Edward Berger on ‘Ballad of a Small Player,’ Spritzing Colin Farrell and the Status of His ‘Bourne’ Movie

Edward Berger is on quite a roll.

The German filmmaker’s 2022 war epic, All Quiet on the Western Front, was nominated for nine Oscars and took home four, including best international feature. His follow-up — and English-language debut — Conclave, took in $127 million at the global box office and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best screenplay and best picture. Naturally, expectations are high for his latest, Ballad of a Small Player, which will screen at TIFF before it is released by Netflix in Oct 16.

Based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Lawrence Osborne, the film stars Colin Farrell as Lord Doyle, a down-on-his-luck, would-be big-time gambler lurking around the baccarat tables of Macau. With a pencil-thin mustache, a put-upon accent and lucky leather gloves, he journeys through casinos in an attempt to pay down a mountains of debt from his present and past.

Ahead of Ballad’s fall festival run, Berger talked to THR about spritzing Farrell in between takes, why he turned down an Ocean’s movie and why he’s still hoping to make a Bourne movie with Matt Damon.

How did Ballad become your follow-up to Conclave?

This is not a planned thing. They find you, the films. You look for something and then out of left field, something finds you. Filmmaking, just imagine it as a conversation, where you talk about one thing for three years and you try to find out everything you can. It’ll never be complete, but at some point you feel like, “All right, I’ve really talked enough about this.” As in conversations, you get tired of it and you feel you really want to talk about the opposite. Ballad felt connected on an emotional level to me and to the previous movies, but it felt like a very different world that almost exploded Conclave. It was saying, “All right, let’s destroy this and start afresh.” Conclave feels like a very architectural, sparse, mathematical film, [whereas] Ballad felt to me like a chaotic pop opera that explodes at the seams.

What was it about Ballad that made you feel like you could spend a couple of years talking about it?

I always was fascinated with the idea of people reinventing themselves, like expats. It’s kind of a sad community. What we researched is that people really disappear in these countries and have a death certificate made and they get a new name. Currently, in Japan, it’s a real business when you have too many debts and you want to start afresh. I found living in this environment in Macau, which really is loud and explosive and there’s no windows in the casinos so that you never know what time of day it is; you’re always locked in this crazy world. After a while, it really eats away at you. I stayed there for six months, and you really realize how empty or soulless, in the end, you become. We went on a journey that Lord Doyle went on, who’s utter void stares back at him.

How was filming in the casinos of Macau?

Filming in a casino is very complicated because they’re not making any money off us. There’s such a thing as a high roller, and these high rollers come and they own the place, because they spend so much money that the casino will do anything for them. We were always warned: You can shoot here, but if one of our high-paying customers arrives — and these people spend $5 million to $50 million over a weekend — then you have to leave. You’re out within a minute’s notice. So it’s very complicated, and you have to stay flexible. Whenever we entered a casino, you can only shoot there at one in the morning, when it’s the emptiest, and it’s still pretty crowded. You can’t film any of the customers, and you have to find empty sections. Every time I put up the camera, I was so nervous that we would fail. We somehow made it.

Why was Colin Farrell the right person for Lord Doyle?

I came across Colin on the Banshees of Inisherin and All Quiet awards-circuit tour. I started to realize: “It’s him.” It’s very easy, if you cast it wrong, to dislike [Lord Doyle]. He’s an addict, he’s a gambler, he loses all his money, he betrays people. That’s not a likable person. Colin is someone, whenever I watch him, I just love him. He has such a deep humanity and such a huge heart onscreen as well as in life. He takes the audience by their hand and makes them side with him, even if he does despicable things.

One thing I couldn’t help but notice: Lord Doyle is also the sweatiest man I have ever seen onscreen.

Thank you for noticing. I love makeup. Done the right way, it helps the actor portray an inner emotion. And to me, sweat is something very physical. You suddenly feel that it’s a physical, visceral movie, and whatever is working away at his soul is showing on his face. First of all, it’s a very humid environment, but I wanted to accentuate it. Before every take, I took the water spritzer and sprayed him.

