 |
| Bronté Snell, Rob van Vuuren, Joey Rasdien, Jaques De Silva and Keenan Arrison in The Umbrella Men |
One of the most enjoyable heist movies to reach the screen in recent years, Toronto International Film Festival hit The Umbrella Men follows a group of musicians who decide to rob a bank in order to save their beloved nightclub and community hub, covering up the activities, covering up their activities with Capetown’s annual Minstrel Carnival. It’s a wildly entertaining ride, and very much in keeping with the character of the team behind it, director John Barker and lead actors Jaques De Silva, Shamilla Miller, Keenean Arrison and Bronté Snell, all of whom were in high spirits when we got together for an interview, despite a long day packed with promotional work. John kicked off the discussion, talking about how the project began.
“I've made a slice of life film and it did really well,” he says. “I wanted to tackle the heist genre, but I knew that it’d be complicated, because it's such a well known genre. And the moment you make that kind of genre film you’re up against Ocean's Eleven or Sexy Beast. So there was a challenge in that, and I was just very fortunate to get great actors and a fantastic crew who pulled it off. I think we can we can be very proud to say that it's as good a heist film as I've seen.” He pauses for a moment and adds “I guess it's the same as thinking your child's wonderful and beautiful,” and everyone laughs. “It was just taking that and then taking the beautiful carnival and marrying the two together,” he concludes.
I ask them all how they got involved with the project, and Shamilla speaks up first.
“It was quite a process. We all have very different stories. I met John a couple of years ago at a directors’ workshop that I attended, and he was like ‘Hey, I have a script – would you like to read it and come on board?’ And long story short, I've been attached to it for three years. I still had to put myself on tape and do the whole auditioning thing...”
“And I hated that,” says John. “They made us do that.”
“You always have to do that,” Shamilla points out, but he’s still unhappy about it.
“I mean, it's ridiculous,” he says. “They know what those guys have done, their body of work.”
“I was attached to this project 14 years ago,” says Keenan. “I was fortunate enough to be a part of the proof of concept.”
“It was just ridiculous,” says John.. “He was there in the beginning. He was in the original thing we shot 12 years ago. And then they said ‘Oh, no, he also has to be put on tape.’ I'm like ‘But you can see it in that!’”
“But that being said,” says Keenan, “I mean, every time you came back and told me to do a tape, I was so willing and just so keen to work with John that, yeah, it’s like a dream come true. And then this team as well.”
 |
| Brendan Murray as Monkey Boy |
“It’s fantastic,” says Brontè. “I was a recent addition to the team because I only heard about it just before it was going to be shot. I met John on the project. I just I just submitted a self tape. I was really nervous, but it was it was great, and that's where we spoke about my character.”
“I forget about this part, actually,” says Jaques, the film’s lead, who has been sitting looking remarkably relaxed whilst the others talk. “In the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic, I was doing a play, and my director had had a Tinder date there, and he saw it. It didn't work out for them. He saw me in the play and he was like, ‘Hey, look, I'm involved in this movie. We've lost our lead but I think you might be really great. Could I send you the script?’ And he sent me the script and I was like ‘This is amazing. I'd love to be part of it.’ And then I didn't hear anything again.” He laughs. “And then a year later, something like that, I got the audition brief for this and I was like ‘Hey, this is that thing!’ And so I auditioned and was very, very lucky to get cast.”
“I actually saw you when a journalist interviewed you in a theatre for something,” says John. “You were sitting on the floor and I think you were doing all the exercises. That was a YouTube thing, right?”
“Yeah,” Jaques nods.
“Because there was there wasn't a lot of stuff to look at. We tried to find anything that we could.”
I ask Jaques what it was like for him to get the role of Jerome and face the challenge of making it his own when there have been so many great heist movie leads in the past.
“I just leaned into what hooked me first,” says Jaques, “and that was his relationship with his father and the idea of the community. I suppose I related very much to this thing of having a father with a name, of being someone's son, whenever you're seen, in any way you're going.” He uses and Afrikaans phrase which I don’t quite catch, and then translates, “In English, that's ‘That's uncle Pat's child.’”
“ And everyone knows Pat. Everyone's like, ‘You're going to be like Pat,’ adds John.
