Schwanengesang Interviews parts 3 and 4, and meme from KR.
The meme:
1. Pick three to five fandoms (depending on what you are comfortable with).
2. Proceed to fangirl at length about the scene for each one of these fandoms that is forever burned into your memory.
1. Vagrant Story: The Great Cathedral scene right up at the end, with the candles and the music and the blood and the hare having fallen into a trap and the hunter sparing it even so...
2. Berserk: The open-eyed kiss. There is no better way to show that Griffith is thinking about Gutts the entire time than as was done in the manga, and it's not half bad in the anime either.
3. FFXII: Um, Drace. This is the most intimate scene in the endire game. And it encapsulates the message of the game so well, and so poignantly, without being heavy-handed.
4. Suikoden: Gremio. I cried.
5. Song of Ice and Fire: Ned. Same.
Incidentally, the other day I compared the Berserk anime as opposed to the manga, to if Song of Ice and Fire ended with book one canonically.
And then, the interviews:
Robert Luz: Basch/Gabranth
[Robert is in his middle fifties, and though his hair is naturally brown beneath the grey one can tell that blond would suit him. He wears a navy blue suit with the collar undone and no tie.]
So. You’re Basch.
[Laughs] I find it as hard to believe as everyone else.
Did you ever think this world happen?
In my dancing years, certainly not. Once I became involved in theater, it might have crossed my mind to become associated with a single role, but never this one. I had not been one for fantasy when I was young, so I didn’t know these stories at all. But once I caught on, I suppose I did.
Tell me about Basch.
He defines himself by others. He’s a man looking for a place to belong, or a person substituting for a place, perhaps. All his compulsions toward honor, his quest to regain the princess’ trust, they’re driven by the loss of his old life and his home, and where other men would have grown bitter from something like that, Basch didn’t. [laughs faintly] There are a lot of things that lesser men would have done in his position, but Basch didn’t. I think the presence of so many dead during Schwanengesang-and the actors who played the ghosts being completely corporeal during filming-drove that point across for me. The man bears a lot more than that armor; haunted but unafraid, I think is a way of putting it.
A lot of the compliments for your character are about how you move as him, since for a main character you don’t say terribly much.
It’s not that he’s a man of few words-I think Basch’s silence is more habit than temperament. But he moves like a man who has overcome a great deal of physical pain, steady but not stiff. You’ll pardon the dancing metaphor, but it’s true; there is this unseen pas de deux and the girl never touches the ground, because he’s got her. Only it isn’t a girl, it’s three countries, several ghosts, and a mad queen. There is a limit to how much he can move, but not to how graceful he can be. And if he falters at all, well.
And he does it in full plate.
Precisely. But he’s not superhuman, none of them are. I think Han made that emphatically clear.
What is it like, working with Han’s vision?
Sometimes I think he forgets how old I am. [laughs] Basch probably has a good deal more stamina than I do.
Is that double-entendre?
Treble. I think only the presence of the cameras and the crew kept me steady during some of the more intimate scenes with Lily. And the third parties, in some cases. The Trim section of the first sequence, with Greg Hannigan as well, was awkward like you wouldn’t believe, but it was easier to concentrate, despite the violence of the scene in general. Lily and I still taunt each other about that, trying to get him between us.
So you and Lily are close?
She and her husband have me over for dinner and cards once every few weeks. I think he’s stopped being jealous by now.
Like Al-Cid does in the series?
Oh no, Peter [Pensworth] hated me at first. I suspect that Lily was nattering on and on about how excited she was for the role and…perhaps could have discussed the sex scenes with less enthusiasm?
Your chemistry is something amazing.
Well, thank you.
You both went through weapons training with the rest of the cast?
We did. The trouble for me was deemphasizing the choreography. Lily was a natural for Ashe’s style, but I am too much the dancer; I pull my swings. But a stunt double was out of the question as far as I was concerned. I see a marked difference in my form in the Bachelor’s hunt as opposed to Mordhau.
So I imagine the fight scenes were not your favorites to film?
I always felt too polished. Basch may be a Knight, but he was a common soldier first; Han always said that by the time I tired myself out, got to perhaps the seventh take, I was more in tune with what he wanted. Mordhau took very long to film because of that.
Hours?
