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Joel Edgerton Exodus Q&A

Joel Edgerton is an Australian actor, producer, and screenwriter. In Ridley Scott's Biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings he stars as the main antagonist, Ramses…

How would you describe your character in the film, Ramses?

Ramses is depicted at the top of a very fascist society and he is an ethically very upside-down character, in a Hitler-esque way. The story begins with these two men as brothers and collaborators; they’re complicit in a way. In one way, they’re both sceptical of any religious system. In a subtle way we see at the beginning that as the priestess unfolds the prophecy on the eve of the battle of Kadesh, both Moses and Ramses are rolling their eyes. Yet deeper in the movie, the insecurity that’s part of this man who becomes pharaoh bleeds into the fear and deficiencies that I think become fertile ground for someone who likes to exercise a lot of power. What is interesting about the script is that it humanises these characters at the same time

On that point, how important was it that we see Ramses as a father and loving husband? We don’t want to see him just as a pure villain…

When playing any kind of villain in a movie, to me it is very important to understand what is the engine behind them. And without trying too hard to have the audience sympathise with them, they at least need to understand or empathize with the man or his reasons for behaving as he does. It is important and it makes for a greater battle between hero and villain. And, of course, in our story, at the beginning of the movie, Ramses is not quite the villain yet. Moses is part of the empire and when he realizes he is different and when Ramses realizes that Moses is different and is in fact a Hebrew, that’s where the battle begins and we start to see the fascist in him and the contrast with Moses. And it is important we see that humanity in him. We catch a glimpse of that later on in the movie where he loses his child. Underneath all that fascism, he is still a human being.

How did it feel to walk on to set for the first time and see something on this grand scale?

Walking on set for the first time on this grand-scale Biblical epic helmed by Ridley Scott was terrifying to me. That first couple of weeks is like being the new kid at school, coming in mid-term, and you feel like it is a dangerous place to be because you’re trying to earn your stripes. You are trying to feel like you belong there. And there I was, trying to do that while dressed in a lot of gold jewellery and some well-tailored skirts! But, eventually, I got comfortable with it and I really started to enjoy it. Ridley gathers such an incredible team. Arthur Max’s set designs were breath-taking; Janty Yates’ costumes were just beautiful and Tina [Earnshaw]’s makeup team was great. It was just a great environment filled with great people and he creates a real family atmosphere.

Apparently, they modelled that huge Ramses statue with your face. Was it weird seeing yourself deified in that way?

There’s a section of the movie, I think, that’s cut, where I am telling this architect that I don’t need to sit for the artist who is going to create a statue of me, that I don’t need the statue to look exactly like me. It is the image that we want the people to perceive of me so the result is that there is a statue of Ramses in the movie, the head of which is 50-feet high, and that bears some resemblance to me without being a perfect likeness of me. Thank goodness! And there it was sitting in this field in Spain in the construction set, where the Hebrew slaves are being whipped and toiling away. Someone said to me, ‘Joel, there is a statue of your head on set, round the corner.’ Of course, I had to get in the car and go and check it out and climb the scaffold. I stood there and my whole body was as tall as the eyeball. There have been all these jokes about me shipping it back to Bondi and sticking it in my back yard. There would be no room for anything else. Egomaniac that I am!

And how was the scene with the plague of frogs? Your co-star, Golshifteh Farahani, had to wake up with frogs all over her face and hair…

Golshifteh is a wonderful Iranian actress who plays my wife and she had to pretend to be asleep. Then they dressed all these frogs on the bed. She was a real trooper, actually. I personally wouldn’t mind. I love frogs. I used to spend a lot of time with frogs. I know that sounds weird but as a kid I grew up on a farm. Anyway, on set we had 400 frogs and they were the hardest-working frogs in the UK! The funny thing was that the day after we worked with the frogs, Ridley was like, ‘I think I need to shoot more with the frogs,’ and he called the frog agent, and he was like, ‘You can’t have them tomorrow because they’re doing a TV show in Manchester!’ He said, ‘I will give you 40 of them.’ So I think the frogs are harder working than most actors are. But that was the thing — on my first day on set I had a snake around my neck. They had cheetahs and eagles and elephants. Every day it was like a different animal.

Can you recall any scene that was cut from the final version of the film which might resurface as an extra feature on the Blu-ray?

There are a couple. There were a couple of scenes I shot with Sigourney Weaver. I remember one where I was tearing apart a pomegranate and we are having an argument about something and at the end of the scene I threw part of this pomegranate at her. I thought it was going to be great for the movie but I felt terrible that I threw fruit at one of my favourite actresses! Maybe you will see that on the Blu-ray extras, I don’t know.

When you act with the green screen does it change the way you approach the role?

It was interesting that the first section of the shoot was at the palace and we had so much of the room around us. Everything in the room was practical and we could touch it and see it and move it. And then you’d see a little green screen beyond the murals. It was interesting because you could always ask Ridley what was going to be there, and what we’d be looking at, and he would draw a little picture for us and would tell us what we’d see and what the perspective was. So you never really felt lost. As an actor, I would hate to do a movie that was entirely green screen. I like it when my imagination is left to work with the other actors and what’s there in front of me, rather than trying to picture what I am supposed to see. So we didn’t have too much green screen, considering.

How difficult is it to present a character that is so well known in real life?

I try and block out everything. I had seen the Charlton Heston movie The Ten Commandments when I was very young, and purposefully tried not to re-watch it. My worry was that I’d watch Yul Brynner [who played the same character] and feel very insecure, or try and lean into something that I didn’t need to replicate. In my case, I really enjoy the collaborative process of making a film and it was more important to me than on any other film I’ve worked on to rely on the great people who were heading up the departments — costume, makeup, hair, or in my case lack of hair — and allow that to inform me as an actor, because without that I’d have been lost. That’s the beauty for me of working on movies, particularly with someone like Ridley. There are a crew of excellent practitioners that work with him, because he’s a great general, and you feel very supported. I needed that.