{"id":143603,"date":"2014-06-10T15:41:38","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T22:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/?p=143603"},"modified":"2014-06-10T15:42:19","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T22:42:19","slug":"interview-david-michod-the-rover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/2014\/06\/10\/interview-david-michod-the-rover\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: David Mich\u00f4d On His Animal Kingdom Follow-Up, The Rover"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheFour years after delivering the film that would ultimately go on to earn Jacki Weaver her very first Academy Award nomination, writer-director David Mich\u00f4d<\/strong> is back with his second feature film, \u201cThe Rover<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film stars \u201cAnimal Kingdom\u201d alum Guy Pearce as Eric, a loner roaming the desolate Australian outback where law enforcement is hard to come by and everything comes at a hefty price. When a group of criminals steals Eric\u2019s car in the heat of a botched heist, he decides to pick up the wounded accomplice (Robert Pattinson) they leave behind so he track them down and get back his sole remaining possession.<\/p>\n

When you mark your feature debut with something like \u201cAnimal Kingdom,\u201d follow-up opportunities are bound to come your way. However, an opportunity and the right opportunity are two different things, so Mich\u00f4d opted to take his time to ensure he picked the best thing. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s my life before \u2018Animal Kingdom\u2019 and my life after it and they\u2019re two totally different things. I think one of the reasons why it took me like four years or whatever is was to get this movie made was, I feel like I spent the first two years after \u2018Animal Kingdom\u2019 was released just working out what the hell my life even looked like, you know? I mean, I went from having no options, other than the options that I generated for myself, to having a whole lot that was being thrown at me.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ultimately Mich\u00f4d chose to move forward with his own script, one that didn\u2019t seem like much on the surface, but had so much more to it underneath. <\/p>\n

\u201cI remember before I made it and people asked me what I was doing and said, \u2018What\u2019s it about?\u2019 And I\u2019d go, \u2018Look, it\u2019s actually kind of like a really sort of dirty, violent, near future western about a guy who gets his car stolen and spends the entire movie trying to get it back,\u2019 saying that facetiously knowing that actually, for me, there\u2019s so much subtext bubbling underneath it.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cAnimal Kingdom\u201d may have helped get \u201cThe Rover\u201d off the ground, but it also forced Mich\u00f4d to face a monumental challenge \u2013 ensuring \u201cThe Rover\u201d lived up to the sky-high expectations \u201cAnimal Kingdom\u201d set for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn this one, I\u2019m contending with a thing I\u2019ve never had to contend with before, which is other people\u2019s expectations, you know? And I\u2019m realizing that I can\u2019t control them and so I just have to let it go \u2026 I watched \u2018The Rover\u2019 in Cannes. We finished it in November last year, so this was the first time I\u2019d seen it in about four or five months and I really enjoyed watching it, which is an unusual experience when I\u2019m watching something that I\u2019ve made.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can check out the rest of our conversation with Mich\u00f4d in the video interview below and also catch \u201cThe Rover\u201d in full when it arrives in select theaters this weekend followed by its wide expansion on June 20th.<\/p>\n