Lesbian Vampire Killers director talks film-making, actors, script writing and James Corden

Today, I’m sharing a catch-up I recently had with an old friend of mine who I went to film school with back in the 1990s – although you’re not getting the exact year out of me! Not just any old friend either, but a successful film director.

Phil Claydon is best noted for Lesbian Vampire Killers, starring James Corden and Matthew Horne, but he’s so much more than that – he’s an extremely passionate man whose excitement and love of the film industry shines through. I remember having conversations with Phil back in the day and you just knew even then that he was going to make it.

With slight jealousy, I interviewed Phil about making Lesbian Vampire Killers, his first big horror movie Alone, working with stars like James Corden and Miriam Margolyes, and his tips on how to make it a successful script director.

The whole interview is a blast and you should listen to it from start to finish, but here are some of the highlights:

Phil on how he got into film school

Darren: I didn’t know this at the time, but I read on Twitter recently that you got into film school at the University of Wales, Newport after a big rant you had in your interview about Jaws and Steven Spielberg not getting an October!

Phil: Yeah, well, from about the age of 16 I was writing to the National Film School and various universities sending them stuff, and they’d all be like “you’re too young”. So first year after school, I got rejected everywhere and the same in the second, so what could I do?

So, I went round the back door and thought “what some are other ways to do this?”. I applied for something like Culture & Media Studies at the University of Wales, Newport, something I had no interest in, but there were spaces on.

I met up with Mike Punt, who we both know through the film school. He’s a lovely guy and majorly into film theory. And basically, I spent an hour and a half saying to him “I don’t want to be on this course, I want to do a film course”. And we started talking about Jaws, and of course Jaws is the perfect film because every shot and the way it’s done is as good an education as what you learn at film school. And I said Spielberg should’ve won an Oscar because the film is perfectly directed, edited and scored.

This went on into so much detail that I think I exhausted him, or he had to get a cup of tea or something. Then he came back and said “I feel like a used car salesman here but I’m going to put you on the course even though it’s oversubscribed”. So, on the first day, I was the reprobate kid who’d just come in from another course!

Darren: Blagged your way in, yeah?

Phil: Which is quite weird isn’t it, because you meet a lot of people who are on a film course who are actually more interested in things like photography but do a film course instead to increase their skills.

Darren: Well, I was on it and I really wanted to do animation and not film, just to make you feel even worse! I wasn’t even meant to be doing film in the first place!

…on his first film, Alone

Darren: I remember having a conversation with you in the canteen. I don’t know why this has stuck with me but you were pitching a film to me which I suspect became Alone. That was your first film, wasn’t it?

Phil: First film, yeah! I was 24 years of age, produced by David Ball who did Creepshow 2 and Day of the Dead. Very cool bloke.

Darren: So, you pitched this horror scene to me and it was about a victim being stalked in daylight with thousands of people around, and you were talking about somebody in a nightclub still being stalked. So, you had that whole terror of being on your own even though there’s loads of people around, and that always stayed with me. But there’s a scene similar to that in Alone, so was that the same thing you were talking to me about?

Phil: I do remember it. I was working on an idea called Dark Corners, which basically would’ve been a stalker movie, because it just scares me that you could be sat at a train, in a club, or anywhere, but if you lock into someone else’s brain and their code and you become a figment of whatever their desire, that’s out of your control, you don’t even know it’s happening. That’s very scary.

It was those ideas which ended up inspiring Alone, because that came about from when I did an MA at the International Film School after graduating from Newport. I did a year there, which was a bit chaotic and experimental. I shot a completely different film there – a sort of coming-of-age drama called Skipping Without Rope, which showed the same night out from a boy’s perspective and a girl’s perspective. I think David Ball saw those and wanted to talk to me.

