Writer, co-star and co-director Celyn Jones walks us down the long path to his new Rebel Wilson film: The Almond And The Seahorse…
This article first appeared in Film Stories issue 50.
On the one hand, when I catch up with Celyn Jones (the co-writer, co-director and co-star of The Almond And The Seahorse) he’s preparing for the release of a number of films, as well as getting his next movie as director ready. On the other – the less glamorous side of the film business – he’s packing up the office of production company Mad As Birds with which he’s been involved since it began. He sits in front of a specially commissioned poster celebrating its five feature film releases, of which The Almond And The Seahorse is the latest.
The film, which Jones has co-directed with regular Clint Eastwood cinematographer Tom Stern, is a drama centred on two couples, with one person in each relationship significantly affected by a traumatic brain injury. Originally a play from Katy O’Reilly in which Celyn Jones took a lead role, the pair developed the film screenplay, and it was shot all the way back in 2021.
That, you might remember, was when shooting films was still with a requirement for Covid precautions and protocols, a time that shut a lot of independent productions down. As Jones admits, it had an impact on The Almond And The Seahorse too. For a start: “originally, I wasn’t going to direct it.”
A French filmmaker was to take the job on, but he had to step aside. In came Jones for his feature directorial debut, along with Tom Stern. Then the cast changed a few times too, given the turbulence of times, and the project became fragile. It’s no secret that over half of the independent films in development around the time of the first lockdown didn’t make it. This one did.
Fragility
“We got very, very close to losing it,” he admits, pointing out that it was film companies as well as indie films that were hitting the wall. But with jobs at stake and a belief in the material, there was a determination to get things going.
“There was a fund that fell out that promised us money. Wales came to the rescue, we shipped some of the filming to there.”
In fact, there were a few heroes here. The team behind the film deferred their own salaries, ensuring that everyone else got paid. Then Eddie Izzard, listed in the credits as an executive producer, also jumped in. Izzard was the star of Six Minutes To Midnight, that Jones co-wrote and featured in, another Mad As Birds production. When it looked as though the funding for The Almond And The Seahorse was going to dry up, Izzard was insistent that the story needed to be told.
“They funded pre-production,” Jones tells me, and that even though the money shortfall came back, Izzard’s generosity got them through a very sticky time.
It was hard to hold a cast together throughout this period, and changing schedules meant some who wanted to do the film couldn’t. There’s no grumbling, though, at an ensemble that – along with Rebel Wilson and Celyn Jones – also boasts Meera Syal, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Trine Dyrholm.
Even with a cast procured though, it’s easy to overlook just what kind of challenges filming in 2021 still presented. A scene that would have taken place in a car needed to be rewritten (it wasn’t allowed to have the crew in the tight space required), and at the point they were filming, things were up in the air.
“You never knew what you were going to be faced with each day,” Jones recalls. “We would go in, and there were other rules in play. That scene with 200 supporting artists, well you couldn’t have that. Then there’s a huge budget for the Covid insurance and stuff like that.”
Nonetheless, they got the film shot, but as a lower profile independent film – albeit one with a star name – it needed to secure distribution, and go the festival route to slowly build to a full release.
“It takes a while,” explains Jones. “It had a really nice successful launch at Zurich, Dinard and Göteborg film festivals, and won the award at Dinard, which was amazing.”
The Almond & The Seahorse appeared to be on its way.
A Fresh Cut
Yet there was still an unforeseen change coming. The film got a small release at the end of December 2022 in America, and initial reviews were mixed. Some of the criticism stung, and felt a bit unfair.
“As Sam Mendes says, if you’re the director, just get used to it being your fault,” Jones concedes.
I did wonder though: did he feel responsibility when some of those notices came in?
“I felt a huge responsibility,” he confirms. But still: “I knew the work inside it was really good. I did think it was unfair, but there was something niggling.”
