“My name is David Lowery and I adapted and directed The Green Knight. It is a scene in which Sir Gawain, who is not yet Sir Gawain – he is not yet a knight – played by Dev Patel, stops to rest in what he believes is an abandoned cabin in the countryside and discovers that it is inhabited. by a spirit called Saint Winifred. Saint Winifred is a real character in Welsh history and Catholic tradition. She is a 7th century martyr who was beheaded by her suitor when he…when she decided to become a nun. And her head was thrown into a spring. But then a Saint came and took her head from the spring and reattached it to her body, and she came back to life. And since then, that spring, known as Holyhead or Holywell in Wales, has been known to have healing powers. And it's a place you can still go. And the people, the devotees, go there. Tourists go there. It is open to the public. And it is referenced in the original text of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. There is a line which says that he crossed the fords of the headlands at Holy Head until he again touched down in the Wirrel Desert. And that's just one line of the poem, but the poem itself is deeply rooted in Welsh iconography and geography. And so, while researching, I came across the legend of Saint Winifred and really couldn't resist including her in the film. This was filmed on location not in Wales, but in Ireland. And even though we shot it on location, we wanted it to feel like an old Hammer horror movie and have that kind of sonic feel.” “There.” “What am I looking for?” “My head.” «This is a real country house that we found. And then Jade Healy, our production designer, made it look as close as possible to the original St. Winifred's cottage in Wales. And then we dig our own well in front of it, which may or may not still be there. Actually, I do not know. Erin Kellyman plays Winifred, and I first saw her in the Han Solo movie, “Solo Story.” And I thought she was such an amazing presence. And I instantly knew I wanted to work with her at some point. So when I wrote this movie, she quickly came to mind for this role. And luckily she said yes. She is wonderful.” “This Lord sought to sleep with me. I fought him, but he came back at night and broke down my door. I tried to run away, but he cut off my head.” “We shot all this in one night. And it was one of the few night shots we had on set and one of those rare occasions where everything goes perfectly. The weather was perfect. It wasn't too cold. The air was calm. All the fog was hanging like that. It was really quite magical.” “Just I need my head.” “We wanted all the ghostly stuff in this to be very practical. When she floats toward Dev, she's just standing on a dolly. Again, we wanted this whole sequence to feel like a very old-fashioned horror movie. What's happening here with the stakes for Dev on this journey is already very high. He's literally heading towards his own death. So every single encounter he has on his journey is more of a push. What The stakes here are not much. They are much more delicate. And what's happening here with this conversation with Winifred is that she's pushing him toward integrity and decency and chivalry. And we're using the context of Winifred's legend to illuminate where our version of Gawain needs to go. This sequence was inspired by the made-for-TV movie, Ewoks' Caravan of Courage, in which a character is sucked into a magical pond. That terrified me as a kid, and that's directly where this comes from. We originally had a much larger underwater sequence planned, but now I know that it takes a lot more than half a day to film something underwater. So I think what you see here is pretty much all the usable footage we've combined with some miniature work we shot in Texas. And the miniature was built by David Pink, who wore the ghost costume in “A Ghost Story” when Casey was unavailable. And we really wanted the cosmic things that you see here: when Dev emerges from this pond, we wanted his view of his world to change. Every encounter he has in this film changes him and brings him closer to death. And here he is touching the cosmic. And if the star effects feel a little weird, it's because I made them myself using YouTube tutorials.”
