spoke exclusively to the film\u2019s writer and director Adam Sigal about adapting the true story \u2013 read on for everything you need to know. <\/span><\/p> Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose true story<\/b><\/h2>\n Sigal first heard of Gef\u2019s story many years before he started working on the project \u2013 after coming across it in \u201cthe most random way possible\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI was listening to a radio show and they did this segment where they would celebrate the birthday of somebody who was dead,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cAnd they said today\u2019s the birthday of Doctor Nandor Fodor, the father of modern parapsychology \u2013 whose most famous case involves the talking mongoose of the Isle of Man.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nNaturally, that piece of information piqued Sigal\u2019s curiosity, and as he started to research the case, he began to feel that there was huge potential for a \u201ckind of Wes Anderson-y\u201d type of film.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBut it wasn\u2019t until years later, when \u201can odd, peripheral religious thing happened with a friend\u201d, that he decided it was time to start writing a screenplay.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cOnce those two things were married, I was like, \u2018Okay, now I\u2019m ready,’\u201d he explained. \u201cBecause I never wanted to do just kind of a straight biopic, it never interested me. But when it had subtext, I was like, \u2018Okay, now I want to do this.’\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Signature Entertainment<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n While the film version of the story is slightly fictionalised, sections of the screenplay are taken directly from Fodor\u2019s book Between Two Worlds, which was first published in 1964.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThere\u2019s an entire chapter devoted to Gef, and there\u2019s a section in the film towards the beginning, where Dr Price (Christopher Lloyd) is reading from his journal, and that is straight up from the real journal.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThat\u2019s why that section is odd, and why it\u2019s a little slow, because it\u2019s literally from the page. And I cut it down a lot, but there\u2019s a lot of resources taken directly from the actual incidents and investigations, which is great.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nIt was also important for Sigal to strike the right tone for the film, and his method for this was to essentially adopt the same approach as Fodor had taken himself when he was looking into the Irvings\u2019 story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI wanted it to seem like I was almost afraid, in some ways, of the ghost of the Irvings coming to accuse me of slander or libel,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWhat was so funny to me was reading the accounts from Nandor and Dr Price and everything, and they never once say this is bulls**t. They don\u2019t. But the way that they approach it is so sarcastic and so tongue-in-cheek.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cAnd basically, they\u2019re just like, \u2018Look, here\u2019s all the information, you draw your own conclusion.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThe daughter was a ventriloquist, nobody ever saw this creature, the photographs of it looked like a fur hat sitting on a fence, the first samples that they sent in were from a dog. <\/span><\/p>\n\u201cBut hey, who knows? So that was kind of the tone I wanted to achieve in the film, too.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Signature Entertainment<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n While there are several real historical figures featured in the film, including the famous illusionist Harry Houdini (Edmund Kingsley), some characters are not based on real people.<\/span><\/p>\nThe fictional characters include Fodor\u2019s long-term assistant Anne (Minnie Driver) and the Irving family\u2019s skeptical employee Errol (Gary Beadle) \u2013 and Sigal explained that there were a couple of reasons for their inclusion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI created them not just from a perspective of wanting to have some diversity in the film, but also just like\u2026 those are crucial characters for the theme that I wanted to tell,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n\u201cBecause I try to prioritise theme and subtext over a narrative in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nMeanwhile, he also explained that there were some details about the story that he didn\u2019t include in the film for budget-related reasons, including one incident that led to a parliamentary punch-up.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a while, so I don\u2019t remember the exact specifics, but there was something where some aspect of libel came about involving this case,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n\u201cAnd it went all the way to Parliament in England, and apparently, it led to a fistfight!<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cIt was one of the few actual physical altercations in Parliament, over the Gef story. The budget of the film would have increased drastically to include it, but it was so funny to me to think that Gef managed to influence Parliament and cause people to fistfight.\u201d<\/span><\/p> <\/video> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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