While we wait for the next big job, here have some Rob:
‘Netflix breathes new life into Mortal Engines.’ Here’s an interview with Rob from Collider (X)
Collider: What’s it like to spend so much time giving life to a character like this and work on it for months, and now have it be so close to officially going out in the world?
ROBERT SHEEHAN: It’s interesting how, no matter how big or small the project is, everybody who’s involved in the making of it are bonded by the blood, sweat, tears, bruises and cuts that they got in the making of it. When it starts to come out, it’s interesting because it starts to become more the world’s than ours, or at least we start to share it and it takes on a different reality. It takes on its own story. Having spent so much time working on this thing, and for it to be now coming out and now everyone knows about it, it’s strange because it’s in the minds of millions of people. What else can I say, other than it’s incredibly exciting, for that reason.
There were a lot of actual sets on this production, but there’s still a huge element of it that you don’t get to see until the film is finished. What was it like to actually get to see what this world would fully look like?
SHEEHAN: I think it’s the scope that you don’t fully understand when you’re there, on the day, which is a good thing because it’s not your business to understand it. You’re a human being, and human beings deal with what’s going on, right in front of them. But once the camera pulls back, you’re looking at the world in its vastness, and it swirls up the length and breadth of London, as it’s at full power, across a vast landscape. It’s truly astounding on a big IMAX screen. As an actor, you have no way of knowing how big the thing is gonna look. It just looks unimaginably large on the big screen. With Mortal Engines, there’s just so much to take in. Cinema is always trying to stay one step ahead.
Hester Shaw and Tom Natsworthy have such an interesting dynamic because they are very different people, who initially just seem really confused by the other.
SHEEHAN: Yeah, they don’t know what they are and what they mean together. It’s nice because everybody has mentioned how that’s a very strong part of the film. Even though they don’t know what they are, they’re not friends or enemies. They’re just stuck with each other for a bit. And then, as soon as they end up each other from some baddies, you feel the bond deepen in them and they become partners in crime. They become bonded together. I love that. That’s one of my favorite things about the film, that lovely central relationship. You don’t want them to be too adversarial, and you can’t have them be too affectionate either. It’s very subtly done, and that’s huge kudos to the editor, as well.
Was it fun to play a character who is always moving and evolving, throughout the entire film?
SHEEHAN: Yeah. I think Tom changes as much as Hester changes, just maybe in a subtler way. He grows up a lot. The conversations about his journey were like, “Where do we show the specific points of him going from a child to a man?” When Tom finds himself in the big, bad world off of London, for the first time, he has to contend with the fear that he’s feeling, but we didn’t wanna make him overly fearful because we didn’t want him cowering. We wanted him to have enough self-respect, self-awareness and metal, that he could deal with it. It was all about striking the balance. One of the big points where we show him growing is in taking charge of the Jenny Haniver. That’s a really beautiful point.
