Exclusive Interview: Director and Writer Julian Gilbey and Star Freddie Thorp Talk Summit Fever

Director and writer Julian Gilbey and star Freddie Thorp are bringing audiences on an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride with their newest film, Summit Fever.

The must-see adventure follows an ambitious mountain expedition that becomes a breathtaking struggle for survival. A daring dream to scale the world’s most challenging trio of mountains soon turns into a terrifying nightmare for a group of friends when a deadly storm traps the climbers near the summit and cuts off all hope of rescue. With the odds stacked against them, the friends are forced to trust each other to save themselves by any means necessary.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Julian and Freddie about Summit Fever, the physical preparation for this project, building trust among the cast and crew, and more!

PC: Julian, one of the central themes of this film is that life is too short and you should be doing what you love, which we see reflected in Freddie’s character and his journey. How did your previous experiences in this industry and the previous projects that you were pitched inspire you to not only write this story but also push the boundaries of storytelling?
Julian: Whoa, lots there! I’m not as young as I once was, so that’s my attitude. I’m going to make what I want to make as much as possible. I got offered ten gangster films. They were all like, “Mr. Big, if you don’t pay him ten grand by the weekend, your family is in trouble.” I said, “Oh for fu*k’s sake.” Freddie has probably seen ten of those scripts as well. [laughs]

Freddie: Oh man.

Julian: I decided to write something that I really wanted to do and have the freedom to do. My passion is mountaineering. I was young and stupid. I’m still stupid. [laughs] I’m still relatively young, so that’s my answer!

PC: Freddie, you’ve said that physicality is often the entry point for you in discovering a character. Mikey has such a distinct reason for why he’s climbing and what it represents to him. You actually started preparation for this project years before. Can you talk a little bit about the process and how it allowed you to tap into Mikey’s emotional core?
Freddie: Yeah, so the quote that you’re referring to, I’m actually talking about how physicality can help me as an entry point to my character as an exercise to find the character. But in this case, I suppose the physicality of being a mountaineer and climbing has a different context. It goes back to your first question. Michael is a character who is motivated by his passion and dreams as we see at the beginning of the film. He’s not able to toe the line and be in an environment that doesn’t inspire him. I had conversations with Julian and really understood what motivates Michael, which is the passing of his sister and that loss, and how there is unfinished business for him. Those were the factors that really helped me find Michael and what motivates him.

PC: Julian, trust is such a key component in filmmaking, especially on a project like this where you’re dealing with filming on location and the dangers of nature and the elements. How were you able to build that trust with your cast and crew?
Julian: Heinrich Harrer in his book The White Spider, which is all about the first climbs on the north face of the Eiger in the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. He talks about the trust that you put in people that you’ve only met a few days before. You’re handing them your life. Trust is the rope. As you climb, you climb in twos. I thought that was a good theme. It’s good the way they move in twos. When I see the rope between Jean Pierre and Michael, I see that as the trust between them.

But going back to your question, how do you build trust with your crew? You hire the best climbers. The other thing is you put your climbing boots on. If you are going to ask someone else to do something, you go out and do it first on your own. I did a lot of camera work in this film and put myself in a lot of precarious positions. I suppose you lead by example, at least with the physicality of a film like this. You go, “Guys, we’re jumping in the deep end. Let’s get cold and do it together.”

PC: Freddie, how did that trust allow you to take agency over your character? Which of Mikey’s relationships was your favorite to explore in this film and why?
Freddie: To further Julian’s point, they’re called IFMGA guides. They ended up being both our crew and our safety team. We did a lot of climbs with them first, and very quickly when you’re in that kind of intimate setting, you feel out who you’re with. We ended up having a very collaborative and trusting environment on set. That happened organically by doing the work and by spending a lot of time with each other.

