Terry Keefe's Open Salon Blog

VERA FARMIGA: The Hollywood Interview

Sat, 2 Jan 2010 13:01:55 -0500

(Vera Farmiga in UP IN THE AIR.)

by Terry Keefe

The first time I interviewed actress Vera Farmiga was in early 2001, at Swingers Diner on Beverly Blvd., in Los Angeles, over French fries. It was around 8 in the evening, as she had to spend the day auditioning for a network pilot. She was promoting a supporting role in a relatively forgettable Robert De Niro-Ed Burns cop thriller called Fifteen Minutes, where she played an Eastern European hairdresser who witnesses a murder. Parking was scarce in the neighborhood, to the point that we first met that night while angling for the same spot. Today, things have changed somewhat. We’re meeting at a ridiculously large and posh board room at the Beverly Hilton, which reminds of the one in Network where uber-exec Ned Beatty chews out Peter Finch’s Howard Beale. Valets take care of the cars. A number of publicists and assistants abound. It’s all part of the studio publicity machinery for Up in the Air, the feature film directed by Jason Reitman, in which Farmiga stars with George Clooney. Strong Oscar buzz abounds on the film, not just for Reitman and Clooney, but also for Farmiga this time around.

Up in the Air introduces us to Clooney’s Ryan Bingham, a corporate down-sizer who travels the country some 300 days of the year firing vast numbers of employees for companies too gutless to do it themselves. Bingham has been aptly referred to by Reitman as a sort of “new species” of human, in that he travels so much that his home is in the air. He obsessively collects frequent flyer, hotel, and rental car points, and seems to have adapted the philosophy that if he just keeps moving, he’ll never have to get too tied down to any place…or anyone. At a hotel bar, he meets someone he perceives to be the female version of himself, Farmiga’s Alex, who shares a uniquely modern courtship scene with Ryan, as they seduce each other with the power of each other’s preferred traveler club cards. “Just think of me as you with a vagina,” Alex says to Ryan, and with that, he believes he has found his perfect woman. What Ryan doesn’t realize is that in his relationships with Alex, and his unlikely young protégé Natalie (played by Anna Kendrick), he is unconsciously forming a sort of surrogate family. In the sky.

The films of Jason Reitman walk a fine line between comedy, often black comedy, and drama. Deep characterizations of unlikely heroes are found in his Thank You For Smoking (2005), Juno (2007), and Up in the Air, but the films are also sprinkled with sharp comedic dialogue. Farmiga fits well into the Reitman universe, as she is able to deftly hit the comedic beats, but also bring to the surface the largely unspoken levels of loneliness which are definitely an element of what drives Alex. The world of plane-rental car-hotel-conference-plane that she inhabits is in part a role-playing fantasy, something she knows inherently but which Clooney’s Ryan must learn the hard way.

Between our first meeting with Farmiga and this most recent one, we also spoke with her in 2005 about Down to the Bone, the low-budget character study in which she plays a sometimes-recovering heroin addict. Down to the Bone won a Special Jury Prize for Acting at Sundance, and although few in the general population of moviegoers saw it upon release, Farmiga credited the film, at the time, with helping her land a role which just about everyone saw, as the psychiatrist Madolyn in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed in 2006. It seems likely that Farmiga was consequently offered a lot of paycheck-style studio film roles in the wake of The Departed, although one has to assume that Farmiga has largely avoided those projects. While she has made somewhat larger commercial films such as the recent Orphan, she has also continued to pursue roles closer to the indie Down to the Bone in both scope and spirit, playing a disability-obsessed sexual explorer in Quid Pro Quo, the wife of a Nazi officer in the bleak children’s tale The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and a woman in an interracial marriage in the lower-budgeted Never Forever. She had mentioned at the time of Down to the Bone’s release that these type of smaller, character-driven roles were where her heart was. You hear talk about wanting to mix more commercial projects with smaller, higher-quality ones from actors on the rise all the time, but Farmiga has actually followed through on it. With Up in the Air, she’s landed the rare project that is the best of both worlds these days, a studio film with dynamite characters.

[Note: There are some indirect plot spoilers in the text of this interview.]

Jason Reitman wrote this role for you in Up in the Air, but he also made you audition.

Vera Farmiga: Yeah [laughs]. Yes, he did.

What’s up with that?!

[laughs] He’s a master of contradiction. Look at all his characters. You know, I was very pregnant when we met. And then I was even more pregnant when he handed me the job, and by the time we started filming, I weighed more than George Clooney. I had just delivered a baby, and the studio was stressed about the decision. And so, he just said, “Vera, I hope you don’t mind,” and we’d already met, up for a chamomile tea, at Gramercy Park Hotel, early on in the process, but he couldn’t quite make the decision, because it was a big decision to make for him. I kept insisting…I said, “Call up every director. Call up Scorsese, he’ll tell you about my record -” [laughs]

Scorsese should be enough of a good recommendation, right?

But Jason said, “No, I talked to everybody!” And so I said, ‘Well, if I tell you I can do it, I can do it.”

Was your pregnancy the main issue?

Yeah, I think he was more…not so much physically…he was more worried about my mental capacity, and if I could handle all of it. In my eighth month of pregnancy…I think it was in my favor that everybody else that was being considered probably was pregnant, too. [laughs] But so, he actually made me read the scene with Anna Kendrick’s character. And he came back, to the Gramercy Park Hotel, with a video camera, and he’d hired two local actors from the city to sit in and read for George’s and Anna’s characters, and he videotaped me, and I got a call that night. [laughs]

You do a lot with silence in this film. Her non-verbal moments aren’t just reaction shots. She’s an enigma, and hiding a few things, and you can feel that in her glances. How much of that silence are you consciously filling, and how much is just your screen presence?

I love the silent moments. I cherish the silent moments in film. It’s even more important and telling of a character what they don’t say, what they choose not to say…and what they may be thinking but don’t say. What they can’t say. What they’re incapable of saying. That is as revealing, if not more, than what a person actually says, so I love that, and that for me is something that I focus on as an actor, and obsess over, and relish. [laughs]

It occurs that you have to be in the moment to do silence properly on-screen.

And sometimes I take it to extremes, because Jason’s biggest direction of me was, “Vera, you gotta say it faster. Can you pick up the rhythm?”

I guess I can also see that, because the first scene where you and George meet has a real Cary Grant-Rosalind Russell-His Girl Friday fast repartee to it.

