David Beckham Interrupting Victora ‘Pissed Off’ ‘Beckham’ Director Fisher Stevens | Making a Scene
Netflix's 'Beckham' gives an inside look at the personal lives of David & Victoria Beckham. One particular scene in which David interrupts Victoria's interview and tells her to 'be honest' about her upbringing has gained particular attention. Director Fisher Stevens, as well as Editor Michael Harte, break down what it was like shooting the surprising scene and why it was ultimately good for the series even though Fisher felt 'pissed off.'
Variety Making a Scene presented by HBO
Variety Making a Scene presented by HBO
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00:00We're very working, working class.
00:02Be honest.
00:03I am being honest.
00:06She was very embarrassed and nervous
00:09because clearly he's been watching
00:10and I was mortified myself.
00:12He totally flipped the scene on its head.
00:15This interview changed everything.
00:17So it was kind of great he was there in a way.
00:19And it was a great moment for the movie, clearly.
00:21But it pissed me off.
00:30Hello, this is Fisher Stevens.
00:34Hi, I'm Michael Hart.
00:35I'm the editor on Beckham.
00:37And you're watching Variety's Making a Scene.
00:40There was something there that just straight away,
00:44I was just like, okay, this is it.
00:46I was in a van in Brooklyn on my way to work
00:50as an actor on Succession and my phone rang
00:54and it was DiCaprio's office saying,
00:57David Beckham wants your number.
00:59His people, are you interested
01:01in doing a documentary about him?
01:03I'm like, what?
01:05Out of the blue.
01:05I pretended, of course, I'm open at first,
01:07but no, I was not interested.
01:09David Beckham, I didn't know much about him.
01:11Jesse Armstrong, the creator of Succession,
01:13loves Man United.
01:14I said, Jesse, what do you think of David Beckham?
01:16He goes, he's a legend, he's brilliant.
01:19I was like, really?
01:20Yeah.
01:20I said, well, I got this weird call.
01:22He goes, you have to do it.
01:23And it wasn't until I met him and had dinner with him
01:25in London where it was like, okay.
01:27I mean, I met him.
01:28His ass was in the air.
01:29He was looking at a restaurant.
01:31He was looking for his wife's earring that had dropped.
01:33The wife was in the bathroom.
01:34And I was like, excuse me.
01:36And he like, almost like one of those bumped his head.
01:38He's like, sorry, I'm looking for the earring.
01:40And he says, that's just fine.
01:41And that's how I met him.
01:42I'm like, he's just a dude.
01:43He's just a normal guy.
01:44The fact I went to the games really was just to kind of,
01:48some would say stalk him, I would say see him.
01:51Story-wise, I made a big blunder at the beginning.
01:55And I thought, I'm gonna do a story
01:56about working class England and get very much
02:00into the working man and football and the parallels.
02:03And I went and did all these interviews
02:06with these footballers that he started with
02:07who didn't make it or who made it, but not really big.
02:11And I went into their houses and I did a few interviews
02:15and I went into these pitches like that you've never heard
02:17of in Cheltenham and Preston
02:19and these rough and tumble places.
02:22The pivot really occurred the third,
02:25second or third interview with David.
02:26I realized anytime I went away from David,
02:29the story was just like bullshit.
02:31It just was like, what am I doing?
02:33And then David also, to be fair, as he says, to be fair,
02:37he started to really open up to me much more.
02:40And the interview started getting much more intricate
02:42and deep and then I was like, oh fuck,
02:44I don't need any of that stuff.
02:45I just need him.
02:46I realized this is a love story about him and his wife,
02:48him and his dad, him and his ex-manager,
02:51Alex Ferguson or Alex.
02:53And it was like, oh, that's what this is.
02:55Unfortunately, I had to cut some people out of the movie,
02:58the series, which I hate doing,
03:00but I got to see a lot of England.
03:04That first time that I speak to her, I just fancied her.
03:10I just fancied him and it was as simple as that.
03:13I knew who I wanted to edit this film.
03:15I mean, the first time he called me, he just said,
03:16hey, it's Fisher.
03:17I didn't know who Fisher was.
03:19And I cold called Michael Hart.
03:21I'd never met him.
03:21He goes, hey, it's Fisher.
03:22And proceeded to talk about David Beckham.