Was there any specific sequence you were concerned about pulling off?

The eating scene where he eats, voraciously. [The scene sees Lord Doyle eating a massive buffet of ornate food alone in his hotel suite.] And it became a centerpiece of the movie. The way Colin [performed] it, I suddenly realized that this is what the movie is about: A man who’s spiritually empty in a spiritually empty world, and nothing will fill the void. I realized the scene is basically about our world that is very lost and frantic, where one part owns 95 percent of the world and everyone else has nothing. Everything is out of whack. There is an interesting anecdote that tells you so much about Colin, and about his sensitivity and sensibility towards collaboration …

What is that?

While we were shooting the banquet scene, between takes, I constantly heard music. I said, “Who’s putting on music? We’re shooting!” But it was actually a piece that felt very much like the scene, that felt “incarnate soundtrack.” I realized that it was Colin with earphones, listening to a Bach organ piece. I went up to him and said, “What are you listening to?” And he said, “Oh, it’s just Bach. Listen.” I listened and felt like it’s the perfect soundtrack for the scene, because it’s inner mania. And I put it in the movie. Colin knew what the scene was going to be before we even shot it.

Your past three movies on the surface are very different. What do you see as the connective tissue among your movies?

To me, if I have to analyze, and I only do because I’m asked to, what I would say is they have a very big connection in terms of their main characters and what they’re going through. They’re all characters, in a way, who are looking for a home. So, they’re all the same kind of person. And I don’t want to over analyze myself, but it probably has to be me. It’s probably just me in a much more fun and dramatic and cinematic iteration.

Speaking of self-analysis, do you ever watch your movies again after they are done?

No. I will have to watch [Ballad] at the premiere on Friday and then that will be it. I’ve seen it 700 times. I think that’s enough.

You said something interesting in an interview recently about turning down the chance to direct an Ocean’s movie: “It’s a temptation. But deep down inside I knew it’s not my movie, it’s Steven Soderbergh’s movie.” What makes a project feel like your movie?

I would have loved to be Steven Soderbergh 15 years ago and invented the Ocean’s [franchise]. But, unfortunately, I’m not Steven Soderbergh. (Laughs.) As I said, it was a massive temptation. I come from a small place. I’ve never thought I could have this opportunity, and suddenly you theoretically can make a movie with Brad Pitt and George Clooney and Julia Roberts and Matt Damon. But then you realize it just comes from inside of you. If you betray yourself, then eventually, the movie will feel empty because it didn’t come from an inner conviction. And then the audience will know. I learned this on my second movie that I did. Back then [the movie] felt like a big failure, and it gets you down for a few years, but I learned from it. My first did really well. The first movie always comes from inside; no one will send you a script because you have to write it. It’s most likely a coming-of-age movie, when you’re very young. Then it does very well, if you’re lucky, and then you get the opportunity to make a bigger one. I made the next one and had a much bigger budget, but I didn’t quite believe in the film. I didn’t quite crack it. While the first one was good, apparently, the second one was just mediocre. That really got me down and it probably took me 10 years to find out why it was not great. I mean, I did everything right. I worked hard. I shot it well. Then I realized, at some point, it was because it didn’t come from inside of me. It was an opportunity, and I thought I had to grab this opportunity. I didn’t make the movie because I had to. I made the movie because I could. That probably would be the same with Ocean’s. If I had the opportunity to do Ocean’s, it would feel like I did it because I could — and that’s a great, great gift — but not because I had to.

Is this why you’ve stayed away from Hollywood franchise filmmaking thus far?

A franchise can be original. If I had invented Oceans, I would have done it in a heartbeat. That’s a great franchise. And I’m in developing a Bourne movie, and I will do it if Matt wants to do it. If we can really have the feeling that we are adding something new to the great Bourne films that were already. That will be necessary to make Matt want to do it, and to make me want to do it. I would love nothing more than to make a big-budget, expensive, fun movie that embraces the audience. But these movies are also hard to find because I still don’t want to make something that I feel other people have treaded 20 times.