Starting over

James Corden, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine and Keira Knightley with Begin Again director John Carney on Times Square: "That was the one true moment of maverick, crazy John Cassavetes" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

With Begin Again, starring Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo with Adam Levine, Catherine Keener, Hailee Steinfeld, James Corden and Ceelo Green, Irish director John Carney returns twice to the world of street musicians after his Oscar winning Once. At the Crosby Street Hotel, I followed up on my Anna Karenina conversation with Keira Knightley on costumes to find out how little A Dangerous Method goes with Annie Hall.

Keira Knightley on her costumes: "I wanted her [Gretta] to dress for women and not for men." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

And the boys - Ruffalo, Levine, Corden and Carney - talked about music, acting, filming John Cassavetes style and not selling out.

This time the streets of New York have Knightley as Gretta singing in them. Ruffalo plays Dan, an alcoholic record label founder who drives in his car around the city cursing, throwing CDs out the window, and whose wife, played by Keener, has all but given up on him. On a particularly bad day, he is fired from his own label. That night, he hears Gretta reluctantly perform a suicide-in-the-subway song in a pub. She split up with her a-star-is-born boyfriend, played by Levine and now stays on the sofa of her old pal street performer Steve's (Corden) shabby apartment. Gretta and Dan then change each other's lives around for the better through music.

Anne-Katrin Titze: Is there an equivalent to Anna Karenina's veils and Sabina Spielrein's high necklines [in David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method] that you found for the character of Gretta?

Keira Knightley: For the clothes we actually had a few discussions with Arjun [Bhasin] the costume designer. I wanted her [Gretta] to dress for women and not for men. And I wanted the clothes to be something that women would like and get and men wouldn't necessarily. And we worked quite hard on that idea. That slightly tomboy, slightly Annie Hall, absolutely not sexualised kind of thing which we were going for. The kind of slightly men's trouser thing was a big one.

AKT: If either of them, Sabina Spielrein or Anna Karenina were to give advice to Gretta, should she take it?

Mark Ruffalo on acting: "That's my true north, to be creative and to be challenged in what I love to do." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

KK: No, from Sabina Spielrein? I wouldn't [take it]. Nor from Anna Karenina…. I like the differences… I'd come from Anna Karenina which was incredibly stylised and we were trying something in a new way, very, very dark. And what I really wanted after that was something absolutely different. I feel incredibly privileged that I get the opportunity to do both instead of me going to sneer at big budget things or sneer at small budget things.

Singing is a big part of the film, as it was for Carney's Once.

John Carney: It was kind of funny, actually. When Keira went into recording, none of us knew if it would work. She went in and sang the first few lines and we all had a big sigh of relief. More importantly, we knew we could make this work!

KK: I did a film years ago called The Edge Of Love. I sang a bit in that. It was a very 1940s kind of theatrical thing, so very different. So yes, I have sung before but not really. Yes and no. For this film they very kindly got me some lessons with a very lovely man called Roger Love. We sat down and did a lot of scales. For a lot of the songs weren’t written until a couple of days before we got into the studio so we didn’t have the songs to try to figure it out before we got there. It was just about trying to figure out what my voice was, because I don't know. He tried to figure that out.

Carney spoke about his clandestine filming in Times Square with Knightley and Ruffalo in the middle of the night.

Adam Levine with Keira Knightley on success: "When my favorite bands became a success - good for them, that is fucking amazing, congratulations, I still love you." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

John Carney: That was the one true moment of maverick, crazy John Cassavetes madness on this movie. We literally did not get permits and we did not get clearance. I had written in Ireland ridiculously "they go to Times Square and walk around." Like that great old line that producers used to hate in old movies "the fleets meet" - the three words that would terrorise producers. I said it could happen as long as we don't tell anybody. We didn't close down [Times Square] because it would look ridiculous and we didn't want extras pretending. If I extended any shot in that sequence by two frames, there'd be somebody going "there is Keira Knightley!"

Mark Ruffalo: I got into acting because I want to act and I love acting. That's my true north, to be creative and to be challenged in what I love to do. I come from the theatre where you're never pegged for one thing. You can do comedy one season, be the romantic lead next season, you could do a period piece the next season, something modern the next. No one ever says to you this is what you have to do. This is what we expect from you. This work ethic is what I bring to my film work as well. It just takes on this wild ride.

Levine, on the other hand, did not take acting lessons.

James Corden with Mark Ruffalo: "I was in a boy band called 'Insatiable'. We were quite big in the High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire area" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Adam Levine: No. I mean, I had tried to take one and it didn’t go well. It was bizarre. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like what I was being told, because it wasn’t making me happy. That’s a whole other conversation I don’t want to have. So I just thought that I would pretend that I knew what I was doing and hope and pray that it worked, because these people are all very, very talented. Mark’s shaking his head because he’s angry with me. But, no lessons, actually.

Levine, frontman of the band Maroon 5 in real life, who plays Gretta's love interest Dave in Begin Again, defines selling out.

AL: First you have to define what it means to sell out. To do something that you don't want to do because you might be able to gain something financially for it and not be behind something that you wind up doing for some other reason, is probably what I'd call selling out. Not feeling good about doing something that might help you get ahead. Doing something that you love, regardless if it's a blockbuster or you're writing a pop song, or trying shamelessly to succeed at something, is not selling out. I think that's actually fine and I would encourage that all the time. Selling out really comes when you sacrifice your own personal credibility in order to have success on a larger scale.

Keira Knightley as Gretta: "It was just about trying to figure out what my voice was, because I don't know."

That's selling out - doing something that makes you feel gross. It's very clear cut… I always hated that growing up. When my favorite bands became a success - good for them, that is fucking amazing, congratulations, I still love you. I didn't get that selfish, obsessive bullshit attitude - they were mine, now they're everyone else's, I don't like them anymore. That's a horrible way to operate. Now they can pay their bills and have an amazing life and they're a great band. That's how I feel about that.

James Corden: Yeah, I’m a professional singer. It’s my trade. I'm joking – I'm not at all. I have a theory that all actors want to be rock stars and all rock stars want to be actors, so I spent my whole school life forming boy bands. I was in a boy band called 'Insatiable'. We were quite big in the High Wycombe Buckinghamshire area, you know. We had a song that I wrote, called Girl Are You Ready? - which we thought was amazing, but in hindsight I think it sounds a bit rapey. It didn’t work. But I think since Adam’s heard some of Insatiable’s stuff, I think we’re going to hook up on some tracks. I see it as something I’ll almost most definitely move forward with to become an international rock star. I think that's a given.

Adam Levine: I look forward to that.

James Corden: Thanks, man. It’s a big surprise but I can share it with you guys. We’re going to be called Maroon 6.

Mark Ruffalo: And you're going to be 'Satiated.'

Begin Again opened in the US on June 27 and will open in the UK on July 11.