Was "Pilgrim" a film that you had long wanted to write and direct?
Oh absolutely. It arose from a conversation with my co-writer Peter Milligan. Pete's interests are in alternative realities and extraordinary characters in crisis. The level of his invention attracted me and we were kicking around some ideas when the character of Jack and his dilemma surfaced. We spent a good few years working on the script so that we could tell the story as a series of surprises, avoiding the minefield of thriller clich茅s, while delivering an ending that would resonate and be satisfying for the audience.
It's a bit similar to your earlier film "Black Moon Rising" in that it has a thief working against a strict time limit.
I don't think that we were looking at "Black Moon Rising" as a template for "Pilgrim". It's much more of an interior journey where we focus on the central dilemma of Liotta's character in a crisis of identity, and his trauma when he remembers that he wasn't such a nice guy in the past. It is true that, like the character in "Black Moon Rising", Ray's character exists in the grey area between the law and crime, but that could be said for many characters in film noir.
How did Liotta fit into the role and the movie?
Working with Ray Liotta was one of the happiest work experiences I've ever had with an actor. He fell in love with the script for his own particular emotional reasons and we spent two very intensive weeks before production going through it, looking at the meaning and the intention of each scene. He has terrific instincts as an actor and was relentless in pursuing anything that rang untrue for him. His commitment to the film was total.
Are there, for you, any rules of the thriller genre that you tried to use in "Pilgrim"?
I wanted to tell the story subjectively. If we were going to be able to bond with Liotta's character then we had to see the story through his eyes, and we couldn't have scenes with other characters if Liotta's character wasn't there to perceive it. If you're going to have the story unfold as a series of surprises then they have to be surprises both for the character and the audience. We tried to avoid that narrative pitfall of the audience being ahead of the character.
Read an interview with Harley discussing his film "Black Moon Rising".
