The Cut is not your ordinary boxing drama. Orlando Bloom plays a washed-out puncher who endures eating disorders and flashbacks from the era of the Irish Troubles as he gives his all to make the required weight category cut. In this interview, director Sean Ellis breaks down his genre-bending film, Bloom's intense transformation, and his own history with combat sports.
Listen here. The following transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity:
Hello, I'm Shaurya Thapa of Borrowing Tape, and today I'm joined by Sean Ellis, director of the new boxing drama The Cut. Welcome, Sean. How are you doing?
I'm good. Thank you. How are you?
I'm fine. Watching your movie scared me from eating anything. Like, it was freaky. I did not expect your movie to be that freaky.
I'll give a little context to our listeners. The Cut stars Orlando Bloom as a boxer trying his best to make a comeback. But the problem is he can't match the required weight limit. It's not your average underdog boxing film. There are elements of a psychological thriller as the hero gets really desperate to cut down his weight. And for me, there are also traces of body horror in The Cut. How did you get the idea to direct a multi-genre boxing film like this?
Well, it came from the script originally. Justin Bull wrote a fantastic script, and it had all those elements in it. In actual fact, I think the script was probably even tipped a little bit more towards the horror genre. I know we went to the Toronto Film Festival with a cut that had definitely more aspects of horror. There were visions of his mum at every corner of the hotel, and she was watching him as if he were a ghost. But to be honest with you, Orlando's performance was so strong that it almost interfered with it a little bit, and it sort of upset the balance. So, I think we went back, and took some of that stuff out, and we just sat his performance up front and sent it. And I think it played better for it, but there's still obviously aspects of body horror in it.
And coming to the boxing part of it, were there any boxing or non-boxing films that inspired The Cut?
No such boxing films, even though we watched a lot of them; it was more the film The Hustler that we looked at. John and I talked about that quite a lot as a film, especially for the character of Bos, somebody who is a gambling hall shark. Basically, that is good at manipulating people to get what he wants. John looked at George C. Scott's performance in The Hustler, and the nice full circle of that is actually the follow-up, The Color of Money, directed by Scorsese with Tom Cruise. Actually, there was a small role that John Turturro played in that film as well. So, there was a connection.
John Turturro — his character was quite intense. What he makes the boxer go through. Were there any inspirations behind that tough coach character?
Well, I think in the script, he was originally written more like a drill sergeant. But basically, after we both watched The Hustler, we decided to play it more like somebody who's more of a master manipulator, rather than somebody who shouts and screams all the time. So yeah, that came out of reference from The Hustler, really.
An interesting element in your film is that Orlando Bloom's boxer character is simply called the boxer. What was the reason behind making your hero nameless?
Well, it was in the script. And then, when we got to production, we were like, what's his name? And everybody agreed that they just liked the idea that he didn't have a name, and he was just 'boxer'. And so, we kept it. We kept it like that, really. I mean, the only pseudonym he has within it is the Wolf of Dublin. That's his boxing handle. We kept that wolf on his shorts. And at the beginning, there's a newspaper clipping saying the Wolf of Dublin wins. We decided just to keep his name out of it. It did actually cause a few issues, to be honest with you. Sometimes when characters are like: Hey, I've got to call him, but what do I call him? If I got a shout at him, do I just go, 'hey', or boxer or whatever? What do I call him? So yeah, it was some interesting conversations had on the script on the onset.
The struggle is because we see so many sports or boxing films that have — ever since Rocky — had so many training montages, and that romanticized the way boxers bulk up or cut down on the weight. But your film talks about the struggle that some athletes in sports can have in maintaining their weight. So, can you tell me a bit about the research that went into this theme in your film?
Well, I mean, I've done combat sports for many years, and I used to fight in a division that I used to struggle with the weight. And the trouble was— when I went up a weight, I was definitely outgunned in the upper division. I had to rely a little bit on my speed and the fact that I was smaller. A lot of that comes from real-life experience in that sense. And even now with boxing divisions, it's a big thing; weight divisions, and making the weight. It's definitely a conversation that's being had, and the dangers of it as well, because by the time these fighters get into the ring, they're so dehydrated. It's a combat sport, so it can cause some major problems if they get hurt for their recovery. I think it's a topic that's very, very on point and in vogue at the moment.
When we talk about boxing films on the surface, for many audiences, you might just expect some familiar cliches, but we have had some really good boxing movies as well. Of course, the Rocky and the Creed franchise, but also films like Million Dollar Baby, Southpaw, etc. Now, when you were directing The Cut, did you feel any pressure to avoid boxing drama cliches? Was there any fear before you took on this project?
