A tale of epic battles, royal intrigue and a timeless, star-crossed passion, TRISTAN & ISOLDE is a long-time dream project of executive producers Tony Scott and Ridley Scott. "You have two people who are on two separate sides where a relationship is impossible, yet they come together," says Ridley Scott, director/producer of the Academy Award-winning epic "Gladiator" as well as the acclaimed "Kingdom of Heaven." "It's a story with epic scope, rooted in common human behavior that is timeless."
The myth of Tristan & Isolde originated as a Celtic legend from the Dark Ages, an historical period about which little is known, that took place between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. A tragic story about forbidden love between a man and woman, the tale predates the legend of Arthur and Guinevere in Camelot as well as Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet." "I continue to be drawn by the tragic nature of the love story," comments Ridley Scott. "It is so powerful dramatically and emotionally that it transcends any setting or time."
Fascinated by the material, Scott developed it on and off for nearly two decades, originally intending to direct the film himself. Knowing of Scott's affinity for the myth, screenwriter Dean Georgaris sent his screenplay to Scott Free, the production company headed by Scott and his brother, the director/producer Tony Scott. The company acquired the property, which transposed the setting from a more magical Dark Ages period to one more grounded in what the reality of that era must have been.
Though Ridley Scott remained involved, he sought a director for the project who would pursue his own vision from the rich material. "As a producer on this, the most important thing was choosing the right director and letting him have the freedom and reign to do what he wants, in order to get his vision across," comments co-producer Anne Lai.
Scott immediately contacted Kevin Reynolds, who brought depth and emotion to such large-scale adventures as "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," "Rapa Nui" and "The Count of Monte Cristo." "There is something about the story that is so compelling," Reynolds comments. "It's intensely romantic and sad, a beautiful tragedy that's Romeo and Juliet-esque in the way it unfolds."
THE STORY
The story is set among English tribes struggling for control over their territories following the fall of Rome. With that fall comes an end to roads and general infrastructure and, amid this chaotic climate, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invade Britain from the east while Irish King Donnchadh's (David Patrick O'Hara) forces invade Cornwall from the west.
In one of these villages, Tristan (James Franco) is raised by Lord Marke (Rufus Sewell), who lost his hand trying to protect the boy during the Irish raid that killed Tristan's family. As a young man, the charismatic, headstrong Tristan leads guerrilla attacks on Irish occupying forces, ultimately defeating King Donnchadh's best warriors. "Tristan is full of rage at the Irish for taking his family," notes James Franco, who starred in the highly successful "Spider-Man" franchise and won a Golden Globe® award for his portrayal of James Dean in the eponymous television production. "He also sees his surrogate father as the ideal leader to take control of England. He would take on all the Irish forces if he could."
Lord Marke, notes Rufus Sewell, is distinguished by his dignity and leadership. "Here is a king - who is a king in all things and a great leader - but for the fact that, because he'd lost his right hand, he literally can't defend," says the actor. "He is no longer the best warrior amongst them because that was the greatest qualification."
Following a raid in which Tristan fights fiercely but is overcome, the young knight is believed to be dead. "But in fact he has been put in a boat and sent out to sea, in a Viking funeral," explains Franco. "But rather than die, Tristan washes up on the shores of Ireland and meets a woman, who essentially saves his life."
Unbeknownst to Tristan, his savior is Irish Princess Isolde, who herself is motherless and living under the strict rules set down for her by King Donnchadh. "Isolde is part of the royal family in Ireland and so she is desperate for freedom," explains Sophia Myles ("Underworld"). "She also has a very spiritual side and gets a sense that a big change is about to happen in her life. One day she finds a man washed up on the beach, shipwrecked. She falls in love with him at first sight."
The two fall helplessly in love and, for a brief moment, are content to be together, away from the troubles plaguing both their lands. "He's a warrior, but everything changes when he meets Isolde," Franco says, "his perception of who he is and how he relates to the world." "There's such strong love between them," adds Myles. "She comes from an upbringing with so much structure and he comes from a lifestyle where he has had no structure, and he has spent all his life fighting, so they're each other's yin and yang, as it were. They fit together perfectly."
