'Living' Director, Stars On Adaptation Of Kurosawa's 'Ikiru'

With his Sundance drama Living, director Oliver Hermanus (Moffie, Beauty) would find the chance to adapt Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru, putting his own stamp on the 1952 classic.

The project emerged from a script by Kazuo Ishiguro, the Nobel Prize winning novelist and screenwriter behind such titles as Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day. Its story centers on Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy), a veteran civil servant, who finds himself an impotent cog within London’s bureaucracy as the city struggles to rebuild following World War II. Buried under paperwork at the office and lonely at home, his life has long felt empty and meaningless. Then, a shattering medical diagnosis forces him to take stock—and to try and grasp fulfillment before it goes beyond reach.

Hermanus was introduced to Living by Stephen Woolley, a producer he’d met at the London Film Festival, who was developing the film with Ishiguro. “I was very aware that if I was curious about it, in terms of taking it to the next step, that I would have to pass the Ishiguro test. So, I had to return to London and meet with Ishiguro,” Hermanus recalled in conversation with Nighy and co-star Aimee Lou Wood at Deadline’s virtual Sundance Studio. “They’re such big film fans and such a big fan of the original film that they were being very particular about who they were going to choose to direct this film.”

While Ishiguro had never met Nighy prior to approaching him for Living, he had written his script with the BAFTA Award winner in mind, with the screen icon finding everything about his Ikiru “reimagining” to be quite compelling. “I was very interested in playing a quiet, decent man,” the actor shared. “There’s a challenge there, but also that he was someone who was institutionalized in grief and loss, [following] the loss of his wife, and in this extreme situation that the film puts him in.”

In Living, Wood portrays Margaret, a young woman who once worked under Williams’ supervision and is now determined to spread her wings. A major highlight of the project, for the actress, was the opportunity it afforded her to work closely with Nighy, an actor she’d long admired. “My family still can’t actually believe that I spent all that time with Bill because I have been obsessed with him forever. So, they’re still finding it really hard, and all my friends, to process that that actually happened,” she shared. “But I do think that you can see the joy that I’m feeling, getting to hang around with Bill. I hope you can see that through the film.”

One of Hermanus’ big challenges in making the film had to do with the fact that it was the first he looked to bring to life outside of his home country of South Africa. “I was also immersing myself in a world, which was very, very period, so from a creative point of view, this was quite a big bite for me,” said the director. “But I think that I loved it and it was wonderful, and I sort of thrived in being out of my comfort zone in basically every way.”

Living made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21. The film produced by Wooley and Elizabeth Karlsen also stars Alex Sharp and Tom Burke, among others.

Check out our conversation with the film’s director and stars above.