Feature Category: Features

PENNYWORTH is a brand-new DC show charting the untold origin story of a 26-year-old Alfred Pennyworth in 1960s London. STARBURST sat down with titular star JACK BANNON, BEN ALDRIDGE as Thomas Wayne and PALOMA FAITH, who plays the villain Bet Sykes, to talk about Batman’s enduring appeal, straying from the expected, and building a new world from the ground up…

STARBURST: What drew you to your respective characters, and to the show itself?

Jack Bannon: Like anything else, it was an email from the agent. I read the synopsis of what the show was going to be and I thought, “Oh, this is a bit strange!”. They sent the pilot script along with the request for an audition tape, so I read the script and that’s what really got me, because it was everything that I thought a comic book TV show isn’t. Page 3 of the script had a big description of this dark version of London where it was set, and [creator] Bruno [Heller] clearly had some incredible ideas. And from that moment I knew this was something a bit different.

Ben Aldridge: I think if you hear the words, “it’s a comic book spin-off” you think – not that there’s anything wrong with those TV shows – but Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Gotham, which are set in a more modern world and follow a more obvious route. And when I first opened the script, I was like “Okay, I wonder if it’s going to be like that.” And then it wasn’t – it was weird, twisted, with lots of amazing pop culture references, in a very dark and dangerous world that was like a violent, espionage thriller. I just knew anything could happen here, and they’re building a totally new world that we haven’t even seen in the comic books. So this is going to be very original, whatever it is.

Paloma Faith: For me as well, the fact that my character was a villain, the female villain that wasn’t just scary because of her sexuality. She had a lot more going for her than that, a lot more layers. I think Bruno cleverly plays with the idea of power, because power is often about the psychology of those around you. For example, as a kid, I was terrified of my own father. Then I had a period of time when I didn’t see my father, and when I did see him again, he just seemed small to me. It was really strange, because in my mind he was huge. And what’s great about this is that Bruno asks, why can’t women be the most powerful? Just because she’s not the strongest or the biggest, she is one of the most powerful people on screen and it’s nothing to do with physicality, it’s to do with how far she’s willing to go.

Jack Bannon as Alfred Pennyworth

And it’s interesting because she’s not purely a villain, you do see she has strong relationships and changing allegiances.

Paloma Faith: And the relationships develop in the show so that some enemies become friends and some friends become enemies. It’s not as black and white as good and evil.

Ben Aldridge: Yeah, what the show wanted to do was to not make it obvious who the good people are and who the bad people are; the lines are blurred. You’ve got the supposed good people making bad decisions for what they think is the greater good, which spirals into people dying.  The audience has to learn that the lines are quite blurred.

Which is different because a lot of superhero films do tend to be more black and white. Was it interesting to be technically part of the superhero canon, but to have the freedom of a show that feels more self-contained?

Jack Bannon: To put it crudely, we get all the benefits of the DC badge but then we do what we fucking like. I think it’s interesting because for me, the world in which it’s set is one of the strongest things about it. We know what Gotham and Metropolis look like, but there hasn’t been a London yet. We can do anything here, which was attractive.

Ben Aldridge: It makes it really unpredictable. Even being in it you’re always sure what the background is going to consist of, like a group of nuns running through the back or, when the director put this little pig in a pram running through one of our scenes, and we were like, “What?!”.

Paloma Faith: When I spoke to the writers, they said that they didn’t want anyone knowing too much about the premise, because they wanted it to be a standalone thing. They didn’t want to ham it up or to have it be super self-aware of the fact it’s DC.

Ben Aldridge as Thomas Wayne

And considering this is the origin story of characters that we know and love, while also being completely untold, did you do much research into previous incarnations of your characters? Or did you want to start fresh?

Jack Bannon: Well I did a bit, because we had a conversation before I even got the job, where my first audition was essentially a terrible Michael Caine impression. And I kept getting called back so I had to tell them I wasn’t going to keep doing this terrible impression, but wanted to know if it was along the right lines. And Bruno explained that Michael Caine had said he’d play a butler only as long as he was ex-SAS. So he was the one who gave us the backstory, so if there were any previous Alfred’s we were giving a nod to, it would be him.

Ben Aldridge: Obviously Thomas Wayne just dies, that’s how everyone knows him. So I watched a montage of all his deaths.

Jack Bannon: Which one was the best death?

Ben Aldridge: Actually, even though they weren’t good films, I think the one in Batman v. Superman where Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays him. So after that, I looked at some of the comics and saw he was always depicted with a moustache. I asked if I could have a moustache, and Bruno and Danny asked if I could grow it in two weeks. Yes I could.

Paloma Faith as Bet Sykes

What’s it like bringing the more human element to the broader DC universe? Because you’ve not got any superheroes, and you don’t even have Batman.

