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Peter Webber spent five
years as a documentary director before starting to work on
drama projects two years ago. Men Only is his first major
drama. When he first got involved with the project, he realised
it would be controversial: "I read it and found that not only
was it a really controversial script, but it was a really
good script, which is quite rare," says Peter.
His initial reaction to the script
was: "Bugger me! My first thought was 'God, this is really
well written. My second one was 'this is really strong, dangerous
stuff and whoever does this has to do it right', you have
to get the tone right. You have to make an audience warm to
these people without being complicit with what they do. There's
no way you can make a film about people who are involved in
a gang rape without forming some kind of judgment, but the
important thing is that we don't let out judgments get in
the way, we let an audience decide."
What he found particularly interesting
was the journey Men Only takes its audience on. "It's a journey
into male fantasy land, so it's quite interesting exploring
that and exploring where that ultimately goes to. It was the
first thing I'd read that really dealt with lad culture that's
been spread through magazines like Loaded and GQ and it's
the first thing that really looked at that with quite a focuses
and moralistic viewpoint and asked serious questions about
masculinity."
From a professional point of view,
Peter saw some challenges in the script: "There was a car
chase, there were scenes in clubs, scenes in lap dancing bars.
There's lots of opportunity to get a camera out and do lots
of really interesting stuff. There's five very compelling
central characters... it just seemed a gift really. It's not
often in this age of bland, pre-washed TV that you actually
get a chance to do something that's got a bit of grit to it.
This has certainly got that."
Contrary to popular opinion, Peter
didn't enjoy filming the sex scenes: "It's much better watching
sex scenes... or having sex indeed than it is shooting sex
scenes." He describes the rape scene as "far and away the
most upsetting thing I've had to do in my life. I filmed an
operation where a woman who was awake had her skull opened
up and electrical probes put into her brain while she's still
awake and talking to the doctor. So I've seen some pretty
awful stuff, but having to do [the rape scene] despite the
fact that they were actors, there was something incredibly
chilling about it, it brought tears to my eyes because it's
so fucking horrible. Seeing Zoe, playing Alice, who we'd all
grown close to, being put in that position was just horrible.
I just hope I don't have to do anything like that again.
The choice of actors came down to
the fact that: "they were fucking good. They're being asked
to do things which really will have people shouting at them
in supermarkets. It needed people who were brave."
After a tough, seven-week schedule,
what will Peter remember as his 'Men Only Moment'? "Doing
the car chase, the car stunts, all those big set pieces, throwing
lights on the back of the enormous gas canister, all those
big epic moments."
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