Christos Nikou on Collaborating with Cate Blanchett for 'Fingernails’ & His Hugh Grant Obsession

The film depicts a kind of world where people have to take a test to prove that they're in love or they can choose not to. Would you take the test or would you be a holdout? No, for sure no. I don't think that I would have done this test and it's not that I don't want to lose a nail. I don't think, and that's what we're trying also to say with the movie, that love is something really instinctive. We don't have to prove it with any test and we don't have in general to prove it. It's something that we need to feel it. No more uncertainty, no more wondering if you've chosen the right partner, no more divorce. We were the first to build the machines to conduct the test to make the bond of love stronger. I'm curious to know about the kind of world building of your films because like your debut, Apples, fingernails are set in a kind of not quite the future, not quite the present or the past. It sort of feels like a parallel reality. Where is that kind of world for you and how do you define it? We never try to create worlds in terms of creating something really futuristic or something distant. For me, all the conceptual stories and the conceptual stories that are coming also from movies that I love like the Truman Show or the Charlie Kaufman stories, I feel that they're more powerful when they're very grounded. Because in both movies we were trying to make some really strong comments about how technology has affected our memory and also right now the way in fingernails, the way that we experience love, I think that it is more powerful to have completely an absence of technology and to not use cell phones and messages and texts that people are doing all the time. And also it's not very cinematic, I feel. We're approaching two very timeless topics that they were existing in this life forever. We wanted to create them in a way that it feels a little bit more timeless. In fingernails, for example, there's only one technological device, which is the test machine that everybody's looking for an answer there. And everybody's going there to understand if they are in love or not. So we tried to create something really timeless even with the cinematography. I feel that the movie is something like that we shot it at the end of the 90s maybe. Somebody put it on a shoebox and right now people are discovering it and it's a movie about love and a prophecy about love that we are living right now. Have you guys taken the test? Yeah, three years ago we were positive. Felt like a weight had been lifted. I love that the great contrast of fingernails is that it's this very quiet, tender love story that also has multiple scenes where people get their fingernails ripped out. So why was that kind of bit of body horror necessary to you in the middle of your film? When we were writing the script with the two co-writers, we were trying to think of an idea about how we will do this test. Because we're making a comment about how people are using their cell phones all the time. People are swapping right or left in order to find the right partner with their fingers and their nails. And in general we're using our fingers also even for the ring that we're putting there when we're married. And it's like how the certificate plays their role in that movie, the in-love certificate, because marriage is almost like how people are trying to prove their love. We wanted to take something that makes equals the love of pain with the physical pain. Of course it feels like body horror but I hope that it's more an allegory, it's more something symbolic. And I hope that the audience will not take it in a very, they will not be so squeamish about it. It's also kind of funny in a way. I laughed. Some people I saw covering their eyes but that's the great thing about film, it kind of induces different visceral reactions. I like how your kind of science fiction is very low tech, unlike most of the sci-fi we see on screen. Is that kind of your vision of the future as well? I don't know how it will be in the future. I'm a little bit scared about the future, I don't know. In the movie we're trying to give a very optimistic approach, even in something that it looks a little bit more dystopian. I don't know how things will be in the future because in a way if you will think that people right now are dating only through dating apps or are meeting people only through that, are meeting people only by texting and they are not trying to understand the real chemistry and the real energy in person, it's a little bit scary for me. Even for love it feels that people are letting an algorithm tell them which is the right partner for them instead of following their own instinct. I think that love is only something that we have to trust our heart, our brain and that's it. You'll be shadowing Amir. He's already one of our most successful instructors. What's the one thing you love most about Maria? Take your time. I love her hair. It's soft. It's nice, Hansa. It's nice. The film would not work if Jesse Buckley and Riz Ahmed didn't have this great kind of spark between them which you kind of just feel the second they kind of look at each other on screen. How did you know that it was those two and that they would work together like that? I didn't know it. I mean we just tried it and I love them so much, both of them. I think that Jesse always surprises me in whatever she's doing and Riz is completely chameleon by adapting from something dramatic to something comedic. But I have never seen both of them in something dramatic so I really wanted to try that. I hope that it will have a great chemistry and I think that there is a great chemistry there. I mean the two of them are having something really strong together. They both give these kind of very beautifully quite internal performances that feel very intuitive but I'm curious to know how you work with actors and what your process working with them is. I love to do some rehearsals at the beginning. Of course we are discussing about other films. We discussed with both of them and with the other actors about the tone of the film. I call the tone of the film melancholic smile tone and we try to create that like in movies that I love that they have this feeling. Like for example The Truman Show or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or even Beginners by Mike Mills which is one of my favorite movies of the last decade. Probably my favorite. I had a song for every scene so we were hearing the whole cast and crew very loud the song. Some people from the crew they were singing it at the same time and we were all in the mood of the scene so we were creating the right mood for every scene and this helped a lot the actors to understand the tone to feel the mood for every scene and to be easier for them being in a scene without thinking a lot of things but just being there. And you can't cast Jessie Buckley in a film and not get her to sing. No it's impossible. I even needed more to be honest so I have to do a musical with her I think right now. It's something that we really wanted to have her singing and she has two singing scenes in the movie. I look forward to the Jessie Buckley musical with you. Oh sorry. I was wondering if it was possible that one person could be in love with two people at the same time. It's a biological impossibility. Cate Blanchett was an executive producer on your debut film Apples and she is back as a producer with her company Dirty Films on Fingernails. How did that collaboration come about to begin with? It was in 2020 when we premiered Apples in Venice. I remember before the premiere in Venice I received a message that Cate wanted to have a breakfast with me and I was looking again and I was like no it's a spam. I don't know what is that. It's not a real message. And then it was a real message and I went for breakfast with her. We started discussing for almost two hours how much we love films, what films we love and what she wants to do in the future, what I want to do in the future and we felt so much aligned in everything. She asked me if she can play a role in the next film. I said to her I pitched her the idea of Fingernails that we were already working on it. She said to me okay can I produce at least the movie and that's how it started. So she wanted to be executive producer of Apples, to be the main producer of Fingernails and in general to support the film in other way. I can't be more grateful to her. She supported me so so so much and she's really great. She's the best. Do you see yourself continuing to work internationally or would you ever go back to Greece and make a film there? I hope that I will continue working wherever I have stories to tell and right now the stories I want to tell are a little bit more universal I feel so I hope that I will continue doing that. If Marvel came to you with a big fat paycheck? Definitely yes. No I think that I'm not the right person. I have never seen any Marvel film so I don't know how to direct something that I have never seen before. Would you describe yourself as a romantic as a filmmaker? I'm trying to be romantic as a filmmaker. My guilty pleasure is to watch rom-coms. I have seen all of them, even the bad ones. What's your favorite rom-com? Oh I love the Richard Curtis, everything that he has done. I love so much his writing. I think that he's perfect. I'm always crying in his movies and I don't know why. I think in addition to the Jesse Buckley musical we need to get the Christos Nikou rom-com. I can do a rom-com with Hugh Grant and at the end he will not have the girl because it will be the first time that it will be a twist and he will not be able to have the girl at the end. I love that because in Fingernails there's a cinema marquee at one point that calls Hugh Grant the man who knows the most about love and so now I know that's what you think. It's funny because we approached him to play the role that Luke Wilson played. Oh really? We wanted to make something like a joke about how the guy who creates this institute about love is the guy who knows everything about love. He couldn't do it. I decided to use his name on the marquee of the cinema because I think that yes he's the only guy in this world that knows what is love. I would have stayed in a cinema 24 hours and see all the movies of Hugh Grant I think.