Yeah, you’re right, because there is a rhythm...there’s a rhythm to Jason’s writing, and you have to honor it. It’s like the metronome’s on, and you do have to honor that metronome, and keep up with it. And that’s part of what’s so sexy [about the two characters], the rhythm, the tennis match, the banter. They finish each other’s thoughts, and they’re on very even, equal footing. But then there were moments, like at the wedding, when you see them exist without any words. What’s so sexy about this relationship is…it’s hardly anything that happens in the bedroom. There’s no allusions, there’s like one allusion to them having a romp, but I think what’s so sexy about it is that Jason is just very old-fashioned in the way he portrays a romance. Look at Juno. You root for the relationship, and it’s just so authentic and heartbreaking, but it’s really just the conversation between them, and who they are together, and words that they exchange…that’s what’s so sexy. I love that because I’m always on a hunt for a good old-fashioned romance.

What is true of all of three of Jason Reitman’s film is that he keeps this fairly light tone overall, but also has these deep characters and overall themes. How much of the tonal balance, and how it should be played, is obvious on the page, and how much do you have to find in the execution?

He’s a master of finding that, and we also struggled at times. There are certain lines that my character has that are hilarious, but could be as vulgar as could be if you don’t hit the right chord with them. The “vagina” line [Editor’s Note: the classic one-liner delivered by Farmiga’s character.] is an example. Just talking about genitals is a funny thing, is a tricky thing, and the word “vagina” is not a word that you hear all the time. It’s such a critical word, but actually, when you say it, there’s all sorts of imagery that pops up, and you know that line, in particular, is probably going to be a sound bite in the film. And there’s a lot of pressure on that line, and I find with Alex, she says the most …she’s a sexual adventuress, the things that she says are demanding and liberal and unapologetic, and yet the key was to find a dignity in delivery, and infuse it with as much dignity and self-respect in honoring thyself, herself, an integrity of self, as possible. That was the key to Alex.

The key one-liners like that one…how much did you practice them on your own in front of a mirror?

That one – in my trailer, all the time.

If I remember correctly, that line is also delivered on the phone with George. So you didn’t have him to play off directly on one of the biggest quips of the film.

Yes, but George was in the room. He’s very generous and he’s available, and he was there, that was one of the first things we shot. The first scene is always the hardest scene for me in any film, always the first scene. I gotta get that out of the way, and then I can relax into a performance. It’s just how it is with me.

As Ryan falls in love with Alex, did you play her as falling in love with him, also? Because she pretends not to, but -

Well, I don’t know if she pretends not to, and this is interesting about how Jason directed me, because I wanted to infuse it more…look, it’s undeniable what they have is a real thing. And obviously she’s pretending through it, but she wouldn’t be there if she sincerely didn’t enjoy it. You look at them, and I think what exists is a real thing. Call it love, call it what you may. She’s just someone who follows her rules, that she’s established. I always pressed Jason, I wanted to know, “What’s going on with her? What’s happening in her life? Is she insatiable? Is she uninspired? Is she … um ... a player? Is she so dissatisfied” He said it didn’t matter. I said, “But it matters. I need a backstory.” Who’s to say, that in her home life, people aren’t condoning that kind of behavior, and saying, “You know what, you look like you need something I can’t provide…” And who’s to say that she doesn’t have a very liberal partner? Okay, so the thing was to not judge it, that was the biggest thing for me, was not to judge that character, and not even to determine why she is the way she is, but like a court-appointed lawyer, before the jury of an audience, defend that character. Find something to defend, and this is a woman … who is compartmentalizing her life, and you only see one facet of it. You see her as a romantic operative. You see her in the romance aspect of her life, and we don’t know what happens everywhere else, in those other compartments.

You don’t even know what she does for a living, exactly.

You don’t. That’s another thing I kept pestering Jason about. “What does she do? Who is she?” He goes, “I don’t know.” I’m like, “What do you mean you don‘t know? You’re the writer. Tell me what she does!” [laughs] And then he had to give me [something], because I said, “Listen, it’s gonna determine what shoes I wear, it’s gonna determine if I have a clutch or a handbag or a backpack or a briefcase.” He’s like, “Uh, let’s make it the same thing as Ryan - she instructs companies how to run a better business. She’s a businesswoman, in short.” But so, yeah, you don’t know much about her, at all.

It’s interesting because Jason also said last night at the Q&A that he doesn’t like back story. And back story is such the rage in American films today. We have separate films in super hero franchises just to explain the back story.

Yeah [laughs]. That’s true. It’s funny.

What did you have going through your head, though, in the scene when you are standing in the doorway, with him standing outside? You must’ve come up with some additional back story for her in that moment.

The staging of that scene is pretty genius. Jason’s got me at the top of the steps, with the exterior lighting of the brownstone highlighting me, and there’s George on the bottom of that staircase, looking up, meaning his big brown hound-dog eyes are gonna be the biggest, brownest hound-dog eyes he’s ever given, as he looks up, and she’s unattainable. So just that proximity and that elevation above him, in being on the top of the stairs when the truth of who Alex is unveiled…did a lot of the work. And then for me it was just responding to what I was being given. I was reacting to what George was being given, and was giving me, and that’s it…that reaction. I wasn’t really thinking, but sort of just looking at George, and reading his face, and just sort of serving back what he was serving me.

Jason has mentioned that George never leaves the set. Which could drive you crazy with some fellow actors, or it could be great. I assume the latter with George, because everyone seems to love him.

It’s good with George. You want him around, because he’s single-handedly responsible for that tone onset, which is a very frivolous jungle gym. Sense of humor is everything to him. He loves being at work. He respects the crew. He befriends them. He befriends everybody. He’s very open-hearted, and childlike, and happy-go-lucky, and eager to share himself. He loves to make people feel special about themselves. It’s a great gift that he has. He’s a magnet.

Let’s talk about the shooting of the scene where you and Anna Kendrick meet and compare your expectations of the ideal man in front of George. It’s one of the best scenes in the film and also reveals new levels to both of the female characters.

That was a long day. We shot the whole morning, so it wasn’t the whole day, but it was the first time that Anna and I got a chance to work together. It was really two different storylines. She was never onset when I was there…and we established our different relationships with the crew, and so I got very quiet that day, and I just wanted to watch her work, because she is so compelling, and she’s such a force of nature, at her age, she’s so self-possessed, and has a wicked sense of humor, and so sharp, and I loved watching her work. I became very sort of quiet that day, and even took my cues from her, watching someone being given this tremendous opportunity, and using it as a springboard…and I love the scene, and for Ryan it’s wonderful, because it’s everything his character has fought against, which is paternity, and husbandry, and yet here he is, taking to his somewhat…his travel wife and his business daughter. That was cool.

