Lynne Ramsay’s filmmaking approach involves quick thinking and fearless actors willing to trust her instincts — even when that means crawling through grass like animals with just 10 minutes’ notice.
Speaking at a BFI London Film Festival’s Screen Talk on Saturday, the Scottish director revealed how she salvaged a crucial proposal scene in her latest film “Die My Love” when the light was dropping during the shoot. With no time to complete a conventional scene, Ramsay made an on-the-spot decision.
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“I crawl up to him, and I’m like, what we going to do?” she recalled of consulting with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey. “We both look at each other and go, this is it… He gets down to their level in this field, and that’s how he asked to marry her.”
Ramsay had to run up to stars Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence with the radical change. “Can you just crawl like animals in the grass and roll around?” she asked them. “They were actually really cool about it. They were like, ‘Are you sure about this?’ But they trusted me.”
The director also opened up about her intense working relationship with Joaquin Phoenix on 2017’s “You Were Never Really Here,” revealing that the Oscar winner had never handled firearms before the thriller.
“He’s never played anything like this, and guns or anything,” Ramsay said of Phoenix, who she described as “totally terrifying” when they first met. Despite her nervousness — she recalled asking him inane questions like “Are you left handed?” — the pair developed a remarkable creative partnership.
Phoenix’s commitment extended to unexpected moments of physical risk. During an upstate New York shoot in a seedy location, Ramsay recalled him spontaneously falling down stairs while cameras rolled. “He just tried,” she said.
The collaboration proved so strong that on the final night of shooting, Phoenix suggested they continue. “Should we just keep going and get this with the same crew and make a different film?” he asked, according to Ramsay.
The director also shared production challenges on “You Were Never Really Here,” including a French financier who repeatedly told her the film would never get into Cannes — until it did, requiring Ramsay to shoot remaining scenes in just one week. The film went on to win best actor and screenplay at the festival, though not before a last-minute sound mixing controversy when a projectionist declared the audio “beyond the limits.”
Looking back at her 1999 debut “Ratcatcher,” Ramsay revealed the ambitious production involved building an actual canal because the real one was polluted. “I don’t think I’d do that” now, she admitted, though she praised the “beauty” in youthful naivety and ambition. Ramsay also revealed she’s working on a treatment for another Glasgow-set film, returning to the city that provided the setting for her acclaimed debut.
Throughout the conversation, Ramsay emphasized the importance of finding meaningful details to convey emotion, citing a scene in “Ratcatcher” where a mother darns tights because she can’t afford new stockings as an example of showing love economically.
“I’m a dreamer,” Ramsay said of her approach to filmmaking. “You have to be tough to be a dreamer.”
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