As far as relationships, that’s a hard question. There are three main relationships. There’s his relationship with his sister, which is his motivation for pretty much the whole film, there’s the relationship with Isabelle who’s played by Mathilde [Warnier], and then there’s JP. Each one has equal footing in making the film what it is. But I think the most interesting to explore was his relationship with his sister. There were a couple of scenes that we filmed that didn’t make it into the final cut which furthered that story a bit. But regardless of it being in the film or not, it was a really important exploration in the final landscape of who Michael was. For me, that was probably the most interesting.

PC: Julian, this film has been years in the making. What’s one thing that you know now that you wish you knew when you embarked on this journey years ago?
Freddie: Great question.

Julian: You’re constantly chopping and changing. You make a film and films are never finished. Films are abandoned. I woke up yesterday and thought, “I’d like to adjust that edit there and add in a slight sound effect there.” But it’s like, “No, it’s done. You can do that on the next one.” You’re always learning something. You’re always trying to get better. Like anything, practice makes perfect.

But you can’t be so precious as to never pick up a camera or never pick up a script and think, “If I hold back, I’ll make the next one.” You’ve got to keep creating to the best of your abilities. I made the film as honestly as I could. I have no regrets. Could I have technically done X better or Y better? Yes. But I’m pretty happy with how things turned out and all I can do is work on my future projects. Some of them are radically different from this. I have to enjoy them for what they are.

PC: Freddie, this film finds you showing off all of your talents from the physical stunt work to the emotional journey of this character. Now that the film is out, is there a scene in particular that you’re really excited for audiences to see?
Freddie: People have asked us this question a few times, and I’ve given a different answer each time. The scene that feels the most cathartic when I watch it is the scene where he’s confronting JP’s parents. Because we spent a lot of time on this job. It spanned a few years. We had a lot of experiences together, so the lines were blurred between this being an experience in my life and this being a film about Michael’s life. We actually shot that scene pretty close to the end. There was quite a lot of me in that too. It’s a scene that I’m really proud of. I’m excited for people to watch that. I hope it means as much to them as it did to me.

Julian: I want to interject in what Freddie was saying because he did film that scene towards the end of the shoot. The Monday or Tuesday before, four people were killed in the fresh snow avalanches that happened up on the Mont Blanc glacier. The entire time that Freddie and I were out there, we knew that there were always going to be fatalities. That wasn’t lost on the crew or the cast. Freddie climbed with a lot of people. Freddie spoke to a lot of people who experienced grief, heartache, pain, etc. By the time it came for him to do that scene, it felt very organic.

PC: Julian, you were able to capture the thrills of being a mountaineer so well. What do you hope audiences take away? Is there a scene that you are really excited for audiences to see?
Julian: It’s one of those films from a technical standpoint where I could say wait til the north face of the Eiger, the summit of Mont Blanc, or the Matterhorn. But I do feel like it’s a journey. Grab a bottle of wine, sit down, and get ready for an adventure. I would argue that’s how the whole film is. You may like this scene, but actually the reason why it works is because of the scenes that came before it.

PC: The film stresses the importance of your next move. For both of you, what’s next for you?
Freddie: I actually just started shooting a new independent feature in London. It’s a slightly different flavor. It’s a queer love story set during Pride Week here in London. It’s about a romantic relationship between a drag performer and a straight-acting businessman and the eventualities that unfold between the two. It’s a different flavor, but I’m equally as excited about that as I’ve been about Summit Fever. That won’t be out for a year or so, but that’s what I’m working on.

Julian: That’ll be great, Freddie. I will be first in line to watch that. What am I doing? I’m doing a couple of projects. I have an American road movie. I’m also doing a science fiction film with Lloyd Levin, the producer of Watchmen, Die Hard, and Hellboy. I’m also doing a World War II movie that takes place in the Alps. I’ll get to go back to some of these incredible locations. There are a lot of adventures to have. It has to be an adventure, otherwise go do something else!

Make sure to follow Julian (Twitter) and Freddie (Instagram). Watch Summit Fever wherever you stream movies.