The genius behind BRIAN AND CHARLES, DAVID EARL and CHRIS HAYWARD talk about giving life to the sweet, quirky, and utterly adorbsome BRIAN AND CHARLES in this exclusive interview.
It’s been a long journey for BRIAN AND CHARLES as it made its way from DAVID EARL’s stand-up comedy as Brian to CHRIS HAYWARD’s joining the fun as Charles, then on to radio, and finally with director Jim Archer on board, coming to life as a short film and ultimately this wonderful feature. But whatever twists and turns BRIAN AND CHARLES took along the way, and however long it took to bring us this feature film, when you watch the film you’ll agree that it was all worth the wait.
Written by DAVID EARL and CHRIS HAYWARD and directed by Jim Archer, Earl also stars as Brian with Hayward as Charles. BRIAN AND CHARLES is the story of a shy and lonely inventor named Brian. Sequestered in his little corner of a small Welsh town, Brian putters in his workshop creating things like a pine cone pouch, an Egg Belt, a Cabbage Shooter, a Super Shover, and more. Although none of his inventions are quite ready for the marketing mainstream, Brian never gives up trying, especially when he creates the grandest invention of all – an artificially intelligent 9-foot tall robot made of washing machine parts. Sweet, intellectually curious, yet an emotional meld of a bratty child and cantankerous teen, Brian names his robot, Charles.
Brian is an odd but sweet duck. Charles looks like a meld between Jim Broadbent in his “Moulin Rouge!” days and Charles Nelson Reilly. Charles’ personality is that of perfect little kid brattiness with a cantankerous teen, although extremely sweet and intellectually curious. And who can’t relate to his incessant “I wanna” and “Are we there yet?” mantras? The story and the characters have real emotionality that is authentic and resonant with Jim Archer, together with David Earl and Chris Hayward, hitting every beat and then some, all of which is palpable thanks to not only David and Chris as our heroes, but a supporting cast of Louise Brealey, James Michie, Nina Sosanya, Lowri Izzard, and Mari Izzard.
But beyond the characters and the heart of Brian and Charles, the story tackles themes of bullying, kindness, parenting, letting go, following your dreams, and more.
Diving into the creation of these characters and the making of BRIAN AND CHARLES in this exclusive conversation, DAVID EARL and CHRIS HAYWARD are a delight, especially when Chris talks about the challenges of being Charles underneath that 9-foot tall cumbersome costume. But with the Charles costume already intact within the story concept thanks to their prior stage act and short film, the first questions arise concerning making that leap to a feature length film. Can we pull this off? Can we extend the comedy and humor for 90 minutes? How do we find consistent emotionality? How challenging is it for Chris who not only has to act and convey emotion for a 90-minute film, but doing so while “blind” inside his Charles costume? And then there’s the issue of writing scenarios in which the cumbersome Charles is placed. Did physical logistics come into play with what they were creating on the written page? And then there’s the physicality and physical “comedy” that comes into play.
One of the fun aspects of BRIAN AND CHARLES is the idea that Brian and Charles are being filmed for a “documentary” which is then all being filmed as BRIAN AND CHARLES. The film within a film idea works very well and as you can hear director Jim Archer discuss in our interview, it provided wonderful filming parameters in terms of blocking and angles. David and Chris address that same benefit from a performance standpoint.
As Charles says best in BRIAN AND CHARLES, “You don’t mess with Brian and Charles”! You most certainly don’t and after listening to DAVID EARL and CHRIS HAYWARD in this interview, I think you’ll agree. They are perfect just as they are.
TAKE A LISTEN. . .
by debbie elias, exclusive interview 06/07/2022
