Sequences filmed in one go in the middle of the night on the highway, lines not learned by Tom Hardy, a desire not to record anything beforehand… Back on the set of “Locke”, a feature film by director Steven Knight.
Locke: a major challenge for filming
Presented at the Venice Film Festival in 2013, then released in France on July 23, 2014, Locke takes us on the highway in a BMW driven by Tom Hardy. In the dark night lit only by car lights and road lighting, Ivan Locke faces the consequences of his actions. For 1h30, watch in hand, the man multiplies the phone calls at the wheel of his German racing car. His family, his job, and his whole life depend on this evening.
A feature film entirely filmed inside a vehicle, if we forget the few seconds of the beginning of the film. Steven Knight, the director, and screenwriter places the cameras at all possible angles to film his actor. And carries out a complicated task: to keep the rhythm of Locke with as only plans the crestfallen faces of Tom Hardy, the road, as well as the car itself. The film unfolds in real-time.
Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) – Locke © Metropolitan Filmexport
To loop Locke, Steven Knight only needed a week. Only downside: changing the memory card of the cameras, the lens, and the angle of the shots every 27 minutes. The director reveals behind the scenes of his work during a discussion with Tom Hardy for IndieWire :
With this movie, the idea was to be almost naive and take all the cameras in the car and shoot the whole movie from start to finish, every time. So I would say once “action” and that’s it.
And to turn on the highway, nothing could be simpler. The film crew places the BMW without the wheels on a trailer. This ensures that the vehicle is the same size as the others in the lane.
A beautiful deception
During the Venice festival in 2013, Tom Hardy reveals one of the deceptions of the feature film. Three days before the start of filming, the 30-page synopsis written by Steven Knight triples in volume and rises to 90 pages. For his role, the actor of Mad Max: Fury Road prepares in panic. He himself admits not knowing his text at the time of filming:
I read it all on a teleprompter, I didn’t know my lines. I read all the way. And I found that exciting because I had never acted in a film where I had no idea what I was doing.
Two scripts are in front of him, as well as a third in the rearview mirror. A clever idea that takes nothing away from Tom Hardy’s fine performance. Isolated in his car, he is however not the only actor credited to the film. Among them are the names of Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott, Ben Daniels, and even the future Spiderman Tom Holland appears in the credits. These are the original voices of calls made on the road.
Giving the reply to Tom Hardy, these actors work every night of filming inside a conference room. Steven Knight does not want recordings, wanting a film as close to reality as possible. In precise order, they converse one by one with the main character. The director is amazed by their work, as he explains to IndieWire :
I can’t believe they did, although it’s just voice. They worked from nine in the evening to four in the morning.
Like what, each film has secrets. And the spectator sees nothing but fire!