PETER SARSGAARD: The Hollywood Interview

Sat, 2 Jan 2010 13:01:32 -0500

(Peter Sarsgaard, and Carey Mulligan, in AN EDUCATION.)

by Terry Keefe

Like a seal of approval, it’s always a good sign of a film’s merit to see Peter Sarsgaard in the opening credits, because he chooses his projects well, whether it has been in a leading or supporting role. For a few years now, he has been in a strong enough career position that he could opt only to play leads, even if those were in smaller films, but from his film choices, he has also clearly been more interested in the quality of role, and not necessarily the size of the part, or the paycheck. As Mark, the uniquely resourceful slacker best friend of Zach Braff in Garden State, and as Clyde Martin, the protégé in Kinsey, and in his portrayal of real-life New Republic editor Charles Lane in Shattered Glass, and as rapist John Lotter in Boys Don’t Cry, to name some of the most prominent examples, Sarsgaard has brought star-level quality, preparation, and intensity to smaller roles, and raised those films up a significant notch overall as a result. He has also been slowly taking on leading roles more frequently, such as his work this year in the thriller Orphan. An apt career comparison can be made to that of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who, some ten years ago, also scorched across a number of films such as Boogie Nights and Almost Famous in key supporting roles, building a reputation to the point that when he did step up to the top of the credit roll as the star, it felt like he had been there all along. Sarsgaard is reaching a similar career point now with his new film, An Education, for which he is an Oscar contender in his co-starring role as David, the sophisticated older man who seduces Carey Mulligan’s 16-year old British school girl Jenny in early 60s London.

An Education was directed by Lone Scherfig, from a script by Nick Hornby, who adapted from a short memoir by journalist Lynn Barber about her first love affair. The story takes place right before the Swinging 60s actually begin, and the thirty-something David arrives almost like the advance guard of the era to come, sweeping both Jenny and her family off her feet, through a combination of charm and deception. It’s a character that required an actor who could bring significant added depth to David, so that we too are seduced by his childlike energy and can’t hate him, even when he deserves it. Sarsgaard creates that complexity for the character in his strongest work to date.

Your character of David in An Education seduces Jenny, but the reverse is also very much true. She seduces him, or at least her youth does. Was that something you gave much thought to?

Peter Sarsgaard: Oh, yeah. If you think about what his own youth must have been like, when he was sixteen, so 1940, presumably? Around there. It was a difficult time to be a child, and so I think he’s trying to find that joy and happiness in his life now.

David grew up during the war. He was also Jewish. Did you create much back story other than that?

I thought about it. But I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, because he doesn’t. But I thought that period…it was all bombing, then the food-rationing, and I looked at a lot of pictures of that time, and the ‘50s, and, you know, London…it was just a place where people were so desperate to have fun. They had these, like, little fairs during that time, which were the only source of escape for people. And I think that David is emblematic of a lot of the feelings that Brits had during that time. And, you know, his being Jewish…I’m an American playing the role, and fundamentally an outsider [in England]…so even though I’m not Jewish, a lot of the feelings of not quite belonging are there. That’s the part of the role that’s probably the most difficult to play. You know, you can’t really play “being Jewish” without being offensive…

There had to have been some concerns about the Jewish aspect of the character, because you could go very easily too far in one direction or the other in terms of your choices.

You could, you could. You could also just play it like it was a lie, which I thought was a possibility.

It’s definitely a possibility with David.

It’s a possibility. I was concerned when they first offered me the role, because I wanted to do it so badly because it was so well written…but I felt that I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t cast a British Jew. Maybe [they didn’t] because it would be too comfortable for him. As an actor, you make everything make sense on your own terms, and you don’t try to pretend something isn’t there that is, i.e. I’m an American Catholic. You just incorporate all those things. And it worked quite well for me. So, if you know, even at the start of the film, you’re watching the movie, and you think, “Oh, Peter is playing a Jewish Brit, and he’s neither,” then you start watching the movie, and maybe that goes away, and you forget that I’m doing an accent. But that little thread of “He’s a fraud” works quite well for me in this movie.

There’s the scene where I’m talking about going to see C.S. Lewis, and I’m with Jenny’s family, and I say that I’ve gone to Oxford, and Jenny comes and sits down, and we’re sort of in it together at that moment, she and I, in tricking her family. And I had a complete meltdown that day, where I couldn’t – it started out I couldn’t remember my lines, even though I knew my lines. And then I felt kind of cold-sweaty…it was anxiety. And I don’t know if that even wound up registering in the scene, because I just took a minute and got it together, and I played it. But I am covering anxiety in that scene…that is genuine actor anxiety.

It probably helps your performance in that scene.

And it probably helps, and it’s probably something that David feels so much in his life, so much of the time, because anyone who’s living in deception like that…it’s not a very comfortable place to be. I think a lot of people think that if a man is dating three different women, and none of them know, they think “That lucky guy!” [laughs] No—

In his own mind, does David think of himself as a good guy?

I think he thinks of himself as a person with good qualities and bad qualities. I certainly don’t think he has the venom for himself that some people have expressed toward me after having seen the movie.

Have people expressed venom towards him?

It’s interesting. A lot of men.

Really? Okay. Because your character is getting away with something they’d like to try, maybe?

Exactly! [laughs] Because it looks nice until you do it. And also because maybe they’ve done it. And they have the self-loathing of someone who’s done it. But for a lot of women, they’re like, “Oh, I knew a guy like that.” [laughs]

You were cast before Carey was. Did you read against Carey, as well as other girls, to help find the right Jenny?

There had been a different incarnation of the movie. It had a different director who wanted to go do a bigger film first, and then come back to this one, but, you know, if you snooze you lose on a movie like this. And we said, “Thank you very much,” and it ended up being a blessing. I’m sure that director would have done a fine job, but when Lone came on, I didn’t actually read with any of the girls with her. Carey had read in the previous incarnation, and I didn’t really enjoy doing that. I sort of thought, I mean…I don’t want to have any say, because I have to put my faith in other people. Otherwise, every movie I do will be the same. And that’s the way that I’ve had difference in the movies that I’ve done, not just in terms of character, but in terms of tone, in terms of everything overall, is because I put my fifty cents in, but, I really try to adopt other people’s viewpoints and ideas, down to wardrobe and everything.

That can be scary though, because you’re putting yourself so much in the hands of others.

I mean, I’ve had it before on a movie, where I said, like, “Honestly, none of this looks right to me.” And that’s a big drag, because they’ve brought out all that stuff.

So there is a point where you’d cut things off if it feels completely wrong.

