Hope Dickson Leach is a filmmaker whose debut film The Levelling received excellent reviews after its festival debut at Toronto in 2016 and its national release in 2017. In 2022 she conceived and directed a production of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in conjunction with the National Theatre of Scotland, an event that was screened live from Leith Theatre. She has adapted this production into a film which will receive its World Premiere at EIFF 2023. 

We spoke to Hope about adapting the play for the screen, shooting on some of Edinburgh’s gorgeous, gloomy, and gothic locations, and the difficulty of making films in the current climate.

How was it to adapt from your existing theatrical version of The Strange Case of  Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?

Well, the proposition of making it was always that there would be a film version at the end. And obviously, as a filmmaker, making a piece of theatre, as it were. I was very much approaching it understanding what I would need to do [cinematically], but also understanding what would be interesting for the live audience to experience on the night. So I think there were there were decisions that were made along the way. For example, we were going to have live big, chunky scenes of dialogue, you know, so how does that fit into a film? That led me very much towards film noir. Old fashioned, stylized, kind of a dining room, drawing room drama approach. So that was a nice gift knowing that works for live, and then what we’d see. Afterwards, we had so much material because we’d done three nights. We had six cameras and filming the whole thing.

Then we’d shot some other stuff in advance, sneaky stuff that we’d slipped in, with stunts or whatever, that we couldn’t have done live. So afterwards, we cut this together and then we were like, ‘Okay, what do we need?’ What makes a film that we didn’t do [in the live setting], or that we have way too much off and we need to get rid of of, or maybe we want to reshoot it in a nicer location because we were attached to the building when we were doing it live. We went out [for reshoots] and it was an opportunity to get more of the city in as well. And kind of lean into lots of the themes of the piece that by that point we’d really hammered down on.

How was the casting process? Did you keep the same the same actors from the play in the film?

Well yes, it’s the same project. Because we it’s the footage we use that we shot. So the play on the night was actually people were watching a film and there were like cameras following the film. So yes, it was the same cast there. They were fantastic. I mean, all of them were amazing and really agile and David Hayman, Tam Dean Burn, you know, these fabulous  Scottish actors that it’s a privilege to work with. Yeah, it was just wonderful.

And also Lorn MacDonald who was so good in Beats.

It was that I saw him and I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ And I actually reached out to him and I said, ‘I’ve just seen this, and I have to work with you. I think you’re a complete genius!’ Yeah, yeah, he’s amazing.

Did you have any sort of specific Edinburgh locations in mind when you were planning the film version? Or did you do a bit of extra scouting to see what was available and would suit the feel of the film?

Actually, in the story, the way we wrote it, we very much had Edinburgh in mind. So Utterson was kind of us and lived on the top of the Royal Mile. The idea was because it was the boundary between kind of posh New Town and old Victorian and Utterson is kind of right there in the middle, pretending to be working class and supporting people but actually having ambitions of grandeur you know, so we’d really kind of placed everyone. We put Hyde down in Leith. We put Jekyll in Heriot Row, which was actually Stevenson‘s family house growing up. we put the tenants down in Cowgate, so we had all these places in mind for the story.

And it works thematically as well .

Exactly, that was the idea but we obviously we didn’t have the budget to go out and shoot all these places for real and to make them period. You go out and look at them and you realise how many lamps and roadworks there are everywhere. So, we did a lot of scouting around and really, I mean, there are so many beautiful places. I think the Flodden Wall was very evocative where Hyde kills a little girl. And just finding little spaces off the High Street is is a delight. But also, Calton Hill is just so fun and to try and find a way to shoot that in a new way was really nice.

What’s your history with the text itself? And do you have like a previous favourite version or adaptation? 

I actually never read it before and that was what was really exciting. When I read it I thought this is a crime novel! This is like a serial killer thriller! You know, that’s what it should be. And so that was really nice coming to it thinking, ‘What would a filmic version be? Do I have a favourite? I don’t. I determinedly didn’t watch any after I started doing this. Do you know what I mean? I think the one that was hilarious that we found was David Hasselhoff did a Broadway musical version of it. And it’s all on YouTube. So if you want to see the singing version…  But I think when we were developing it, we did refer to old versions and what we thought they got wrong, do you know what I mean? For example, Mary Reilly, we were like, ‘Oh, interesting, but the book is actually about masculinity!’

How difficult was it to actually to get a film made in the current climate?

Well, this was a very sneaky way to make a film because this isn’t how films normally get made. And it meant working with the National Theatre of Scotland. Obviously it was new territory for them. It was something that was done from an innovation point of view, during COVID. So it was a pandemic project for them. So it’s very hard to get a film made. You know, I’ve been trying for years since The Levelling to get another one made, and I had one fall apart just because of COVID. You know, it’s really really hard out there. I think, people are going back to the cinema, which is great. But there’s still this glut of content that you’re faced with, and you really have to fight to find a way to make a film, you know, a film film.

Do you have anything else in the pipeline?

I have something very exciting, which I can’t tell you about. It’s going to be announced in Toronto. It’s a very Scottish project is all I can tell you. So I’m very excited.

Have you got any dream projects that you’d love to do?

Dream projects? I mean, I have so many of my own projects that you know, I hope they are not always going to be dreams. But I’ve always wanted to make [Donna Tartt‘s] The Secret History. That’s a complete dream of mine. I think that one day I will get my teeth into that. I think it’s been optioned and bought so many times it’s carrying this immense debt with it is what I understand at the moment. So it’s very hard, you’d have to pay off a couple of million to even get it going now, because it’s been developed so many times apparently. But one day. One day. That’s the dream.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde screens at Everyman Cinema Mon 21 Aug 2023 and at Vue Omni Centre Tue 22 Aug 2023 as part of Edinburgh International Film Theatre 2023