Movies
Could you tell us a bit about In The Hand of the Gods and where the idea initially came from?
Leo Pearlman: The film's a road movie about journeys and dreams, it's about five guys trying to fulfill their lifelong ambition and meet their hero Diego Maradona. They came from absolutely nothing - not a penny between them, one of them was living on the streets. They came to us with the idea that they wanted to try and travel across the world to try and meet Diego and would we go along with them and follow them? We met them through something called The Freestyle Show that we made on Sky and Danny and Woody came to us one day and said 'what about this for an idea? We're going to do it anyway, so if you guys want to come with us that's cool'. Our response was 'not a chance'. We kept that up for two or three months and they kept on coming back to us and saying 'we can do it'. Then they eventually came back to us and said that they'd managed to get free flights to New York and a free flight home from Buenos Aires and asked 'so now will you follow us?' We said 'okay'.
Gabe Turner: We did a test one day because we still had reservations about whether they'd be able to raise enough money to go to Argentina. We said to them that they didn't realise how much money they were going to have to make what with travel, food, accommodation - it's a lot of money. So they said they'd show us how much money they could make in a day. So we went down to Leicester Square, Covent Garden and we said to them 'prove to us you can make enough money, eat at the best restaurant you can'. We were expecting them to go to Pizza Hut, but at the end of the day they had enough for a three course meal at the Savoy, the five of them. They went in in their tracksuit bottoms with pound coins. Everyone in there was giving them snobbish looks but they went in, had their meal, then tipped the money on the table. Then we said 'okay we'll do it'.
Were you surprised about the success that the film received after its launch in Cannes?
Gabe: That was the weirdest period of time ever. It was always this low budget thing. We used to say to each other if we just make one cinema then we'd be happy, just to see it on the big screen and then Cannes sort of turned up.
Leo: It's all changed now - we're like 'I can't believe it's not in a hundred'!
Gabe: Cannes was just insane, it was received really well. We had this party that we thought that no-one was going to come to, and every now and then you'd see this crowd of people and you'd wonder 'who's that'? Jude Law was there and Jessica Simpson turned up, it was like 'what are you doing here?' It was just insane and loads more people came in. I think we had our party on one of the nights when everything was going on and everyone from the strip in Cannes ended up with queues outside. I think it's because the boys were doing tricks and stuff and everyone was a bit blown away. It was the most surreal thing ever and in Cannes I think we finally realised that we might have something here and this could do alright.
Boys, what memories will you take away from the experience, and what for you is the most memorable part of the journey?
Paul Wood (Woody): I'd have to say two things. One was when I stayed in Guatemala with a family and the mother. The most memorable was a beautiful evening I had there with them. It made me feel quite happy about the situation because that kind of poverty really saddens me. I don't feel like I should feel sorry for them in any way - the reason being because they are very, very happy people. They don't know about the materialistic crap that we know about and what we're surrounded by, they don't know about it, they've never seen it and those sorts of things don't affect their lives. They're more happy with the things in life like waking up in the morning, being happy with your family, the sun blazing - those sorts of things. They're very happy people, in fact they're happier than a lot of people that live in this country and if only the people that live in the country that we live in were happy with what they've got and what opportunities they've got, because it's a shame they don't make the most of everything. That was a really big eye-opener because I came away feeling really happy about the situation, I wasn't sad.
The other one has got to be Brazil because it blew me away. It's a beautiful, amazing location and I was just blown away by the country and the people.
To make money for the trip you all had to do street performances. What other things did you do to get the money and what was the most extreme or memorable?
Jeremy Lynch: I think I got the ball on my head and went down on my knees and proposed to a girl. I didn't even know what she looked like! It was in Los Angeles on Venice Beach.
Woody: I never knew this!
Jeremy: Yeah, I know you didn't. She gave me two dollars.
Leo: What about the time you played dead in Vegas?
Jeremy: Oh yeah, me and Danny (Robinson) were freestyling for a long time and people were being really stingy, so we decided to do something stupid and see if people would put money in the cup. So I think we both laid down and I had a ball on my nose and we pretended to be dead and then I think Danny dropped the ball, but he still didn't care. And people started giving us more money for doing that than when we were doing our tricks!
Leo: They had thousands of people stepping over them.