The King would have Tristan killed on sight if he were discovered, so Isolde returns him to the safety of England. Returning to Lord Marke, Tristan never reveals to anyone where he has been.
In the meantime, King Donnchadh has invited the English lords from the various factions to fight for Isolde's hand, hoping to cause further discord among the English barons. "So, Lord Marke sends his champion, Tristan, out to Ireland, who wins and brings back the daughter, little knowing that the daughter is the same Isolde he fell in love with," explains Rufus Sewell, an accomplished stage actor who has also starred in such films as "Dark City," "A Knight's Tale" and, most recently, "The Legend of Zorro." "Here is this young man, whom Marke has put his hopes into - his surrogate son, in effect - already in love with the bride who has been brought back for Marke to marry."
Marke weds Isolde and prepares to become King of the now united England, ruining Donnchadh's plan to destroy the tribes once and for all. "Marke is ignorant of the fact that his bride is in love with Tristan," Sewell continues. "Marke not only loves her, but he loves Tristan, his surrogate son, so it becomes a terrible love triangle between them."
"Tristan is the classic tragic hero who becomes torn between loyalty to his king and the overpowering love he has for this woman," says Franco. "His tragedy consists of those two warring sides of loyalty."
CASTING THE ROLES
Franco was the first actor to be cast in the film. "James is not only a very gifted actor but incredibly dedicated and focused to his craft," says Ridley Scott. "By the end of our first meeting, we knew that his passion and love for this story matched our own."
Following a reading with Franco, the filmmakers immediately cast newcomer Sophia Myles, who has appeared in such films as "Thunderbirds," "Underworld" and "From Hell," but makes her motion picture starring debut in TRISTAN & ISOLDE. "Sophia is very talented and very instinctual," says executive producer Jim Lemley. "We felt that she was innocent enough, smart enough and daring enough to be Isolde. We knew that as soon as she walked out of the reading. Everyone else saw the tape and was blown away by her."
"I was incredibly moved by the script," Myles recalls. "I couldn't put it down. This was so rich and compelling to read but at the same time it's a frustrating story because you desperately want them to be able to be together, but they can't be."
Rufus Sewell was brought in to complete the love triangle as Lord Marke. "We were looking for someone to embody not only strength, nobility and paternal qualities of Marke, but also to reveal a vulnerability without being weak," comments director Kevin Reynolds. "Although he is known more for his darker roles, Rufus is actually quite charming with a very sharp wit. We hope to show another side to his work that people have not seen of him yet."
Lemley had worked with Scottish-born actor David Patrick O'Hara on "Braveheart" and thought of him immediately for King Donnchadh. "The role is malevolent and powerful, evil but not cartoon-ish evil," says Lemley. "Here is a person who has a hair trigger temper, but is also powerful and stoic, which are difficult things to get. When David came to meet on it he was perfect."
PREPARING THE ACTORS FOR BATTLE
Because of the sheer ferocity of the battles as he envisioned them and relatively short shooting schedule, director Reynolds knew he would need a stunt coordinator with vast knowledge of fighting through the ages. "These are not huge nation states in this film," Reynolds notes. "And there weren't many of them, in terms of numbers, in reality anyway then. But it is a more personalized kind of fighting, which makes it sometimes more vicious."
For stunt coordinator, Reynolds selected Nick Powell, who helped create the hallmark battles of such films as "Braveheart," "Gladiator" and "The Last Samurai." "There's a general rule that I follow, which is to have an authenticity of style in whatever type of film I'm working on," comments Powell. "A certain style should be imposed on a film from the beginning. Obviously, this film's style would be dictated by the Dark Ages but no one really knows how they fought. However, you can get a good idea simply from the weapons they use."
The first job, however, was to prepare the film's hero. Franco dedicated himself to training nearly six months before production began. Once Powell joined the crew, he began working with the actor on stunt and fight coordinating and further training. "I started with him about four weeks before his first action sequence," Powell recalls. "We worked seven days a week for the first month, choreographing and practicing the fights. He worked really hard to get into the shape he's in and to learn to use the sword as well as he does."
