Wonka may be a prequel populated with mostly original characters (other than the wannabe chocolatier himself, played by Timothée Chalamet, and Hugh Grant's crotchety Oompa Loompa), but the movie's villains take a healthy dose of inspiration from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author Roald Dahl's work.
Olivia Colman and Murder in Successville's Tom Davis play antagonistic double act Scrubbit and Bleacher, the owners of a hotel and wash house who trick their guests into years of servitude in their laundry business with some sneaky paperwork at check-in – and Timothée Chalamet's Willy Wonka is one such unsuspecting patron.
"I imagined us a bit like the nasty aunts in James and the Giant Peach," Colman says, while Davis reveals his reference point was another Dahl novel: 'The Twits'. "That was a really exciting thing in the script – I felt that what Paul [King] and Simon Farnaby did was encapsulate that feeling of what reading Roald Dahl as a kid felt like," he says. "These two could be what [Dahl] does so well, that sort of horrible, but quite funny, couple."
Director Paul King, who's best known for his work on the Paddington movies, says it was fun to get stuck into something a little darker. "[Roald Dahl] doesn't really redeem his villains very much at all, which was great fun for us to get our teeth into," he tells us. "Especially after Paddington, which is set in a warmer world, to populate this with ghastly creations was quite good."
Wonka arrives in UK cinemas on December 8, before releasing in the US on December 15. In the meantime, check out our interview with leading man Timothée Chalamet and director Paul King, and keep your eyes peeled for more chats with the cast and filmmakers on the site and on the Inside Total Film podcast later in the week.
