1917 Stars Gush Over Saoirse Ronan, Leonardo DiCaprio, & Oscar Buzz

Hey guys, we're hanging out in the Young Hollywood studio with George MacKay and Dean Charles Chapman.

I love those names.

We're talking about this earlier.

You have no problem getting into a country club with those fancy names.

I love them both.

Thanks.

Right?

That's right.

Yes.

Right?

We were just talking we have the same scar from baking.

Yeah.

We got a baker here.

Domestic dangers over here.

Pretty great.

Yeah.

Right?

What were you baking?

Sweet potato fries.

Oh good.

How sad is that?

Oh not too bad.

I wanted one early.

That's my punishment.

What were you baking?

Banana bread.

Banana bread.

What are you gonna do?

Very good.

Do you bake, Dean?

Not really.

Do you bake for him?

Exactly.

I was baking banana bread for Dean.

Oh, that's so sweet.

I got burned with my hand in the oven.

That is so sweet.

Thank you.

Variety already saying that it's gotten great reviews calling you impressive and you compelling.

I read that today so that is wonderful.

What was your favorite part about shooting this film?

I I think the like the whole it was the most collaborative experience I think I and we've ever had on a job because because of the whole one shot nature, we rehearsed for five months beforehand, you know, to basically choreograph the whole film.

And every, you know, often times, one, you don't get that type of rehearsal, but not everyone's there all at the same time, you know.

You as actors often, you come later and there's the pre-production has happened already.

But everyone started on day one and it kind of there was therefore a completely mutual collaboration with with everyone working on the on the film and that, I think for me, was the best thing that's come from it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, because everyone's working together.

It's like a big you know, when we'd get these long shots, it was like someone had scored a penalty or something.

You know, everyone was celebrating and and that's rare that you sort of celebrate with every shot.

Because it's so hard to get it one continuous take, everyone doing it perfectly.

Yeah, it's like a like a play or something.

Yeah.

What about you?

What was your favorite part?

Yeah, I was I was going to say like the celebration of finally getting the take correct.

I mean, like George said, you know, five, six months rehearsals prepping for that day of shooting and then to tick one off the list and that moment, you'd sort of all sense it in in in your own brain like, that was it.

Sure.

Did you mess up?

No.

I didn't mess up.

Yes!

We got it.

No, I didn't mess up.

Banana bread for everybody.

Yes.

And what a cool cast.

I mean you guys have so many amazing actors in this film.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Colin Firth.

What was it like to work with those guys?

It was amazing.

I mean, I remember the scene with Colin Firth.

I mean, I'm a big fan of Colin Firth.

And I remember sort of getting lost in his eyes in the scene thinking, damn, you're a good actor.

Like you get it.

Like when you're standing there with them, you're like, I get I get it.

Yeah.

But it was amazing.

I mean, you know, them guys sort of came in and and just absolutely smashed smashed what they had to do and the detail that they brought to their characters was just mind-blowing.

What was it like behind the scenes?

Do they do anything goofy behind the scenes?

Do they have like any like weird prep that they do or

Well, I mean, Dean insists on banana bread every day.

Um.

Jeez.

He just loves that banana bread.

I don't I mean, they they were they were great.

I mean, they as as Dean said, it's like the specificity of their work.

Like, they were forensic in, you know, in in how they approached the scene, how they took apart the scene and then, you know, and in the doing of it.

But, you know, there was nothing too eccentric outside of it.

What about you guys?

Do you have any weird behind-the-scenes rituals?

I mean, what we would do was literally yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, we'd we'd have these big sequences for each part of the film and so, you know, we'd get to a certain point and we'd be like, do you want to go from the top?

And we'd be like, yeah, let's go from the top and we'd literally line run like each individual scene up until the point we were shooting so we could get into like that last bit of energy.

Oh, that's smart actually.

Okay, good.

Yeah.

I mean, it was his idea.

He had the idea and was like, should we just run through the top?

I was like, yeah.

That's do it.

Yeah, so that would be our ritual pretty much for almost every take.

And we'd just start saying a line and we'd just know what it was and we'd just be like, bum bum bum bum.

That's good.

