The Last King of Scotland proved itself to be one of 2007’s major critical and commercial success stories, and saw star Forest Whitaker win an Oscar for his performance as Idi Amin. Producer Andrea Calderwood looks back on a seven year process that saw many twists and turns on the route to putting Giles Foden’s book on the screen.
“The story really begins when Lisa Bryer and Suzanne Warren of Cowboy Films brought the book to me when I was still at BBC Scotland in 1997,” says Calderwood. “I was just leaving the BBC and couldn't follow up on it then, but Lisa and Suzanne set it up for development at Film Four, and when I set up Slate Films with FilmFour in 2000, Paul Webster asked me to get involved as a creative producer, and we agreed to develop it as a Cowboy/Slate co-production.”
Creating the right package for The Last King of Scotland meant finding the right director, and finance, not easy for a film which demanded foreign locations and a subject matter that was anything by conventional.
“We had originally set it up with a different script and director and were ready to shoot in 2002, when FilmFour was closed down. We re-set it up with Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock's script, and Kevin Macdonald directing, and we brought in the new version of FilmFour, along with DNA/ Fox Searchlight and Scottish Screen to finance it,” says Calderwood. “We knew Kevin had an interest in the book, as he'd seen it when he'd worked with Faber, the publishers. I saw an early screening of Touching The Void, and was very impressed at the way he was able to make a real story, where the outcome was already known, gripping and involving. When we met to discuss the project, he had a very confident approach to how he would handle the mix of fact and fiction in the story, to making it entertaining. So I knew he was the one to make the film as we'd imagined it.” Essentially a two hander between Amin and journalist Garrigan, a composite character based on three real life people, The Last King of Scotland’s success also hinged on casting.
“Early on, some people felt we should have an unknown actor play Idi Amin, someone who looked very like him, but I was convinced that we needed an experienced screen actor to carry the role of Idi, who has to go through a huge range of emotions,” says Calderwood. “Kevin and I met several established US actors for the role, and Forest Whitaker impressed us with his complete understanding of what motivated Idi, and his intention to play him from the inside out, not as a caricature. James McAvoy also had an innate understanding of who Garrigan's character was - both actors have quite different techniques, but they worked extremely well together.”
And one more considerable obstacle was the location; Uganda offered authenticity and local colour, but also posed considerable risks in terms of bringing in The Last King of Scotland on time and within its budget.
“Originally, the received wisdom was that it would be too difficult to shoot the film in Uganda, as there was no infrastructure there. I went to Uganda on a research trip in 2002, and felt there were great resources there in terms of the people, and the real locations,” Calderwood says. “With Kevin Macdonald's documentary background,
he was keen to see if you could shoot it there - we went on a recce with him to Kenya, South Africa and Uganda, and decided that Uganda was the only place to shoot it. I was pleased we were able to use the real place. Shooting in Uganda gave us so many things we wouldn't have got elsewhere the texture of the countryside, the real experience of the people, the language and atmosphere of the place all contribute to the film. Also the Ugandans were very generous with their experience and their knowledge, and all the cast got a lot out of being there, which I think contributes to their performances, particularly Forest's.”
Once the decision to shoot in Uganda had been made, Calderwood faced an uphill struggle to make the locations work for the film; that meant working closely with the Ugandan authorities. “Because we were the first feature film to shoot in Uganda, we needed to do a lot of work to establish support from the government. We met with
President Museveni before we began shooting, and he offered us the support of the army, use of government buildings, and rebates on VAT, which helped to offset the additional cost of shooting in a country with no film infrastructure,” she says. “He was pleased that we were telling the story of Idi Amin, and helping to put Uganda on the map, encouraging other film productions to go there. Unfortunately, the main building we wanted to shoot in, State House, had just been demolished a month before we got there - but after much searching we were able to find another house owned by the Mehta sugar estate (on which Idi had lived as a boy, by coincidence), and we were able to shoot there.”
Making The Last King of Scotland represented a considerable leap of faith for all concerned; Calderwood was well aware that the film’s unusual content could cause problems. “Making any film set in Africa is a challenge, as there is still a resistance
among financiers to backing films featuring black characters, as they are worried they won't find an audience. Also the central character, Nicholas Garrigan, can be seen as quite an unsympathetic character, because he gets involved with Idi Amin. In the book, that can be explained through his internal thought processes, but it was quite a challenge to find a way to dramatise it in the script,” she says. “One of the things I'm most pleased about in the response to the film is that people really got all the nuances
of what is a quite complex story, and as well as having awards and critical success, we reached a wide audience, showing that there is a market for this kind of film if it's done well.”
On a budget of around £4 million, The Last King of Scotland made over three times that at the US box office alone, helped by a successful Oscar campaign. It was a considerable triumph, which Calderwood sees as evidence that low-budget film can be a commercial proposition. “There is a polarisation of mainstream and independent filmmaking. Financiers are less and less willing to risk substantial budgets on edgyfilms, so films which are outside the mainstream have to have significantly lower budgets, or have elements in them which will attract financiers,” says Calderwood. “So it was particularly satisfying that a film like The Last King of Scotland, a complex story set in Africa, was able to find a commercial audience, and I hope it will help encourage financiers to see that films outside the usual formula can also work.”
