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Those ‘Loopy’ Brits

26 Nov, 2009 By: Billy Gil

Peter Capaldi In the Loop

Director Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop (out Jan. 12 from MPI Home Video on DVD and Blu-ray) takes a couple of viewings to completely follow, but the story is this: Bumbling British government minister Simon Foster (a hilariously hapless Tom Hollander) sticks his pointy-toed foot in his mouth on the air and says he believes a war in the Middle East is “unforeseeable.” That small comment from an underling in the realm of British politics sets off a poop storm both in the States and in the U.K., where his boss, the prime minister’s caustic director of communications Malcolm Tucker (awesomely played by Peter Capaldi), tries to sweep up the mess.

“There are lot of little incidents [that helped inspire the story],” Iannucci said. “Our foreign secretary went on the radio said an invasion of Iran was ‘inconceivable,’ but went back and said at the moment it was inconceivable. … I liked the fact that it was all grounded in real events.”

“In our country we have senior press advisors who are quite powerful,” Capaldi added of researching his character, who he’s played since the TV show “In the Thick of It,” upon which the film is partially based. “They’re quite powerful guys. There are some in particular who are involved in shenanigans behind the scenes.

“It was difficult for me to gain an imaginative idea of how they act. But the script clearly told us that this guy is viperous, toxic and extremely driven. I hung around the houses of Parliament to get a sense of that world.”

The character wasn’t based on anyone in particular, but the characterization was helped by purportedly Machiavellian “masters of the dark arts,” as Capaldi puts it, in British politics, such as Alastair Campbell, Director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“People in power have always had spin doctors, advisors, people who’ve done dirty work fort them,” Capaldi said. “There’s a long lineage of people who do the roughing up for the bosses.”

If Oscar pays attention, Capaldi could (and perhaps should) have a supporting actor nomination on his plate (he already actually has an Oscar, though, for writing and directing the 1993 short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life).

“Something as remarkable as In the Loop doesn’t come along too often, so it’s wonderful to be challenged in that way,” said Capaldi, who can be seen on DVDs of such shows as “Torchwood.” “I guess I’d become a fairly reliable actor you’d get to come in to be a doctor or psychiatrist or inspector who comes in and says ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got some bad news.’ There’s been nothing quite as incendiary in my career as Malcolm.”

Director Iannucci said the DVD has plenty of extra footage because his original cut was more than four hours long (as it stands, and as the director prefers it, the film is 106 minutes).

“We do lots of improvising with the script,” Iannucci said. “But I had in my head as a fast comedy, and I thought it had to be no more than 1 hour and 40 minutes long. I spent about a month getting it down to that. I had to take out some of my favorite scenes. They were all scenes that sort of held up the action. At the time, I thought, thank God for DVD extras.”

Those extras also include interviews with the cast (which includes James Gandolfini, Mimi Kennedy and My Girl’s Anna Chlumsky).

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