How did you think of returning to the fairy tale after ten long years?
The producer and my friend Radovan Vašák came up some time ago with the idea that it would be nice to return to it. But making a two is a terrible responsibility and I didn’t want to set one cooked porridge.
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But years have shown her to be popular, and that has played a big part in my decision-making. I like the characters, so I asked myself what had happened in the kingdom over the years. And suddenly I became interested. I imagined that Prince James was a king, so he had to learn to rule, to be wise, which was not easy, and he had to overcome a lot of obstacles.
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My favorite robber Karaba’s daughter has left, and even though she is a loner, she certainly doesn’t want to be alone. But establishing a new relationship will be difficult. The third pillar was counselors. Are they corrected or not?
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And so Evžen Gogela and I began to write a story about the search for Karab’s love, about whether Jakub could rule justly and wisely, and whether the thieves would be able to get rich and become masters of the world.
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How did the actors react to returning to their characters?
Great. I talked to them before we started anything, because if any of them refused, I wouldn’t go. But when I called Tomáš Klus, for example, with whom I had not spoken for some two or three years, he responded with the question: “Are you calling now?”
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I realized that they like to remember the collaboration and that the film still lives with them through the audience.
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Could everyone come back?
Of course not. We had to give some characters away because their stories had nowhere to develop. On the contrary, we had to develop a story for others. There is actually a whole new kingdom. In the original reigns King James, in the new Queen Juliet. And it was to him that both counselors fled to do as much damage as possible in the shortest possible time.
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Queen Julia is played by Veronika Khek Kubařová, who played the princess, for example, in the Ghost over Gold or in The Most Beautiful Riddle. How did she accept the role?
When I called her for the first time, the first words were that she didn’t want to play the princess, that she didn’t feel like it anymore. She gladly accepted the queen.
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The secret of the old bambita was a Christmas TV fairy tale, here you are preparing it for cinemas. How will it change in that direction?
He will have a richer expedition to have something to watch in the cinema. There will be horses, more sweeping scenes, we will focus on the beauty of the landscape. The songs remain, but they will have different arrangements. The tempo, composition of images and character development will be more dynamic and less talkative.
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How many songs will be in the film?
We already have seven basic ones. Two of them were sung by Tomáš Klus, who completed one of the lyrics. While recording songs and sewing costumes, we shot a clip as a tasting, which we want to release now, before the first flap. It will fall on April 8 at the chateau in Mníšek pod Brdy, which will be Jakub’s chateau, Julia will be in Jindřichův Hradec.
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We return to Karab’s cottage in Kouřim and to the village square in Přerov nad Labem. We should have finished by the end of May, and if covid-19 and regulations allow, the prime minister should be on December 9.
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By the way, have the anti-cider measures complicated your shooting?
You know I do. We were supposed to shoot last year, but then all the filming stopped. No one is in quarantine this year, no one is sick. We already comply with all regulations in the preparations, we test, we wear respirators, the staff is divided into groups that do not meet.
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The weakest link is the extras we need, but they must not endanger the actors. So we test there too. This makes the film more expensive, it’s an extra cost. The state will not help, but what can be done.
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What would you like a new fairy tale?
To be mainly for children, to love her. There will also be funny places for adults, but children are the main thing for us. I myself have a three-year-old daughter and every time Václav Noid Bárta sends me some new music, I play it. When he wants a skirt and starts dancing, I know it’s okay. When he tells me to turn it off, the music has to change.
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