Most of the cast was required to undergo some type of training, be it with horses, swords or bow and arrow. "We've been very lucky because the actors on this film have been very good," says Powell. "They've all put time in and all learned to use a sword and any other weapon believably. They understand the importance of authenticity and have worked very hard to achieve it."
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Little has been recorded about the era between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, known as the Dark Ages. This went to the heart of Reynolds and production designer Mark Geraghty's quest to bring that era to life for the production of TRISTAN & ISOLDE. "No one really knows what occurred in the Dark Ages and that can be good and bad," comments Reynolds. "Mark and I looked at it from the standpoint of what we knew existed in Roman England about the fifth century AD. And then, when records started being kept again, about the ninth century AD, we could extrapolate backwards to bridge that centuries-long gap."
Reynolds leaned on Geraghty, with whom he collaborated on "The Count of Monte Cristo." Reynolds also knew that Geraghty could be extremely inventive with his designs. A lot of it, Geraghty says, comes down to guess work and frequent use of their imaginations. "How do you create a time and a place that is from 1500 years ago, but at the same time make it something today's audience can relate to?" says Geraghty. "Because we are telling a story and not making a documentary, we took the bits out that really suited us and we tried to create a world that we imagined had the feeling of the Dark Ages."
Geraghty and his team researched how people would have lived, what tools they would have used to farm, what they would have eaten and what types of structures they would build to survive in those conditions. "What animals would have been around at that time?" Geraghty muses. "There were a lot of areas, so we had to be quite inventive, keeping in mind the information we did have and reconciling that with what the script required."
They deduced that most structures would be wooden or thatched because stone structures (other than those left behind by the Romans) did not begin to appear in the area until around 1000 AD.
"For the Irish castle we went for a Celtic influence, because we were very sure that was there," he says. "For anything that was set in England, we drew more upon the Roman influence."
For the landscapes as the filmmakers envisioned them, Reynolds, Lemley and Mark Geraghty spent months scouting Romania, France, Scotland and England before deciding on the west coast of Ireland and the Czech Republic. "In many ways, we're creating a place which in fact does not exist," comments Reynolds. "So we looked to marry the best of Ireland and the best of the Czech Republic into this fabricated, imaginary place."
Though the locations on the west coast of Ireland embodied both the wild, rugged and timeless look they sought for Dark Ages-era Ireland and Cornwall, England, its remoteness and change-on-a-dime weather provided a continuous challenge to the production. "You have all kinds of variables, like weather, the logistics of trying to get to a locale, building things, getting people in and out - it's enormous!" says Reynolds.
Yet the challenge was worth the effort. "I felt it was important to go there and get those looks to give it a broader scope and a bigger scale," says Reynolds.
The set of King Donnchadh's Dunluce Castle was built on a small island on the west coast of Ireland, on the sandy beaches of Glassillaun. "We really wanted a feeling that this place has been here for an awfully long time, so we tried to blend the castle into the landscape, because that's what the people would have been influenced by," notes Geraghty. "And also the weather. We had to build something that would stand up to the winds and the hardship that they would have endured in real life."
This island location provided its own set of challenges. "We could only reach the castle two hours a day in between low tides," says Geraghty. "It was quite difficult to structure and film there, but we felt the location offered us so much in terms of a visual sense that it was worth the inconvenience."
A particularly favorite set of both Reynolds and Geraghty was the Roman boathouse where lovers Tristan and Isolde find stolen moments together. Like many of the sets on this film, the boathouse is burned on-camera. On the night this set was to be burned, Reynolds offered Geraghty the honor of "lighting the match," an offer the production designer declined. Throughout the film he was unable to witness any of his sets ablaze.
COSTUMES
As with production design, wardrobe came down mostly to extrapolation based on what was known, guess work and the imagination of costume designer Maurizio Millennotti. Two-time Academy Award® nominee Millenotti ("Hamlet," "Otello") had little to draw upon from historical accounts of the period. The results were very raw and rustic, yet discreetly elaborate with remarkable detail. "We looked at what materials would have been available to people during this era," Millennotti comments, noting also that there would be Roman and Celtic influence.
