Jack the Ripper has been a hugely popular subject for film makers. Did you look at any of the old Ripper movies?
Yeah. They were helpful in seeing how they tackled some of the same material, how they dealt with some of the murders. Even bad movies you can gain a lot of ideas from, so we tried to look at all the movies and use some of the things that worked, disguising them a bit so we don't look like total rip-off artists.
Were you aware of Johnny Depp's very keen personal interest in Jack the Ripper?
Only at the meeting we had before he came aboard to do the movie. He brought up this stack of books and they were old and yellow, so you could tell he had them for years, and he definitely had read at least 70 per cent of the stuff that was out there.
Does working with your brother, Allen, make directing easier?
Oh yeah, the studio pays us as one but because there's two of us they get more value because Allen will be in London or LA, casting and doing that, and I'll be in Prague scouting locations, so they got two directors doing that at the same time - getting things done a lot faster. And it plays into our personalities. I don't like talking to that many people. It's easier for him to talk to people and he's more into performance, where I can just talk to the camera department or production and I don't really have to stroke anybody's ego.
If you disagree about how to do something, how do you resolve it?
Eventually you can get into the pettiness of sibling rivalry, but after a while it's the person who fights the longest that's gonna win, because you truly want to win that argument and you believe in it.
Do you think "From Hell" is a real step up for you visually from "Dead Presidents"?
Yeah, I think so. We took five years off and we grew a lot and watched a lot and studied a lot, got a chance to do a documentary ["American Pimp"]. Doing a documentary sharpened us a bit. Doing a film like this, you have to create the world.
