Stardust

Blockbuster.co.uk’s Marshall Julius ventures behind the scenes of lively British fantasy Stardust.

From the unbound imaginations of best-selling author Neil Gaiman and Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughn comes Stardust, the enchanting tale of a fallen star who crashes into a magical kingdom. Only it’s no ordinary meteor, but a beautiful, imperilled woman pursued by an incredible, eccentric array of characters who either want or need her secret powers. From wicked witches and power-mad princes to flying pirates and duelling goblins, each person who encounters the star has his or her own agenda, yet they all desire the same thing: her heart. The result is a rip-roaring tale of true love and high adventure that mixes and matches all the grand themes and imagination-sparking elements that have ever caused anyone of any age to fall in love with fairy tales.

Unfolding on both sides of a parallel universe separated by a thin barrier of stone, Stardust reveals how incredibly close the familiar and the totally fantastic can be to one another. Starring an extraordinary cast of exciting newcomers, rising stars and Hollywood legends – including Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Sienna Miller, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jason Flemyng, Ian McKellen, Rupert Everett, Peter O’Toole and Ricky Gervais, Stardust is an exciting, amusing, enchanting family adventure.

Going back to where it all began, Gaiman originally published Stardust in 1997 as a fireside-style fairy story that unfolded in a four-book DC Comics miniseries, featuring breathtaking illustrations from Charles Vess. When it was released a year later in book form, Stardust hit the bestseller lists and was named as one of the best novels of the year.

“I set out in the beginning to tell a story about a young man who goes after his heart’s desire only to discover it isn’t his heart’s desire,” says Gaiman of the novel. “I started with that one idea in my head and followed that all the way to the end - and was very proud when I got there that the story did exactly what I had set out for it to do.”

“I thought it was one of the most wonderful, original stories I’d ever read,” recalls Matthew Vaughan. “As a director, I’m mainly interested in telling stories, which seems like a forgotten art in modern movies. This was clearly a story that was meant to be made as a film.”

Following Gaiman’s advice, Vaughan enlisted the services of British novelist and screenwriter Jane Goldman, aka Mrs Jonathan Ross. “Our goal in the adaptation was to keep the story as faithful to the book as possible, while, at the same time, making it more cinematic and using a bit of our own poetic license to ensure that audiences will have a fantastic ride,” explains Vaughn.

“The script was an extraordinary piece of material that successfully intermeshed many different tones,” adds producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. “There was romance, there was drama and there was laugh-out-loud humour. Most of all, there was the story of a boy becoming a man and falling in love even as he also overcomes pirates, witches, megalomaniac princes and all kinds of wonders.”

Di Bonaventura notes that, although the film became to a star-studded, globe-trotting production, it was always driven at its core by a more independent spirit. “Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman both come from an indie background so the film became a very distinctive combination of big filmmaking techniques and independent filmmaking spirit,” he says. “With this film, Matthew had a chance to bring his vibrant, indie aesthetic to a much larger canvas.”

Summing up, di Bonaventura adds: “A lot of alchemy went into creating this magical movie, starting with Neil’s book to Matthew and Jane’s script and then on to the wonderful performances.”

On the subject of those wonderful performances, Vaughan enthuses, “To have a film in which you have Robert De Niro showing a side of himself that’s never been seen before, Michelle Pfeiffer delivering a wonderful star turn, Claire Danes delivering another of her phenomenal performances, Charlie Cox, a new face who is going to be a major star, as well as the legendary Peter O’Toole and the hilarious Ricky Gervais, was a wonderful experience.”

As for the look of the piece, when it came to designing Stardust, the filmmakers couldn’t have hoped for a richer starting place: the illustrations of Charles Vess, the lauded fantasy artist who first created the distinctive world of Wall and Stormhold in the original graphic novel with Neil Gaiman. Although it was clear that the film’s sets could never look precisely the same as Vess’s stunningly graceful and imaginative drawings, Vaughn asked his talented design and effects teams to do their best to capture the spirit of his artistry.

When Vess arrived on the set, he was blown away by the tribute. “It’s a remarkable experience to watch what you’ve drawn be expanded upon by so many talented artisans,” he comments. “There were so many great new ideas, I often thought, ‘now why didn’t we think of that?’” Gaiman expressed a similar sentiment. I loved that the minute you are in Stormhold, you feel you’re walking into a world completely different from the one you ordinarily live in,” the writer muses.

Even more fantastical is the Witches’ Lair, a dark, deteriorating, underground cathedral. “We had lots of meetings about the Witches’ Lair, throwing many different ideas around,” recalls production designer Gavin Bocquet, “but, ultimately, Matthew’s thought was that the Lair should be a place that the witches had designed when they had lots of power but that, over the years, had become run-down and crumbling as they lost their magic. That was the inspiration for the interior. As for the exterior, like the King’s Castle, we ultimately decided the exterior would be carved out of rock - very black volcanic rock.”

Says di Bonaventura of the Lair: “It’s half-Versailles, half-Edgar Allan Poe - an extraordinary place where the witches seek immortality and the perfect location for the film’s climactic finale.”

When it came to creating the film’s special effects, Vaughn aimed to maintain a grittier feel by going for the whimsical and inventive rather than the technologically sleek. He used some dazzling CG shots, working with special effects supervisor Stuart Brisdon, but also relied on the skills of cinematographer Ben Davis, with whom he previously worked on Layer Cake, to pull off some deliciously old-school-style in-camera effects.

“We really wanted to go back-to-basics as much as possible with this movie,” says Vaughn of the film’s many practical effects. “It reminds me in a way of the old James Bond films, which are still so entertaining because you have stuntmen doing real stunts and you have these stunning real locations that add to the fun.”

“There are plenty of visual effects to entertain the audience in Stardust,” sums up di Bonaventura,” but I think the real magic of our movie is in the actors, the locations, the sets, the photography, the costumes and, most of all, the storytelling itself.”