Exclusive Interviews With Burke And Hare Cast

BURKE & HARE (CINEMA)

Release Date: Oct 29th, 2010
Certificate: 15
Running Time: 91 minutes

Director: John Landis

Cast: Tim Curry, Simon Pegg, Isla Fisher, Andy Serkis, Tom Wilkinson, Jenny Agutter, Stephen Merchant, Hugh Bonneville, Georgia King, David Schofield, Jessica Hynes, Ronnie Corbett, Paul Whitehouse and Christopher Lee

Burke and Hare, the new film directed by the legendary John Landis had its World Premiere on Monday 25th October in London at the Curzon in Chelsea. Static Mass were invited along and got to chat with the director and writer and also the main cast Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis and Isla Fisher!

The film is inspired by true events which took place in Edinburgh between November 1827 and 31 October 1828 when the real life Bukre and Hare murdered 16 people and sold their bodies to a private anatomy lecturer, Doctor Robert Knox (played by Tom Wilkinson), for dissection at Edinburgh Medical College.

Patrick: Do you think Burke and Hare were very cunning or just very lucky to have gotten away with the murders for as long as they did?

Simon: It was a different time then. There was no forensics, life was cheap, and people died all the time. The mortality rate was low. It was a desperate period, it was a ghetto, everyone was poor, and there was disease. Life was so cheap, they probably could have done more it’s just that they got sloppy and greedy like a lot of mass murderers. They get mistaken though, they’re not serial killers; they were mass murderers, there’s a difference. They were just killing for personal gain, there was no psycho-sexual reasons for what they did like serial killers.

Isla Fisher plays Ginny, a struggling young actress with big ambitions whom Burke immediately falls in love with but she is oblivious to the duos dastardly deeds. With an idea to put on an all-female production of Macbeth, she sets her sights on Burke to help finance it and she becomes his reason for going along with the murders together with Hare.

Patrick: Why do you think they got away with it for so long?

Isla: in real life? Oh I’m not sure, I’m sure they didn’t have the CSI forensic teams they have today so I’m sure they were able to get away. And I think they preyed on people who were hidden away form the community that no one would notice.

The real life William Hare would in the end give up his friend William Burke in order to save himself from death by public hanging.

Patrick: Do you think it was hard for Hare to give Burke up in the end?

Andy: That’s a really good question. I think it was, although in the movie he is relieved, they love each other. They were mates and it’s really important that they were mates all the way through and they would do anything for each other. In our version, Burke sacrifices himself. In reality, Hare did give him up and try and pin the evidence on him so we’ve taken a few liberties with the truth! But then the film does start with the caption ‘Everything you see here is historically correct, except for the parts which aren’t’!

Don’t forget to check out the rest our exclusive Burke And Hare coverage; interviews with director John Landis and screenwriter Nick Moorcroft!