Yeah, or I’ll just go…first I’ll say, like, “Well, tell me why you think this is right.” You know? And sometimes it’ll be just a matter of this reason or that. “But I’ve wanted to wear this other thing.” Sometimes I think the combination of the two [ideas] might be good. And that’s the way I’ve worked well with anyone, and Lone is certainly like that. You know, Lone…has just a very easy way of directing. She doesn’t give you a lot of detailed notes. You know, there’s no “Make sure you hit this, make sure you hit that.” I mean, occasionally there will be, and I usually know that it’s for story reasons, because she wants it to be clear, and I’m all for that, because I’ve been allowed as an actor before on different movies to just do whatever I wanted, take all the time I wanted, make any choice I wanted, and I get nervous then…because I know that no one is minding the store.

Somebody has to make choices somewhere.

Yeah, and a lot of actors think things like, “I wish that John Cassavetes could direct me in every single movie that I ever do.” But he [Cassavetes] had a specific quality, a specific sense of humor. He had very specific talents. A lot of actors just think it’s like, “One, two, three, go!” and it’s free jazz. I think, a lot of actors believe that “John Cassavetes” equals, “I can do whatever I want,” which I’m sure was not true.

David is based on a real person from the original memoir by Lynn Barber. Where there any specific things that you took from the memoir in terms of his mannerisms?

I learned that his accent was a strange thing, that it went in and out of different accents. And I was really wanting to do that. It would have been really hard, but even if I had done it, exactly how do you do it? Everybody knows that I’m an American actor, and they wouldn’t have been able to accept it, because they would have just thought my accent was awful. So that’s the benefit of casting a Brit, he could have done that, he could have done this varying accent. But I did tell myself, I mean I put it in my noggin, and I said, “All right, well, if my accent falters in a scene, it’s totally fine.”

Let’s talk a bit about your early years. You were born in Illinois, is that right?

Yeah, Scott Air Force Base in southern Illinois. It’s right across the river from St. Louis. My dad was in the Air Force, but my dad was also with IBM. I moved to St. Louis, and we lived in a number of different places. And then, when I was ten, we moved to Oklahoma City. During this time I would go down to Memphis quite a bit, and I’d go to Mississippi quite a bit, and I’d go to Arkansas quite a bit, because I have family there. My parents…my mother’s from Memphis, my dad’s from West Point, Mississippi. So I felt a lot of Southern influence in my life. And then for high school, I moved to Connecticut and went to a Jesuit high school in Connecticut, and then I went back to St. Louis for college (Washington University). Then I came to New York in ’93.

What was the experience of attending a Jesuit high school like for you?

It was probably the first time that anybody ever told me I was smart. I’d been kind of a very poor student, I mean like a shockingly, shockingly poor student, and was not allowed to even take a language class, because they thought that I couldn’t handle it. In junior high. Actually, that was a big experience for me: They said, “Take a reading class.” Which was basically…I just read books for an hour every day, and that’s all the class was, you could read any book you want. And I think that was probably a very significant experience, because I did extremely well on the entry exam into this high school, especially on the lit part. And I was put into this thing called Honors Humanities which had like five other kids. But I still always felt like I was misplaced somehow, because I still had the identity of not being the smart kid. These kids all acted like smart kids, and I mean, they all looked like smart kids. And I was a soccer player, so I was really the only athlete that was in this program. Then I went to college at Bard, for one year, and a little trick-or-treat over at Bard College for Halloween, and then went back to…I just missed St. Louis. I think if you’ve moved around as much as I have, sometimes there’s just one place that you choose to call home. And it’d probably make more sense if I called Connecticut home, because I went to high school there, and my parents live there now, but Connecticut just never quite got me. Long Island Sound. I can’t quite do Long Island Sound.

I remember, actually, when I first came to Connecticut, I was on the road with my mother, and we were carpooling to school, and I saw a pheasant on the side of the road that’d been killed, and on the way home, I tried to convince everybody to stop to let me bag it. I had gotten a bag at school, because I tied flies, and you can use pheasant feathers to tie flies, for fly-fishing. And that’s one of those moments where you can feel how profoundly different you are than everyone else. Everyone was like, “What are you doing?” I mean it was a rather eccentric thing to do in any place - in Oklahoma it would’ve been slightly eccentric, but there at least they would’ve known what tying flies was. In Connecticut, they were like, “You’re going to tie flies…with a feather? Is this a poem you’re telling us? What are you doing?” Anyway, I went home, and my mom and I came back, and we bagged it, and we skinned it – actually, my mother skinned it for me. And I tied flies with it. [laughs]

Had you tried acting during your younger years?

No, I didn’t act. I mean, I played Linus, in a play in Oklahoma, but it was like a school thing.

“You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” ?

Yeah, “Don’t worry, we’ll get the kite out of the tree.” In one way or another, I’ve been playing Linus for a long time [laughs]. And then, in college at Washington University, the soccer just kinda deteriorated, and I just wasn’t enough of an athlete. I’d played since I was a boy, and I had the feel in my mind for the game, but just, you know, at a certain level…because Washington University had a great team, I started playing, and I went and practiced with them, played a few games, and I just couldn’t keep up with it. And so I looked for something else to substitute, and it was acting. And I just did it on a lark, really, you know, I thought it’d be a good place to meet girls, and it is [Peter holds up his wedding ring, laughs.].

Did acting feel “right” immediately as you started doing it?

Uh-huh. I remember being in this gymnasium where we had acting classes, which was a weird place to have an acting class, because it had a basketball court. And I got assigned, I don’t even remember what the text was, and I memorized something and spoke it for the first time. It was me and this other guy. You know, when you first go to do it, it’s like being in a dream or something. It doesn’t feel that way now, and I actually feel that that’s not a preferable way for it to feel, you know, but some actors have this idea that, you know, to get lost in it, and somehow not remember what you did, is good. Well, I can tell you a lot of things that we did in here over the last couple of minutes, and I think, for me, I try to have it feel as much like that as possible. I’d like to remember that I drank this [indicates tea] and you didn’t. You know what I mean? But I did have that [dream] feeling with acting at first, that I was maybe reveling in emotional states that I had never allowed myself to feel, that I was connected to another person, in a way that I didn’t allow myself to feel in life, so that you are suddenly really kind of hyper-connected to someone. But then you, as an actor, you start to realize, of course, it’s not always like that, so you look for different types of connections, than just feeling, say, like your first falling in love. I’ve seen young actors just sob. Sob, sob, sob, sob, sob through a scene. And I think, god, that must feel amazing. You know? But you don’t want to do that all the time.

You eventually found your way to Manhattan where you started more intense acting training. You were cast in Dead Man Walking and then you were cast in The Man in the Iron Mask.

