James: Gab and I had batted the idea about Peppermint around for a while, but this was when we specifically decided to go for it. We have so many of the components there and ready to use; the camera, money, locations etc.
The idea for the film came years before. It was originally called 'Portrait Of A Kind', and the stories revolved around the people captured in one photograph. One was Beth, who was originally called Rachel, sat in a cafe window. This is the scene we see after she discovers she is pregnant. I suppose this was about 2001 when I began writing.
Slowly it morphed into Peppermint. The title comes from my fascination with how people hide bad breath with minty freshness, as if the bad has gone away. The taste has gone, but breath is in your lungs and insides! It is a surface thing.
The script was written over four years in between other work. I believe the script has plenty of shadows over it, where all the rewrites have left their marks. This created quite a depth which I think appealed to Gab.
The decision to make the film was borne out of our frustration with boredom. Gab and I had been put to the test a year earlier when we produced & directed 'Nightshift' for Channel Four. We loved being our own bosses!
Gabby: I had read an earlier draft of the script a year or so before, but when we revisited it this time, it seemed much more complete as a story. There was so many bits in the script that I fell in love with and could picture immediately, however at this point there was still a lot of work to be done on it.
James had been applying for funding to make the film, and when he had come so close so many times but no one had quite seen the potentially in the story, I said to James we should just make this. The first thing we actually did after this was set a date for production which gave us a date to aim for.
