Started as good pope-bad pope, eventually found grey area: Meirelles on 'The Two Popes'

When Fernando Meirelles came on board to direct "The Two Popes", it presented the Brazilian filmmaker an opportunity to revisit his Catholic roots but forced him to set aside any bias he had in the story of the ideological clash between Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

The film chronicles the story of the then sitting Pope Benedict XVI (played by Anthony Hopkins), a conservative, who must persuade the yet-to-be Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce), a reformist, to become his successor.

Fernando always admired Francis for his views, but the film offered him a chance to look at Benedict and his writing intimately.

"To be honest, when I read the script, for me, Benedict was the bad guy and Francis was the good guy, but may be because of my favourite. Because I like Francis, I tend to support him against the other," Fernando told PTI.

But as he progressed, Fernando started seeing the duo beyond the good-bad binary, learning particularly about Benedict and his views on Christianity.

"I really learnt more about Benedict and I think he has a point. He thinks the intent of the Church is to connect us with something beyond and so it shouldn't be dealing with everyday life as it would lose its purpose.

"I read some of his writing, there's something there, but I still support Francis. That if everybody is suffering around, you'll never be able to get in touch with anything else. I started the project seeing black and white and in the end there were more grey areas."
"If you Google the Pope, you'll see a lot of his pictures alongside Jonathan in his Game of Thrones character! He does look like Pope and is a good actor so I thought I should at least check him."
"I saw some of his films and then stumbled upon his interview where Jonathan was being himself. He was friendly, humble, funny and I felt he has the same energy that the Pope has and offered him the part."
"Because Benedict was 84 when he became Pope, I wanted an older actor. So we sent Anthony the script and he said yes. It was so easy, both the actors we approached said yes."