“Yeah,” says Jaques. “So personally, me feeling like I needed to leave home to make a name for myself, but seeing Jerome's journey of going ‘Actually, who I am and what makes me who I am?’ is where I come from. So sitting very hard in that and then just generally is trying to be open to what I was receiving from everybody else, playing, trying to find the harmony. I think that's kind of my job, to hold the heart.”
The others make noises of agreement, and Keenan notes “It’s tough to do that every day.”
“It's tough,” Shamilla agrees.
“But I’m also funny!” Jaques protests, and there is general laughter. “It was amazing,” he continues. And I was held, and I feel really mentored through the process by John, by the cast and crew, by the really incredible people I got to play around with very intimately. I am a very, very lucky actor.”
It’s Keenan who has the more obviously comedic character, but he has to balance that with that fact that that character is haunted by his recent past as a prisoner. I ask how he brought those two elements together.
 |
| Bronté Snell in rival musician gear |
“Well, he thinks he's funny,” says Keenan, to the amusement of the others. “But it was great. I think also watching and reading the different drafts that John had, a lot’s changed. So it was interesting to see how the character evolved. And so when we started shooting, I knew exactly the direction that John wanted to go. And then also working with Jaques made it easier. And John also said something interesting: that, you know, these characters, even though it's a caper, it's comedy, they don't know that they're in a comedy. So it was easy to play to that, and just go from the truth. Stick to being honest. Because sometimes, I might be on somebody else's close up, you know what I mean? So you need to know where to pitch it. Is it my laugh line, is it someone else's game? You know? So that made it really cool – firstly, John’s script, and then working with these amazing actors.”
John doesn’t want to take too much credit. “Actually, a great scriptwriter, Philip Roberts, took my ramblings and made them into a decent script. So Philip also deserves a lot of credit. He’s a talented writer, talented enough to create things for the characters that made sense, every scene having confrontation in it, and he was really, really brilliant.”
If there’s one frequently thankless role in a heist movie, it’s that of the love interest. I ask Shamilla how she went about making her character so much more interesting that usual, and giving her a real, independent existence.
“It's funny you say that because in the beginning drafts of the script, Keisha was a much more passive character,” she says. “She kind of was just a pretty face and she was just the love interest. She was a secretary at the bank, and so over the drafts and as the character developed I also got involved. We added things like she's ambitious, she's got a degree in economics, she's trying to climb the corporate ladder. And then me myself, I've never liked to play...” She pauses for a moment. “I mean, I am not a passive woman and I just bring that aspect of myself to this character. I needed to bring a strength to that character and make her stand out so that she wasn't pandering. You know, sometimes you don't want to have a love interest that panders to the protagonists, and Jerome is quite a strong character on his own. So I needed Keisha to balance that and match that, instead of playing it more submissive. So I came in there quite strong with my choices.”
“I also think that you're completely right,” says John. “I mean, she had to be a strong character, she had to challenge Jerome right from the beginning. So that first scene in the bank is so tricky to play, because she knows him. He doesn't remember her. The backstory is that she was this kid, you know, in his life. And she was obviously the youngest. Her older sister was somebody that they were all friends with, that was their generation, and they didn't really remember Keisha, so that when she sees him, when he doesn't recognise her, she's like ‘Oh my God.’ So she gives it back to him straight away.
“It had to be a very sexy scene, you know, in the way that she wasn't pandering to him. Because he's also quite famous. Everyone knows him. So, the age that he is, he hasn't got a girlfriend and he hasn’t gotten married, so there's obviously some reason for that. Maybe everyone's been pandering to him and it's been too easy. So she had to come off like, ‘I don't give a shit here dude, I don’t care who you are,’ and she played that beautifully.”
“The reason why Jerome is able to be strong is because he's met with strong people,” says Jaques. “So he’s constantly asked to step up.”
“To level up, yeah,” says Shamilla.
“Absolutely, yeah,” John nods.
“Which is delicious,” says Jaques, adding that he also thinks the Shamilla’s portrayal of Keisha is a more accurate representation of women in the Bo Kaap community.
 |
| Abduragman Adams as Tariek |
Bronté gets less screen time than the others but still creates a strong character, and she features in one of the film’s pivotal scenes, where she’s faced with a tempting offer which could see her betray the whole enterprise. I ask her how she prepared for that scene.