I think I was cast in that movie because someone thought I sounded like John Malkovich. I play his son in the film.

Did you discuss that with him at all?

Yeah, they talked about it all the time. I’m aware that I have some quality in my voice, and he, you know…he has a unique voice. So, we have unique voices. But that was great, because I got to live in Paris, and do very little work actually, and just learn a lot. The same thing is true in Dead Man Walking. You know, it’s great when your first roles are roles where you are observing other actors acting most of the time. When I was doing Dead Man Walking, there was this scene where [director] Tim Robbins suddenly thought, “It would be really great if you sat in for Sean and did his lines in this scene, after he does them.” So Sean did the scene, and then I sat there and I acted the scene with Susan Sarandon - playing Sean - playing my character, but it was like the dead guy and suddenly the murderer turns into the victim. And that was very informative, to realize just by doing it right after he’d done it, how awesome Sean was. Because you just go, “Oh.” [laughs] So I had lots of great early experiences like that as an actor where I got to actually learn, versus a lot of actors now. There’s always been this lust for youth, but, you know, at this point, taking young, young actors who haven’t done many films, and putting them in enormous films with enormous amounts of responsibility, and then expecting them to perform…I’m just so glad that didn’t happen to me. Because I worked a lot, and I did plays, and I did television, and I did the odd movie, but until Boys Don’t Cry (in 1999), I had many years there of just working anonymously. And by the time I did Boys Don’t Cry, I was more fully formed as an actor, and I knew what I was doing in that movie, and I felt ready to go.

I’ve been successful at it sometimes, and not, since then. It just depends on the scenario and who you’re working with, who the collaborator is, but I really, really just try to trust everyone I work with a certain amount, even if in the end it would’ve been better had I not listened to them. You know? Because you gotta go down swinging. I don’t want to play safe as an actor through a bunch of movies, and so, that’s how I wound up on this one. There’s probably only a third of the movies that I’ve done that I would be interested in watching, but I feel like that’s…for a baseball player, that’d be a pretty good average.

ANNA KENDRICK: The Hollywood Interview

Sat, 2 Jan 2010 12:01:37 -0500

(Anna Kendrick in UP IN THE AIR.)

By Terry Keefe

Anna Kendrick has always excelled at playing the smartest person in the room, and one who you definitely want to watch your back around. We were introduced to Kendrick in her big-screen debut, Todd Graff’s Camp in 2003, when she played young teen actress wannabe Fritzi Wagner in a notable supporting role. Described by one adult character in the film as a “scary little girl,” Wagner begins the story as a mousy sidekick to blonde theater star diva Jill (Alana Allen), but then manages to quite literally push Jill off the stage in a fierce All About Eve-style turnaround. In 2007, Kendrick won critical acclaim for her work as manipulative high school debate champion Ginny Ryerson in Rocket Science. Like Fritzi Wagner, Ginny Ryerson had a freaky air of intelligence well beyond her years, and she also had bite. The character reminded a bit of Reese Witherspoon’s Tracy Flick in Election from a decade earlier, except that Ginny felt considerably more dangerous. In a Godzilla vs. Mothra battle between these two high school over-achievers, Ginny Ryerson would have eaten Tracy Flick whole.

Director Jason Reitman notes Rocket Science as the film where he first learned of Kendrick, and consequently, he started writing the role of Natalie Keener in his new film Up in the Air for her. Says Reitman of Kendrick after watching her in Rocket Science, “I thought she was simply incredible, different from any actress her age. She has a completely unique voice.” The voice of Kendrick is, in fact, very fresh in her generation of actors, and her work in Up in the Air is the showcase her career has been waiting for.

Up in the Air stars George Clooney as a corporate down-sizer named Ryan Bingham who fires people for a living. Kendrick’s Natalie is a young upstart at Ryan’s company who has come up with an efficiency plan whereby these firings can be done via teleconferencing, rather than in person, to save costs. Natalie is consequently sent on the road with Clooney’s Ryan to learn what it is like to fire people face-to-face, and she has an unexpected life turn along the way. The role of Natalie is a breakthrough for the actress, because it showcases her penchant for playing characters with icy intelligence and ambition, but Natalie also has an arc which smashes that ice and delves into the personality forces that drive such a person. Without revealing too much, Natalie is ultimately revealed to be very human, with a real heart, and Kendrick runs with the role, possibly all the way to an Academy Award nomination, as she is currently making the predictions list of just about every Oscar handicapper in town.

Kendrick has also been seen (by just about everyone on earth) in her role as Jessica in the Twilight Saga of films. She will also appear soon in director Edgar Wright’s film adaptation of the graphic novel Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Jason Reitman has said that he wrote the role of Natalie with you in mind, but you did, in fact, have to read for it also. I know that was the case with Vera Farmiga as well.

Anna Kendrick: Yeah, but, I mean, it made a little more sense with me, than it did with Vera, just because I’m not famous. I’m not a name. I’m sure they could’ve gotten anybody they wanted, and I had to kind of prove myself to people who had doubts, I guess. In the end, I guess, I’m glad that I had to go in and prove that I had the goods, because otherwise I would’ve just gone into the movie being unsure that he really wanted me, and thinking, you know, “Couldn’t somebody else have done it better?” [laughs]

This is a character that in a lesser writer-director’s - or actor’s - hands could have been fairly one-note, but Natalie has a full arc.

It’s a really rare thing to find a role this meaty for a girl in her twenties. Yeah, she’s really complicated and really messed up, and that’s sort of what I love about her [laughs]. I think a lot of roles for young women are, like, you know, the girl that the guy falls in love with, and she doesn’t actually do anything other than, I dunno, understand him, or something [laughs]. And it’s really nice to have this character who has so many good qualities, but also so many flaws.

The scene where Natalie really comes into her own character-wise is when she has the conversation with Vera Farmiga’s Alex about the qualities they look for in a man. Let’s talk about the shooting of that. What type of rehearsals were done?

We didn’t do any rehearsals, actually, although that was my audition scene, and it was Vera’s audition scene also. I knew that….Jason said it was his favorite scene in the script, and so, having auditioned with it, I had basically thought it out, you know, from kind of every angle, almost to a point where I was worried that I oversaturated myself with that scene [laughs].

At some point, Natalie starts to see through George’s character completely, shortly after she has her breakdown scene. Since you didn’t shoot chronologically, how did you demarcate that point for yourself in building your performance?

