In Conclave, Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci revel in the ritual and intrigue surrounding the process of choosing a new pontiff for what proves to be a tantalisingly tense Vatican-set drama.
Widely hailed as 2024's best movie, Conclave, directed by Edward Berger and written by Peter Straughan, has already received plenty of awards attention and is nominated for eight Academy Awards heading into next month's Oscars.
Earlier this week, we spoke with producer Michael Jackman about adapting Robert Harris' critically acclaimed book to the big screen. During our conversation, he talks about having an actor of Fiennes' calibre lead the cast, creating tension in a movie you wouldn't necessarily expect to find it in, and why it was important to protect the book's shocking, and often controversial, ending.
Jackman also talks to us about the theatrical experience and how he feels to see Conclave receive such widespread acclaim.
You can check out the full interview below.
You put together an incredible cast for Conclave but have an incredible lead in Ralph Fiennes. What has it meant to see him receive that "Best Actor" recognition and the way he's supported the movie since its release?
Oh, it's wonderful and such a wonderful moment. My fellow producer, Tessa Ross, had optioned the book in 2016 after reading, like, three chapters. She's the one who got Ralph and I got the pleasure of coming into a film that already had a wonderful script, Ed Berger, and Ralph Fiennes. What I do is, I bridge that gap between creative, vision, and what everybody wants to make and how we actually make that with the time and money we have. I use that problem-solving to say, 'How do we do it?' and I think we did it very successfully on the film. It looks beautiful and doesn't look like we spared any expense.
To come in at that point and have Ralph involved and to see him working on set every day...it's amazing. He came prepared, thoughtful, ready to work, and he's a very, very generous actor with his fellow actors. He gives a lot for others to work with as well. It's just phenomenal and I love his nominations and the awards he's winning. It's so well-deserved and he's been an enormous cheerleader for the film and I was very excited for him. It's a thrill to have had him on that team. It's really an all-star team, so we did pretty well!
This is such an exciting film. Who knew people casting votes could be so edge-of-your-seat, right? How proud were you of the tension Edward creates to make it such an experience to watch?
This is Edward creating that tension, as you said, out of voting and talking and voting and talking. You're on the edge of your seat the whole time, and as a producer, I'm like, 'Ed, nine votes? We're going to film nine different votes?' He's like, 'I've got it, I know what I'm going to do with it.' As the movie does, you have to have faith. He had a vision for it. It was clear and he really delivered on that vision. That's not to say we didn't screen it and have lots of interactions, suggestions, and ideas of how we were going to do it, but that intense leadership, creative core and style are Ed Berger at his best. It's just phenomenal.
Like the book, the film has an ending that's really bold and brilliant. It's not something anyone will see coming but how important was it as a producer to protect it and make sure it was still part of this story as it was in Robert Harris' book?
Very much so. I think we always intended to stay close to and true to the book in many ways. Peter Straughan's brilliant screenplay took all of that information and turned it into a lovefest of dialogue and interesting exchanges and beautiful moments. I think it was important also to the movie is that we have this character, Benitez, who comes out of nowhere. Everyone starts to go, 'Okay, he must be important, otherwise why is he in this movie?' We also did a worldwide search for him as an actor because we didn't want the other actors to know him and we didn't want the audience to know him. We didn't want anyone to know anything about him. That worldwide search resulted in him. No one else. There was only one that rose to the top in a way that actually worked. The face, the voice, and the bearing.
What's fun about it is we get you to start try to figure it out. Everyone wants to figure out a mystery and some people were surprised by him being elected Pope. For some people, it was a total shock and some people were ahead of it and said, 'Okay, I see this coming.' What's wonderful about that moment when it happens is everything thinks, 'Oh, that's the twist' so they relax and let their guards down. Then, we have another twist which gets everyone. No one sees it coming because we've given you your little, 'Oh, we've figured it out' moment and then you haven't!
There's such a temptation with novels like this to serialise them for TV. I can imagine a Conclave TV series, but it's a phenomenal feature. As a producer, why is it important for you to make sure a story like this is seen theatrically rather than becoming just another streaming TV show?
I've been doing this for 35 years and, in my heart, film is successful when people go to see it in the theatres and talk about it. They get out of their house, go to the theaters, and actively engage with that experience. I think it's a different experience when you're sharing it with 150 strangers or more in a room and you're hearing other people react. Someone laughs at something you didn't and you go, 'Oh, that's interesting. That could have been a funny moment.' You hear people gasp at something you're feeling but get a visceral, loud response. You'll applaud at a courtesy from Isabella at the right moment! We didn't know that would get the reaction when we were in our own bubble. We thought it was a great moment but didn't realise how it would resonate. So, for me, that theatrical experience really matters.
We got half of our audience in the U.S. was over 55. We got a group of people to the theaters that many distributors had given up on getting into theaters. They went. And then we got the other half. We got young people who just responded to the thriller and the politics and started creating all these really cool memes, some of which I understood. And some of which I have no idea! That's thrilling to me to know we're appealing to a large cross-section of people, enough that they get our of their house and go to a movie. I think we're close to $93 million worldwide theatrical box office and that's great.
It's an amazing achievement and when you get the memes, you know you've made a cultural impact.
[Laughs] Yeah.
Heading into the Academy Awards...Best Feature, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design. That's an amazing lineup of talent. How rewarding has it been to see this type of response?
It's incredible. It's truly living the dream. This is the dream when we all start out in this industry. You hope someday you work on something that gets this kind of recognition and to have eight nominations is mind-blowing and it couldn't be better. This is truly a thrilling moment and a highlight, and just trying to be in it and enjoy it...I truly think it's a cliche at this point, but sometimes cliches are cliches because they're very true, the nomination is the win. The win would be lightning striking twice but to have been nominated amongst our peers for all of these awards is...we already won. I'm very happy with this moment.
Conclave is now available on Digital, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD. The 97th Academy Awards take place on March 2.