NicholasDenton:TheArchitectureofChaos

Inside the collaboration that defined James Litchfield’s recently completed feature film, Alphabet Lane.

 

WRITER Phillza Mirza

 

Interview taken from IMAGINE Magazine. Order the latest issue here.

 

In the quiet tension between order and spontaneity, Alphabet Lane finds its pulse. A feature from Australian filmmaker James Litchfield, the film blurs imagination and isolation, a love story refracted through the landscapes of rural New South Wales. At its centre is Nicholas Denton, whose performance as Jack channels both stillness and storm; a presence alive with curiosity, uncertainty, and the thrill of unravelling.

 

When Litchfield and Denton sit down together, their conversation unfolds much like their collaboration: measured yet chaotic, intellectual yet instinctive. They talk about the freedom of surrendering control, the beauty of disarray, and how filmmaking, like love, is often an act of building structure around something inherently uncontrollable.

 

Full look MITHRIDATE, tie STYLIST OWN

PHILLZA MIRZA: So how did you meet?

 

JAMES LITCHFIELD: Nicholas?

 

NICHOLAS DENTON: We actually met in Melbourne. James was casting his soon to be released film, Alphabet Lane, which he’d sent me out a request for. I’d had a read of the script and fell in love with his first feature, with his writing and everything about it. But we met in a coffee shop in Carlton called Heart Attack and Vine. And I think we got along pretty well. Right?

 

JL: We definitely do. And I think I had come across Nick’s work in the process, he was actually the first actor to come onto the film. And I love Robert Altman. He has this thing he says, when someone asks him, what do you look for in an actor and he goes I just like actors who have got something going on and it’s so cool. If you see that kind of quality, Nick definitely has that going on. It’s this very sort of spontaneous –

 

ND: Emotional turmoil, emotional chaos haha –

 

JL: I don’t know there’s just this very exciting aliveness and kind of intense intelligence that’s always there and I guess emotional turmoil as well.

 

ND: I think that’s what we found with Alphabet Lane as well. There was something very surprising about what came from what the story had, what your script had given us. But also our performances that came out of it, do you know what I mean?

 

JL: Yeah, totally. I think that’s something we were trying to do with Alphabet Lane. Because in a way that’s the film, it’s about two people telling a story to each other as a joke and as a flirtatious play and so it made a lot of sense that the actors would bring a lot of their own creativity to it. It was about two people telling a story and trying to charm each other so it had a lot of scope, I think, for actors who were up for doing that and Nick and Tilda and the other characters too. But Nick and Tilda in particular were just so up for that and we’re so up for them bringing a lot of themselves and a lot of their imagination to their roles which is wonderful.

 

“You just want to be able to latch on to something so that whatever comes from you, it may be surprising, but it all has truth behind it, it all has a real reason for it.”

 

JL: I actually had a question for Nicholas. I think that constant sort of element of surprise that he brings is so exciting and what makes him so great to work with. Also it’s just so good because in the edit there were times when we were just watching through rushes and just laughing so much and even very late into it I actually just never got sick of watching them. But I wanted to ask Nicholas, that surprising quality, do you think that’s something you just have or is that something you’ve tried to cultivate?

 

ND: That’s a good question. On Talamasca: The Secret Order, the show that’s coming out at the moment as well as on Alphabet Lane, they’re really vastly different jobs. Alphabet Lane, James’s film is set in Cooma on a working farm with two central characters and their relationship kind of in turmoil. Whereas the Talamasca is this much bigger project, it’s set in London and New york in a spy world with immortal and vampiric qualities to it.

 

But I think the process is still the same, and I think as an actor the process shouldn’t change too much because you just want to figure out where you can anchor yourself in each scene regardless of all the fray that’s happening around you. The lights that are being pulled in, the sets that have been taken away, the new actors that are coming in and whatnot. You just want to be able to latch on to something so that whatever comes from you, it may be surprising, but it all has truth behind it, it all has a real reason for it. I think once you’re given the blueprint, which both John Lee Hancock and James Litchfield who are very different directors, give you a space to enjoy your time on set but also give you your autonomy to do whatever the hell you want.

 

I think that’s so nice to see because John Lee is a lot further on in his career than James is but James, you have this knack for allowing actors the freedom which is the one skill you need.

JL: I think directing became a lot easier and more fun for me because of this. For me and for my producing partner Lucinda, actors are our most important collaborators, and if you really see them as real collaborators on set then it’s going to be the best thing for the project

 

ND: So James, how do you go about that? When there’s a small story and a big world, making sure that the chaos doesn’t totally over-shroud the story like how did you go about that for Alphabet Lane?

