Jeremy Irons Night Train to Lisbon Interview

Jeremy Irons Night Train to Lisbon Interview

Cast: Jeremy Irons, Mélanie Laurent, Jack Huston, Martina Gedeck, Tom Courtenay, August Diehl, Bruno Ganz, Lena Olin and starring Christopher Lee, Charlotte Rampling
Director: Bille August
Running Time: 111 minutes

Synopsis: Bern, Switzerland. Once again Raimund Gregorius (Jeremy Irons) cannot sleep. He starts playing chess against himself until dawn. For years now, ever since his marriage collapsed, the high-school Latin teacher has been leading a quiet, uninspiring life. Just like every other morning over the past 30 years, he makes his way to school, which as always takes him past the Kirchenfeld Bridge. But this rainy day turns out to be unlike any other.

Raimund sees a young woman wearing a red coat (Sarah Spale-Bühlmann) standing on the railing, just about to jump to her death. He runs up to her and is able to save her in the very last moment. He decides to take her along to school, but the mysterious stranger disappears again just as fast as she appeared, leaving only her coat behind. In one of the pockets Raimund finds a book called -A Goldsmith of Words' by Amadeu Inàcio de Almeida Prado.

Raimund abandons his students to look for the woman. His first stop is the second-hand bookshop where she bought the novel. This is where he finds a train ticket to Lisbon hidden between the pages. The train is scheduled to leave in 15 minutes.

The professor hurries to the train station, hoping to catch the young Portuguese woman on the platform, but she isn't there. Impulsively, he boards the train and starts reading the book. He is fascinated by the author (Jack Huston) whose picture in the book portrays a young man with an intelligent and melancholy gaze. The passionate writing profoundly affects Raimund.

He is particularly enthralled by the book's depiction of a life filled with drama and longing far beyond his own usual routine. He desperately wants to find out more about the author and decides to track him down when the train arrives in Lisbon.

On arrival in the Portuguese city, Raimund enquires after Amadeu's address and finds the house in a noble neighborhood. Amadeu's sister, Adriana (Charlotte Rampling) receives him, but sends him away explaining the writer is not at home. As he is about to leave the house, the housekeeper sends him to the cemetery, where he is surprised to discover Amadeu's name on the family tomb. He had died over 30 years ago – on the day of the Cloves Revolution, which had ended the 40-year dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar.

Adriana, however, has adored and idolised her brother ever since as a medical student he had saved her life. As a young woman (Beatriz Batarda), Adriana would assist her brother in his office. To this day she speaks of him as if he were alive. Raimund decides to track down Amadeu's friends and acquaintances, in order to glean whatever information he can on the doctor who so clearly would have preferred to have been a writer and philosopher. This is when coincidence comes to his aid: Mariana de Eca (Martina Gedeck) is an affectionate and interesting woman who he trusts immediately. She puts Raimund in touch with a close friend of Amadeu's, her uncle Joao de Eca (Tom Courtenay). The two men were both members of Portugal's Resistance movement when the country suffered beneath the heavy hand of Europe's longest-running dictatorship.

Now an old man living in a nursing home, Joao revisits his memories of the young Amadeu (Jack Huston) with Raimund and Mariana. His story begins with Mendez (Adriano Luz), also known as the Butcher of Lisbon, who had been the head of Portugal's hated secret police in the early 1970s. Mendez had once broken every bone in both hands of the young Joao (Marco D'Almeida) in an attempt to force him to reveal the name of a female comrade in the Resistance movement. Joao had remained silent and been sent to prison.

The older Joao reveals it is because of Mendez the people in Lisbon believed Amadeu to have been a traitor. The Butcher of Lisbon had been beaten up and left in front of Amadeu's front door night. The young doctor had seen no choice but to treat him and subsequently save his life.

Enthralled by what he is discovering about Amadeu, Raimund's further investigations take him to a derelict school where Father Bartolomeu (Christopher Lee) had been Amadeu's teacher over 40 years ago.

Raimund learns that as a student Amadeu had already been a brilliant free spirit. Bartolomeu remembers a sharp-witted and passionate final speech of Amadeu's in a church, where he had snubbed the establishment and had placed freedom and beauty above everything else. Several of those listening had left the church in outrage, among them Amadeu's father (Burghart Klaußner), a judge, with whom Amadeu had never got along.

