ComingSoon spoke to Czech director Petr Jákl about his historical drama Medieval, which stars Ben Foster as the legendary war general Jan Žižka. The film is out now on digital and arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on December 6.
“As feuding brothers battle for control of the throne, daring and righteous mercenary leader Jan Žižka embarks on a mission to kidnap Lady Katherine, the fiancée of a powerful lord,” reads the film’s synopsis. “As Katherine becomes caught in a dangerous political game between monarchs, Jan falls in love with her strong spirit and dedication to saving the people. In a brave attempt to liberate her, he fights back with a rebel army, battling the corruption, greed, and betrayal that runs rampant among those clawing for power.”
Tyler Treese: I was so impressed by Ben Foster’s performance. Obviously, he is such a great actor, but when did you know that he could put on that kind of gritty performance that you needed for this film?
Petr Jákl: It was tough for him because he was 48 days from 56 days on set. So it was very physically difficult and I knew him from other movies before, of course, and I really admired him and I thought he was perfect for this part. So I was trying to get him, and once he said yes, there was like right after our call, and when we were discussing the story of Jan Žižka and how I wanna do it, I was so happy that I couldn’t describe it. It was an absolutely amazing feeling that I’ve got somebody like him on board, and then we started to discuss how we can make it happen in the way that it’s gonna be also for the Czech people, but also for the rest of the people in the world.
We were going through the script. We were changing some stuff. We were discussing everything, and then he was training a lot with swords and this incredible weapon, a mace, which is like which was the only weapon that could destroy a helmet in medieval times. It was very tough for him physically. Also, he was flying every weekend back home to New York from Prague because he had a newborn baby and he wanted to be with her and his wife, so it was very difficult for him.
One other thing I really loved about the film was the action sequences. It’s so cool seeing these medieval weapons and Žižka deploys some awesome traps as he was a very smart commander. I know you have a stunt background, and you’re a judoka, so how was it coming up with those stunts?
Yeah, he’s known for inventing military strategies and new weapons. He basically invented also the first tanks because he was using wagons and moving wagons, and other strategies were including mud, smoke, and other stuff. Actually, he was using later on some shooting weapons. So I wanted to show it in the movie, and I wanted to show the beginning of it because this is from his youth. From times, like basically from 1402 when he was a paid mercenary who was paid for killing people or protecting somebody or kidnapping somebody. I just wanted to show how he became that great never-defeated general later on, eight years from this story. So I thought this is a great opportunity to show how invented some of those traps and stuff which he was using later on.
Yeah, I was curious about the time period because when you think about Žižka, a lot of his greater triumphs come later in his life, but you choose to show it earlier in his life. We see him lose the eye. It’s incredible what he was able to do, but what made you choose that earlier time period? I know that gave you some more freedom because it’s not as documented.
Definitely, I didn’t wanna describe his whole life. I wanted to describe him as a mercenary. Like this is his bad side, and then he was killing for money and basically lay down that he was changing and he was fighting for high reasons. This changed his heart. To be this big, the story needed to be from his years, like around 1402, because this was all happening there. Later on, he was already fighting for what he [believed in], he was already that warrior who knew what he wanted. It felt like it’s not that interesting to see how it all started.
You have a great tragic love story in this film, which is all original. When you’re working within a historical drama, obviously, the goal is to stay true to kind of the feel of the story and the people within. So when you’re adding elements, how do you kind of balance that?
This is always difficult and at the end of the day, the film has to work. That’s the most important thing. I always wanted to use everything, what I found out about Jan Žižka from those times, and I used everything that I could. Because we don’t know much about him from those days, I had to create something to make it work, like the whole story, his personal life, and everything. But at the end of the day, I was always working with a historian, who was telling me this is possible, this is not possible. This could happen. This couldn’t happen. So I was trying to be pretty accurate about everything.
Then when we were editing the movie, I was doing it with Steven Rosenblum, who was an editor of Braveheart and The Last Samurai. So we were discussing all these details and things like, you know, how it should work, and we agree that it should be mainly about the love story of Katherine and Žižka and with all the fights around all the politics. But for us, you know, this was pretty important. Later on, when Dirk Westervelt, another editor who did Deadpool and Logan, he came on board, he agreed with us, and then we were focusing on all the fights to make them as realistic as possible because I wanted it to be as close as possible to reality what could happen. Because I’m a fighter, I’ve got this background, I was always testing it on myself if this is possible or not [laughs].
I was also curious since he’s such a legendary figure in Czech history, how has the reception, if any, differed between in the Czech Republic and then worldwide?
Yeah, this is, I always wanted to do it like, you know, for Czech people, but of course, you know, for the others too. But right now, we are five weekends in theaters we are number one. They’ve got over 300,000 people already. Some people feel that they are proud that they are Czech after watching the movie. That was something that I always wanted. I wanted to push them a little bit to think about our history and see something that is this big figure differently and also to show how important is faith in our lives. If you see something that you don’t like, do something about it. Just don’t watch. I think with what is happening around us, it’s a very important message for [everyone].