Yeah, absolutely. I spent a couple of weeks watching every boxing movie that's been made because I didn't want to go down those cliches. Although it's helpful to know what the cliches are, so that you are informed on how to use them to your own means and subvert them, which is kind of an interesting way of doing it, because I think there is an aspect to this film where you don't know where it's going, because there are no cliches to the telltale. And if there are, it's done for a reason. It's done to manipulate you into thinking that you're going down this familiar road, whereas actually, when you get there, it's very unfamiliar. That's part of a director's homework. I think you've got to do your research and you've got to see what's been done and how it's been done. And be aware that if you feel that you're doing something you've seen before, to change it, do something else.
Talking about any film with any athlete requires intense preparation for the actors. I've never seen Orlando Bloom look this ripped, intense, and intimidating before, and I believe he cut down like 52 pounds for this film. Can you tell me a bit about Orlando Bloom's transformation for this film?
Well, that was very important. Because obviously, he's a good-looking lad and we all think of him as the movie star heartthrob. Then suddenly we're talking about him playing a boxer on the wrong side of his career, who's a bit washed up, and he's got to look like a boxer. So, that was my biggest worry when I first spoke to Orlando: how do we convince people that? Because he was joking and saying, I did this boxing movie called [The] Calcium Kid, and I was like, Yeah, I remember it, and it was this British film that was done about 20 years ago now. I was like, but what if [The] Calcium Kid had continued boxing? What would his face look like now? Mark Coulier, who was a special effects makeup artist that I worked with a lot, did some head sculpts of Orlando and basically showed us different variations of makeup that could help us convince the audience that he was a pretty haggard up professional boxer, who's been punched a few times. So then that came with the nose, and the ears, and they did things with his eyelids, and they changed the shape of his face here. It's obviously a lot of scarring and head scarring. We spoke about him being an Irish boxer. I think when the accent came, we suddenly looked at this person, and it felt like he created a fully fledged character. He was somebody that I believed was an Irish boxer, and so, the visual of that was very rewarding, I thought. But on top of that, Orlando brought his A game as far as acting goes and just really smashed it with a crazy good performance.
It's pretty interesting that you mentioned The Calcium Kid, which is a deep cut for Orlando Bloom fans, but I wanted to ask: early on in the film, when The Boxer is looking at old newspaper clippings and his yesteryear glory. And there's a scene where we see this photo frame of him in his younger days boxing. Was that taken from The Calcium Kid?
Yeah, it was.
This is a cool Easter egg.
Exactly. And we shot that even in a gym that actually filmed some of the scenes from [The] Calcium Kid in. So we went back to a location that he'd actually done filming 20 years ago; his picture was actually on the wall and signed. So yeah, it was funny to see that photograph of him as [The] Calcium Kid. And I said, "That's great, we should put that in the boxing cabinet as a little Easter egg," as a young boxer.
It's like a full circle moment for him as well.
Yeah.
A film that's so intense, it's like delving into an athlete's psyche; the dark parts of an athlete's psyche. What was it like directing it? Were there any intense moments where you needed to take a break from what you're filming?
Oh, it's always intense. Filmmaking is a very intense experience because it's like this huge orchestra and everyone sort of knows the tune, but nobody's got any music sheets apart from ones that have been scribbled down, and so you're trying to be in tune and you're trying to get to the truth of the piece. And you're all trying to work together, but it's almost like you're filming a rehearsal in a weird way. It's not as if you ever really know what you're doing is right. You're just doing what you think, and you're hoping something works. So in a weird way, you're kind of jamming. It's like you're doing this improv jamming session, and you're just filming it. And so, that has an intensity in itself, and obviously it has an enormous amount of pressure because it's not like it's not like you're in someone's bedroom and you're just jamming some music. You've got 70 80 people and you're burning through seven, eight thousand pounds a day [or] nine ten thousand pounds a day depending on what you're shooting upwards — if it's a big movie. So yeah, the pressure is there. But listen, everybody that's there is a professional, and that's what we do. I mean, you can rest and sleep when it's over, but that three-month period and probably three-month period pre-production. That's an intense six months, and it's a very long process. And then, you've got your editing and your post-production, so you're looking up to basically 18 months of your life it's gone on a movie. It's a long process, but it's one that I'm still really passionate about, and I hope I get to do many more.
Watch The Cut