Cinema Atlas Connection

I was very much influenced by Lars von Trier’s Dogville. I know that sounds like a peculiar thing to say – Dogville has no scenery, whereas Mamma Mia! is set on a beautiful Greek island. But Dogville has a kind of naivety, a theatricality, that I really liked, and a sense of people just turning up and playing. It’s anti-realist in a very interesting way. I remember watching it with the designer, Mark Thompson, and thinking: 'We’re making a musical that’s quite raw and exposing, we’re not going t