before was helpful. “There was a trust there, which is very important for the role. It’s a very close relationship, and so it was important that they got on,” said Heeley.
Hathaway was very excited to see an email appear in her inbox with a script written by Knight. “I just could not believe what I was reading. The quality, not just the dialogue and the plot, but even the quality of the stage direction was so high.” Hathaway admired Karen’s courage and was drawn to the idea that she was defined by the love for her child and that every decision she makes is for his wellbeing. Hathaway also loved the idea of playing a mother who on the surface seems “very gentle and meek, but who underneath is very much a warrior.”
The chance to work with Knight was also a drawcard for Diane Lane. “He is amazing at what he does. This one to me is very much from his heart. I remember I was just talking with him on the phone from very far away, trying to get a sense of a man and what he wants because he wrote this, it’s in his ears, he can hear what is the truth of the characters according to how he wrote them.”
Similarly, she was thrilled to learn she would act opposite McConaughey. “I have always been a huge fan of Matthew McConaughey’s. I think he can do anything.” For McConaughey, the feeling was mutual. “I have always been a fan of Diane Lane and have had my fair share of crushes on her. She was great to work with. That was the last part we cast and it was one of those where you feel like she was probably who we wanted and needed all along.”
Jason Clarke was also drawn to the idea of working with Knight. “He’s one of the great writers. I’ve read a lot of his scripts. Whenever it’s a Steven Knight project you always know it’s an interesting project.” Clarke was approached by producer Greg Shapiro, with whom he’d worked on Zero Dark Thirty , which Shapiro produced as well. “There is not a lot to dislike from an acting point of view: the script is solid, the people are great, and we are shooting in Mauritius. Take a look! It’s good!”
Jeremy Strong was on a plane on his way to Morocco when he received the script and fell in love with the film and the role of Reid Miller. “It’s a really exciting role for me. One thing I love about the character, and Steve has written it very specifically, is that there is something very punctilious and something very proper, upright. He has described it as clipped and near and precise. And that gives you a wonderful grammar to play with as an actor. I think Steve, in his canon, has written some of the greatest modern characters.”
Djimon Hounsou’s
character of Duke is actually based on a real person – the first mate on a boat
Knight went out with and he reminded him of Hounsou. Hounsou shared Knight’s
passion for fishing, and it was one of the main reasons he was drawn to the
project. “I’ve always had a bonne chance for sports fishing, always thought
that it’s quite a fun sport, you know - catch and release.”
THE STYLE OF SERENITY
While not a traditional noir thriller, Serenity certainly pays homage to classic films of the genre as well as literature, which Knight was very mindful of. “In terms of dialogue and setting and mood, it is a conscious nod to Ernest Hemingway and Graham Greene, absolutely. It also references to some of the classic movies of the ‘40s and ‘50s.” When Knight and Director of Photography Jess Hall first spoke about working together on Serenity , Hall immediately talked about how he thought of Hemingway when reading the script. When Hall first starts working on a film, his typical approach is to start with visual references from other films and distill those ideas into something of his own, but with Serenity it was a bit different. “Interestingly enough, the film has been more in my head than perhaps any other film, and I think that’s partly a result of Steven’s writing that’s so unique. It felt like such an original piece in itself, and the world he has created is an original world. There have been touchstones of films, but I think for me it’s been more literary influences like Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene. Specifically, Islands in the Stream , that I read a long time ago and re-read when I was here, has been a big influence on my approach to Serenity .”
Costume Designer Danny Glickman also referenced classic noir films when coming up with the characters’ costumes. “What was really fun about designing consumes for Serenity is that there is a duality to all the characters, to their stories, to their world and their understanding of their predicaments. I really wanted to approach it from the truth that the characters found themselves in and also the archetypes that would have informed the way the characters like these may have been seen in movies of the past, including especially the classic noir movies. I was really using the classic noir movies, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and asking myself how they might be translated into a contemporary esthetic.”
For the character of Dill, Glickman was really inspired by ideas of classic masculinity going all the way back to Bogart or Brando. “It was really about playing with the level of truth and grit and masculinity and a refined sensibility. Matthew and I worked really closely together to find something that is deceptively simple, but as the story progresses you realize might be a very truthful reflection of the life that he’s living.”
