Tribeca Interview: Ewen Bremner and Jason Isaacs Tease Their Punk Rock Turn in Creation Stories

It was delightful talking to some of the cast of Creation Stories for the Tribeca Film Festival! The film, following the story of real-life music producer Alan McGee and his rise in the punk music scene of the ’90s, is a wild story of music, drugs, and … the band Oasis?

I got to speak with star Ewen Bremner and costar Jason Isaacs for their Tribeca premiere last week! We’ll publish the full interview with more details on the film closer to release, but it’s interesting in particular to talk about Creation Stories and how much the movie was inspired by McGee’s love of the punk scene, starting with him seeing the Sex Pistols.

“Alan’s musical story was he was so excited by seeing the Sex Pistols and that pop culture explosion that he created his own band and in order to further his band, he created this record label by accident in a way and was trying to come up clubs and trying to do anything in music and it all, he was doing it all wrong and he was doing everything wrong and it all went right,” Bremner said, and it does inform what we see of McGee throughout the movie.

Alan McGee clearly wanted to be a musician and tried throughout the film to do so, but when it failed for him over and over again, he just wanted to be a part of that world no matter what, and it brought him to bands that we know and love like Oasis—you know, the ones we have to thank for “Champagne Supernova” and, of course, “Wonderwall.” But McGee isn’t the only “character” in the film. Jason Isaacs also plays Ralph, the kind of producer you instantly question the validity of.

“I just run at things that I think we’re going to be fun and interesting. I let go a long time ago of any notion of what might or might not be successful because who cares? You know, it’s not my money and I’m not looking for my life to change,” Isaacs said, after I brought up our introduction. Jason Isaacs started our conversation by bringing up the fact that I have “official Leslie Knope” in my Twitter bio, and it’s just the sort of chaos that Isaacs brings to the movie.

Coming in later in the film, he describes his character as the typical Los Angeles music man who seems to “know everyone” and is the producer of all these things that you just never see. That energy fits in well with Bremner’s McGee and the loss aspect of McGee in his later years in Hollywood.

Creation Stories will be released later this year, and if you’re a fan of the music scene of the ’90s and the bands that Alan McGee worked with, this is a fascinating look into that world, especially with his influence around Oasis.

(image: Sky Cinema)

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