Brian Helgeland, writer, director<\/p>\n
I wrote and directed the Mel Gibson film Payback but got fired during post-production<\/a>. It was my first film as director and I thought my career was over. It was during this downtime that I wrote A Knight\u2019s Tale. I loved the idea that jousting tournaments were medieval sports, but I had never figured out what to do with it. I thought about the ideas underpinning it: a peasant who wants to be a noble was like a screenwriter wanting to be a director. It\u2019s a guy trying to be something he has no right to be.<\/p>\n The studio had a shortlist of actors for William\/Sir Ulrich, at the top of which was Paul Walker<\/a>. I met him but he seemed too contemporary, like a guy who should be driving race cars \u2013 which he did so well in The Fast and the Furious. I just thought: \u201cYou\u2019re not going to pull this off.\u201d Heath Ledger was a rising star at the time. I met him at a restaurant in LAX airport and he had this long leather case with him. \u201cWhat\u2019s in the case?\u201d I asked. He said: \u201cIt\u2019s my didgeridoo.\u201d \u201cCan you play it?\u201d I asked. He said: \u201cOf course I can.\u201d And he started blowing on it like a white Australian Miles Davis. Everyone was looking. I fell in love with him in that moment and offered him the part.<\/p>\n The only thing more embarrassing than walking down the street naked is doing it with a sock on your penis<\/p>\n I wrote the part of Chaucer for Paul Bettany<\/a>, although Sony wanted Hugh Grant. I\u2019ve got nothing against Hugh but I thought the tone would be skewed if it was him and three other guys. The movie has since been written about by Chaucer scholars \u2013 they love it.<\/p>\n We jousted for real with re-enactors from a Las Vegas jousting show. But we made the lances of balsa wood so they wouldn\u2019t kill anybody. The art department made compartments in them and put uncooked spaghetti in: when the lances broke, they exploded and the pasta went up in the air looking like splinters. We put the Nike logo on Sir Ulrich\u2019s armour as a joke. Years later, someone at Nike told me how much they loved it. I thought: \u201cWe could\u2019ve got so many free sneakers!\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018He got a tattoo mid-shoot\u2019 \u2026 Heath Ledger and Brian Helgeland on location. Photograph: Cinematic\/Alamy<\/p>\n Heath got pretty bashed up. He\u2019d proudly lift his shirt and there\u2019d be huge abrasions. After the movie came out, we were demonstrating how to joust to his agent. He had a broom and I had a mic stand: he hit me in the mouth by accident and knocked my tooth out.<\/p>\n It got reviewed badly. Someone criticised the score \u2013 not the modern songs but the score itself, because it has electric guitar. I said: \u201cShould it have violins and french horns? Because they didn\u2019t exist in 1370 either.\u201d<\/p>\n Heath said A Knight\u2019s Tale was like a photo album of how much fun he had making it. It\u2019s about fighting the power \u2013 and that speaks to today very well.<\/p>\n Paul Bettany, played Chaucer<\/p>\n I auditioned and the studio said: \u201cWe don\u2019t get him.\u201d Brian flew me out for another audition and they still didn\u2019t get it. Finally he said: \u201cIf you don\u2019t cast him, I\u2019m not making the movie.\u201d And because they had Heath attached, who was the hottest thing going after 10 Things I Hate About You<\/a>, they went: \u201cAll right, we\u2019ll let Brian have Paul in this fucking movie.\u201d<\/p>\n So Brian started my Hollywood career. He was like a shining knight. I knew exactly what it was like to be an unrecognised artist. I used to have a philosophy for whenever I was nervous before an audition. I\u2019d think: \u201cAll you have to do is fake confidence for 15 minutes.\u201d That was the basis of Chaucer for me: fake it till you make it.<\/p>\n There are lots of jokes in Chaucer\u2019s first speech but we were in Prague and the extras didn\u2019t speak English, so they just stared at me. We drew up these massive cards that said \u201cApplaud\u201d or \u201cLaugh\u201d in Czech. I came away thinking I\u2019d really killed it when they laughed. I was amazed at my own shallowness.<\/p>\n \u2018Hey, naked guy!\u2019 \u2026 Ledger and Bettany as William and Chaucer. Photograph: Egon Endrenyi\/AP<\/p>\n