Insights from an Emerging Director: Exploring the Unique Tone of DC’s Lanterns

For two decades, James Hawes has quietly been one of the industry’s most accomplished television directors. He’s always exhibited a knack for genre storytelling, but season one of the Gary Oldman-led Slow Horses reaffirmed how he can effectively add an unexpected wrinkle to a well-trodden genre like the spy thriller. That prowess now extends to his second feature film, and first major studio film, The Amateur, starring Oscar winner Rami Malek. 

The British filmmaker presents the elegant look and feel of a Jason Bourne or Jack Ryan movie, only he’s chronicling an underestimated CIA analyst character in Charlie Heller (Malek) who has no choice but go out into the field himself. Adapted by screenwriters Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli, Hawes’ reimagining of Robert Littell’s 1981 novel tracks Charlie’s defiant globe-trotting pursuit of the terrorists who killed his wife, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan).

The updated take has some overlap with the 1981 source material, including Charles Jarrott’s film, but it mostly goes its own way, giving audiences a welcomed change of pace from recent revenge and vigilante tales, such as those led by John Wick or Robert McCall (The Equalizer).

“I’d like to think that what [audiences] are enjoying about this movie is that we didn’t suddenly change Charlie Heller into Jason Bourne,” Hawes tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of today’s theatrical release. “Charlie has to use his intellect and his understanding of how to turn the environment against his targets. That felt so dark and so morally conflicting for Charlie.”

Hawes has another high-profile project coming up in the form of DC Studios’ and HBO’s Lanterns, where he’s working alongside showrunner Chris Mundy (Ozark), EP Tom King (Marvel Comics’ The Vision) and EP Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers, Watchmen). The tone of the series featuring intergalactic space cops has already been compared to one of HBO’s most celebrated franchises, True Detective, and Hawes recognizes the comparison, as well as its distinction.

“It looks and feels rooted. You meet two guys [Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart], but there is wit and comedy to it that you would not expect in True Detective. It is, in many ways, a buddy cop structure with travel in the story time, to and fro, that is really sophisticated,” Hawes shares. “So I think [the True Detective comparison] is valid. People will still go, ‘What were you talking about?’ to some extent, but I would also bring in No Country for Old Men, Fargo and things that have that Americana heart to them.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Hawes also discusses The Amateur’s underlying question of justice versus revenge, before addressing whether Brosnahan’s own DC Studios job as Lois Lane in Superman had any impact on The Amateur.

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You’ve been a prolific television director for two decades until your first feature, One Life, released a couple years ago. Had you been trying to mount a feature career for quite a while? Or did you not pursue it in earnest until recently?

I got sidetracked by high-end TV, and breaking into features is really hard. Obviously, you dream of that along your career, but I had all kinds of lucky breaks with high-end TV. It was a time where it was attracting A-plus cast, bigger budgets and perhaps more willingness to take creative risks than features were. It was Slow Horses that led me directly to my first feature with One Life, and then, because I’d been playing in espionage, The Amateur script landed. 

Marthe Keller had a role in One Life. She also starred in the original The Amateur (1981) as the analogue to Caitriona Balfe’s character in your film. When The Amateur came along, did you view Keller’s role in One Life as a sign that you were meant to do it?

(Laughs.) No, but now you’re making me think of who I have cast recently and whether I should see that as a pointer for what comes next. Marthe Keller was a very deliberate little casting choice in The Amateur, having seen the original and because she’s such a great actor and such a spirit. So I enjoy speaking to the heritage of this genre, and her cameo [as the florist] was a little way of doing that.

I enjoy the John Wick franchise as much as anyone, but it’s spawned so many clones that the lesson for why John Wick (2014) worked in the first place has seemingly been forgotten. Did everyone talk about The Amateur in terms of being the antithesis to Wick, Bourne, Equalizer, etc.? 

We talked about it in terms of being a rooted character-driven espionage thriller. The character of Charlie Heller has quite an arc through the processes of grief, but it’s also from a man who is perhaps not the full version of what he dreams to be or is capable of being. And by the end of the movie, you see him as a far more confident, capable, risk-taking character than the sheepish guy who’d barely traveled abroad at the very beginning. We wanted character to inhabit every scene, and we felt we could define ourselves with that. 

