Nick Love

'See that door? Use it'

We've interviewed Nick Love before, both for The Football Factory and for The Business. Headstrong and fiercely opinionated, he's always good value. This time we want to grill him about The Firm (on Blu-Ray and DVD from 1st Feb), why he decided to reimagine it on the big screen and why he went about it in the manner which he did. We have not edited the transcript.

How’s things, Mr Love?
Things are good. Fucking busy, but good.

Did the message get through to you that I was hoping you’d do a World Cup XI for us?
No, not at all.

Haha, no sweat, we’ll just talk about The Firm then shall we?
Yeah, I’m so uninterested in football now, mate. I’m all about the darts.

BDO or PDC?
Fuck the BDO! Fucking hell. I tell you who I’d put in my World Cup XI – I’d have James Wade as captain, The Power up front and Barneveld in goal. Legends.

Indeed indeed. Much as I'd like to talk about arrows though, I've got a time limit here, so I'd best crack on with The Firm
Sure thing.

You said in the making-of that “the original The Firm [1988’s one with Gary Oldman] was what got me into films to start with”. Did that add extra pressure when making your version?
Not so much, no. Listen, when it comes to adaptations and remakes, everyone these days is a bit sniffy about it. The fact that I was passionate about it is probably what helped me make it. I certainly wouldn’t have done it unless I really cared about it. I did it because I thought I had a new angle and could put a new spin on it, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, a straight remake would have been a little futile. Does this mean The Firm is a bit closer to your heart than your previous stuff [The Football Factory, The Business]?
Definitely, yeah. There’s a lot of the Dom character in me, for sure. Not neccesarily specific scenes, just the feeling of being a teenager and trying to run around with the older boys and be recognised by them, and idolising some of them. And the other thing is not really liking violence – wanting to be with people, and to be able to say you were there, but not really wanting to have a punch-up. I’ve never liked fighting, whereas I’ve got mates that do – they love it. Any opportunity they’ll have a little fight with someone, but I’ve never liked the actual physical violence, so there was a lot of Dom in me, yeah.

And that's what marks this film out, for me at least, as so much more than just "another film about football violence". What do you say to people who level that accusation at you?
You know what happens Stu, whenever I make a film people just presume it’s gonna be ultra-violent and then they discover it on DVD and realise it’s not a film about football violence but about friendship and growing up in the 80s. And so there’s no point in defending it anymore, I just let people go look for themselves.

Clothes. I know you’ve probably talked a lot about the clobber in the film, but it’s something you’re massively into, so I’m going to ask you to touch on it again.
Okay.

How much fun did you have prepping the sports shop in the movie, and making sure each character wore the correct attire to suit the era and their position in the firm?
Well, I mean it was obviously a big thing for me, the whole thing about detail. If you lived the era then you'd have a clear idea of what you want. That sports shop was absolutely based on sports shops I used to go into. So you’ve not only got a very clear idea about it, you can make it. Whereas, if you haven’t actually seen something with your own eyes, you don’t really understand the level of details that you need.
To me, if you're looking at that sports shop in the film and you freeze-frame it, not only are all the trainers and tracksuits right, all the stickers on the counters are right too. It’s fucking obsessive, that level of detail. But you can only really do it if you’ve seen it. You can’t look at a magzine and do it, that’s when you go half-cocked.
Also, you have to know what it was like as a young man to go into a sports shop. You were like a kid in a sweet shop.

I remeber it very well. There was nothing quite like it, being able to wander into a sports or a clothes shop and buy a particularly sought-after item.
To me, those parts in the film are as memorable and in some ways should be more memorable than the football violence. They’re the experiences that everyone can identify with. Everyone can remember begging their mum to get them a tracksuit or going to a nightclub or sitting around someone’s house skinning up. Everyone can.

Bex’s tennis shorts in the nightclub are particularly naughty specimens.
Haha, yeah. The idea, of course, is that they not only make you laugh, but they initially endear you to his character. Also, subtextually, they also show you that he’s man who’s very comfortable with himself, and that’s what he should be, should Bex.

Did you have a lot of this type of gear left over from The Business?
No, no, no. It was a big number getting it all together. Fortunately, because of The Business, when we went to Fila and to Sergio [Tacchini] and Ellesse, they all said they’d make us whatever we wanted this time.