Fortunately, all the stuff in Miami we shot in one week, in that chunk. So we did actually get to shoot the breakdown, and then a couple days later, the scene on the boardwalk where I yell at George Clooney. And I think it was actually really nice to have it coming off of the breakdown scene, because even though she’s just revealed so much about herself, and shown so much of her naiveté, and she’s in this really vulnerable place, and she’s holding onto, you know, a last shred of dignity…she still sees through him at that point.

How many of Natalie’s qualities do you think you have in common?

Um, I’m definitely a control freak [laughs]. I’m not as uptight as she is. I’m a little bit more awkward and clumsy, and definitely not as rigid, but I definitely like to be in control. I don’t think I concede as often as Natalie does.

Jason Reitman is very skilled at blending the tones of comedy and drama pretty seamlessly. Obviously, the script is a big part of this, but did you get any insight into how he pulls it off as a director?

I mean…that’s part of the magic and mystery of what makes him a great director, I guess. You know, if I knew how he managed to walk that fine line tonally, I’d certainly tell you. He’s really focused, and he gets very quiet, but it’s nice to feel like the person that you count on is really a safety net, and you can look at his previous work, and know just…I mean, how brilliant he is, which you see the first time that you meet him, and know that that’s a person that you can trust, and if he’s telling you to try it his way, there’s zero hesitation to try to give him what he wants.

Last night, we saw Jason, yourself, and most of the cast do the Q&A after the screening. Jason came in sort of like a ringmaster, full of high energy and really running the entire show. Is that how he is on the set often, or is that a persona he’s adopted now that he’s promoting the film?

[laughs] It’s like that in between takes, and when I say in between takes, I mean in between set-ups. When we’ve got a break, he’s so fun, but when we’re in a scene, he’s really focused, and that makes you feel really safe.

This dialogue could be read a variety of ways. How specific does Jason get in his direction on the way the dialogue is delivered?

You know, he is really specific, but I love that. I love knowing that he knows exactly how to make a moment work, and a line work, and if you’re not finding a rhythm that’s working, he’s got a suggestion that is going to fit into the plan. But he’s great about trusting people’s instincts, and so he definitely wants to let you try it your way, and see what happens, and if he needs to make adjustments, he does. We didn’t do any rehearsal, so it wasn’t as though he was nit-picking, but he definitely gets in there and gets specific about moments that he loves. But there’s also no arrogance about changing things if something isn’t working, and he’s so smart that he can just kind of come up with a solution, if something’s not working.

How fast did you warm up to George?

Immediately. He’s so sweet, you know, and wants people to feel comfortable. The first scene that we shot together was this little scene on a people-mover, and we were in between takes, and I really only met him very recently, and I was just sort of standing there in silence as they were changing a light or something, and he sort of turned to me and said, “You get nervous on the first day of a new movie?” and I was like, “Yeah,” and he goes, “Yeah, me too.”

At the age of 12, you were nominated for a Tony for your role in “High Society.” What do you remember now about that heady experience?

Very little. I mean, I remember being incredibly honored and overwhelmed, but at the same time, you know, you’re twelve years old. And you miss home, you miss your friends, and you know what a big deal it is…but at twelve there’s just no way to fully understand what it means to be nominated for a Tony Award. But in the end, I think that’s good because my little twelve-year-old head would have exploded if I’d been able to wrap my brain around it. In a way, I feel like it happened to a different person.

Todd Graff’s Camp was the first time we saw you on-screen. The scene where Fritzi poisons the diva during the performance of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” is a classic.

Yeah, that was really fun. That was the first time I heard the expression “lightning in a bottle,” which Todd said [laughs]. I was just absolutely bowled over by the expression, and the use of it, in regards to a performance of mine.

There were a few years between Camp and Rocket Science where you weren’t seen on-screen much. Did you intentionally take time off?

No, I did a show in between shooting, and then I did a pilot or something, but listen, there are times when you’re just not working. It wasn’t intentional. It’s those kind of times that I think about when people ask me about, you know, how great my career is going, and that kind of thing, I keep thinking about all the times that I was unemployed.

You’ve already finished your shooting on Eclipse. Do you think you’ll be in the fourth film, Breaking Dawn, also?

I doubt it, just because I’m not really in the books, so I’m assuming that I’m not.

How did the atmosphere on the set change when Chris Weitz was brought in as the new director for the second film?

People ask if there was more pressure on the second one, but I think there was a sense that we’d done something right, and as long as we didn’t, you know, go nuts, that fans would probably respond in a similar way, and that actually provided a relatively stress-free set. And Chris is just cool as a cucumber, and literally, it feels just like you’re hanging out, and then occasionally, you shoot a scene, and then you go back to hanging out. So that was actually shockingly stress-free.

It seems like it must be a great way to experience the whole Twilight thing the way you have. You don’t have to carry the series, but are still a part of it.

Yeah, I say that. Honestly, I say exactly that all the time. It’s like I get to just hop on the ride and hop right off whenever I feel like it.

In terms of actors and actresses, do you have any particular role models?

I feel like George is a big role model. The way that he treats people all day every day looks exhausting, because he’s just so consistently generous to people, and, you know, I think that takes a great deal of discipline. I mean, he’s Cary Grant, and everybody wants a piece of him. When we’re in all of these cities, everybody wanted to shake his hand. Everybody wanted to have a moment with him, and frankly, they didn’t just want a moment, they wanted more and more and more, and I don’t know how he doesn’t just get incredibly frustrated. I’m sure he does get incredibly frustrated, but the thing that makes him so admirable is the fact that he has the discipline to not show that he’s frustrated. I think both on and off the screen he’s incredibly generous, and if I could…I feel like if I could be half as kind and aware of other people’s comfort and needs, you know, I’d be a pretty good person.

John Woo: The RED CLIFF Interviews

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:11:07 -0500

(Director John Woo, above.)

By Terry Keefe

Director John Woo tells a story in the interview below about one major difference between his experience working on Hollywood blockbusters, and making Red Cliff (Chi Bi), his blockbuster-sized film which he shot in China with strong support from the Chinese government: he never had to sit through endless development meetings. He simply said he wanted to make the film, came up with a budget, received financing, and shot it. As someone who actually was a [very junior level] studio development executive at one time, I loved hearing this. The process by which films are created today at the studios, as it has been for a few decades now, is ridiculously time-consuming and both financially and creatively wasteful. Practically every script “fast“-tracked for production goes through a gauntlet of seemingly endless story notes in which not only the director, but also the studio, the producer, the stars, and sometimes the producer’s wife and mistress have input. I took part in more meetings of this type than I can count, or care to. The thought of someone like John Woo, who came to Hollywood as an established brand name in most of the world, having to go through this process to get a movie made is simply depressing. Understandably, the studios are concerned about rolling the dice on a blockbuster-sized budget and then getting Heaven’s Gate, but within a certain genre, in Woo’s case that would be action, and within a certain budget….someone like Woo has earned the right to a certain level of free reign. If he were making a musical, okay, then bring on the studio notes by the box. But action? And on budget? Just be glad you have him and get out of the way.

