Ridley Scott Casts His Crews as Carefully as His Movies So That He ‘Can Just Play Tennis’

When Ridley Scott signed on to direct “The Dog Stars,” a movie that’s romantic but not sentimental, dark but hopeful, and frightening but funny, he knew that calibrating the film‘s varied tones would be key to its success. Luckily, he has a team he’s carefully assembled over several decades and dozens of films that he can rely on to execute his intentions, no matter how ambitious or audacious.

“The more we work together, the simpler it becomes,” Scott told IndieWire on a recent episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. Some of his department heads on “The Dog Stars” — like editor Claire Simpson, who co-edits the film with another Scott veteran, Sam Restivo — have known him for 40 years. “[‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ was the first time I ever worked with her,” Scott said, noting that he hired Simpson after admiring her work on Oliver Stone movies like “Salvador” and “Platoon.”

Simpson and Scott went their separate ways after “Someone to Watch Over Me,” but Simpson came back to Scott’s team in 2017 for “All the Money in the World” and has worked on all of the director’s films since. With only three Scott collaborations on his resume (“Napoleon,” “Gladiator II,” and “The Dog Stars”), Restivo is a relative newcomer, but he has quickly adapted to Scott’s multi-camera approach and swift production schedule, which mean the editors are given a massive amount of footage that they have to assemble and refine in record time to keep up with their boss.

“During production we’re working at a breakneck pace to keep up with camera, because they’re moving so quickly,” Restivo told IndieWire. In the case of “The Dog Stars,” Restivo says the trickiest part was the opening, which silently and carefully introduces the audience to Hig, a pandemic survivor looking for others with whom he can connect. “It’s one thing for Claire and I to do a dialogue scene or an action scene, but tonally, the opening of the film was a challenge because that gave us more of an opportunity to do something artful and elegant. Something that was going to introduce the audience to the movie, to Hig, to the tone, to the pacing.”

Restivo and Simpson struggled with the opening until they were given some needle drops to try out, one of which — “Like Real People Do,” by the Irish musician Hozier — made the scene fall into place. “The moment that we cut in the Hozier song, that really nailed it for us,” Restivo said. “It’s haunting, it’s kind of soulful, it’s a bit melancholy, but it’s wonderful, and it really allows the audience to get into the kind of film that we’re going to make.”

“It’s all about trial and error, really,” Simpson said. “First of all, I’m guided by the performances, so that’s what I key into. And Ridley is the master of communication, so we know exactly what he’s trying to get. That makes it an awful lot easier. It’s a very kind of collegiate group; we share information, and we’re constantly feeding off each other.”

Production designer Chris Seagers concurs, noting that everyone takes their cues from Scott’s storyboards and sketches. “It all stems from Ridley’s quite detailed drawings,” Seagers said, adding that once he starts working off of Scott’s artwork he has extensive conversations with special effects supervisor Neil Corbould and visual effects supervisor Charley Henley about what can be built, what needs to be done with practical effects, and what has to be augmented digitally.

“Generally, we try and see if Neil can do as much as he possible can, get everything practical,” Henley said. “Ridley’s always keen to get everything on set so that everyone’s experiencing as much real as possible. Then when we hit the practical limits of that, it’s about what can I do to augment that and support everybody else.”

‘The Dog Stars’©20th Century Studios/Courtesy Everett Collection

According to Corbould, one of the best examples of the entire team working together to create an illusion was Hig’s plane, which Scott wanted to treat almost like a character. “We started off with practical planes,” Corbould said. “We had an electric one, we had a gimbal one, and we had the real one, and we figured out what we could do with that.” Henley was responsible for painting rigs controlling the planes out, as well as with putting scenery in outside the windows.

“You’re moving the plane, and several components of visual effects are going in there, and the dog is panting,” Scott said. While Hig’s relationship with that panting dog, Jasper, is a key one in the film’s early scenes, as “The Dog Stars” progresses the cast expands. Finding actors who could hit the specific and unusual emotional notes the script required fell on casting director Kate Rhodes James, another Scott stalwart who has worked with the director on several films as well as television series like “Raised by Wolves.”

“The emotional intimacy of the film was a sort of guide,” James said. “Ridley loves strong faces, he loves the unusual — he wants me to produce somebody that’s going to be visually arresting.” With that in mind, James cast Ewan Bremner, an actor who had worked with Ridley before, as one of the threatening “roaches” who Hig comes across early in the film. “He understood tonally what he needed to do. He absolutely went for it and I was thrilled.”

Scott was thrilled too, and cast Bremner in his upcoming production of “Treasure Island.” “When actors think a role is a bit too small, I always say to them, ‘Look, this could be a job for a lifetime,'” James said. “Because here we all are working together, and when you meet people that you like and trust then you continue that journey.”

For Scott, collecting those trusted collaborators and taking them along on that journey is the key to making good movies without breaking the schedule or the budget. “It makes life much easier for me,” Scott said. “I can go play tennis.”

“The Dog Stars” is now playing in theaters. To hear the entire conversation with Ridley Scott and make sure you don’t miss a single episode of Filmmaker Toolkit, subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.