Jeremy: Another naughty thing we did as well was we would take most of the money out of the cup and it was a clear plastic cup and it was quite dark. We'd go to a dark place, we'd put it on the floor and as people were walking past, someone would knock it over eventually. Then we'd go 'Ahh, what have you done? You've got to give us a dollar for that!' We came up with some good tricks.
What was it like when you watched yourselves for the first time back on the big screen. Was the finished product anything like you expected?
Jeremy: Cringing weren't we?
Woody: I've seen it twice - the first time I was just thinking what an absolute doughnut I looked, because obviously you see yourself, you analyse yourself in life and I was just cringing so much. Then when I saw it again I watched the film properly and I took a back seat as if I wasn't in the film and I was blown away by it to be honest with you. That's nothing to do with what we did, it's the way these guys put it together. I think it's unbelievable what the guys have done and I was absolutely blown away and that's the reason why it's got to where it is.
Did you ever think you'd be where you are now, going to a premiere and having a party in Cannes?
Jeremy: I'll be honest - I didn't trust these guys. I thought they were going to make a crusty little British film. I thought it would make it onto the Channel 5 movie matinee or something and I thought at best it might get to one cinema, and we thought that was brilliant.
Ben Winston: I remember specifically sitting with you (Woody) on a bus in Guatemala, and you were asking 'what is the biggest this could go?' We obviously had our dreams about where this could go, but we also had to remember that it was these guys' dreams and you didn't want to build them up, so we were really playing it down. We were saying it will probably go straight to DVD and it could do quite well on DVD, but at least you'll have a copy of it. I was getting you happy with the idea of just having a DVD I think.
Woody: I'm always questioning them and I think the biggest they ever came back to me and said was an independent cinema, which we thought was massive and we got back and every time we spoke to them the bar just kept on rising. I haven't had anything negative hit us and I'm quite worried about that.
What was the lowest point for you guys during the shooting of the film?
Woody: Do you know what? There was so many ups and downs. There's a couple in there that really stuck out for me. One was when I found out that there was only two flights that we could get and we had to take them because if we didn't take them, because they were half price and we only had enough money for two to go. If you had to fund the trip for five people and go back, I don't think - again we would have had to have broken up in another place and not had the chance to get all of us over there in time. Whereas this way, it was the only way time-wise that it would work out that we could actually get everyone over there. So obviously the break-up was a really, really down point and we had to get everyone together and say this is the reality, we're going to have to split if we're all going to get over there in some way. That was a really hard moment for me.
Jeremy: I've got one. When we performed, sometimes people would hardly give anything. I'd do a twenty minute performance and at the end of it I'd have one dollar and I used to take it to heart and I used to beat myself up about it. I'd think 'why didn't anyone give me any money?'
Did you learn a lot about yourselves during the trip?
Jeremy: I think I knew myself pretty well before the trip. I wouldn't say I got to know myself more, but it was tricky being with them every day. I think we all got on each other's nerves at some point and then other times we'd get on really well.
Woody: I think from my personal point of view, it showed me in life that anything that I ever want to put myself to, I really believe I could make it. We were so up against it and we did really well and it proved to me that anything I'm faced with I'll go for it if I want it that badly. That's what I found about myself, about other people - I knew Jeremy really well because we've worked a lot together and that's how I met Jeremy and we always speak and I'm very interested in his beliefs, just from a respectful point of view and as a friend. I learnt even more when I was away with him. Danny and Mikey are the most similar, so Sami (Hall) and Mikey (Fisher) are the most different to me and I learnt a lot from them. Especially Sami, because I was with him the whole time. I learned a lot about how to deal with someone in certain moods and learned how to be around someone like that at certain times.
What’s next for all of you - have you set yourselves any challenges since?
Woody: Yeah, I'm going to be the next James Bond. No, if I'm honest I want to carry on freestyling. I would like to get into film, I don't know what my routes going to be in or what have you, but that side of it does excite me. I would like to end up doing something like that at some stage, they're my targets at the moment. I've got a little bit of experience, I was in the Dream Team for a bit in the sixth series and I saw the way it was working and I can carry on doing my soccer school because that's my reality, that's my bread and butter, I like having that to go back to.
In the Hands of the Gods is in cinemas across the country from September 14.
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