Behind the scenes of Man and Witch, Scotland’s new Hollywood blockbuster
“My father (the eminent Scottish archaeologist David Stronach) was an incredible presence in my life, and it was really magical that after he died, we had the opportunity to come to Scotland to make this film and bring our daughter with us. It was very meaningful. It’s a bit like coming back Home.”
Stronach invited the Herald on Sunday to visit the set for a behind-the-scenes peek at her film’s return – not in the backwaters of the Hollywood system, but instead in the unexpected location of Knightswood Community Centre, in north Glasgow.
Inside a building commonly used for Zumba groups, AA meetings and dog training classes lies an incredibly detailed, mysterious witch’s lair, at the heart of a world that smashes together the dual genius of Scottish comedy favorite Still Game and Jim Henson’s Muppets creature. Store Studios.
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The 51-year-old actress, who played the childlike empress in the 1984 mystery film, will be seen in her first leading role in 40 years when her new Man and Witch film The Dance of a Thousand Steps premieres in London tonight.
Stronach stars in the fantasy film opposite her husband, writer Gregg Steinbrunner, with whom she produced the project, attracting a star-studded cast with nostalgia, including ’80s film icons Sean Astin (Mickey from Goonies) and Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown from Back to the Future). . ) alongside British comedy stars Jennifer Saunders, Bill Bailey and Eddie Izzard.
Gary Tank Commander star Stuart Bowman, who currently appears in the Rebus reboot, and Game of Thrones’ Daniel Portman are among the Scottish cast for the film, with Still Game’s Greg Hemphill also appearing, directed by former Craiglang supervisor Michael Hines.
The film was originally scheduled to be shot in the United States, but was changed to Scotland to take advantage of the original medieval backdrops such as Doune Castle and Stirling Castle.
Steinbrunner initially conceived the idea as a short film, but gradually developed the script into a full-length film.
He said: “The simplest part of the story is that there was a man who was cursed to the point where he would never marry. He goes to a witch to try to break the curse, and she gives him three tasks in order to break the curse. It’s a myth, we wanted it to feel both familiar and unique. So, there are big metaphors.” “For fantasy films, but we also enjoy subverting some stereotypes. We let people have their cake and eat it too.”
Stronach’s parents protected their daughter from the influence of child fame after her success in 1984.
She said: “After NeverEnding Story, my family and I decided that I would not pursue becoming a child actress. But the arts were deep in my bones and I became a dancer. I continued to participate in plays in New York and worked in theater for years. I certainly did not disappear, but we live in a time when if Things are recorded digitally, people almost believe they never happened.
“In a weird way, I feel like all the projects I’ve done before this are coming together at this moment. It’s so exciting that my husband wrote the story and I had the opportunity to comment on it and help develop it with him. It feels like a gift to be able to come back to something I really loved, This is a special situation.”
The Herald visited the other Knightswood location on the final day of filming, which coincided with the couple’s wedding anniversary.
“You might wonder how calling your wife a witch can be an anniversary gift,” Stronach said with a laugh. “But when people watch the film it will make sense.”
“There’s a little bit of an autobiographical element to the movie, Tammy and I play the lead roles of Man and Witch, and there’s something about us in the movie that goes beyond the big characterizations of those characters,” Steinbrunner said.
For director Haynes, who directed every episode of Still Game and the three live shows at the Hydro, helming his first feature film with a true Hollywood legend wasn’t quite what he expected.
“I ended up directing the Christopher Lloyd scenes via an iPad from my back bedroom in Anniesland,” Hines said.
“It was 4 a.m. and Christopher Lloyd was filming his scenes in a tropical park in Santa Monica, and I was giving directions from my iPad screen.”
Several actors provide the voices of Henson’s puppets, but the film – which was also filmed in the medieval village of Dunkarron, Moggdoc Park in West Dumbartonshore, and Queen’s Park in Glasgow – also includes real animals.
“We have a sheep, a goose, a dog and a talking donkey,” Hines said. We have created a unique world that is not found anywhere else. This is what is most interesting to me.
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“Putting together two-hour pieces, not half-hour episodes, has been a really fun learning curve for me.”
For Stronach, there was a satisfying circularity to the experience.
“When I was a young man coming to New York to pursue dance, I didn’t want to think about NeverEnding Story, I wanted so badly to make my mark out of it.
“I didn’t even put that on my CV, and most of the people I worked with didn’t know I was on that CV. “Then after I had my daughter, it was weird, there was a resurgence of film.
I was invited to Comic Con and after that I started to appreciate that I was part of something that was meaningful to a lot of people. So I started to embrace it.
“It’s all about the value of storytelling and having the courage to create a more humane world in our imagination, which translates to the real world. Stories like this can help us have more empathy, patience and curiosity about each other and the world around us.”