Ben Aldridge: It’s like a character-driven, psychological piece. And that’s the good thing about DC, it can be more about them as humans. And that’s why, being asked why we think Batman is the most popular of all the superheroes, I think it’s because he’s the most relatable, the most human. He decides to be a vigilante, he’s not born with that power. A lot of what drives him is losing his parents, and the need to right that wrong. Everyone can relate to that world.

What’s the fan reaction been like?

Jack Bannon: When the show was first announced, a lot of people where like “Why the fuck do we need a show about the butler, this is stupid!” and then those same people later turned around and said it was brilliant.

Ben Aldridge: I think for TV snobs who might not be into superhero stuff, if they watch the first episode, they might find it’s more in line with their tastes than they expected. It caters to both sets of people, DC fans or not.

PENNYWORTH premieres in the UK on October 25th courtesy of StarzPlay, available on Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV. To read our Season 1 review, click HERE.

Finnish composer Petri Alanko was nominated for a BAFTA for his work on the 2010 game Alan Wake, and since then, his music for games such as the sequel, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, as well as Quantum Wake. His latest work is for the supernatural thriller game, Control. We were pleased to speak with him about his career and how music for video games has been receiving more critical appraisal in recent years…

STARBURST: Your website boasts ‘no missed deadlines since 1990’. How’d you come by that work ethic?

Petri Alanko: Well, I’d like to put it this way: I hate slackers myself, and the best way to tell a client you respect their work is to deliver your stuff on time. Back when I was doing daily pop, in the early 1990s, I ran into a bunch of both highly efficient individuals as well as a motley crew of incredible rock star wannabees who were stuck in their teenage years. Early on, I made the decision to join the posse who seemed to deliver time and time again. Also, it helps that my father has a tech/engineering background and my mom’s really good with numbers and had an accounting company. Which means I’m really bad with mechanical stuff and even worse with money – but I try my best to be on time all the time.

Fortunately, my clientele is a set of seasoned pros and they are really sharp at getting everything done at their end well before a project lands into my hands. As soon as I get any information about a project, I start by doing what I call a ‘tool preparation’, be that hardware, sounds or the plugins and algorithms. Also, before putting down anything else, I’ll do a lengthy planning session to hone out the concept and the details, so that when I start actually laying down the tracks/music, I’ll start running through a bucket list. It is a process, to save time, to keep the schedules – and the budgets – and this process has been defined during the past many years. It seems the more years pass, the more effective I am… I hope.

What was the missed deadline that made you change your ways?

I’ll take the project and the client into my grave with me, but it was outside the gaming business, naturally; the gaming companies usually are very, very efficient and seem to reach towards a much further away future than, say, ‘regular tech companies’. I’m much more selective on whom I work with these days. I believe the client benefits much, much more from a longer relationship, as the base work – and the foundation/legacy research – is done after the first gig, and you can start building what will become their future. I sometimes have said ‘no’ to a gig that doesn’t really feel right for me – I mean, I’m not your average My Little Pony composer. Nothing against the brand, but, well, I dress mostly in black and have my NIN/Nitzer Ebb/Front 242 past, so… Heck, if a client hasn’t done their homework and hasn’t found out about Alan Wake, Quantum Break and now Control – not to mention my Lowland tracks and remixes – and asks for ‘cute melodies’, it’d be almost criminal from my side to do something just for the money – and slice off a part of my wellbeing whilst doing so. In short, I have never done, and never will do, anything solely for the money – but I’m not doing any freebies either.

That one’s for the newcomers, too: never do a freebie. Your job will not become a foot in the doorway, you’re just a stepping stone for the next freebie wannabee.

Aside from composing, what’s your involvement with video games – are you a gamer, yourself?

Oh most definitely I am. I’m not exaggerating at all, and I tend to use games as an escape, to clear out the noise and the music in my head. Sometimes, when entering a project, I tend to ‘listen to radio’ in my head while thinking about the new project, the scenery, the environments etc., playing with the ideas inside my brain, and it really feels like listening to some soundtrack radio station, but with music I have never heard before. Sometimes I need to ‘visit’ something else to detach myself from the ideas and to let some fresh air in. I used to watch movies, but it requires a serious piece of entertainment to ‘attach’ to a movie, and it usually works only once or twice per movie, after that it’s ‘worn out’. With games, due to their continuous dynamic state, it’s different.

I tend to enjoy open-world games, and to some extent I’d love to think of myself as an expert: since PlayStation 1, it’s been open-world and open-world only. Okay, some great tube/on rail runs as well – but even those need to have at least a feel of free choice in them. I’ve got quite a few consoles in my stack, more than I actually need or have time to deal with, and I’ve already made some space for the upcoming new consoles.