Despite their huge budgets, Woo’s Hollywood studio films often felt like he was directing with shackles on. There were bright spots certainly - Face/Off and Broken Arrow were both big hits and highly enjoyable - but even in those two films, you could also feel the weight of all the machinery and corporate structure that Woo had to navigate through. Obviously, his famed run of Hong Kong films (including A Better Tomorrow I & II, The Killer, Bullet in the Head, and Hard Boiled) were done on lower budgets and there is a kinetic energy that goes into the production of a film done by the seat of one’s pants. But rarely did he feel like he was cutting loose in his Hollywood work, and cutting loose is the definition of what made John Woo a legend long before he ever had to prove himself to Hollywood by directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in Hard Target in 1993. Yikes.

Happily, Red Cliff is both a return to form for Woo, and a significant evolution in production scale for him, as this is a massive period war epic, the most expensive Asian-financed film to date, in fact. The basic story behind Red Cliff goes back to 208 AD and the legendary Battle of Red Cliff, which has sort of evolved through the ages into a combination of actual history and mythology, reminding at times of an Asian version of the Battle of Troy. A novel called Romance of the Three Kingdoms helped to immortalize the story over seven hundred years ago, and there have been countless retellings and reinterpretations of it in the centuries since, including numerous video games, novels, and comic books.

The story of Red Cliff kicks off with the feared General Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) seeking to finally consolidate the Han dynasty by conquering two warlords who have stood in his path, Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen). On the run after a ruinous battle with Cao Cao, Liu Bei seeks to form a military alliance with Sun Quan, but first must win the trust of Sun Quan’s viceroy, Zhou Yu (Tony Leung, reuniting with Woo for the first time since 1992’s Hard Boiled). Zhou Yu is a mighty warrior, whose wife Xiao Qiao (Chiling Lin) is regarded as the most beautiful woman in China, the Helen of Troy of her land and time. The two kingdoms do join together, but still face seemingly insurmountable odds against Cao Cao, requiring innovative military strategies, one after another. Woo has designed these battle sequences with great thought, rather than just overwhelming the senses with CGI-generated sound and fury. The strategy of each side in the battles is revealed, thrown against each other, and then we see how little tweeks in those strategies make the difference between victory and slaughter. Not to make Red Cliff sound like a dry exercise in medieval military planning - when Woo does cut loose in the countless action flourishes throughout Red Cliff, it is all the more exhilarating because he has earned it by slowly building the tension of the battle scenes, along with the storylines of both the lead and supporting characters. The version of Red Cliff that is being released theatrically in the United States is a two and half-hour cut, as opposed to the two-part, five-hour version released in most of Asia.

Note that there are plenty of SPOILERS ahead in terms of plot, as Woo discusses how various sequences were filmed.

You’ve done big movies before, but I don’t think anything quite on this scale. Were there moments where you looked out on the vast numbers of people and sets and extras and were daunted by what you had at your command?

John Woo: [laughs] Yes. We had over 2000 people working on the set. We even had real soldiers working with us. 700-1500 at times, almost every day. Playing warriors and fighters. But this was a movie I had wanted to make for many years. Also, I had been working in Hollywood for over 16 years with so many good people here, and I thought it was about time to bring what I had learned in Hollywood, to Asia. There are so many young filmmakers in China, who are all eager to learn. They have such a passion about movies, and they all want to work on big-budget Hollywood type movies. So, I thought this was a great opportunity for them also. They have the same type of working style as Hollywood, but all they need is the opportunity.

You created some physically impossible shots, such as the when the carrier pigeon is released and we fly along with the pigeon (In a scene in which the bird travels across the battlefields and opposing camps, laying out the topography of the land.). I thought that was an interesting contrast, because so much of what you have in this film is so obviously physically there. But you must have had to use computer images to create those otherwise impossible shots. How do you find the balance between what you are able to do on the computer and what you want to have physically in front of the camera?

We shot a lot of real live action on the set, and we also used computer technology to add more people and more battleships. I think the team did a very job, and were very clever, in combining the real, live action and the CG. It’s usually hard for the audience to tell which is which. There are some obvious fake moments where the camera follows the pigeon over the enemy’s sides and across the river. That shot was trying to show the geography of both sides. It was if Red Cliff were in Los Angeles and the enemy was in New York, and we had to use this pigeon to connect them together. It became one of the most expensive CG shots in film history, because it was so long and there was so much movement. The other biggest movement was the ship sequence, in which the hero sets their boats on fire, a entire enemy navy of 2000 ships. Because of the direction of the wind, the entire enemy navy is set on fire. It was a brilliant strategy, and it was done with CG. A lot of detail. (In the final Battle of Red Cliff, the Navy of Cao Cao interlock their boats together, forming a blockade, but the Allied armies wait until the wind changes in their favor, and then ram the much larger Navy with “fire boats,” which set the entire Navy ablaze.)

In terms of getting the details right, there are different countries that know of this story, and there are also different comic book versions of it. But what was most important to you in terms of the details when you were writing it yourself?

There were a lot of characters, and I had to make a lot of changes. Actually, I didn’t do that much to follow the book and history. Originally, all those characters in history, they were pretty much like gods, or legends. Always serious. People admired them and no one would want to make a joke of them, because people would find it so offensive. But I wanted to make the film more international, and that’s why I made the characters more human, instead of super heroes. I wanted the modern audience to be able to relate to them. And also, I increased the female role, which didn’t exist in the book. The movie is all about team work, and I thought the women should have their contributions. I also wanted to show that the classic Chinese women were known for their beauty, but they were also had very strong personalities. Just like women nowadays. They are very brave, and smart, and can take on all sorts of challenges. They can sometimes do a much better job than men [laughs]. I didn’t much follow the book. I realized that I wasn’t making a television series for the History Channel. I am making a movie. A movie should have its own message.

Is it controversial in China to see the story changed so much?

It has some controversy about it, the way it was changed. Some people didn’t feel comfortable with it. And some people were expecting to watch a historical film. But it was a small group of people who didn’t feel comfortable with it, and in general, the younger audience…they love it. Especially the European audience. They love the idea of increasing the female part. It’s very important for the movie.

I wanted to ask you about the scene with the interlocking boats. I’ve never seen anything like that before. Was that historically accurate?

