Helen Mirren and Director Gavin Hood Discuss Alan Rickman and Modern War Film ‘Eye in the Sky’

Sandra Miska

In the war thriller “Eye in the Sky,” the seventh feature from director Gavin Hood, Academy Award-winner Helen Mirren stars as a British colonel faced with a tough decision after a young girl unknowingly ends up in front of a house on which she has set up a drone strike in order to prevent a group of terrorists from launching a suicide bombing. Hood and Mirren recently opened up to Entertainment Voice about “Eye in the Sky.” 

“Eye in the Sky” features the late Alan Rickman in his final on-screen film role. Although he and Mirren did shoot their scenes separately in this film, they had worked together numerous times in the past, mainly on the stage.

“I think that Alan would have been incredibly proud that this was his last movie,” Mirren said. “What I love about it is that the Alan you see up on the screen here is much closer to the real Alan Rickman that we knew and loved. You see his intelligence; you see his wit, and you see his authority. I think that that was very much the Alan that we knew. The other characters that he played so brilliantly in the “Harry Potter” series, as a [villain] in “Die Hard,” in those sorts of things, he was a wonderful actor, so he always gave an incredible performance. But I think the Alan that we see on screen in this movie is very close to the real Alan, and I also feel that the story of the film, …the inner soul of the film would have been something that Alan would’ve identified with and would’ve been proud to be a part of.”

As for Hood, he hadn’t met Alan before making “Eye in the Sky.” He expressed his regret that Rickman wasn’t there with them sharing his own thoughts and feelings regarding the film.

“I hadn’t known Alan his whole life, and I feel very privileged in a way to have worked with him and also slightly awkward because I can’t believe he’s not here to articulate the film and what he feels about the ideas raised in the film because he did have strong feelings about the concepts and the themes and the ideas raised by the film, and I wish he was here to articulate them because he was so articulate.”

Mirren is flawless in her role as Colonel Powell and after seeing the film it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the role. However, according to Hood, the part was originally written for a man but that didn’t stop him from picturing Mirren as he read the screenplay.

“I got to the end and I thought this is a subject that should be talked about by as many people as possible and that women should not be excluded from this conversation by having a sort of a male-dominated cast that makes it look like a sort of boys only war movie because it’s so much more than that.  …Helen brings incredible strength and power to this role.”

“We are all a part of this conversation,” Mirren told Hood. “I really applaud you for that. I wish more directors had that point of view and writers.”

Like Hood, Mirren had a strong response to Guy Hibbert’s screenplay. “It was an absolute page-turner, but I thought much more than that, I thought the subject matter was serious and threw up a conversation that I thought we all need to be having. This is the reality of war in our present day and age, and I can only assume will become more and more prevalent as we travel through time. So, we need to discuss this and really be aware what the various issues are. I thought this film was a great war film because so many war films are basically, you know, good guys and bad guys. Of course, we do have bad guys in it but it’s about the terrible moral decisions that any war throws up. I hope it will go into the canon of great war movies.”

“Eye in the Sky” depicts sophisticated new technologies and explores how drones are changing warfare.

“I had [no] idea how far the technology has gone and because it’s gone this far, how far, therefore, will [it] go in the future, in the next 10 or 20 years? That completely took me by surprise. You know, you sort of read in the newspaper there was a drone attack on blah blah. I’d never really thought about it and it made me really consider the reality of this stuff on the ground, the extraordinary way in which warfare has changed. You think of the 19th century idea of warfare, of people riding into battle on horses with sabers, you know, and then the first world war idea of trenches and guns, second world war idea of airplanes and bombs and now we’re in the sort of third; warfare is continuing on and I suspect it will be very much a part of the future.”

Both Hood and Mirren stated that they hope those who view “Eye in the Sky” will leave the theater wanting to discuss the film.

“In a way, it’s like a courtroom drama and the audience are the jury and when the jury leaves the theater at the end of the film now they’re going off to make their decisions about what is right and what is wrong,” said Mirren. “So, I’m really hoping that people will leave the theater, go out to dinner and have really intense conversations about morality [and] philosophy.”

“Eye in the Sky” opens March 11 in Los Angeles and New York, and March 18 in other select cities. For a complete list of theaters, go here.