Tom Harper made a name for himself as the director behind the country music comedy-drama, Wild Rose, and the hot air balloon adventure, The Aeronauts. Those films are a far cry from his latest: Heart of Stone, an espionage thriller starring Gal Gadot as an elite agent in the vein of James Bond or Jason Bourne.
"Wild Rose and Aeronauts are very different movies, but I think they saw the potential. If you put the two together, then maybe I'd be the right person," says Harper. Meanwhile, he was drawn to the prospect of creating "a grounded action movie with a female lead, in a genre that I grew up watching and loving."
"And it was a big, original movie, which are very few and far between. You've got Nolan and beyond that..." he shrugs. "So, to be able to create an aesthetic style that wasn't already part of a cinematic universe or wasn't part of a franchise or wasn't part of a preexisting IP was a chance to dive in and to do something that came from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. That's always appealing."
In Heart of Stone, Gadot plays Rachel Stone, a highly-skilled operative for a covert peacekeeping organization known as the Charter, whose latest mission sees her going undercover within MI6. For Harper, it was imperative that they distinguish Rachel Stone from Gadot's other action roles: Diana Prince, a.k.a. Wonder Woman, and Gisele from the Fast & Furious franchise. And in an era of set pieces that keep getting bigger and bigger, often to the point of breaking the laws of physics, the director wanted to make sure all of the action was humanly possible.
"With an action sequence, you can do anything now. You can make people fly, you can create new worlds, you can create anything. But just because you can do anything doesn't mean you should do something. Our mantra was, 'Let's make this as big and thrilling and entertaining as possible, but let's keep it within the realms of what is possible,'" Harper says. "If I think about movie touchstones, I look back to the '70s, because all the stunts are real. And you feel that in a visceral way."
"That's why I'm pleased to see Gal in something that's not Wonder Woman or a superhero movie. As much as those movies are great, I'm interested in the human condition," he explains. "If you believe that the character is human and they bleed, you invest in them more. You want them to get through that car chase, because you care about what happens to them. That's the thinking behind it."
Below, Harper shares with A.frame five of the films he referenced in directing his first spy movie. "I don't know how much these are the films that inspired me for Heart of Stone," he admits, "or just some of my favorite movies that I've found ways to be inspired by."
Directed by: Martin Brest | Written by: George Gallo
The first one is a bit of a random one, but it's one of my favorite movies: Midnight Run. I think it's almost a perfect script and it's so beautifully performed. It's also the buddy movie idea — these two characters that start off opposed to each other in conflict, and then over the film, they come together. And through working together, they're able to overcome the challenges they face.
One of the things that attracted me most to Heart of Stone was the approach that her character takes to overcoming challenges. In other movies within the genre, a lot of the time, it's a single male protagonist who relies upon themselves and goes it alone in the face of adversity to defeat the villains. It's almost like there's a slight God complex, where only one man can save the world. This is a very different sort of approach. She realizes that through trust and teamwork, that together they can overcome the challenges. I mean, it's not really a buddy movie, but it is in some ways — you have these two characters and, over the course of the movie, they build a bond, and they end up trusting each other. It's what enables them to come out triumphant.
Written and Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
One of the things that's interesting about The Conversations is how technology played a key role in the plot and in the wider sociological themes and conversations. At the time, surveillance was changing. And of course, now it's AI, but it's a similar thing. It touches similar themes about data protection, about big data, about spying and surveillance. I thought that was really interesting, and it also has that beautiful slow building tension.
There's other films like that that were real touchstones for me in terms of just trying to create that real aesthetic. Three Days of the Condor, Klute, The Driver. They're all real human characters at the heart of something bigger than them.
Directed by: Martin Ritt | Written by: Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold has got one of the best twists and reveals that I think I've come across. There's two things that are particularly interesting in terms of Heart of Stone. One is that the twist is so beautifully done, and beautifully rendered, and completely took me by surprise the first time I saw it. So, that has some relevance. And then secondly, it's the person trying to do the right thing in a moral quagmire of difficulty, and really realizing that they're a pawn in a much bigger game. I think that's interesting as well. And again, the performances are amazing.
Directed by: Lewis Gilbert | Written by: Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum
The Spy Who Loved Me is probably one of my favorite Bonds. It's so fun, the action is magnificent, and it's camp. It's unabashedly entertaining. Everything is done to give the audience a good time, from the costumes to the action to the performances. It is dated in some ways, but it's self-aware. There was a period of time where Bond was very knowing, where it didn't take itself too seriously, and I think that gives its longevity. But for me, the key thing is the unashamed entertainment factor. It is just really fun. At the same time, there's the reality of it. It feels reasonably grounded.
Directed by: Paul Greengrass | Written by: Tony Gilroy
Bourne Supremacy was Greengrass' first in the franchise, and I remember when I watched it for the first time, it felt so unlike any of the other films in the genre I'd seen. It had such an energy, and it felt real and fresh. It just felt really fresh, because of so many things. That car chase! And it's a bit s**t because they get stuck in traffic, and the camera's all over the place, and it's messy. It felt edgy and raw. It's so great. I remember suddenly everyone was embracing handheld camera, and shallow focus that was coming in and out, and whip pans. There was almost this like a stylistic shift in filmmaking.
When you're making a film within a genre, you are part of a canon of other work. Everything bleeds from one thing to another. We are the product of 1,000 years of storytelling, but we are all individual and unique.
