Aaron Johnson is the star of Sam Taylor-Woods directorial debut as a commercial filmmaker. He’s also engaged to the director. So when a condescending journalist from TimeOut London meets the couple to discuss the movie, Johnson gives him a talking to:
Johnson even proves sweetly defensive of his fiancée when I mention to him that some critics have been surprised at how ‘straight’ her first film has turned out, considering her background in multi-screen video work, perhaps with memories of Steve McQueen’s ‘Hunger’ or Julian Schnabel’s ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’ fresh in the mind. ‘It’s just bullshit,’ he says. ‘It’s rubbish when people say that she’s, you know, changed… or gone to some…’ He gets a bit tongue-tied. Sold out? I suggest. ‘Yeah, when people expect her film to be all, you know, bizarre. It’s a narrative. She’s. Telling. A. Story.’ You half-expect him to end the sentence with an emphatic ‘Duh’.
Interview: Sam Taylor-Wood (TimeOut London)
