AMSTERDAM INTERVIEW WITH MIKE MYERS AND MICHAEL SHANNON

BY FRANK ARIVESO

With a star-studded cast that includes the likes of Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, Chris Rock, and more, the movie Amsterdam was one of the most anticipated releases in the year 2022—directed by the legendary David O. Russell. He attracts Hollywood stars like bees to honey. Amsterdam is a murder mystery political thriller that centers around the coming of the second world war. Mike Myers and Michael Shannon play a funny duo in the film. We got a chance to sit down with the two and find out their experience on set and what it would be like to work with a movie of this magnitude.

STRIPLV: What drew you to the project? Was the script, the director, or both?
MYERS: What drew me to the project was David O. Russell, quite honestly. I think he’s a fantastic director. Basically, I just said yes based on that he was in. Then I read the script, and I actually didn’t read the script at first. I’d been talking with him for two years, and then I read the script. The subject matter of how fragile democracy is. At a time when we could have lost our democracy before World War two. And how poignant that is to go through the challenges by authoritarians and ethnonationalists and, fascists, neofascists right now is so incredibly timely. But more than anything, I love the method which he likes to work, which is constant exploration and constant definition; he is very much, in general, the enemy of art, and god is in the details. It just got more and more details as we went along, and also the tremendous respect for the actors. He understands that people go to the movies to see people, and shots are important; it's all part of bringing you into the dream. But, ultimately, you want to see people go through a journey. And this has been one of the most amazing experiences in my working life. If David O. Russell wants me to do anything, the answer will be yes; tell me when and what to wear.
STRIPLV: Talk about the development of your characters. How did David help you to create them?
MYERS: So, David is very generous, and he has very clear ideas about what he wants for your character. But he also wants to know what invisa-link you can bring to the process. He was very obsessed that Michaels's character and mine were very into bird watching. It would be a key part of it. And very quickly, we started to talk about the nature of fascism are the cuckoo birds they steal the eggs from other people’s nests. Fascism isn’t an economic system or a system of governance. It's mafioso; it takes over other people’s nests like the cuckoo. And so once that big metaphor happened. A bird metaphor; we just went crazy with it. Not everything ended up in the script, but that was the way in. And I wanted to play a British civil service person because I’ve always been obsessed with the permanence and the efficiency of the British Civil Service. And then we also talked about different movie archetypes of those characters, those catalyst characters, the threshold guardians that make and allow the main characters to go through their journey. So that’s I love working on archetypes, and I love that type of stuff, so it was manna I gave my two cents. It was an unbelievably amazing experience. Very pro-performance. He understood that, like all of us, we are at service to the dream of which the performer is a part of. He is very conscientious about it and moving quickly because sluggishness for actors, especially when you are cooking, is the death of it. And also, at the feedback, he’d go I really love what you did in that scene. Well, you go, he noticed, and that’s nice. It’s amazing what a great production team does in terms of tricking the outside and fixing the inside. You are more focused in with everyone else’s vision of the dream, which is fun. I love going. I love that feeling. I used to get that feeling in Toronto every time coming out of a movie like Enter The Dragon. You know what I mean, and you go back on the street, and you are like, “Oh my god, I’m back in the real world now.” Apocalypse Now, Laurence of Arabia, all of these films that are just such complete immaculate universes that you almost need to go to Germany to decompress from one world to get into the real world, you know? And I think this movie does that. Loyalty is the string theory that keeps everything together that you can trust people. That you can trust is the basis of all relationships. Trust and respect, and I think if you were to look at the base molecules of this movie, it’s about trust and respect. And the great thing about a democracy is that democracy, when it works, is a trust and respect machine, and while there are a lot of inefficiencies with democracy, it doesn’t. It always remembers to protect trust and respect. And that’s why even though there is a lot wrong with democracy; there is also everything right about democracy.

STRIPLV: What drew you to the
SHANNON: Oh yeah, well, you know how I remember, you know how every so often you go to a movie, and you think afterward, I didn’t think it could do that or be like that. I felt like that after I saw Flirting with Disaster. I remember seeing that movie and being like whoever made this movie is really, really smart. And then I saw I Heart Huckabees and thought the same thing. Ever since then, it’s been a dream of mine to work with David. And it finally came to pass with this project.
STRIPLV: How did you and David develop your character, Michael?
SHANNON: It was; he gives you a lot of information going into it. He was sending me books, and I did a lot of reading. I had a lot of catching up to do, because he is just so well-informed and knowledgeable about this period and this story. And so I just basically did a lot of reading to prepare for it.
STRIPLV: Can you talk about the amazing cast and team behind the camera?
SHANNON: We had the best director of photography, probably one of the top five in the world. And so fast and for a cinematographer so considerate and giving with the actors.

STRIPLV: The film has such a unique look. Can you tell us about it?
SHANNON: And the production design across the board, the costume designs were so rich. It’s hard when you are making a period piece to really get lost in that era. I’ll never forget when I was doing World Trade Center, they had replicated ground zero in Marina Del Rey, and I was like riding on a golf cart to ground zero; there were like palm trees in the background; something about it felt completely wrong. But in this instance, I really kind of forgot, and I thought we were somewhere else.
STRIPLV: There are many different themes in the film; what do you think is the most powerful and will stick with the audience once the movie is over?
SHANNON: You know you were saying earlier it’s a film about loyalty, really. And what an incredibly valuable virtue loyalty is. And how important it is to hold on to it.