AVC: Neil has discussed how developing Mirrormask was an unusually contentious process for the two of you, given your long history of collaboration. What was it like from your perspective?
DM: It was strange—we've never written together before. Neil's obviously written far more than I have, so I think he's just very confident. I think he's very happy just firing up his computer and starting to write something, not really knowing what it is or where it's going to go. I just can't do that. I really need to know that the film or the story's about something, and that I know what it is before I can really start writing. And I think that was the root of the tension, really. In the end, we just kind of muddled through. I continued making notes and trying to decide what on earth we were doing. And Neil just wrote stuff, and some of that stuff was used and some of it wasn't. But actually, in the end, we met in the middle. Neil had a pile of stuff written, and I had a pile of ideas on paper, and about halfway through the process, we sort of knitted them together and it all seemed to make sense. So in the end, it was fine. I never really intended to be writing. I just wanted to be in the room when Neil was writing, to make sure that he wasn't writing something that I couldn't make on this very low budget. But as we got into it more and more, ideas got passed around. And some of my ideas I'm kind of happy with, so I was happy just to write the odd scene. And that all seemed to work quite well.
AVC: He said that one of the things that you wound up discussing quite a bit was the nature of fantasy, because he believes that you're only comfortable with fantasy in allegorical forms. Do you think that's accurate?
DM: Yes, it is, really. I love fantasy stories, and I love other genres as well. I love horror stories and science-fiction stories, but only at the point where they're about people. When you just get fantasy stories that are about fairies or goblins, I just don't care. I'm never going to meet a goblin, it doesn't mean anything to me. So my definition of fantasy is very broad, it's anything to do with memory, or dreams, or ways of interpreting or making sense of the world. And I love all of those stories. And I like stories about people's need for fantasy, and people's need for escape or release, or to look at the world in a different way. I love things that are about real people and the way their brains work, and the way their minds and relationships work. So that's what I'm interested in: people. I love looking at people from a slightly different angle. So I do like fantasy, I just don't like it when it's sort of pointless and inhumane.
AVC: Where do you draw the line? Humans play a very small part in The Lord Of The Rings, for instance, but the story deals with real human emotions. It's just coming through non-human avatars.
DM: Well, it's all very personal, you know. The thing about Lord Of The Rings is, it's a seminal bit of writing, because it came out of a very real fear of fascism and totalitarianism. But my problem with Lord Of The Rings is the baddies, the orcs or whatever, never get to be anything other than evil. I mean, they just stomp around being evil all day, and that's rubbish as far as I'm concerned. I like—for example, a fantasy story that I thought I would hate, that I finally read and just adored, was the Philip Pullman books, His Dark Materials. Because it seems to me that everybody in that story, you identify with utterly. There is nobody who is good or bad, it's just not like that. They all are complex individuals. They all see the world in their own way that makes complete sense to them. Nobody goes around feeling that they're evil—they think that they're doing the right thing. And so that seems to have something really important, big, and deep to say about human beings. Whereas Lord Of The Rings to me is goodies and baddies in the end, and so it's less interesting. But it's a very personal thing.
AVC: Given Mirrormask's strikingly unique visuals, it seems likely that you're going to be hearing from Hollywood art directors asking you to give their films a similar look, or at least an unusual look. Are you interested in outside film projects like that?
DM: I've thought about that a bit, because I did some work on the Harry Potter films. And it's a pretty thankless task, really. If there's any point of view that I've got at all, or uniqueness in this particular line, I think I'd rather try and pursue my own films. Rather than dilute it and spread it around a bit, I'd rather just concentrate on my own films and try and get those made.
AVC: You were credited as a conceptual artist on Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban. Did you work on others in the series?
DM: Yeah, I did some work on the second one that for some reason went uncredited. I did the same job—I designed some of the characters and created images for them to work with. I didn't do a lot of work on either, to be honest. On one of them, I was starting Mirrormask and writing it, and in the middle of other stuff. And then I was right in the middle of Mirrormask, so I didn't get to do a lot, but I did the same job on both. You know, it was okay, but you're just a sort of hired hand, really. Some of your ideas get used and others don't, which kind of means that it all becomes watered-down. It's okay, though—it was interesting seeing filmmaking on that scale. Particularly on Azkaban, because the director was wonderful. Alfonso Cuarón was a real ball of energy. Great fun.
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