“It's interesting,” says Bronté, “because I was faced with her love for music, and she is ambitious, she has got her own dreams, but at the same time, she's morally sound and, you know, her loyalty lies with family. She loves her Aunty Val, she loves Jerome, but Jerome is not being his true self, he's not coming and showing his family loyalty. So, it was nice for me, just challenging, because at that scene I actually was asking John ‘Where does she stand on this thing?’ and she was challenged. I had to just lean into that and ask myself like, ‘Okay, where does she stand? What does she want and what does she need?’ We had to make the audience wonder with her, you know, is she going to be the Judas?’
Noting her mention of music, which is a huge part of the film, I ask how each of them related to music and to that side of the story.
“I'm not a musician,” says Bronté, “but I started learning to play guitar. I've always loved music. I've always loved singing and dancing even though I'm not like trained in any of that. So when I came on board and I saw what they were doing, we did so much prep before we started shooting. Josh and I both had lessons with minstrels and the band and they wrote music for this project. It was just amazing, the work and the effort that went into it. And when we heard the music, oh my gosh, this is amazing. This is going to be so awesome! It actually ignited a fire inside of me for that specific genre of music because I didn't go a lot to the carnival, I think I've been once in my life, which is ridiculous. Yeah, well, it sparked a love for that specific genre of music that the minstrels play. So it was cool. Just cool to be a part of it.”
“I grew up listening to this music,” says Jaques. “I think the first cassette I got was a pirated copy of the musical...” Just as he speaks, something in the background comically beeps, obscuring the title as if to protect him from getting into trouble for copyright infringement. He continues “That was on all the time until I wore it to death. I either wore it to death or my sisters destroyed because there was enough now.” He laughs. “So I've been in love with the world of it. I’m also not a musician, but able to immerse myself in that community. And they welcomed us in with such open hearts, and couldn't wait to share their hearts with us. It was very, very special. And I'm very, very grateful to everyone in the Bo Kaap, to Loukman Adams, to my banjo coach – thank you. Music is special, and it keeps the rhythm of not necessarily just the film, but of who these people are.”
I mention that something else which I really like it the film is the way that the heist is built up as a small business project.
“There was the community element we wanted to play with,” says John. “They're not gangsters. They're musicians, but they're passionate about the club and they’re prepared to do anything for that club. But The guy that gets to blow up the safes is not a guy who blew up safes before. He was a guy that in the Nineties worked as a technician on safes. The tunnelling guy was also a bit of bullshit. He never really was in the previous tunnel. That was a bit of a lie that he told. So this gang that they put together, of their friends and the people they go to are musicians, they're not bank robbers. They're not the A team or the B team or even the C team. They’re maybe the D team. So it's great for the audience to watch these cool guys pretty naively try and plan this heist, and then they have to believe in the boy next door, so he had to be the kind of guy that you'd follow into a tunnel. So that's why we had to get this young man to play the role.”
 |
| The Umbrella Men poster |
It’s the real Capetown tunnels which feature in the film, he assures me.
“We were lucky we got into the tunnels and we were lucky it hadn't rained before because if it rains, those tunnels are full of water. We had these waders on. We insisted that everyone must have waders, like ‘It’s hectic down there! It’s up to here – up to your waist.’ And it didn't rain for a while, and when we went down, it was like this much water we had to climb around.” He holds his hand about six inches off the floor. “But it was great. We done it but we had cobwebs and spiders and cockroaches.”
“But the tunnels exist. That's a real part of it,” says Shamilla.
“Yeah,” says John. “And it's a beautiful, cinematic thing to be in the tunnels. I watched so many heist films set in London where they use these beautiful tunnels. Ladykillers they’re in the tunnels, and, I think, The Bank Job, there's tunnels in there. There’s a reference we used from that. These beautiful old cities that have these massive tunnels under the city, and we have too. It's crazy to not shoot in them, so we were very fortunate that we were the first ones.”
Coming up: John Barker, Jaques De Silva, Shamilla Miller, Keenan Arrison and Bronté Snell on paying homage to the greats, getting the chemistry right, and their favourite moments from the shoot.