Though the costumes were theoretically from a dark period in history, the most essential qualities were comfort and wearability. "You have to wear the costumes as if they were jeans and a t-shirt," explains Millennotti. "It's what you wear everyday. We tried to make something feel like it's of the time and a place that we're trying to depict, but at the same time make the characters feel like they're people that the audience can relate to."
Millenotti arrived in Prague 10 weeks before filming began with a truckload of fabrics he had bought in Italy. He set up a workshop and created 90% of the costumes from scratch and then moved the entire shop to Ireland three weeks before shooting began. All the detail in the leather costumes was done by hand, as was the stitching for all the gowns.
"I went to see him in the workshop and he was sitting there embroidering Lady Serafine's gown," recalls Lemley. "The fact that he was able to pull it off and do it with such grace, to achieve what he achieved is amazing. He's like a godfather, just an amazing guy."
For Myles, having just completed filming the sci-fi caper "Thunderbirds" in high heels and pink chenille, the costumes for TRISTAN & ISOLDE were pleasantly exotic. "It's period, but they're so comfortable to wear," she says. "Maurizio has such amazing taste. He has made everything not only look incredible but feel so wonderful to wear. It's all silk and they're wonderful, really, really wonderful."
THE VISUAL TEXTURE
Creating the visual texture for a film set in the Dark Ages but with a contemporary sensibility, Reynolds enlisted director of photography Arthur Reinhart, who came to his attention through a small Polish film called "Nothing." "We've tried as much as we can within the parameters of our schedule to go for something very strong," Reynolds explains. "We wanted to infuse this picture with a very unique look, and Arthur pulled that off."
TRISTAN & ISOLDE marks Reinhart's English-language feature film debut as cinematographer (his only previous work in English being a sci-fi TV mini series, "Children of Dune"). "When I first met with Kevin we both agreed on a very dark, grey and silver saturated look for the story," says Reinhart. "We wanted a richness on film that matched the depth of the emotions of the characters, and also to infuse the picture with a distinct feel of what the Dark Ages must have been like."
The inclement weather in Ireland created as much mischief with Reinhart's camera crew as it did with Geraghty's sets. "Trying to match the lighting situation in Ireland when you have four seasons in fifteen minutes and when it is changing so fast, you almost can't follow the weather!" laughs Reinhart. "The main thing was to protect the camera from shaking." … And also from the strong waves of the Atlantic Ocean, which threatened more than once to wash the equipment and the crew out to sea.
DEAN GEORGARIS (Screenwriter) recently wrote the screenplay for "The Manchurian Candidate," starring Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep; "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life," starring Angelina Jolie and directed by Jan DeBont, and "Paycheck" starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman and directed by John Woo.
Georgaris was raised in New York City and graduated with honors from Swarthmore College where he majored in political science. He decided to pursue a career in arts after living in Florence for six months, and enrolled in the directing program at USC Film School, which he later left to write full-time.

KEVIN REYNOLDS (Director) was born in San Antonio, Texas. After graduating from Baylor University with a law degree, he wrote speeches for the then Governor of Texas. After a few years he opted to pursue a career in filmmaking, enrolling first in the film school at the University of Texas in Austin and then at the University of Southern California's film school. His writing thesis, "Ten Soldiers," was later directed by John Milius and released under the title "Red Dawn." Steven Spielberg saw his film thesis, "Proof," and asked him to write a feature length screenplay around its premise. This film, "Fandango," became Reynolds's first foray into feature film directing and his first collaboration with Kevin Costner.
Reynolds and Costner went on to work on "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," "Rapa Nui" and "Waterworld." "The Beast of War," Reynolds's second film, has long been his favourite. He also directed "187," starring Samuel Jackson, and, most recently, "The Count of Monte Cristo," starring Guy Pearce and Jim Caviezel.



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