We were lucky enough to prise director Corin Hardy away from a sweltering 30-degree editing suite to talk about his work on the SKY Atlantic series Gangs of London.
STARBURST: You’re known more for horror, your directional debut was The Hollow in 2015 and you made The Nun in 2018, so what attracted you to Gangs of London? Does it have horror elements, would you say?
Corin Hardy: Well, first of all, what attracted me to Gangs of London own was my friend Gareth Evans. I had been an admirer of his for some time, and the stars aligned, as they sometimes do, they bring together people with mutual love, in this case, genre movies, horror and action movies. When I was making The Crow, I contacted him about making an action film. Gareth asked if I would do an episode. I always wondered what my TV show would be. Something with a certain ambition and visual aesthetic, I was wasn’t planning on it being a grounded crime show like this. So I thought I would dive in, ended up doing three episodes, then four and the final one, and now doing Season 2. I actually got a lot out of it, it was an enlightening experience. A challenge, you know, to be out of my comfort zone, but I think that’s a good thing to be out of our confront zone.
Episode 3 has got the amazing ‘Traveller Sequence’ [an extended shoot out in a traveller encampment]. Is it just budget that makes that possible for a TV show, what once would only be possible in a feature film?
It’s a good question, it’s not just budget, even though Gangs does have a decent budget. When you hire Gareth you need to be able to show the kind of action sequences he demands, honed while doing The Raid in Indonesia. Luckily, we were able to run riot and bring these extraordinary setpieces into the show, it wasn’t everything but a key factor. You have a mix of emotional crime drama and heavy genre elements of horror, western and war, taking you on a visceral ride that is cinematic. The challenge was: can we bring cinema to TV, where every episode is like a feature film. The ‘Traveller site Massacre’, as it has become known, was one of those prolonged intense sequences. You can’t stumble across pulling that off, it takes months of planning, choreographing, pre-vis, shoot, cut, edit, and change before you even film it. Yes, you need a budget but you need the love and commitment that I, Xavier, and Gareth have to pull it off. None of us wanted to do a regular British crime show.
Was it the most challenging scene to shoot then?
I think for me there was a lot of challenges. Some of the arts of filmmaking that people don’t talk about are the more mundane ones, to do with scheduling, locations, it’s all prep. I do a lot of storyboards and floorplans. You have to nail everything. That was certainly one of the most epic sequences. The alleyway sequence in Episode 4, is a moment where you think Sean [played by Joe Cole] is going to take control and is almost a compliment to the Traveller Sequence. We decided to do a one-shot, so we a very on the ground with him, to feel the emotions. We just went absolutely crazy, you go into a different zone when you are so focused and striving for something new and bold.
Can you tell us anything about Season 2?
Corin: I can’t tell you anything about the story, but I have just finished shooting the first two episodes and I can tell you it was exciting and exhausting in equal measures. We want to continue the same excitement as Season 1, but up it. We didn’t want to repeat ourselves but also wanted to make sure it has the same DNA, the story continues straight from the first one. People need to be prepared.
Gangs of London is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.