Charlie certainly gets a taste of revenge, but he doesn’t completely lose himself to it. Did you champion a more self-reflective ending from the start? 

It was a huge discussion we actively had through script stages and with the studio who supported that. We thought it was morally more complex to discuss whether it was revenge or justice. There’s a scene with Caitriona Balfe’s character on the beach after Charlie has killed his second target. She talks about the silence that follows the loss of a loved one, and she asks him, “Is this how you want to fill your silence?” And that’s, for me, the beginning of both his reflection on whether he’s doing entirely the right thing and also his process to discover a bigger justice. It is the antithesis of a version of this movie where the boat with Michael Stuhlbarg’s character is blown sky high, and all the baddies sink to the bottom of the Seven Seas.

Directors have told me that the most difficult part of the job is to achieve their desired tone and maintain it. And whether it’s the Amateur or your TV work, you always seem to have a firm handle on the tone of the piece. Do you credit your overall time in television and having to either set the tone or adapt to somebody else’s tone?

That’s probably the most important and flattering thing you could say to me this morning, which I’m going to take on board. It’s so perceptive. Tone is everything. In Slow Horses, the tone needed to stay dangerous, but you also have the black humor. So we had discussions about how many farts are too many farts, and how can Gary Oldman’s delicious humor sit alongside loaded guns and still be credible? 

So, [to answer your question], yes, probably. TV has been a process to this point, and it is such a discussion to hit your pitch like those other directors have told you. You can have the best vision and the best ideas in prep. But the real test comes when you start shooting and the schedule clock is ticking and locations collapse on you and you get hit by the SAG strike. You’ve got to somehow keep balancing that tone through every scene and every shot. That’s the tough bit.

When I spoke to you and Rami Malek for the trailer release, you mentioned that Rachel Brosnahan’s character would be present in one form or another throughout the film. And I appreciated how you peppered her across the film by way of scenes, flashbacks, momentary flashes and photographs so that we never forget Charlie’s loss. Comparable films often lose track of the loved one who kick-started the plot, so were you quite conscious of this?

It was a very conscious decision, and I know that some people do not necessarily relish that. But we’re talking about somebody in grief and how it is when you lose somebody. Again, Inquiline [Balfe] has that speech about the missed sounds: the closing of doors, the footfall. I particularly liked the scene in the Paris hotel where Charlie sits down, and he’s suddenly aware of Sarah [Brosnahan] putting a glass of water on the nightstand and pulling back the bedding. You instantly understand it’s a habit that she would always do, and then you realize she’s not there to do it. So it’s a really difficult line to tread to make it feel honest and not too saccharine, but we think we got there. And you’re right to notice the other moments, such as his screensaver, which he’s not yet had the strength to delete. There’s also the puzzle he plays with, which is something that came home after she died.

That being said, Rachel was cast as Lois Lane in Superman right around the time you started shooting. Were there any last-minute discussions about whether to add a couple more scenes with Rachel given her increased profile?

There weren’t, but we did have a couple more scenes with Rachel. I had dinner with her last night in Tokyo, and we talked about it.

Yeah, there’s one now-deleted scene in the trailer where Sarah asks Charlie, “Do you ever wonder what they do with all the stuff you dig up for them?”

You’re completely right, and it all came down to the rhythm and pace of the film in the cutting room. It took you out of the immediate moment that you needed to concentrate on at that point, but I think we got the balance right. So we weren’t distracted by her looming profile. I happen to be an enormous fan of Rachel. She’s an incredibly intelligent actor, and she has many different facets to her performance.

Did you already have your DC Studios job at that point, too?

No, I didn’t actually. It’s extraordinary the way life takes you, and it’s probably a coincidence that [showrunner] Chris Mundy then came to me with Lanterns.

Marthe Keller’s florist sets this sequence up, but I’ve never seen someone’s pollen allergy used against them in such a torturous way. Did everybody light up when that concept was put out there?

Yeah, people did because it’s so different, and we’re getting a fantastic audience response. I’d like to think that what they’re enjoying about this movie is that we didn’t suddenly change Charlie Heller into Jason Bourne. He goes to the training camp, and the conventional version of this movie is he suddenly learns a couple moves and enough about how to shoot, but that doesn’t happen. Charlie has to use his intellect and his understanding of how to turn the environment against his targets. That felt so dark and so morally conflicting for Charlie. You see that when he can’t actually bring himself to carry through what is effectively torture to get the information he requires. That felt compelling for his character to have to cope with.