 

JL: I think on Alphabet Lane, I suppose it was interesting for me because I wrote the script with all the locations in mind so I kind of wrote it for the locations. On Alphabet Lane I tried to have it so that the story evolved within the world, I tried as much as possible to make it cohesive. I guess I did my best to communicate that or bring the actors into it and have the actors feel the sense of isolation and remoteness. Which I guess depended on the role because there were characters who felt very at home in that world and other characters, like Nick’s who didn’t feel at home in that world. So it was trying to, as much as possible, use that, either as a way to support what the character is doing or as a way to contrast it.

 

ND: I think it supported us because it made us feel really isolated on set. I think Tilda and I both sort of lost our minds a little bit because we were genuinely isolated because we were living in a bungalow whilst the whole set was going to unfold. We’ve got the sound of cows being weaned in the distance. You’ve got all this stuff that makes you feel – you know I’m a city boy, I’m from Melbourne and it’s very different for me to be on that film set. But, the same could be said with Talamasca. I’m from Melbourne, I’m not from a vampire world and so it always works both as contrast but also as a relationship and it always affects the characters. So it’s nice to be on location, as often you end up in studios the whole time but predominantly even for Talamasca but also for Alphabet Lane we were on location the entire time with a few set days or stage set days for Talamasca. But I do love being on location.

 

“I like being the audience’s eyes. I love that because I  like being the one that  allows the audience access to the world.”

 

JL: Can I just turn that question around to you Nicholas as well. Especially on a huge thing like Talamasca, did you find it hard to tune that stuff out so that you could just focus on the emotional truth of your character? How did you find that?

 

ND: I like being the audience’s eyes. I love that because I  like being the one that  allows the audience access to the world. I didn’t want to over overwhelm the character with different kinds of quirks or kinks, he’s unique in his own right but he has to be very earnest in his perspective otherwise the audience gets a bit lost. I mean he’s got skepticism throughout his character, sure, but the audience needs to have a clear view of what the story is, who the other characters are, what the lore is and what our world is.

 

What I really had is a lot of pressure to build the character up and learn the lines and learn the ins and outs of his intent and whatnot. Mostly I just went to set every day after doing all that preparation and felt this immense sense of freedom because I didn’t have to try and play any tricks on anybody I was just there in earnest, showing up, being affected by all these different characters. I didn’t find it stressful, the fray, the noise, the clutter just went away because all I had to do was just arrive on set each day. All you have to do is show up in earnest on set and allow the other characters in the world to affect you and that gets rid of the stress of trying to make it any more complicated than it needs to be.

 

JL: Yeah I found there was a very sort of touching and charming naivety to Guy’s character which I found very compelling and it came through. I wanted to ask if there’s anything that’s particularly important to you now that wasn’t important to you five or ten years ago. So what’s become important to you as an actor that wasn’t at the start?

ND: Well honestly, I’m getting older, I’m 33 and I have responsibilities now in my life that I didn’t have five or ten years ago. I was freewheeling in a way 10 years ago but now I live in london, I have a partner, we have a life here and I really want to make choices that can allow me the longevity to continue acting and making stuff. I prefer doing bigger projects that vary in scope, like I’m rehearsing a play right now in London and then we’re doing the release for Talamasca and then I’ll go home and do another couple of months on a show in Australia. But they’re not bitsy anymore now, they’re going to have to be a solid chunk because I don’t like running away for two seconds then coming back.

 

Before I used to love that about acting because it was so very varied but now I do like to have a lot of time with the character and it’s much more fulfilling to enjoy the long process than it is to enjoy these quick bursts of just getting things done. I want to really relish in what it means to do that. It does come with benefits, like I can have a stable income for example which I didn’t used to worry about that much because I was just such a crazy man.

 

James, what about you? I mean you’ve had a big change in the last five to ten years from your previous profession to what you’re doing now.

 

Shirt and trousers FENDI,  ring and bracelet PATTARAPHAN

 

JL: Yeah that’s true. I was a lawyer for a relatively brief time but then I went into filmmaking. I think the things that are important now and I didn’t think were important before were learning the balance between giving something direction and shape and letting go so that you can build something that’s alive. That has been has been the most important thing I’ve enjoyed the most

 

ND: Take your hands off the steering wheel

 

JL: Yeah well you know light touch, maybe not fully.

 

In conversation, as on set, Denton and Litchfield speak the same creative language, one built on trust, imperfection, and play. Alphabet Lane may be a story about distance, but its making seems to have been about connection: between actor and director, performance and place, chaos and calm.

 

As both move toward new chapters, Litchfield refining his voice as a director, Denton expanding his world from Alphabet Lane to the supernatural landscapes of Talamasca: The Secret Order, their reflections remind us that the most enduring art rarely emerges from control, but from the courage to let go.