Greg Cruttwell - Writer/Director

"I wanted to write something that amused me", says actor-turned-first-time director Greg Cruttwell about CHUNKY MONKEY. "I had no idea when I began writing the script in which direction it was going to go. I knew I wanted it to be funny and I knew I wanted it to be vastly entertaining. But I was determined above everything else to make it totally unique and unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. I always had the central idea of this man, Donald Leek and his fantasy to have sex with Julie Andrews using Chunky Monkey ice cream - not a personal obsession, I must add! - and then decided I wanted to put weird people into his own peculiar world and explore the dark recesses of his depraved mind in a highly stylised and comedic way. Gradually more and more characters came into view - the skinheads Mandy and Nugget were from another aborted screenplay - and they all gelled into CHUNKY MONKEY. There's no heavy message or agenda contained in the film. I want people to enjoy it on a purely visceral level and make of it what they will. Do all the events take place in Donald's warped imagination? Who knows? It's deliberately open to any interpretation".

After working with director Mike Leigh in NAKED, the following few years saw Cruttwell in Hollywood starring in such diverse movies as TWO DAYS IN THE VALLEY and the Disney blockbuster GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE. "But being an actor isn't enough for me", he continues. "It's important to have as many irons in the fire as possible in the entertainment industry. I began to take a real interest in writing when the first piece I'd written, 'Waiting for Sir Larry', a play about a terrorist who is desperate for an Equity card, won a Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival. That proved an inspiration to write more and I now have two other screenplays waiting in the wings. I've also written and directed a short film, FINGERS X'd.

He adds, "All my work tends to be off-the-wall and non-mainstream so I wasn't surprised when I sent the CHUNKY MONKEY script out to potential backers that they all said it was an impossible film to make. The response was always positive however, everyone seemed to love the script, saying it was original, hysterically funny and outrageous, but they always turned it down saying it was just too quirky to take on. I even sent it to producers in Los Angeles, who all responded fantastically but said they wouldn't know what to do with it. But I persevered because I knew it would strike the right chord with someone eventually".

That someone turned out to be producer Phil Hunt, former managing director of Open Road Films, now joint MD, together with Cruttwell, of the newly formed feature film production, finance and distribution company, Head Gear Films, for whom, Hunt and Cruttwell have together produced Mexican/UK political thriller, RABBIT ON THE MOON, which was screened at AFI, Berlin and Toulouse in 2005 after a successful Mexican release where it won won a Mexican Academy Award and a Mexican 'Diosas de Plata'. It is being sold internationally by Capital Films. Hunt explains, "When the CHUNKY MONKEY script arrived at our offices in October 1999, we couldn't stop giggling. I thought it was the most original script I'd read in years. It was alternative, it was cutting edge and it was way out of left field. I'm incredibly bored with the general kind of films that get made in Great Britain today, as they are all so predictable. The same could definitely not be said about Greg's script".


Phil Hunt - Producer

A stills photographer for sixteen years before working up through the ranks to become a director and producer of short films, commercials and rock videos, for groups such as Big Audio Dynamite and The Sex Pistols, Hunt produced the independent feature FAST FOOD starring Douglas Henshall and Emily Woof, sold internationally through Vine International Pictures.

He continues, "I knew CHUNKY MONKEY could be produced for a cost-effective budget if we approached the unique project from equally unique ways. One of those ways was to shoot it digitally on Sony's new high definition format '60i' and then master it to film. It meant an ease of shooting that wouldn't be reliant on accepted film methods. The novel aspects of Greg's script seemed to embrace such new technology and advancements. Another way was to plan the production to take just three months from first rehearsal to completion. The story is basically eight people in a room and as long as the direction matched the originality of the script, I knew it wouldn't just be a case of CHUNKY MONKEY looking like a filmed stage play".

It was precisely because of this feeling that Hunt decided the only person to direct CHUNKY MONKEY was Greg Cruttwell himself. Hunt notes, "The script had to be directed pitch perfectly and as Greg knew the characters and narrative inside out, it was only natural he take the helm. From Frank, the vulgar, one-testicled, self made millionaire, to Pierre singing in French and trying to seduce Frank's trophy girlfriend in the hammiest way possible, Greg had the obvious handle on his creations and could steer them in the right manner. All the characters in CHUNKY MONKEY are real. You see them every day in all walks of life. It's what they get up to behind closed doors that's interesting and it's that surreal normality which Greg was ready, willing and able to explore".


Sean Bobbitt - Director of Photography

Sean began his career as a hard news cameraman covering social conflicts around the world. His most recent feature film is EMBRASSEZ QUI VOUS VOUDREZ, starring Charlotte Rampling. Other recent films include the widely acclaimed LAWLESS HEART and Michael Winterbottom’s WONDERLAND - also widely acclaimed, particularly for its photography. Sean’s other credits include THE LONG FIRM and two episodes of THE CANTERBURY TALES for the BBC, the blockbuster television adaptation of THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, SWEET REVENGE, JEFFREY ARCHER - THE TRUTH, The Death of Yugoslavia, Watergate, Second Russian Revolution and various programmes for contemporary British documentary strands (Horizon, Timewatch, Secret Histories, QED etc).

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