How FHM became a Hollywood star (kind of)
An interview with Reg Traviss, the director
Hello Reg. Great to talk again. It's been too long. Didn't you see our calls? Receive our texts? What happened to our scene, man? The shot in the shoulder? We thought that was classic stuff?
[At this point the line went dead. Then the PR called and said perhaps we should just stick to the business of interviewing Reg about the film.]
Come on then, Reg. What's Screwed all about?
It’s about this fella who’s spent most of his twenties in the army, his girlfriend’s pregnant so he’s about to leave the army and come home. Then, on the last hour of his tour, everything goes wrong and he ends up blaming himself for the death of his best mate.
When he’s home he experiences a sense of detachment from his service mates and that kind of thing. He needs to get a job and his missus suggests prison service because it’s suitable for ex-soldiers and service people. He goes in hoping to find a sense of brotherhood like he had in the army and he finds it. But then it turns out that the screws that he’s involved with are all corrupt; he’s not, but he ends up getting pulled into that.
What's your favourite scene? That one where we get shot? Oh, no, 'spose not...
Ah see now you’ve got me, that’s really difficult. See I have a real soft spot for war, I kind of want to say Iraq. But the prison riot was great as well, that was really intense. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't cowboys and indians. But yeah, prison riot, Iraq. Yeah, I’d say those two.
Was the riot hard to film? We heard you had over 100 extras involved...
The riot was the thing I was most scared about, but in the end it was the easiest to shoot, it literally just flowed. In the script it just says "a riot kicks off". When it came to doing the riot scene they were all really looking forward to it and I think that sort of atmosphere and that energy probably helped, because everyone was bang up for it.
What do you want people to think when they watch Screwed?
Firstly I want them to think "wow, I never thought about that regarding a prison officer". Some of the stuff is quite eye-opening. It’s not an exposé or critique of the prison service at all, but I would like people to think, "I never even gave prison officers a second thought, I just saw them as cardboard cut-outs in uniforms, but that’s really made me think about screws". That’s really what I want them to think when they watch it. You know, about that way of life, about that job and about who they are.
Cool. Cheers Reg. Give us a shout for your next film, yeah?
[The line went dead again.]
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