What You Should Know About ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’ From Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and more

Lasse Hallstrom’s latest beautiful film, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, starring Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas, comes out to limited theaters tomorrow, March 9th.

Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt along with screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and director Lasse Hallstrom, recently took some time to talk with reporters during a press day about the film. Film Equals was there and is happy to bring you some of the highlights. Also be on the lookout for our review of the film tomorrow.

– On what attracted him to the role Fred, Ewan McGregor explained that “You look for things you haven’t played before.” and added that Fred was “such an interesting character to play.”

– “I think you do look for parts that aren’t like you, that’s kind of the joy of it. That you can go motorbiking around the world and then play someone as repressed as Fred. That’s the great thing about this job.” – Emily Blunt on what attracted her to the part of Harriet.

– “It’s like an awful blind date.” – Emily Blunt on meeting a co-star who will play your love interest for the first time. She did say that Ewan McGregor and her clicked immediately.

– Even though screenwriter Simon Beaufoy was the one who suggested Ewan use the Morningside Scottish accent, Emily Blunt was the one who pushed him to do it for his character after they read a scene together. She thought it was so funny.

– “I feel like every movie is a bit of a leap of faith. Because you can absolutely love the script and you just have to go on gut really. And you have to take a leap and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t.” – Emily Blunt

– “There is no checklist, it’s very instinctive choosing a piece of work.” – Ewan McGregor on what stories attracts him. He added “It’s just what grabs you.”

– Ewan McGregor had help from the art department when you saw him some sort of diagram on the drawing board (you can see a bit of it in the picture at the top). But he is the one who drew the tap. Also it was a hard scene to do because it all had to be timed with dialogue.

– Another movie magic trick, when you see Emily Blunt type in the film, she was using a special keyboard made by the art department that no matter what key she would hit, it would still type up the correct sentence. Oh and in case you were wondering, Emily is a really bad typer.

– Ewan McGregor and Amr Waked (who plays The Sheikh) had to learn how to fish for the film.

– Both of them would like to work together again.

– Lasse Hallstrom explained that the fish were very controllable, so it’s wasn’t so hard to shoot them.

– Simon Beaufoy explained that one of the challenges in adapting Paul Torday’s novel to the screen was figuring out the love triangle, because in the book one of them dies early on and stays that way. And so he decided to do something radical compared to the book adaptation. (You’ll have to go see the movie to find out what that is.)

– Another challenge Beaufoy talked about was getting the tone right because the book mixes romance and satire, which usually doesn’t work very well together.

– Beaufoy describes Ewan McGregor’s character Fred as someone who got shoehorned into this way of life. “He wasn’t asking any questions about whether this was him. Then this woman comes and starts pushing and making him question who he really is.”

– Beaufoy explained that Fred’s line “They will swim” about the fish is because he believes that it’s in their DNA and he believes it’s also in his DNA to be outside and working on this project.

– In terms of research, Beaufoy explained he was lucky because novel writer Paul Torday had already done the research for him.

– Beaufoy did try and go fly-fishing himself and loved it. He would like to go back and do it again. Lasse Hallstrom on the other hand has never gone fly fishing.

– “Lasse is very good at walking that line of tone, there’s a warmness to him. He has a gentleness of approach which worked with the film.” – Simon Beaufoy on director Lasse Hallstrom

– “It is like going to Mars, it’s theoretically possible.” – Simon Beaufoy on whether bringing salmon in the Yemen is actually possible.

– “I do love the human struggle of people deciding they will do the impossible.” – Simon Beaufoy

– “Love stories tend to be messy. The great loves stories are always messy otherwise they wouldn’t be love stories.” – Simon Beaufoy

– “If something is good enough and right enough, it will happen.” – Simon Beaufoy

– “Lasse is practically laying down he’s so laid back.” – Emily Blunt on director Lasse Hallstrom

– Lasse Hallstrom had a great experience on the film, it is very high on his list of credits.

– Lasse Hallstrom is currently shooting a film in Sweden entitled The Hypnotist. It is a thriller starring Lena Olin and Mikael Persbrandt and is due to be released in Sweden at the end of September.

And that’s all for now, but don’t miss Salmon Fishing in the Yemen when it hits theaters (limited) tomorrow, March 9th.