Slowly Raimund is able to imagine what kind of a person Amadeu had been. He visits Joao once more, and this time he tells him a story about Estefania. Being denounced as a traitor had lead Amadeu to join the Resistance movement once and for all, where Jorge (August Diehl), Amadeu's closest childhood friend, had taken on an active role. At one of the meetings, he met Estefania (Mélanie Laurent) and it had been love at first sight, the two of them were meant for each other. Everyone in the room had sensed it at once, even Jorge, who was her lover at the time.

Estefania and Amadeu were torn between their feelings for each other and their sense of loyalty towards Jorge. But they drew closer, and Jorge's jealously increased. He asked Joao to give him a weapon, planning to kill Estefania for the good of the Resistance movement. If she were to be caught by the secret police, none of them would be safe anymore, for it was Estafania who knew everyone's names. Joao reluctantly gave Jorge his gun, an act as he now confides to Raimund, he goes on to regret for his entire life. To this day he does not know what happened to Estafania.

Inspired by the heady mix of romance, adventure and intrigue, Raimund is determined to find out Amadeu's entire life story. He feels his energy being restored. Finally his life has a purpose again, finally he is motivated again. He invites Mariana to dinner and feels more happy and relaxed than he has in years. He can feel there is more to this relationship than just friendship.

In order to solvE the mystery, Raimund decides he must speak with Jorge (Bruno Ganz), who still runs a small pharmacy in Lisbon. Jorge may be the only person who will be able to tell him the entire story. Will Raimund succeed in putting together the pieces of the past and the tragic story of Amadeu's, Estefania's and Jorge's lives? And what about his own life? Will Raimund dare to start over again and confess his feelings for Mariana?

Night Train to Lisbon
Release Date: December 5th, 2013

Interview with Jeremy Irons

What does a role have to have in order to convince you?

Jeremy Irons: It has to be an interesting character and the director should be someone with whom one wants to work.


Question: So you said agreed to star in NIGHT TRAIN TO LISBON immediately?

Jeremy Irons: Yes, even before I had read the original novel. I liked the script and knew we would be shooting in Lisbon. I had been there 20 years before during the filming for -The House Of The Spirits' and had thought it was wonderful. I just could not resist. And on top of that, NIGHT TRAIN TO LISBON is a very unusual film, without explosions, one of those kinds of films not much money is spent on nowadays.


Question: What was the most challenging part about the role?

Jeremy Irons: I play a man, whose activity mainly takes place in his head, meaning I am forced to do little to nothing. And actors always like to do a lot. Restraining yourself takes a lot of discipline. And that is a good thing for me since I am not really very disciplined. I am very happy with my profession. To me it is a privilege to work with people, whom I admire and I hope as an actor I will continuously be faced with new challenges.

Question: How important is the chemistry between you and the director?

Jeremy Irons: It is great if the chemistry is good. But it is more important the actor and director want to make the same movie and are on the same page. Making a movie based on a book, which has philosophical ideas and conveys a different attitude towards life, is a difficult task. It requires a director with great empathy, who manages to create an atmosphere in which the story can be told. I am only doing what he tells me to do.


Question: The main character, Raimund Gregorius, is at a turning point in his life. Have you ever experienced anything similar?

Jeremy Irons: I can understand his experiences, the feelings my character has, but they are not closer to me than any of the other characters I have played. When I act I learn much more about other people than about myself. I learn about different behavioural patterns, which I personally do not necessarily agree with, but I also do not condemn them. I do not judge people. However, while I was in my thirties there was an experience that led to a turning point in my career. I left one movie in order to make another one because I felt more committed to it. That decision could have ended my career. It didn't, but back then I thought about what I should do for 24 hours. If you have done something like that, you have the feeling you are the master of your own fate.


Question: So as an actor you are not allowed to be scared of failure?

Jeremy Irons: That's right. To be unafraid is something that I try to teach young actors. With their performance they should give everything they have. In this context I would like to quote a poem by Christopher Logue. -Come to the edge. We might fall. Come to the edge. It's too high! Come to the edge! And they came, and we pushed. And they flew.' Even my character Raimund Gregorius, who believes life is predestined, has to have the courage to change his life. And he dares to turn his back on his hometown and travel to Lisbon.


Night Train to Lisbon
Release Date: December 5th, 2013