Yes, that was from history, and also from the book. It was fascinating and a very clever strategy.

The elements played a big role in the strategies as well.

The elements were a major issue in the movie, like in the burning ship scene, where the enemy navy was set on fire because of the wind. That’s all because of the weather. That’s something I learned from [studying] Napoleon and Hitler. They lost wars because of the weather. That’s something that is also [different] from the book. With the boats. [In the book] one of the major characters says “Call the wind!” to win the war. It was kind of like he had super-powers. I wanted to do something different from the book [with that action]. Something more natural. More believable.

Are there significant differences between the versions released in different parts of the world?

Yes, the Asian people are so familiar with this part of history, and the characters, that we have much more time for developing the characters. In the Asian version, there are two love stories. However, the American audience, they aren’t as familiar with the history and characters…we decided to focus on the main story. We took out the love story with the Princess and the young soldier, and also trimmed down the side characters, and focused on one story. But it’s still the same story, the same excitement. Some people even feel that the American version is more exciting, and tighter. So, I’m very enthused with both versions.

Is it easier for you to make a film in the Hollywood system, or in Asia?

Let me put it this way - it’s always easier to make a movie like Red Cliff in Asia. In China, everything was so simple. I just went into the office and let them know I wanted to make a movie called Red Cliff, and they said, “Okay, let’s do it.” [laughs] It was that simple. And I didn’t have to take notes from anyone. I didn’t have to take any advice from anyone. I didn’t have to take any meetings. I just closed my door and worked with my team and did my own thing and made my own film. And also, we had great support from the government. We had soldiers, and all kinds of help from the local people. They also have the biggest studio in Asia. The size of Universal Studios with big sound stages, all types of facilities. Of course, one thing I miss about Hollywood is that everything is so professional. I love to work with the crew and I love to work with the actors. They’re so dedicated. The people in Hollywood have an open mind and they give a warm welcome to talents from all over the world. I learned so much. Of course, I never get used to all the meetings [laughs] and that there are so many people involved in the project [laughs] and how long it takes to make a decision. But there are great things in both places.

You say that there was no interference from the Chinese government, but they are well-known for not wanting certain things in movies. Did you have to trim anything down for the Chinese version, such as the lovemaking scene?

No, I didn’t have to trim anything down for the movie. Actually, they’re getting more open. They’re not that tough. They’re very reasonable. The only concern was the violence - I think it’s the same as other countries - because they really didn’t want to give any bad influence for the young people. They don’t have a ratings system. There’s a movie board, and any kind of movies are for all kinds of audiences. So, we just needed to pay a little attention to that. I didn’t want to show a guy chopping a head off, or something like that.

We live in a war-torn globe today. Since the movie broke box office records in China, and did well in Europe, do you think people are relating this story to what is going on in the world today?

I think so, and I hope so. Before I made this movie, I realized that the economy is getting worse, and affecting so many people. And I overheard some young people in Asia...they were so frustrated. They were all in a deep depression. Some young people didn’t know what to do, didn’t see much hope, didn’t see the future, and some people even gave up their life. It happened in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and other Asian countries. I felt so sad. I feel the young people need someone to care about them and they need encouraging. That’s why I hoped this might change their ideas. The movie was about a smaller army that could defeat a larger, more powerful enemy through a combination of teamwork, intelligence, and courage. I think it’s an encouraging movie. I just try to let young people know that they are not alone. There is always a friend. Just work together with your friends and family and take charge. There are always good people. The movie was such a success in China, and Japan, especially in Japan…some of these young people would cry in the movie, they were so moved by the story. And I would ask them “Why?” They would say that they were watching Tony Leung in the film, and they wished they could have a friend like him. Another important thing was that it was also a war movie, and I had wanted to stress that in war…there are no winners. Before, my kinds of movies, they were usually all about the tragic hero. Now, I’m more personal, as I’m getting in age [laughs], I care more about what people really think, and what people really want, when I make a movie.

Which version of the film will we see on the DVD in the U.S.?

I think they will release the 5-hour version in the States. They should.

There was a special section recently in The Hollywood Reporter that was presenting China as a real emerging filmmaking partner. Do you think that it’s finally happening that are real bridges of connection between Hollywood and China, and China is going to open up as a real force in the global industry?

I think so. The Chinese government is open to all kinds of foreign production. They have the biggest sound stage in Asia. A fine mixing room and visual effects team. The business is growing. Since Red Cliff was such a success in China, and also, other fantastic Chinese films…the audience wants to see all types of movies. They keep building theaters, and a lot more of the 3-D cinema [laughs].

The instant philosophical connection to this film is to Sun Tzu’s Art of War. I’m wondering if there was any formal association to that. If you had immersed yourself in that text at all, or if it had come about naturally as a way of telling the story?

It’s a little of both, actually. After studying Sun Tzu’s Art of War, I had gotten some ideas, for designing the battle scenes, like the “turtle formation.” (During the Battle of San Jiang Kou, Sun Quan’s tough young sister, Sun Shangxiang [Zhao Wei] ambushes Cao Cao’s forces and leads them through a dust storm into a trap, the turtle/tortoise formation, in which the horseback soldiers of Cao Cao ride inside of the Allied Army, who have arranged themselves in a formation resembling that of a turtle.)

How had your working relationship with Tony Leung changed, or not, from when you last worked together years ago?

I was so happy to work with him again. He had become more mature, and even more charming [laughs]. He has the same kind of charisma, but this time, he feels more calm, more stable, and he cares more about the others. He’s a man with a big heart. We’ve known each other for such a long time, that we don’t need to say much. We sort of just look at each other and do it.

Would you ever want to return to Hong Kong cinema?

I don’t think so. I prefer to make more movies in China, because Hong Kong is so limited. It’s hard to do anything else. There aren’t much in locations, or much in history. All you can do is keep repeating the same thing, but in China, there is so much interesting history and culture and so many different things. I’m still learning. I like to work in different countries and different cultures, and make new friends. In the future, I will maybe make a French, or German, or Turkish movie [laughs]. I want to make films in different places.

You’ve mentioned that your next project is going to be Flying Tigers.

It’s a World War II movie. It’s about an American volunteer team, who are working with the Chinese Air Force, to fight the Japanese during wartime, and they worked together so well, and they gave a lot of contributions, and they won the war. The main story is about friendship, the friendship between the Chinese and the Americans. It’s going to be a very challenging project. Just like Red Cliff [laughs]. There are going to be huge air battle scenes, a lot extra people, but also a lot of human moments.

Red Cliff will be released theatrically in the United States via Magnet on November 20th and is currently available via VOD.