The Railway Man is a haunting film that’s been a long time coming. Delving head first into the long-term trauma that survivors of war carry around with them, it’s based on the autobiography of the late Eric Lomax, a British soldier who had been taken in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in 1942 and, much later, reunited with one of his tormenters.
The film rights were bought 15 years ago, but over a decade of that was spent perfecting the script.
“We actually had incredible access to Eric Lomax and his wife Patti. When you build up that trust [and] when you have that time with people, you instinctively get an idea of what the essence of the story is and the essence of what you’re trying to capture,” said director Jonathan Teplitzky.
“The script wasn’t just about the book that Eric wrote, it was also about us talking, just like this, and them telling us exactly how they felt, exactly what happened.”
War Horse’s Jeremy Irvine plays Lomax as a young man at battle, exposing the brutal torture the soldier underwent. He was even water-boarded on-camera for seconds at a time over a couple of days in an attempt to make the scenes appear more authentic. But particularly difficult was Colin Firth’s role. Firth, who was able to meet Lomax before he died at 93 in 2012, had to play the soldier in his elderly years after all the physical torment had already taken place, and what was left was deep-rooted psychological and emotional damage.
“When you go home at night and you’re just on your own and you reflect back — just to be a witness to what human beings can do to other human beings — it’s a very disturbing thing,” said Teplitzky. “I know how challenging all of that was for Colin, who had to, in a sense, build that darkness into his character so that he could respond to it.”
But despite the grave and often uncomfortable nature of the story, Teplitzky said that the mood on set was playful, and that the tight-knit cast of Firth, Irvine, Stellan Skarsgard and Nicole Kidman kept it light and fun to blow off steam.
“Colin and Stellan did Mamma Mia! together, and Nicole and Stellan did Dogville together, but it was the first time Colin and Nicole had worked together, and they’d recently met each other and become friends,” said Teplitzky. “Colin and Stellan are very good friends, so there was a great teasing playfulness [on set] which was a great antidote to the material. I think that’s a characteristic of great actors, is that they find that a way of letting go while you’re working so you can clear the mind, but as soon as you roll, as soon as you’re there, you’re back in that character.”