Glickman thoroughly enjoyed designing clothes for Anne Hathaway’s Karen. “What I love about Karen is that she presents a lot of questions in how she presents herself, always elegantly, always meticulously. But I think there is a very serious question throughout the movie as to who Karen is.” With that, Glickman felt that audiences would be looking towards Karen’s clothes for answers as to who she really is and what her motives really are. “For me one of the most fun parts of the job was figuring out when to provide clues and figuring out when to make sure that there were no clues.”
Jason Clarke was heaven to work with, according to Glickman. “He knows how to move in beautiful clothes, and he was a lot of fun to collaborate with when we were creating Frank. Frank is a character that we hear a lot about before meeting him, so the audience’s expectations are going to be pretty high. By the time we meet him, I, as a designer, get to sort of play into the audience's expectations of who this man is, and it turns out that he’s quite a snappy dresser.” Frank is always impeccably put together, and Glickman felt that his costumes are essential to helping audience understand him as a character, the world that he comes from, and the world that he expects to always play around him.
Djimon Hounsou’s Duke is the emotional, spiritual core of the movie. Glickman found it really enjoyable to create a man whose entire appearance has to convey his humility and his simplicity, but also to play with color in a way that makes Duke one of more vibrant figures in Serenity . “He’s an incredibly important counterbalance to the kind of washed out world that I created for the rest of the movie. Because I have a lot of people in very pale colors, and I wanted Duke to be saturated.”
Being in Mauritius is a huge factor in understanding the looks of Plymouth for Glickman. The characters are on a tropical island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It’s incredibly beautiful, the ocean is crystal blue, the weather is heavenly and the sand is powdery white sand. “The people of Mauritius are very specific. They are incredibly generous and peaceful. In seeing the way they dress, living a true island life, has definitely informed my understanding of how life might be on Plymouth. I did a lot of my designing in LA, but when I got here I definitely began to incorporate Mauritius and my understanding of some of the character’s attitudes, relaxing things a little bit and dialing back any contemporary references. Because I think that when you’re here, you realize that on an island you’re living in your own world.”
FINDING PLYMOUTH
Serenity is set somewhere in the tropics on a fictional island called Plymouth. The production team looked at many tropical locations – Bermuda, the Dominican Republic, Fiji just to name a few – but as soon as Knight arrived in Mauritius, he knew he was in Plymouth. “Mauritius is sort of undiscovered in terms of movie making because it has only recently opened up its doors to filmmakers. But what I wanted was a place where you can point a camera in any direction and you won’t know where you are. In other words, Mauritius could be India, the Caribbean, Africa, or it could be France depending on where you are and in terms of the ethnic make up of the people. Everyone is here, everyone is mixed and everyone seems to rub along together nicely.”
Heeley adds, “On paper, it looked like it was going to be pretty hard to shoot in Mauritius as it’s an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and there’s not much around it. But in reality, when we came here, we did a tour of the east coast, and I remember we walked down the jetty and we stood back and looked at this world and realized we had a restaurant we could turn into a bar, we had a jetty, and we had what could be a little fishing town. We knew at that point that this was the place, that creatively this could work.”
With between 28-30 pages of the 100-page script set on open water at sea, logistically Serenity is incredibly challenging to shoot. Shooting on a boat is very difficult, as it is very slow and expensive, and there are issues with weather and inconsistencies in the light as well as the water. The unique advantage of shooting in Mauritius is that it’s a volcanic island surrounded by a reef. One of the problems production faced when looking at other locations was that they would have needed to have filmed the boat scenes in a tank. However, because Mauritius’ reef gives a lagoon effect that is only two meters deep, it almost entirely mimics the physical characteristics of a tank. “Effectively, we have this gigantic tank we are using, and the reef acts as the line between the still water and the ocean water, which is exactly how you shoot in a tank,” said Heeley.