This is when fate played a very helpful hand. The film was supposed to release in the UK in 2023 originally, but scheduling, release dates and availabilities were all in some degree of flux. The distributor of the film in the UK changed, and during the whole process of pushing to distribution, Jones got asked: are you happy with the cut of the film as it stands? He seized his opportunity, and got to take his movie back into the edit.
“I listened. What happened when it went out before, there were arguments breaking out between people who really loved the film and its ending, because they were affected by [the subject] or loved the film full stop.”
The niggle? That the structure wasn’t quite there. The ingredients were right; the mixing of them was out. Knowing he had to protect the performances in the film, he reworked things, with the fresh version feeling really quite different.
“Then I tested the new cut, and it tested very, very positively.”
The final version is still around the 90-minute mark, but it’s in the first third of the film where the majority of changes took place.
“There were things that we split and we spread out. It just gave a really good balance, a bit more context. Before, it was purposely cryptic; now we drop straight into the story. It’s a little less linear now in its approach.”
Rebel
The film’s profile has been notably raised by its star, Rebel Wilson, who picked this independent film shooting in the north-west of England for a move into movie drama.
“Her agency really loved the script,” Jones admits, which Wilson read over a weekend. “We spoke on the Monday… within 24–48 hours she was doing it.”
This was quite the coup. What’s more, once she was in, there was absolute commitment to the film.
“She really turned up,” Jones says. “She did the work beautifully, and she was there for everybody.”
Even through the aforementioned funding struggles, she remained committed.
“She stayed with the project even when it was getting pushed and was sort of fragile. She was there, she believed in it.”
That’s right through to promoting the film too, heading back to the UK to attend its premiere. Appreciating she’s known for her comedy work – and that certainly would have paid better – Rebel Wilson’s role is a serious one in the movie. But Celyn Jones knows that humour has its place in any story. There’s a moment where his character is forgetting his cigarettes, and he admits that “people find that very funny and excruciating at the same time. You sort of treat it almost like a Beckett play: you had to play it beat by beat.”
Action
Appreciating he’s been on many, many sets as an actor, I’m curious how Celyn found the jump to his movie directorial debut, not least as a co-director. Does years of previous experience in the business help?
“I’ve always loved being an actor, and I’ve always been on the side of actors. I guess it helps. Maybe the instinctual thing, or maybe the experience: knowing what some of the them need, and what they don’t need.”
Read more: The Order, and why great modern thrillers are being made outside the Hollywood system
He was conscious of the jump his lead star was making too.
“She was taking a big leap from comedy to drama, so she was worried that emotion wouldn’t be there. She needed me to be there as a cheerleader, as a buddy, as a director, a co-star and a friend. She was making something she’d never done before.”
We lose some time too chatting about the wonderful Meera Syal as well.
“I love that this British sort of national treasure comes in wearing cowboy boots and a poncho, smoking a cigarette. So badass.”
Slate
It’s clearly been a challenge to get all this together, and tested Jones in new ways too. But if anything, it appears to have whetted his appetite. He’s got a trio of films out this year, as well as producing the upcoming Grange Hill movie that he’s confirmed is planning to be accelerating forward after the summer. And then? He’s going to direct again. He tells me that the film is called Mad Fabulous.
“Think Marie Antoinette, The Favourite, meets Brewster’s Millions… it’s about Henry Padgett, the fifth Marquess of Anglesey, who inherited more money than anyone else on the planet at the age of 19, and decided to spend it. He died in exile, penniless, at the age of 29.”
Jones has just cast the lead role too, but that’s under wraps just for the minute until a formal announcement comes out.
He’s a busy man then, is Celyn Jones. But his immediate priority? Well, the contents of his office won’t move themselves – so I leave him to his boxes and the less glamorous side of the film business. He’d best get a move on, though: apparently he’s got a meeting with Hollywood producer Dean Devlin to prepare for tomorrow.
The Almond And The Seahorse is available on VOD now.
