Actor Alistair Mackenzie and his brother, director David Mackenzie, are rising stars of the British film industry. With Monarch of the Glen and Hamish Macbeth on his CV, Alistair is a familiar face from the small screen, while David's directorial career is taking off with Ewan McGregor-starrer "Young Adam" scheduled for a release in autumn 2003.
How did the story for "The Last Great Wilderness" originate?
Alistair: It all started with the idea of trying to do a road movie in Britain - which is difficult because you always run out of road! But the Highlands just seemed like the ideal setting for it, and from the very moment that Charlie wakes up inside a service station and Vincente stuffs some money into his hand, their destiny is altered and they're thrust deeper and deeper into the metaphorical and literal wilderness.
Were you worried that the film might be too quirky for audiences to handle?
Alistair: We didn't set out to make a weird, kooky film - it just happened. The idea was to make something extra-ordinary.
David: I hope that the audience is able to deal with it. I'm sure that some of them won't, but I'm also sure that some of them will.
It was quite a difficult shoot wasn't it?
Alistair: On the first day of shooting, all of our exterior locations were cancelled because of the Foot and Mouth outbreak. We were the only people making a film in the country [Scotland] at the time - everybody else had cancelled their productions - and we kind of became this weird circus troupe. We had to go through a series of disinfectant baths every time we entered or left the location!
David: In circumstances like that, the only person who knows anything is the director, and so you end up like a general who's taking their troops into battle.
So what was it like working together as brothers?
Alistair: At the end of the day, David's my older brother... and I'll do exactly what he tells me!
David: That's just Al being sweet. We've worked together before so it wasn't a major issue. Pretty much all of the cast ended up feeling like my brothers and sisters by the end of it, anyway.
Did it help filming on digital video?
Alistair: It's very liberating for actors. But it does require an enormous amount of patience from the camera department, because they have to unlearn a few rules. I always remember in [Lars von Trier's] "The Idiots" seeing the sound department during the course of the story, and actually thinking it was quite postmodern and rather cool. But now having made a digital film, I realise that they just couldn't get out the way in time!
