Why was the title changed?
DL: We never called it All You Need is Kill. That was the title of the Japanese novel that the movie is based on, but it has nothing to with the movie. Right from the beginning I was like, “We’re obviously not going to call the movie that.” Title changes are always tough. It’s always better if you have the title before the start, but in this case I was finding the tone as we went.
I personally believe in humor. I come from a Jewish background and I find that me and my relatives bring humor to the darkest moments, so I genuinely believe in humor. But I didn’t know that Tom was going to be as funny as he was, and the tone of the film didn’t get defined until we were shooting it, and once that got defined, All You Need is Kill was way too dark a title for a film that has a huge amount of humour all the way through.
How did you enjoy filming in England?
DL: This was my first time shooting an entire film in England and it really was an extraordinary experience. I’ve tried elsewhere in Europe and the experience has always been that when you need a specialist, you fly them in from England. Whatever department, if you need someone really great, you bring them in from England. So having the opportunity to work here where I got to have the best in every single department was extraordinary.
The thing about working with Tom is that physically moving him around is so expensive, and also the weather isn’t great. So the end result was we shot the entire movie on the stages and on the back lot of The Leavesden Studios. It’s got hundreds and hundreds of acres of back lot, so everything you see [in the film] is all built on that back lot.
The only time we really left there was to go to Trafalgar Square where we got to land a massive military helicopter. And that was just one of those moments where you’re back to being a kid going “Oh my God this is the magic of movies.”
Are you interested in making a smaller film next?
DL: I’m not sure what my next film is, but one of them is a period movie about George Mallory – so definitely not a big budget film. And I’d love to find a small comedy. I don’t crave the big set experience. In fact, my favourite experiences on Edge of Tomorrow were the little reshoots I did with Tom Cruise where I was back to Swingers. I literally had a green screen set up in the editing room and we would secretly sneak some lights in – this was not union and was totally unauthorized – and Tom would do his own hair and make up and we did extra shots that [ended up] in the movie.
At the end of the day that’s where my heart lies, it’s that real sort of guerrilla stuff where it’s just the actor and me and a camera. And the thing that I’m most proud of with Edge of Tomorrow is that the whole film feels that way, even though it was actually a group of thousands. It feels like a really personal story.
How important was casting Emily Blunt in this picture?
DL: She was the only one we wanted, and we didn’t have a plan B. Emily is an extraordinarily powerful actress, she really stands her ground even though she’s in way over head on this movie. Tom’s done big action movies and she hasn’t, but that didn’t stop her at all.
There are very few features that are brave enough to tackle time loops, what excited you about that and what frustrated you?
DL: From a straight production point of view, I was excited with the efficiency of filming, because you go to the same locations over and over again so we could sort of block shoot it. There were budget efficiencies that I had dreams of accomplishing with this narrative structure.
I like putting real human beings through extraordinary situations too. Like if you look at Mr. and Mrs. Smith, there’s a real couple trying to deal with the real insecurities and trust issues of a marriage. There’s machine guns and there’s outrageous stuff happening, but all of that is a way of bringing out what’s interesting about the human beings.
I just thought this was a concept that allowed me to have a great love story between two people, where they have to start over every day. And trying to work out how to build a love story off of that was a really exciting challenge.
The frustrating thing is trying to deal with the logic of a film that works with time travel. People who dream that one day time travel will exist – all they have to do is work on a film that has time travel and they will realize that there is no way ever that we will travel through time. There’s just too many paradoxes, it’s just not going to happen.
Be sure to check out Edge of Tomorrow when it hits theatres on June 6th, 2014.