While Mauritius has previously had short shoots for a week or a few days – mostly for commercials and Bollywood films - Serenity is the first full-length feature film of this scale that has ever been filmed entirely on the island. “We are in a fictitious tropical location, and we don’t know where that place is narratively, but we are using Mauritius and all its physical attributes to help us build that world, and we are really hoping that the legacy of filming on the island will show the rest of the world what Mauritius has to offer in terms of geography, geology, film personnel, skill sets, and all the things that a film needs,” said Heeley.
Mauritius has an organization called the Board of Investments who runs the rebate scheme, and they were very helpful in getting the rebate approved very quickly and the production team were prepping and then shooting within 8 weeks after first arriving in Mauritius.
While making a movie on a beautiful tropical island might not seem like work to most people, Production Designer Andrew McAlpine reveals that it is not as much of a beach holiday as people think. “When you are on an island, particularly an island as isolated as Mauritius, you have to worry about the availability of materials and crew, and due to the fact that we are the first full Hollywood feature to be made on Mauritius, I did have my initial worries. Then I remembered that I had worked with a lot of great South African crews over time, and I knew that South Africa was quite close, so I thought ‘Yeah. Go for it!’ But it turned out to be due to the nature of the people, the Mauritian people, and the general skill of the island people, that the shoot has been amazing.”
While the production team filmed scenes all over the island, the main set was built in Trou aux Biches, north west of the island. “We have built whole streets and the insides of hotel rooms. I would like to say that the skills of Mauritians, who had never worked on anything like this before, have taken to it like a duck to water under the guidance of the very talented British and South African crews,” said McAlpine.
McAlpine approached the film from three levels. “It’s an intriguing mélange of the actual appearance, what you can see on the screen. There is the real level and there is the subconscious level and there is the deep level. Mauritius offered up a lot of opportunities because of the isolation of the island. It means that it has got a lot of intensity, from the mountains you see behind me to the rivers, to the coastline, and then the beautiful cities and shorelines, and the fishing.”
Being a tropical island, the colors in Mauritius are incredibly vivid and vibrant and reminded Director of Photography Jess Hall of his childhood spent in Jamaica. “I was taken back to the experiences of what island life was like, what the colors felt like, what it was like to be on a tropical island, the color of the light, and the atmosphere, and so my own personal influences have played an important role in my approach to shooting Serenity .”
McAlpine and Hall worked closely on the use of the island’s rich colors, but softening them. “The idea for the film was to work with bold colors, but to control it so it wasn’t garish. The sunlight is very strong here, and you are dealing with a lot of primary colors. Overall, it’s about retaining some of the beautiful primary aspect to the island, but just taking the edge off that so it’s not an oversaturation,” said Hall.
Heeley adds
“Mauritius has a lot to offer naturally. We have had a great experience and
have employed over 100 Mauritian crew, and nearly all the materials for the
sets and construction come from Mauritius.”
SECRETS WILL SURFACE
At first glance Serenity is the story of a fisherman’s obsession with catching a fish, but Knight wants audiences to see it on a deeper level - people can choose to view it as a conventional thriller or they can choose to view it as something else. “I’m always interested, on various levels, in good people doing bad things for a good reason, which is what happens in this film. I’m also interested in the idea of choice and free will - it’s impossible to resolve whether we have them. Because once you’ve made a choice, that’s it and that choice - was it always going to be there or did you choose it? I wanted to take a character and throw them into a world where, to begin with, he believes that he’s making the choices, and then slowly begins to wonder ‘am I actually making these choices or are these choices being imposed upon me?’”
McConaughey was very much drawn to the different layers of the story. On the surface it’s about a man who is obsessed with catching a fish, but underneath this storyline are themes of how our realities are created and the power we have in the choices we make. “I have to navigate my own free will, my way through the end of story. I’m my own detective of my own life.”
Lane was drawn to the parallel worlds that Knight created and the metaphorical meanings that are there. “It was so fun to be part of the larger poem, the larger… maybe a fable. You know, a fable has a moral to the end of the tale, so I was happy to be part of the film that is dealing with the game of life, and the long-term view of what it is to win and connections that go beyond life and death, love and the end of love.”
