He portrayed the character of Lord Boreš. However, the film is still waiting for a premiere due to the recently released anti-civic measures. Jakl is planning it for next spring.
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How was the collaboration with Michael Cain?
He is an incredibly golden man. He has great acting humility and working with him is one great joy. When I approached him, and in fact no one believed I had a chance to get him, he called me at the cottage and said, “Hi, this is Michael Caine. I would like to work with you, you have a beautiful script. “
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Jiří Bartoška, Michael Caine and his wife Shakira Caine.
Photo: Petr Hloušek, Právo
I thought it seemed to me. From then on, the preparations were divided into the period before Cain and Cain. It was difficult to find anyone before he accepted the role. Then it was quite simple. Everyone wanted to work with him.
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So he was the breakthrough for international casting?
Yes and no. We knew there was no point in addressing anyone until we had a representative of the title character. That was the hardest part. And we were saved by Ben Foster, who accepted the role of Jan Žižka. When I told Cain, he was pleased and said that he respected Ben very much. The others went by butter.
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In the picture Til Schweiger Petr Jákl and Ben Foster.
Photo: Milan Malíček, Právo
Working with Michael was incredible. I was scared, I wondered, how could I direct such a person, such a legend? But we started having fun, I outlined my idea to him and he said, “Yeah, I’ll do it that way.” And then to see how perfectly he learned three pages of text for one day of filming was unbelievable!
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How do you present a film from the Czech Middle Ages to foreigners so that they can understand it?
To be sure, we have a light explanation of the situation at the beginning, so that those who do not know our medieval history can at least orient themselves a little. In America, we did a few test screenings and found that people understood everything, they didn’t have the slightest problem with it. And what pleased me the most was that when they watched the film, three quarters of them said that they would go after Jan Žižka and the Hussites.
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Petr Jákl arrived at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival to present the expected film Jan Žižka.
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
When did you ever find the courage to embark on a project worth half a billion crowns with such a stellar international cast?
At the beginning, I prepared it as a film for the Czech audience, in Czech. The budget was close to ninety million, and I knew it could never be paid. The story was completely different then than it is now.
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But then I rewrote the script several times and eventually evolved into something completely different. Suddenly it was a story that the whole world would understand. At that moment, I thought that even though the budget had risen to three hundred million, I had to try to get that huge money. And I succeeded.
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How did you do it?
Of course, it was a long journey, which I sometimes went through the wrong alleys, I came back. But suddenly I managed to attract investors and I knew I could start addressing foreign actors. But precisely because it also came out, which, by the way, no one expected me except me, the budget increased by another one hundred and fifty million, which I didn’t have two weeks before the shooting.
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I had to go and get them in those two weeks. I went around the investors, most of whom are from America, and convinced them why they should invest more. When a movie is good, it finds audiences and earns money. And if we have these actors, we have an open path to the American market and the costs will be richly rewarded.
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Did the completion of the film complicate the pandemic?
It complicated it for us a lot, because I had an American editor Steven Rosenblum, which by the way is the editor of my favorite film Braveheart, which inspired and motivated me to shoot Jan Žižka.
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Steven was in the Czech Republic, we started working, but then he had to leave and they didn’t let him come here. I went to see him for two months, but it didn’t go any longer and he recommended me his best friend Julian Clark, who edited the film Deadpool, for example. He has a Czech wife and easily completed his work in Prague.
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It was a long journey, which I sometimes went down the wrong streets, says Petr Jákl.
Photo: Petr Horník, Právo
How did you manage to combine Czech actors with foreign ones?
Absolutely great. Karel Roden had an excellent scene with Michael Cain, Jan Budař was excellent, he surprised with excellent English, and not only that. He grew a huge beard and a month before filming told me: “Now I turn off the phone, I go to the woods, I wander, I experience the Middle Ages. I’ll come to the square. “
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I wanted to stop him, I was afraid something would happen to him. But he said, “I’ll be there.” He left and arrived in time, even overgrown. And I had to slip before someone could prepare like this today.
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How does the Middle Ages turn in terms of expedition?
Quite well with us. We had a lot of beautiful nature, which you can easily find with us, you just have to give up protected landscape areas, where we would step on it too much. And we have an advantage in beautiful castles and chateaux. It wouldn’t be possible to shoot in America. However, we still have six hundred trick shots in the film, because we had to lubricate lightning conductors, power lines wires, planes. It was awful how much there was.
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You have become a producer of a number of foreign films, including Best Sellers, starring Michael Caine, which premiered at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. How can a person from the Czech Republic achieve this?
Thanks to Jan Žižek. On it, I proved to investors and other people that if I promise something, I will keep it. If I say I’ll get something tomorrow, I’ll get it tomorrow. And there are a lot of people in Hollywood who say, “Sure, it will be tomorrow!” And it’s a month or never.
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I have a purposeful purpose in sports and that I bring things to an end. Thanks to that, I got my first project, Supreme Tribute with Ed Harris, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Plummer, Peter Fonda. And because I caught up with him, more came.
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What have your meetings with the most famous so far been like?
Pretty pretty. Once one gets through the agents to the actors themselves, they find that they are completely normal. I admire, for example, Anthony Hopkins, with whom I also shot the film Czech Clutch by director Joel Schumacher as an actor. It was then that I had just returned from the Olympics (Jacob got me as a judoka at the Sydney Olympics – editor’s note), he invited me to his caravan and asked me for a long time what it was like. Everything interested him down to the smallest detail. And similarly with John Malkovich or Robert De Niro. They are great.
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