03:24And I was like, Fisher, I was a Fisher.
03:27And then I recognized his voice and then it all clicked.
03:29And Michael was like, yeah,
03:30I'm making a movie about Michael J. Fox.
03:32I'm not available.
03:33And I was like, oh no, I just had a feeling though.
03:36And the truth was he didn't have faith in me
03:39making a Beckham film.
03:40Like who is this fricking American?
03:42So I said no.
03:43So I started editing with other editors, great editors,
03:46but we were struggling a bit,
03:49to find the essence of the film.
03:51But I just had a feeling about this guy and I hounded,
03:54I stalked Michael Hart.
03:56Cause I just knew no matter where we were,
03:59I wanted him to come in.
04:00And then he came back a year later
04:02and I still wasn't sure even though I was free
04:04because I had just done a celebrity bio doc
04:07and Michael J. Fox was just kind of all in
04:10on the authenticity.
04:11And I just wasn't sure if the Beckhams were gonna go there.
04:14I didn't know.
04:15Fisher kind of cleverly said,
04:18well, let me send you a couple of clips.
04:19And I was like, all right.
04:21And so he sent me some of his backstory stuff,
04:25various things to do with his football career.
04:28And then the last clip,
04:29and I think he strategically sent it to me last,
04:32was the scene, the be honest scene.
04:35Oliver, do you wanna come be in it?
04:37Make me look like a nice person.
04:39I'll just pat you every now and then.
04:42She was quite nervous the first interview.
04:45Getting her to sit down and talk about her husband.
04:48She wasn't like so excited to tell me all this,
04:51but we found a day when David was out of the house away
04:57and we were very excited that we could do it at the house
04:59where she's comfortable.
05:01So we're at their house.
05:02We had hair and makeup for her.
05:03No one else did in the whole movie,
05:05but she's Victoria, of course, fine.
05:07And she was very nice, very nice.
05:09And we start the interview and yeah,
05:12I think she's a bit nervous
05:13and I'm feeling like, God, she's really sweet
05:16and she's really open.
05:17And the next thing I know,
05:18I ask her this question about how she was raised
05:21and I know how she was raised.
05:22I mean, I did a lot of research with Billy Shepard,
05:25my story editor, producer.
05:26We both come from families that work really hard.
05:30Both of our parents work really hard.
05:32We're very working, working class.
05:35I remember specifically she said we were working class
05:38and I thought to myself, oh, here we go again.
05:40I know this.
05:41I've seen a lot of films where that,
05:42people say that line and then they go and tell their story.
05:46And all of a sudden David pops his head into the scene
05:49and I was like, what's this?
05:51What's happening here?
05:52And he totally flipped the scene in his head.
05:55And then David opens the door and he goes,
05:57be honest, be honest.
05:59Be honest.
06:00And thank God Damien Drake,
06:02who's a cameraman I work with a lot.
06:03I don't use tripods, which is another thank God moment
06:06because all my interviews are handheld,
06:08which is really tough on a cameraman
06:09because we shoot with these very heavy cameras.
06:12But he just knew to get up and swing the camera.
06:15I am being honest.
06:16What kind of did your dad drive you to school with?
06:18I have an iPad that I'm communicating with Billy
06:22in the other room, you know, checking questions
06:24or where, you know, she sometimes goes, ask about this.
06:27I'm going, what the fuck is David doing here?
06:30She was very embarrassed and nervous
06:34because he, she clearly he's been watching
06:36and I was mortified myself.
06:38So you saw what we shot, you know,
06:40and she's like, oh God.
06:42So my dad, my dad, it's not a simple answer because
06:50it depends.
06:51And I said, what is he doing here?
06:52We had a deal.
06:55And he said, I just wanted to make sure, you know,
06:57she was really, and he's like, Victoria,
06:59you can be honest, really.
07:01Just tell Fisher or whatever, be open.
07:03Okay, in the eighties, my dad had a Rolls Royce.
07:07I was like, okay, you got to go, man.
07:11And she went, David, you've got to go.
07:14And so he did leave.
07:16I made sure I didn't start again
07:18until I heard the door close.
07:20Saw his beautiful car bail out.
07:25And then we continued.
07:27I'd done like three interviews with him by then,
07:29but I think he realized like that we're going to do this.
07:31Let's fucking do it.