One thing is sure, though: I’ll never ever use a PS VR visor again, not after I almost had a cardiac arrest during Resident Evil 7. Horribly good, even with mediocre graphics (of the visor that is).

In an interview with Roland, you said, “Sometimes, music leads, and sometimes it’s reacting to your actions.” For Control, which was the more dominant aspect?

Reacting, definitely. The integrators and audio programmers managed to pull together a marvelous AI rule set within WWise [3rd party music software that plays the music in-game], and, after seeing and scratching the surface of it, I’m willing to pray for that to become the present and the future of gameplay music – but with a twist. In my opinion, a full AI requires some human splicing here and there to seriously deliver, as emotions aren’t mathematics. Having said that, the exploration/combat music system is doing a proper job based on the amount of opponents and their nature, as well as how your progress or health is being affected. But the cinematic/thematic music has a few leads here and there, for instance the leitmotif will basically reveal the outcome of the game, if you are aware. I wouldn’t use a major chord unless there was a positive – or suitably positive – conclusion. All the themes I’ve ever composed seem to somehow connect to the protagonist and his/her fate as well as the conclusion of the story in question: Alan Wake’s theme ends up ‘in the air’ – and he gets stuck in the deep. Quantum Break has an ‘outsider with a determination’ feel – and Jack is affected by the time disease, while sort-of-kicking into action just when the game ends… and now Control’s theme leads to a major third interval, with a concentrating, self-confident feel after a very ambivalent descend, just like the six-note leitmotif does. The same applies to, actually, everything I’ve ever done.

So, in short, I’m basically a walking game plot spoiler, if you’re listening carefully enough.

A lot of your work has been for games which are supernatural in nature. Are there any genres you’d like to explore which you haven’t yet?

I’d love to score a psycho thriller, be that a movie or a game. Also, some deep sci-fi, or intelligent sci-fi, would be in my top list, and I’ve always loved to flirt with horror stuff, as, like someone once said, ‘caressing feels better after a slap and vice versa’. One thing is for sure though: it’ll take some time before I’ll ever do another project with modular synth only. There are a few cues for Control that were done on my modular almost solely, as a performance, and although the results were stellar sonically, the planning and the one-off style – and how you can actually never return to where you started from – is frightening due to the nature of gaming development cycles: maybe the cinematic you used the gear on had to be lengthened or shortened? That, too, had to be taken into account.

But yeah, I loved Interstellar, which, thanks to its math side, I’m willing to count as deep sci-fi, and I loved the movie’s long cues. It reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I’m not sure if Alan Wake counts as a psycho thriller, but back in the day I found it really easy to draw something from my personal experiences – nothing supernatural there, not even close, but the environment and the setting was really pleasing for creating that uneasy twist and borderline horror here and there. As a Finn, I’d say “I let the forest speak“, but it would probably sound too new age-ish. I’ve heard people speculating about an Alan Wake sequel pretty much on a yearly basis ever since Alan Wake was released, but… here’s to hoping they one day will return to it. If so, I would love to compose some music for it.

You were nominated for a BAFTA for composing Alan Wake. Do you feel like game music is getting more notice and recognition these days?

Well, international organizations are already recognizing some aspects of gaming music, but it seems the press and the magazine publishers are lacking music specialists or even hobbyists – and that is even more serious here in Finland: I can’t remember when music was mentioned in the local gaming news lately. Even in major gaming news the music is sometimes omitted or bypassed when reviewing the game, despite the quality of in-game music, which has, for years, been in stellar heights.

What surprised me thoroughly was some ‘normal music tech press’ magazines  approaching me for an interview or some comments regarding some aspects not widely known among ‘regular’ musicians, and I found their questions to be rather intriguing, as the philosophical approach is different from gaming press. I wholeheartedly enjoyed an article in Sound On Sound, where Horizon Dawn Zero’s composers were discussing the development of the music and the technical issues. I’d love to see more of that happen, as I enjoy hearing the thoughts of my colleagues.

Luckily, it’s getting much better overall, and the journalists are very knowledgeable and most of the questions can be rather tricky (well, at least these have been). I feel we, as a group of enthusiasts, are approaching an era where game music is no longer game music, and at least I’ve been very careful in trying to achieve a stage where music works by itself, even without the mother product: the game. The same applies to every track I count as classics, such as Final Fantasy soundtrack and so on: it’s a good piece of music, not “a good piece of game music”, and that’s important.

Do you have any upcoming projects you can share?

Yes, there will be stuff coming. Both as a performer and a composer. I guess the performer might strike first. We did have a nice little concert in Helsinki Arena almost a year ago; 9,000 people in the audience, some well over 130+ people on stage, a choir and a whole symphonic orchestra, and something like that would be nice to do again, but elsewhere. I also released a solo album We’ve Been Here Before under my Lowland moniker about a year or so ago, and that, too, will have a sequel one day.