This might surprise you, but my favorite shot in the film is Charlie sitting alone at his kitchen table. He’s tucked away in the right corner of the frame while the TV is on at the opposite end. The lighting and palette were both elegant as well.

I appreciate that, and I think it’s because we put the tension in the frame. He’s sitting as far away as the frame will allow him from the news of his wife’s death. It’s a spot that is familiar to where we saw him [making coffee] with her, and he’s isolated in space. In One Life, I did a similar shot with Anthony Hopkins where he’s lost in the middle of the room playing the piano. There’s a loneliness you can give with that kind of framing that seems to work well.

Charlie’s reaction to Sarah’s death was heartbreaking, as was an unbelievably tender moment between Charlie and Caitriona’s character. However, Charlie’s disappointment over Jon Bernthal’s character wanting IT help instead of companionship was equally upsetting.

I know, and that worked so well. Hats off to the writers there. At the beginning of the movie, you see that Heller is so excited that he’s bumped into someone who is basically the star quarterback in high school. It’s also public, and his CIA colleagues might see that he’s having a conversation with the coolest dude in the house. And to see lunch taken away from him, it just works incredibly well in expressing his loneliness and who he wants to be and who he wants to hang out with. 

You also mentioned the Caitriona moment. I took her aside afterwards and said, “Look, I knew you were going to be good, but that’s off the scale.” The intimacy and the genuine emotion in that scene was so powerful and distinctive.

Jon plays a character named The Bear, and he’s a key character on a show called The Bear. Did everybody have a laugh about this?

It was a total coincidence, and we did have a laugh. That’s something that predated the choice of Jon. Whether that slipped into our subconscious and made us think of him — or whether it was all down to the Punisher — I can’t quite remember. But he was a great energy to parachute onto the set for those scenes.

Jon learned to act in Moscow. Did you also go out to him because you knew he would be able to speak Russian in one of his scenes? 

He surprised me on the call where we discussed him doing the part. He said, “I can do this in Russian,” and it’s great when those things happen. It’s a little bit of authenticity for the character in that moment.

As referenced earlier, you’ve been working on a couple episodes of DC Studios’ Lanterns. Is the tonal comparison to True Detective valid?

Talking tone, it looks and feels rooted. You meet two guys, but there is wit and comedy to it that you would not expect in True Detective. It is, in many ways, a buddy cop structure with travel in the story time, to and fro, that is really sophisticated. Chris Mundy has done the most amazing job with the team there, and so I think [the True Detective comparison] is valid. People will still go, “What were you talking about?” to some extent, but I would also bring in No Country for Old Men, Fargo and things that have that Americana heart to them. There’s a wry humor, and so there definitely is more wit and humor than there is in True Detective.

Aaron Pierre’s performance in Rebel Ridge was my favorite turn of last year, and he auditioned for the John Stewart role shortly after that movie’s release. How much did the response to that performance tip the scales during casting? 

I honestly think he did it totally individually in the room. With some chemistry castings and the like, it just felt like he would inhabit the role. He has such a magnificent presence. He feels so forceful, so cool, so understated. Again, I wanted this world to be rooted, and while there’s only so far you can go with rooting characters in a show about Green Lantern, they are. This is a world where we accept that the Green Lanterns exist and aliens exist. So the rest of it is played straight and in the world as we know it.

What’s your impression of the leadership at DC Studios?

Well, I can only tell you from my experience, which is that it has been inspiring and supportive and truly thrilling. I will know more in a few months’ time, but right now, [Lanterns] just felt like a real burst of creative energy.

Have you started to look beyond The Amateur and Lanterns yet? Or do you need to find a beach to collapse on for a bit?

I so need that beach. I need a little bit of time. I have been spoiled stupid over the last few years. Each job has rolled into another job, and they have been amazing jobs. So I’m going to take a beat, but I have some ideas cooking on the feature side. I also have an idea cooking on the TV side. They’re things that I’ve originated, so we’ll see where that goes.

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The Amateur is now playing nationwide in movie theaters.