Happy days.
So yeah, it was actually a lot easier. The other thing is, you’ve got to remember, when you’re a kid you wanna stand out. If you think about those scenes when there’s three- or four-hundred boys scrapping, in there you’ve got to have them all wearing stuff that looks brand-new. When you’re a kid you don’t wear anything that’s old, every week you go out and nick something new or whatever.
This time it wasn’t that difficult, bizarrely, as we had a lot of help. Before The Business no-one knew who we were, so it was dfifficult getting your hands on anything. I mean, for The Business we were getting Fila tops from fucking Paraguay on eBay, and other really mad places. But with The Firm we could just go straight to the source.

What’s your favourite piece from the film?
The tracksuit I loved the most from the 80s was the light blue Fila one. You know the postbox red one that Bex and Dom wear in the film, the Terrinda, there’s a light blue version. Bex wears it when he’s getting beaten up by the Yeti. That was the bollocks when we were kids. If you saw someone wearing it on the bus you'd literally try and rob it off their backs.

How important was the casting? Getting the relationship between Dom and Bex right.
What I did before I offered either of them the part was hold a workshop. I did two days with Paul Andersen [Bex] Calum [Coduri, Dom] and Eddie Webber, who plays Dom’s dad, Bob. For me it was important to get that triangle right. If you got that triangle right, then the rest of the film would fall into place, I felt. I did a bit with each of them on their own, and they were all good. But when they were together, that’s when they really started to perform well. I looked at Bex and Dom and thought “yeah, these two are fucking mustard when they’re together”.
I think for me though Stuart, it was about making something that felt a bit fresh. And so when you looked at them you thought, “I’ve never seen these two before”. Even though you’re watching another film about football violence, you’ve got something fresh to look at.

Bex has an incredibly intimidating way about him. He’s not a overbearing physical presence though, is he?
That’s the truth of people. You don’t have to be a six-and-a-half foot skinhead to be intimidating, do you? Most mental people ain’t. Look at Begbie in Trainspotting and look at Paul [Andersen] – he’s built like a fucking Rizla, but he’s got a way about him that just freaks people out.

How difficult was it choreographing – if that’s the right word – the big fight scenes?
It is tricky, yeah. But the best training I had was doing it wrong in The Football Factory really. In the sense that, they’re fine, The Football Factory fight scenes, but the reality is that people don’t really stand around in lines and then steam into each other; football violence is very sporadic and messy normally, and sparks out of nowhere.
My technical man, Lee Jackson, was with me this time, and he’s been there and done it a million times.
What was more difficult was actually co-ordinating the stunt co-ordinators. You’ve got to have them by law. And the problem with them is that they always want to do fucking fancy kickboxing and stuff, so I’d have to say to them “Look, no-one fights clean in situations like this, they don’t run up and headbutt each other, you don’t even know you’ve been hit most of the time”. It was about getting them to understand what we were trying to achieve, then we were away.

The dialogue adds to the authenticity too, obviously. What’s your favourite line?
“I should put a Tampax up you” “Why?” “Because you’re a c*nt!”

That is the one which stands out. Infact, I think Dom’s mate at the beginning, the little ginger kid, is one of my favourite characters. He’s great.
He’s so likeable. Listen though, it’s always about the part. He came in initially and read for Dom, and he wasn't a Dom, he didn’t have the Dom charisma – but he was just so right for the part of Terry. If I was ever doing another film and I needed a Terry, of course I’d get him.

Yeah. I really liked the geezer.
The reason you like him is because of his relationship with Dom. If he was the only thing you were watching in the film you’d probably get bored. It’s all about the fact that Dom has to fuck him off because he’s a bit of a melt and a doughnut and always says the wrong thing. Really, their realtionship to me is what glues the film together. They’re like an old married couple who start the film together and end up at the end back as mates.

Last question: Did you ever think you’d get the Warner Brothers logo done up in disco lighting with Tainted Love playing over the top? How does it rank among your achievements?
That's an achievement, yeah. Getting with Warner Brothers was a fucking achievement in itself, let alone getting them to build neon signs for me. I think, you know, listen, the bottom line is: they liked the film a lot and they got the spirit of it.
The whole thing for me about having the logo going neon at the beginning and the song playing was slightly wrongfooting people because they think it’s another heavy film about football violence. To do soemthing a bit camp like that in the first twenty seconds is exactly what you need to put people in a bit of a playful mood really.

Thanks for your time, Nick.
My pleasure. All the best.