Take one prequel to Roald Dahl’s beloved novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, add in the director of the Paddington films and tween heartthrob Timothée Chalamet, as well as a cast of stellar British acting talent into the mix and what do you get? The sweetest of Hollywood treats.
Excitement for the golden ticket has been building since Chalamet was cast as Wonka and, as director Paul King tells the audience during a screening for the trailer last week, the Dune and Call Me By Your Name star was the perfect choice.
“I was very keen to get him because I think he’s an incredibly special talent. He’s very funny and he is very charming, and he’s perfectly, adequately, easy on the eye,” King says.
“A Willy Wonka film, really, is going to live or die by who your Wonka is and what they bring to it. And I think he manages to bring that sort of mayhem, in that mischievousness. But with a deep emotional grounding, which is really quite extraordinary.”
Though the character has been played several times before, most notably by Gene Wilder in 1971 and Johnny Depp in the 2005 film, Chalamet is playing a new type of Wonka: a young chocolatier, at the start of his journey.
“I think the Willy Wonka we meet that in the book is this extraordinary, extraordinary creation, this... slightly unknowable magician, inventor, chocolate maker... who makes dreams come true,” King adds. “I suppose it was the interest of diving into that character and sort of looking to see what would happen if you put Willy Wonka at the heart of the story.”
King describes himself as a huge fan of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Growing up, he read the book so many times that “the pages fell out of the spine”, and he threw his body and soul into creating a prequel that Dahl himself might have approved of. Much of his time was spent re-reading Dahl’s entire body of work, the better to understand who his characters actually were.
“It’s got this deep sort of Dickensian heart, this almost Oliver Twist-like character. And it’s funny; when you revisit something you’ve loved as a kid... I suddenly went, ‘Oh, that’s sort of what I try to do,’” he says. “I like these sort of big comic, grotesque characters, but for there to be a really strong emotional core in the stories that I make, and that’s what I’ve stolen it from.
“It felt like, maybe there was a way to do something about Willy Wonka that we’d have that same emotional heart, at the same time as all the magic and wonder and music.”
So who is this new version of Wonka? “The film is about is about him and what chocolate means to him, and why he’s so driven to become this extraordinary chocolate maker,” King says. “The book presents him very much as he just is, and this, I suppose, tries to answer why he is… and what the taste of chocolate means to him and why he’s so driven.”
As the trailer shows, Wonka rocks up at the start of the film in a generic European city with a desire to start a chocolate empire. “It’s the chocolate capital of the world, I suppose. It’s a sort of middle European city, a little bit like where the 1971 movie was set, which was, I believe, mostly shot in Germany. It has a European vibe.” The inspiration, according to King, was to make a country that was to chocolate what “Switzerland is to watches” – though some would argue Switzerland fits this bill too.
Along for the ride is newcomer Calah Lane as Noodle, a waif who attaches herself to Wonka, as well as a star-studded cast. That includes King favourite Sally Hawkins (who has appeared in both Paddington films); Olivia Colman as one half of a villainous duo that run “an evil washhouse empire” and Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa.
Oh, and for those fans who loved Simon Barnaby’s turn as an overly amorous member of security in Paddington: he’s back for a cameo here, in much the same role. As King puts it: “He plays yet another in a series of long suffering security guard characters.”
With Wonka getting ready to launch in cinemas later this year, what would King count as the highlight of his filming experience? “Covering Timothée Chalamet in chocolate would be some people's highlight,” he quips, adding, “[Or] covering Hugh Grant in orange paint.”
But no: his actual choice is slightly more heartwarming. “Why I love to go to the movies is to get lost in a different place for a couple of hours. Cinema has always been a magical place where that can happen... it's a real joy to be able to make that. This sounds corny, but it’s working with the incredible people who let me do that, every day. It’s like having the greatest train set in the world to play with.”
