Crafting An Unromantic Rom-Com: A Conversation with Filmmaker Mark Murphy For the Release of FOR LOVE OR MONEY
FOR LOVE OR MONEY follows Mark, and life is sweet, or so you might think if you were in Mark's shoes. He's about to make £20 million on a business deal that he's kept secret from everyone, even his best friend Tim. To add to his luck, a chance encounter at a funeral has given him another shot with the love of his life, Connie. The two fall head over heels in love and not long after get engaged.
Two problems though: first, Connie doesn't genuinely love him; and second, his belief that no-one knows about his impending success and wealth is, in fact, incorrect. An old classmate, Johnny, knows everything and encourages Connie to marry Mark. After stumbling upon some incriminating texts, Mark discovers their plan to rob him of half his impending fortune. Refusing to be made the fool, Mark quickly puts a plan into action. With the help of Tim and Connie's ex-bff, Kendra, he embarks on a mission to see just how far the devious pair are willing to go to get their hands on that money.
In our interview, Mark Murphy tells The Fan Carpet's Marc Jason Ali about the initial idea for FOR LOVE OR MONEY, why the name change and tells us about his passion project...
The film’s incredible, I watched it this afternoon, it is incredibly funny. What was the initial impetus for the film?
Well originally I had a situation, many years ago with a Producer who it turned out as not to quite having my back in the way that I thought he had, and things got rather sort of ugly and I started to write about the experience, but I didn’t want to write it and turn it into a depressing story about how things had gone wrong and I thought maybe there was a way to turn it into a romantic comedy and turn it into something funny and that was the sort of gestation of the idea, but it sort of moved on quite a lot and that happened quite a long time ago so in the intervening years various new drafts were written and eventually it sort of distanced itself from the real thing, I wish it had been like it is in the film; something that wasn’t quite funny or romantic and seeing if I could turn it into that.
Okay alright cool. Well, sorry that happened, but at least something good came out of it (laughs)
Yeah I guess so (laughs)
The chemistry between Rob and Sam makes the film, what was it about these two that made them the perfect choices for the roles of Mark and Connie?
I think there’s a few things, obviously they’re both really good actors, and it seems kind of a shame that Sam hasn’t done more comedy, this is her first one and you know she’s doing very well on Broadway, I don’t think she’s too unhappy about that (laughs).
But I think they’re both great actors and they’re both also really nice people, so whilst they can play this, they’re both their characters to some degree, to some degree nefarious, they also bring quite a lot of charm to those characters which is part of their natural personality, you know, and I think that’s what the audience sympathising with them, but they are both just two lovely people and it makes me sick but it works well for the camera so they…...to be honest a lot of it comes down to luck and they do have a great chemistry.
Yeah they do. It’s just shame you don’t have Sam singing because she has an incredible voice...
Yeah that’s true but that being said there’s a second film I did I had Diana Vickers starring in and she did the song for the end credits and I really liked that song but no one else cared (laughs) which was fair enough.
So, Sam did sing off camera so we got to enjoy that but nothing on camera unfortunately.
Not bad, next time. I absolutely love the priest he’s really funny with his irreverent humour and just not giving a damn. Was that a conscious decision to turn a priest, a man of god, turn the trope on its head?
I’m trying to think when he first came into it, I think it must have been when writing the funeral, that’s obviously the first time you see him.
I thought “let’s just make this the worst funeral ever” and then a lot of things that happened we ended up saying “no this scene’s too long”, so we kept it a lot more simple, I think originally in the script we had Tim falling into the grave, but what we did keep was a Priest who is a little bit of a contradiction, you know, who doesn’t give a damn, who doesn’t even believe in God. And I love this character, I especially loved his last line which one of the producers did say “oh I think we should take that one out” and I’m like “you’re crazy that gets the biggest laugh”, I don’t think the kind of people who are going to be offended by that line are going to be the kind of people that would be seeing this film, so, well, screw it (laughs) I find it funny, I like it so lets keep it there.
Yeah well he’s funny, he’s incredible. You’ve assembled a great cast like not just Sam and Rob, but you’ve got Rachel and Tony and the chemistry between the main four is really great. What was it like working with them all?
They’re all horrible people actually (laughs) no I’m joking, they’re really nice and Tony is actually someone who I had in mind for that role even before we started casting, I was really happy we got him because he’s such a terrific character actor. Rachel, I’m surprised that we got her, she’s got some great stuff on her CV and I was really really chuffed that she was open to doing the role of Kendra, because she is sort of…...you know…...I’m sure her agent would have preferred her taking the lead role but she did such a great job and she’s got her own unique kind of quirky quality that shines through. But fundamentally they’re all really nice people and very very chilled out and I think that’s what sort of shines throughout that dynamic that they had between them.
For Love or Money Film Page | For Love or Money Review
FOR LOVE OR MONEY IS AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL DOWNLOAD FROM JULY 8
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