Days. And a week prior to choreograph. Lily and Carlos were very patient with this old man. [self-deprecating smile]
Is there a difference in how you moved as Basch, as himself, as opposed to Gabranth?
Believe it or not, no. I had seen the work Gyorgy had done as Noah; imitating him in full plate produced one result, and moving as I thought Basch would produced another. So I reserved the one for scenes set earlier in the chronology, Serenade and sections of Erlkonig.
Do you have a favorite moment, a favorite scene?
The penultimate scene, in the throne room. Basch kneels before Ashe and all her court and removes his helm; we shot it ten times, and still ended up using the first take. Every time, though, it was someone different who wanted to see it again.
Lillian Pensworth: Ashe
[Lily is in her late thirties, daring and slightly rumpled-glamorous. She wears a green one-shouldered dress and her hair is recently cut very short and dyed very red.]
So, this is quite the project, and you had quite the role in it!
Thank you.
Just to clarify; you auditioned for Fran in the pilot-
-And didn’t get it, yes, but they called me for Ashe.
Which turned out to be the much more prominent role.
I like the direction Han took with her character. I never pictured Ashe settling down-or even calming down-after the events of the Ivalice stories.
Why not?
She’s unhinged.
Understatement.
I mean even before. Call it royal inbreeding if you have to, but I think Ashe has been a little off since even before Rasler died.
Tell me more about Ashe.
What probably started off as earnest desire to take back what she’d lost…twisted. At some point she became obsessed with her own strength, which I see as entirely justified, and then from strength to control, which is where the whole Basch thing comes in. She may have gotten over her losses in the Ivalice stories, but only to have more of what she’s regained or just gained taken from her. Vossler, Basch, Balthier, most of her personal freedom… You know, “what does it profit a man, to gain the world and lose his own soul?”
A quote usually associated with villains?
The entire cast had the capacity for villainy, with the possible exception of Basch, but I think he’s acquiesced his way into some pretty awful things. Ashe is…she has some horrible vices. Pride, selfishness, envy, manipulativeness, a lack of guile. And she’s vengeful. But she’s also posterity-minded and unswervingly loyal, dedicated, committed, and ultimately true to herself and her desires. Inconsiderate and considerate at the same time. I think she’s more messed up than malicious, but it’s a fine line. So I can totally see her doing what she did in the Seams sequence, and scared as I was to actually film it, it wasn’t because it felt wrong for the character.
What was it that scared you?
Violently seducing Robert Luz three times.
[laughs] That’s intimidating!
You bet.
But you managed.
He’s such a good sport. We’ve gotten to be great friends through all this.
The closeness showed even early in the project, though.
It did? [laughs] Well, he does a good job of making himself desirable.
What was your favorite scene to do with him?
Early on? The song on the hill, during the first Hem section of the first sequence. We had to rule out the entire first take because I was just so captivated. It took until the third for me to stop smiling.
And later?
The moment in the bed with him during To the Sea. We were both made up ancient, and we’d been doing Schwanengesang for so long that it felt like we had been together that way. And then I realize what I’ve done to him, finally buckle under all that, and he lifts himself up over me and I can hear his joints creak…that whole scene. Just hearing him say “Ask the sun why the riverbed is dry,” it really brought all we’d done the last few years into perspective, blurred the lines between Rob and Basch and Ashe and me. I was sad to see it ending.
Do you think you’ll work with him again?
Honestly, I think it would be weird. I mean, I don’t know about him, but we’re Ashe and Basch to each other once there’s a camera involved. It’d be hard to stop being that.
What about the other members of the cast? Velasquez?
[laughs] I’ll call you when I get a decent singing voice.
But if he were to come back to television?
He’s enough like himself without an orchestra to back him up that I’d always think of him as Al-Cid. But it would work.
He speaks very highly of you.
See, that surprises me, because he’s the talented one.
Oh?
[not entirely sarcastic] The scene-stealing got old, fast. [sweetly] And I thought Rob was intimidating. The first scene I filmed, period, was beside Al-Cid in bed. We had equally complex motivations, and movement, and still. Trying to conduct a scene with a Spanish primo tenor is like trying to whisper in church.
So he’s exactly like himself off-set; would you say you’re like Ashe?
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t like her at all, but I certainly hope I’m not that…selfish and crazy. But there are similarities, and obvious ones, otherwise Han wouldn’t have called me back.
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