The casting director

Francis Lawrence

One of the things that I wanted to do... There used to be a little more footage of Joel, kind of back home when he got suspended, and you can see compared to the, kind of, the color and the textures and things in the environments we have here, it's actually quite bland. We shot everything in pretty much white environments, made it as bland as possible, so that you get this feeling that it's just not the kind of life that he wants. That he likes living internationally, and he likes working, and he likes the mystery, and he likes the intrigue, and he likes the work. The last thing he wants to do is be at home and be in an office. And so we made it as drab, and as lonely as possible. He wants a daughter... someone to take care of, and he'll pay for it. So here you see some of the work I was talking about in terms of the development of Sparrow School. This idea of figuring out what people need. But you can see in a moment here, it's actually gonna lead into a bit of a harsh lesson from Matron about having to get over what disgusts you. To make people believe that you're attracted to them, or that you're willing to do specific things for them. Yes. - Correct. Though, we mustn't be so judgmental. We all have our passions. His happen to be rather young. Anya, come here for a moment. This is Sasha Frolova. She was actually one of the first people other than Jen that we cast in the movie. It was something. Denise Chamian, my casting director, instantly sent her over for the role of Anya, which was actually expanded a little bit originally in the script. Give him what he wants. And I liked the idea of seeing what a school like this could do to somebody that's fragile. And so, she slowly falls apart. You used to see in some of the scenes that I think we have in deleted scenes, you used to see Dominika helping her out, and seeing some of Dominika's humanity in helping Anya out. Part of what I really like about this sequence here is that Matron knows that Anya's never going to be able to do this. Really, what the whole point of this is for her to crumble so she can make a point to the class about how part of the training here at Sparrow School is to get over the things that might disgust you, and that you're gonna have to learn the tricks of the trade to be able to do the horrible things you're gonna have to do in this job. And that also thematically was important for me because it needed to be horrible. This is not a glamorous world. I didn't want it to be a glamorous world, and I didn't want Dominika to think it was a glamorous world. I wanted Dominika to hate it and to hate her uncle for dragging her into this world, so that she would want nothing more than to get out of the world. ...brings blood to the groin. Manipulation of the nipple... I remember on the day watching this sequence and I still do, and I just think it's a real original. I've just never seen anything like it. With Charlotte and weeping Sasha. Yeah, I'm really proud of the sequences that we did here, at Sparrow School. You must learn to love on command.

34:19 · jump to transcript →

Francis Lawrence

In the book, this portion of the story took place in Helsinki, but since we ended up shooting in Budapest, we just decided, "Why cheat Budapest for Moscow and Helsinki, "and why not just have the Helsinki part take place in Budapest?" So we decided to use Budapest for Budapest, which was nice and really fun. And this is Thekla, who's a Dutch actress, who read for the part of Marta and is playing Marta, obviously. But I remember seeing her reading for the part of Marta, and she was quite good, but Marta was described as being a little rough. And Thekla, to me... She is a very, very beautiful woman, and there's something very sophisticated about her, in a weird way. I don't even think I ever told her this, but there's something about her. When you see her in person, she feels like she could be part of a royal family or something. There's just something about her. So I actually asked her to read again. And she wasn't wearing a ton of makeup. But I just wanted her to sort of try and tone down whatever she had done in terms of, like, nice lighting and the hair and all this kind of stuff, and to do it again, because she couldn't be quite as beautiful as she really is. And then it was perfect. She sent me a new tape that was not quite as glamorous as the original. Usually two men on a girl. No relationships to speak of. That woman right there that we just tipped up from is Valentina, one of the costumers who has worked with us many, many times on all the Hunger Games movies. Again, another one of the cameos. And this is Douglas Hodge, who my casting director brought in. I think, yeah, Denise brought him in to play this role, and he just, I think, did a fantastic job playing Volontov.

50:44 · jump to transcript →

Francis Lawrence

So, are you Satisfied? This was an interesting day. So we were actually shooting in the Gellert Hotel, which is a famous old hotel in Budapest. It also has some of the most famous baths and pools in Budapest. Budapest is very famous for its thermal baths and things. It was a relatively straightforward scene. Always kind of fun to do the research on the polygraph tests and see what kind of guinea pig is actually gonna sit and get polygraphed in front of a bunch of people. As we all learn how to operate the machine and how to do it. But it was a night that Jen had not slept for whatever reason. This really rarely happened, but she had not slept at all, and was, you know, had a fair amount of dialogue, even more so than is in the scene now. And it was just driving her crazy, because her mind just wasn't working. I mean, she's usually really, really, really good with dialogue, and doesn't forget anything. but she was getting really frustrated. And surprisingly, that day, for being so tired, the accent really stuck. and that was something that we worked on with everybody. I mean, it was interesting with Jen... My idea for the accent in general was to do a very, very light Russian accent for everybody. So what I did was I first started with my casting director, and we went out and cast some young women who were Russians, but had lived in America for a long time, so who had light accents, and we recorded them speaking. And we got Tim Monich, a dialect coach, involved, and he had some recordings. And we combined all those things and handed them off to Jen, and also hired some men to hand off to the men, and so they had voices that they could listen to. And then Joan Washington was the dialect coach that we used on set. But there was a fair amount of training and reference that we had for everybody in terms of the accents.

1:28:04 · jump to transcript →

Matthew Vaughn

We did a DI grade, which film can't quite cope with, but HD can, the way of the future. Clark and Evan, who are Marty and Todd, they were in the first ever read-through. Before I go out to the public with a script, when I say the public, Hollywood, I like to do one read-through with the actors. So I actually flew to LA and I said to the casting director, just get me some,

2:48 · jump to transcript →

Tom Hooper

Isabelle Allen, what an extraordinary actress she is. I mean, I'm not aware she's acted in any professional acting before Nina Gold, my wonderful casting director, found her, but she's singing this live like all the other actors. And, you know, I think that song is incredibly important in terms of creating a connection between the audience and this character. But it does need to be sung well, and I think she sings it beautifully.

46:06 · jump to transcript →

Wes Anderson

So it was very clear when Roman and I had finished this script that the crucial thing was going to be who plays Sam and who plays Suzy, our two main characters. And that's really-- There's no movie if they aren't great. Well, we got our casting director, Doug Aibel, on very, very early, and we spent, I want to say, six or eight months or something searching for them. And along the way, we picked up all our scouts. There were lots of people auditioning, and we'd say, "Well, this one's still not quite the right one for Sam, but this is a great one. This is a kid at this moment in his life who's gonna be very interesting." And so by the time we did find the two of them, which was quite late in the game, we had all the other kids too. Jared, I remember, in his audition, was just... It wasn't his audition, it was him that really was entertaining. And Kara, in her audition, she played this scene as if she was making it up completely herself and just seemed completely authentic. And they were great to work with. They were very invested in the movie. And sometimes when you work with very young people, they learn the script and they know it better than anybody on the set. And they know everybody's lines. And they brought some special kind of emotion that only they know that has to do with they're really that age. They're really like these people. They understand them in a way we can only try to recall. If the movie works for them, it works because of these guys. Yeah, I remember seeing the tests, and Jared just stood out. I remember thinking, you know, he had such a different energy than I expected in our lead role 'cause we had sort of described him with his corncob pipe and kind of a little bit of a JD, and he had just this other quality, but I couldn't totally see it at first. But then, of course, it just couldn't have been better. It was just so right for it. But it wasn't really written in the way that he portrayed it. At least my mind's eye didn't see someone like Jared, but he's so one of a kind, it's hard to even imagine that till you meet him.

26:35 · jump to transcript →