07:31This isn't the typical Beckham interviews.
07:35This is like something different.
07:37Ironically, I think it's one of the most honest scenes
07:40in the series because you get a true insight
07:43into their relationship and the way they interact,
07:45like they forget the camera's there.
07:46And that just freed her.
07:47And then everything changed.
07:50Because then the next interview,
07:52that's when she was like, ready, go.
07:54The biggest challenge with this scene was
07:57where do we put it?
07:58What we had here was this incredible moment
08:01that wasn't driven by story.
08:02It was pure character.
08:04It wasn't revealing anything
08:05about the events of the past.
08:07It was like, it was just an insight
08:08into them as characters.
08:10And wherever we use it, it's going to slow it down.
08:13And can we afford to do that this day and age?
08:16It's horrible to say, but it just,
08:18that was always the battle.
08:19It has to be in their introduction
08:22because it's actually really,
08:23it's the audience's entry point into their relationship.
08:26And we all realized that if we play it right at the top,
08:29let's be brave that the story can just stop.
08:32And we meet our characters for,
08:34I think it's like a minute scene
08:36where nothing happens but character development.
08:39Oh, thank you.
08:39Does anyone use this kitchen?
08:41It looks like it's never been used.
08:43Of course.
08:44I was cooking here last night.
08:46Having my voice in the documentary
08:48was my decision at the jump
08:50because I didn't know shit about this guy
08:53or his family or his wife.
08:54And I thought, I want the audience to understand
08:57that I'm like a lot of them.
08:58Fisher was really funny,
09:00the way he would interact with them,
09:01that back and forth between him.
09:04And so I really kind of fell in love with that.
09:07Look, he's straightening the chairs.
09:10I know, well, that's.
09:11David and I had a funny kind of good rapport
09:14and I wanted to add a little humor to this thing.
09:16And I think through me being in it,
09:18I could, David comes out funny sometimes,
09:22especially the Verite stuff.
09:23Sometimes I didn't want to be in it
09:25and Mike was like, you know, go, we need you here.
09:27Wasn't popular with all my editors at the beginning,
09:30but Michael got it.
09:31I was struck by how relaxed they were
09:36and how open they were to talk about
09:40kind of what they'd been through.
09:42And more than anything,
09:44it felt like it was the first time they told a lot of it.
09:46And ultimately they were just really funny.
09:49The way they told their story was refreshing
09:51and I had a sense of what they were
09:53before I got the material.
09:54It was almost tongue in cheek.
09:55It just felt refreshing
09:57and it felt like exactly what I wasn't expecting.
10:02You're going to work?
10:03I'm heading off to the fashion factory, Kate.
10:06No, where are you actually going?
10:07Facial.
10:08There you go.
10:09We have the interviews, we have the archival,
10:12we have the Verite, which is a whole other thing
10:15because we don't have very much Verite with David,
10:18but we have the beekeeping and we have the making the coffee
10:20and we have the closet and then we have the iDirect.
10:23So those are the four languages that we're working with.
10:27And it's like, where do we speak French?
10:29Where do we speak Italian?
10:30So where do we use those different elements
10:33and how to tell our story?
10:35Almost like those were our tools.
10:37And Michael, we just found that language.
10:39You don't want to do too much.
10:41And my instinct is always, ah, please.
10:43No, subtle, subtle, subtle.
10:46That was not easy, but eventually we found it.
10:49I remember when I told my friends,
10:50they'd say, I think I know this story.
10:52I know how that's going to play out.
10:53And I'd worked on a lot of documentaries
10:55where nobody knew the story.
10:57So like, Don't Fuck With Cats
10:58or Three Identical Strangers, where it's like this,
11:01how did I not know about this before?
11:02Whereas the Backup Story is the complete opposite.
11:04Everyone knows the story.
11:07But weirdly, that's your secret weapon
11:09because you can play with the audience's expectation.
11:13I was in shock when it released.
11:16Shock.
11:18How, in this country especially, how people responded.
11:22Because it was number one in America for like six weeks,
11:25which was like crazy.
11:27I mean, I'm sort of shocked I'm sitting here right now
11:28talking to you about it still,
11:30a year, nine months, 10 months later.
11:52I mean, I'm shocked I'm sitting here talking to you about it still,
11:53a year, nine months, 10 months later.