So I graduated from there and I was doing two jobs at the time, but got a call from David Ball out the blue asking to meet him in a pub. And he knew I loved horror films, so he said “I’ve got this script we want to do, but it needs the perspective of a younger person who loves the genre and can tell us what is and isn’t working”. They just kind of needed a script analysis of it, basically. And he said, if you can do this, we’ll give you £250.

So that evening I just sat down and read the script and came up with about a 30-page document on what I’d do with it, what I’d change and how to shoot it. I took that to David Ball and his partners the following day, and they read it. At the end of it they had a discussion, they liked what had been written, they asked me some questions, and then David Ball passed me the cheque. And I went to get it but then he snatched the cheque back and said “or you can direct it?”

I thought he was joking, but that was it. About a week later we went into pre-production. First film, which was an insane experience.

…on working with Miriam Margolyes

Darren: Miriam, she’s an absolute tour de force and I’ve seen her interviewed a few times, and even Graham Norton can’t keep control of her! How do you direct somebody with that much power and presence. How do you control her? Or do you?

Phil: It’s the same as with any actor. They want to know that you’re confident and in control and that they can trust you, and that their performance is being curated in the right way. That’s your job as a director anyway – we’re there to find the balance, not too far over the top, but so that we’re transmitting what we need to transmit story-wise.

You get to sit down with Miriam and John Shrapnel beforehand to go through you storyboards and how you want to shoot it and what you’re trying to achieve, so just from your vision, they become on board. You’re age doesn’t matter, you just need to have exciting visions.

Then you get on set, and if you’re disciplined and you know what it is you want from them, and that within a certain number of takes you have it, it becomes a two-way respect thing.

A lot of actors, especially in her position, might test you if they didn’t trust you. But we had a lot of trust from the start, and that was through a combination of myself and having a well-put together and experienced crew. And we were at the stage where I could say “cut” and move on, and they were saying “yes, I agree”.

…on working with James Corden

Phil: James Corden came in for an audition (for Lesbian Vampire Killers) because I liked him in Teachers and The History Boys. He was awesome, he was in straight away and I had his number, but the film fell through. It was probably a good thing actually because at the time Andrew Lee-Potts was supposed to be playing Jimmy, and I don’t think James would’ve been too happy about that!

Darren: What was it like directing James Corden? Again, he’s a larger-than-life character, or was he different back then?

Phil: He went from James Corden who I could speak to on the phone to James Corden – speak to my agent! For me, directing him, he just needed to know if it was funny or not, so that was basically the remit. I think he wound some of the crew up now and again, but being a director you don’t really see it.

But he does listen a lot – we had some difficulties with scenes between him and Paul McGann and I’d say to him “look, you need to help me out here”, and then he’d say to Paul McGann “I just got told off by Phil, it’s like being told off by my dad!” But then he comes on board and was very professional.

Darren: Do you watch League of their Own?

Phil: I do not. I know of it!

Darren: On League of the Own, James Corden does get Lesbian Vampire Killers mentioned to him a lot, and he always says “it never happened, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” What does that feel like, because I’ve got too much of a thin skin, I couldn’t take that!

Phil: No, I’m okay! Knowing James, he’ll go with whatever the opinion is at the time, and Lesbian Vampire Killers was wrapped up in a bad time in his life. If you think about it, he got critically annihilated for doing the Brits. And I think the best film you can come up with when you’ve got an entire British media trying to take you down is Lesbian Vampire Killers! That film was already prepared to be getting sliced down!

…on making it in film

Darren: What advice could you give to who is somebody like us when they were 18 years old – bearing in mind that the film industry is quite different now – and who wants to get into film?

Phil:
You have to MAKE yourself be in the right place in the right time. You can talk about luck, but it’s only luck because you’ve put the effort in.

Make sure you’re on the socials – Instragram, TikTok and so on – and don’t be ashamed about making sure that your work is going to reach people. Anyone can get hold of email addresses now, email the right people. People may say you were in the right place at the right time, but really you might have been there a year or two years ago.

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