Find out more at https://petrialanko.net/

Featute image: Ville_Juurikkala

In the pantheon of modern horror, few characters have gathered as impressive a following as the famed Firefly family of Rob Zombie’s HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and THE DEVIL’S REJECTS. With those nefarious sorts now returning for a third outing with 3 FROM HELL, we caught up with the writer/director to chew the fat…

STARBURST: It’s been 14 years since we last saw the Firefly family in 2005’s The Devil’s Rejects, so why was now finally the right time to give these characters a third feature outing?

Rob Zombie: I’m not exactly sure. I’ve always thought about the characters. Over the years, they keep getting more popular and they’re always present in my life, but I never thought I would make another movie. Then, about three years ago, I got the idea that I really wanted to do this. I went to Lionsgate, who made the other movies, and said, “I’m thinking about doing this”. I had to get their approval, and they were on board with doing it. From there, I began working on the script and working on ideas – and here we are.

Many hold the Firefly family on the same pedestal as a Michael Myers, a Jason Voorhees, a Freddy Krueger, and the classic Universal monsters. Being such a big horror fan yourself, what’s it like to have created a group of characters who are such big favourites of modern horror?

It’s pretty weird. I’ve always been a fan of these things, I always wanted to make movies, but you never know if you’re going to get to do these things. Once you get to do them, you don’t know if anyone’s going to care. To have these crazy characters that 20 years ago I thought-up and made a movie that people still care about, it’s amazing. It’s the best thing you could hope for. You want to make things that people remember and want to revisit and come back to, that another generation finds. The fact that that’s the way it’s gone, it’s awesome.

One thing that will catch many off-guard in 3 from Hell is that Captain Spaulding is only in the first act. Was that always the plan, or did you ever have Spaulding having a larger role in the film?

No. All that was just due to real-life situations, unfortunately. The original version of the script that I was getting ready to shoot, it had Captain Spaulding in the movie all the way through, right to the last scene. There was no other character – the character that Richard Brake plays, Foxy, he wasn’t in there – it was just the original three. Then, three weeks before we were beginning to shoot the movie, I got a call from Sid [Haig] and he told me that he had been in the hospital, that he was out of the hospital now but he was still recovering from what put him in the hospital. That’s all he said. So I went to visit him, and he had changed a lot. I mean, he’s 80 years old, but he had lost a lot of weight and now was super skinny, he was really frail, he was still ill. That’s when I started rewriting the movie because I was like, “He can’t do the whole movie. It’s too much. It’s way too much.” It’s hard enough making movies when you’re young and healthy, but to expect him to do it at that age was ridiculous. I kept changing it, little by little, changing it for him as time went on. Then another week would go by and he didn’t seem like he was getting any better at the time, so I was getting more nervous and I kept changing the part. Eventually, right before shooting, the studio demands that, because he’s 80 years old and he’s just got out of the hospital, we have to get him cleared to work by the insurance company and go through all this red tape. Once that happened, they wouldn’t clear him to work. At that point, they wouldn’t even let him be in the movie. They were just, “He can’t work.” So I begin to freak out, I start rewriting the script, I come up with the idea for this other character to fill in the blank where Spaulding is now missing, and then I get Lionsgate to finally agree to let me bring Sid in for one morning to film as much with as I could so that I could at least get him in the movie. All those creative choices were based on real life problems.

You’d previously worked with Richard Brake on 31 – in which he was phenomenal – so was Richard instantly the first person who came to mind once Sid’s role was reduced?

He was my first thought once I knew I was going to create a new character. There was a short time where I thought, “Well, maybe I’ll just have the two characters – Baby and Otis – and we’ll just carry on with the two of them.” But I pretty much structured the whole script with three people, and by that point it was so close to the beginning of shooting and I couldn’t move any of the dates because we were locked in. Once I decided to make a new character, I wanted Richard but I didn’t know if Richard was available either. I called Richard and he was, “Oh, I’m in Spain shooting a movie,” so I was just, “Oh fuck.” Luckily, he was getting ready to wrap that movie, so he flew from Spain and jumped right in instantly. The three of them [Richard Brake, Sheri Moon Zombie, Bill Moseley] have great chemistry, he fit right in, and we just kept working.

What’s in the pipeline at the moment, and are you still touring?

There’s a couple of movies that are in the early stages, trying to figure out what’s next. I still have more tour dates until December, and then early next year I’ll put out a new record and start shooting the music videos. Hopefully by then I’ll know what the next movie is.

3 from Hell is out now on Digital Download, Blu-ray and DVD, and you can find our review of the movie here.