So it sounds like it was a really good collaboration.

Not just you two, but everybody.

100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've been hearing Oscar nominations could be happening for this film, which is very exciting.

Right?

So cool.

Yeah.

Okay, if you were going to go to the Oscars, who would you be most excited to run into on the red carpet?

Like who would you fan out over?

I like I I was probably like Tom Hanks.

That big was a was a big film when I was like that was one of those videos that we all watched as a family at home and uh, I don't know and I've I listened to a couple of he did a he's a mate there's a radio program in England called Desert Island Discs that he did a really good interview on.

So I reckon I'd probably Tom Hanks would be a big one.

And there's so many films.

He's he's one of those actors that he's he's good in everything and everything he does is good.

So maybe maybe Tom Hanks.

And you know he'd be nice too.

Exactly.

Yeah, like he's Woody.

Yeah.

He's Woody.

He's so sweet and nice.

I think I'd probably say Leonardo DiCaprio or like Robert De Niro.

Oh, yeah.

They're like my two favorite actors and I would be I wouldn't know what to say.

So Tom Hanks, Leonardo.

Yeah, Robert De Niro.

Oh my gosh.

Would you ask for a selfie or like how would you like approach it?

I'll probably just after I'm after you're an actor we're on the same plane.

No, I'll probably just be like, love your work.

See you later.

Before I embarrass myself and say something stupid about banana bread.

See you later.

Look at this scar.

Do you know where I got this scar from?

Whoa.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Who would you okay, but so that's who you'd fan out with.

Who would you like to work with though?

Who would be your dream co-star to work with in a film?

I mean, there's so many.

I mean, those guys like who would you lead ladies?

Kate Blanchett.

Yeah.

Kate Blanchett.

Yeah.

Saoirse Ronan.

Yeah.

Um, like I think those I mean again, they're they're actresses that were like they do such different work, but the one consistency is that it's brilliant.

Yes.

Yeah.

All the time.

So, yeah, I reckon I reckon some of those ladies.

Mia Wasikowska is another wonderful actress as well.

Yes.

Um, so yeah.

What about you?

I'll say Saoirse.

I'm a big fan of her.

Yeah.

Like each project they do is always like so good and so interesting.

Yeah.

And they're always so different.

It's like, how do you how do you choose that?

Yeah.

It's there's no kind of through line like it's a certain type of character always.

It's just the only through line is that it's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good.

Okay, what do you do when you're not acting?

What do you do for fun?

Well, I was cooking, but I got injured, so.

I know.

I'm so sorry about that.

Hopefully the health insurance on the film covered that and everything.

Yeah, I mean this is quite this is quite an old one.

No, I mean I'm I'm quite domestic.

I do like to cook.

I'm trying to get better at it.

He's very good at cooking.

Yeah.

We were we went away for research for the film.

We went to Belgium.

We were staying in this little um Airbnb and I and I got sort of obsessed.

I can't poach eggs.

I can you know, I can scramble eggs, do everything else with eggs, but I can't make a good poached egg.

Dean is like the master of poached eggs.

Wait, you said you don't cook, but you can poach an egg?

That's like really hard.

Toast, egg, beans, microwave chips.

It's quality, not quantity, you know.

Microwave chips.

Just press a button.

And now you mean french fries, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you call them chips.

Okay.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Pants and trousers.

I was going to say, I thought you put a bag of chips in the microwave.

Okay, wait.

So you like to bake.

He's a terrible cook.

I put crisps in the microwave.

Yeah.

What is something that someone would be surprised to learn about you, George, before we end this?

I got a Just simple guy, you know, cookin' microwave chips, swimming.

I play Call of Duty a lot.

Call of Duty.

Okay.

So we got a gamer on our hands.

I don't know what it is with the gamers.

I'm like an old man like I'm I'm not really one for for the game, so um I I That's not particularly exciting.

I wish I could think of something better, but um yeah, that I'm I I don't own a PlayStation.

No, I don't know.

He likes a rocking chair and a good read.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, just coffee slippers, you know.

A nice cigar, slippers.

Cool.

You guys, thank you so much. High five. Congrats on the film. Good job. Cheers.

Thank you very much.