Casting

There we see they have a past. She's got a... They're in kind of an adventurous place in that photo. And you can think that maybe this couple has had an interesting and exciting past with some adventure. Anyway, there's the sweetest little girl in the world, played by Paisley Cadorath. Paisley Cadorath was an amazing little actress. We did auditions in Winnipeg because we knew we couldn't fly another person out from anywhere, and she was the only girl that could take directions. But more importantly, you can tell that she was really enjoying the process. And we, you know, make them do four or five takes of the same thing just to see how they'll fare. And she was just excited. Every time she'd run out of the room, we'd get the cameras all ready, and she'd run in and we'd rehearse, and she was perfect all the time. And I think when you watched the audition tapes... I remember getting a message from you saying, "We have to get this girl. I'm so happy that we matched perfectly on her." Fuck!

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Or was? So these guys, the Russian Mob guys, these are all immigrants from Russia living in Winnipeg. There's a community of about five or six thousand people, which was perfect for us. So there was an audition Saturday and Sunday where I looked at 200 people. And these three were... - They're great. Right away, I was like, "Well, they're not professional." This is the first time they ever appear on camera. And I thought they did a really good job. - I think they do a great job. Boy, they look like great actors to me. And Alexey, he works all the time. We were very lucky to get him 'cause he also lives in Canada. Yep. - Part-time. So, tell us about Alexey's acting career in Russia. Will he walk again? There's a lot of films to talk about. I think the one that I suspect some people have seen in the West would be Leviathan. The Zvyagintsev film which was nominated for an Oscar, which I think had a very good chance for winning if it wasn't for the political situation at that particular point in time, unfortunately. Alexey, he's just always been...

39:34 · jump to transcript →

He's been one of those actors where he is in big films, but he's not, like, sort of the... What's the right term? He's a sign of quality. That was very important, apart from obviously him being the great actor that he is, and just, he doesn't approach it like show business. To him it's a job. "I just do my job and I like shooting." He's very simple in that way, which is interesting. It's like a Michael Caine thing. Is that what you're saying? I think so, if I understand correctly. Quick story. Why I was reminded of Michael Caine is the Jaws Story. I haven't seen the film, but I've seen the house. And the house is nice. - Yeah. But the story with Alexey is that before going to the producers with the choice of Alexey, I spoke to you, and then I asked Alexey to just make a demo, do a phone audition. Obviously, usually guys like this don't do that. But I said, "Look, this is a studio film, certain expectations need to be met. "Can you do a scene in Russian and English and do us this stupid dance? "Just do us any silly old dance." And he sent me, through WhatsApp, a bunch of those videos. I forwarded them to you. You loved them. And then as soon as everyone else saw him, there was never a question. As soon as they saw those auditions, they're like, "Yep, that's him. That's the guy. Let's just get him." And we were actually very close to... I think we were like a week away from production. - I was with Marc Provissiero... - Yeah. ...and Marc Fischer, our executive producer, in a room. And because Alexey doesn't have an agent in America, we were... I remember translating... He doesn't speak English very well, so I was translating, negotiating the deal. That was kind of fun.

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has such an incredible face and command and intensity. At her audition, me and Carmel Cochran, the casting director, just started to, like, cry when she was saying this, which there's nothing to cry about, but she's just so intense. And I immediately got up and said, you have the role. She's something else.

1:20:25 · jump to transcript →

depiction of Oðinn, but that's how he generally appeared to people, if he did, is in a cloak. I see my father and mother. So, Fweylin, who plays Cormleth here, like, her audition for this character was so excellent that this scene became a lot larger. And originally, you didn't see this woman being sacrificed, but Fweylin, when she auditioned, she said, are they going to kill me?

1:43:14 · jump to transcript →

And I said, yeah, you're right. So we really kind of expanded this sequence because of her cool singing voice and her excellent audition. So this is really based quite closely on Ibn Fadlan's account of a Rus Viking funeral. The main difference being that this ship is being buried. You can see it's half buried in a mound.

1:43:43 · jump to transcript →

I sent the faces to Eric, who really had the world of submarines in his head. I said, just from these, pick the ones that you feel are of the appropriate age and bearing for their different positions on the boat. And Eric sent me his selections of all of these actors. And regardless of their level of acting experience, I cast them for the simple thing that Eric said. Each one of these guys has a face that says...

2:46 · jump to transcript →

This was the very last day of shooting on our movie. This was the last scene we shot. This is Alex James Phelps, and for fans of the Mission Impossible franchise, you'll get a kick out of the fact that his last name is James Phelps, a character in Mission Impossible 1 and, of course, in the TV series. He was cast a week before we shot it, and he came to work that day, the day before, actually, to walk the set.

7:22 · jump to transcript →

This was, God, there was so, we had so much fun with Vanessa. She spent a lot of time playing with the comedy and finding the right balance. And again, here are the brown eyes. This is, and here's Jonathan, the guy standing behind Henry Cerny. The bodyguard. Who was, he was cast as, we just, we needed another, another of the widow's,

1:57:51 · jump to transcript →

He thought that we had just cast from his mold or duplicated his mold somehow and cast prosthetics. But the truth of it is we sculpted it from scratch, copying his original piece as best we could, but basically side-by-side sculpture as opposed to the casting and molding process.

1:19:36 · jump to transcript →

Mike O'Brien, who is one of the guys in our shop, great job. Dan Crawley, who was an all-around kind of, you know, artist jumping around from sculpture to molding to casting to gag effects. Brock Pope played a big part on practically every effect. He's just a good all-around lab tech. I mentioned Mark Killingsworth.

1:23:21 · jump to transcript →

We sculpted, we digitally printed the molds, and then we did traditional casting from all the digital work. I would say about 35% of the effects that we did for this film, we did digitally. And again, I just explained what I meant by that, but they are practical effects. But because we did them digitally, it really gave me the ability

1:25:39 · jump to transcript →

Edward Berger

quite old-fashioned, not typically handsome. Don't tell him that. And he... I immediately liked that. So we flew him in into casting, but I'm not the type of person who jumps at the first decision, because I really want to see everyone. So I saw a couple hundred more, and we kept inviting him back. And our wonderful casting agent, Simone Bär,

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Edward Berger

that Felix told me, Felix Kammerer, the actor here that helps his friend cut up off the floor, about his acting technique for this movie. He's a theater actor. He'd never been in a movie before. I told you that we cast him many times, and finally I found the courage to really call him and give him the role, and he was at a picnic at the time. He told me later it was a picnic with friends.

1:59:07 · jump to transcript →

How'd you do that leaf? That leaf trick. Talk about the leaf trick. Who played the leaf? Who played the leaf? How many people did you audition for the leaf? It's funny, actually, because I feel like

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Tim Burton

Yeah, and then we never got the chance to do it. What happened? A boat accident. Arthur Conti playing Jeremy, I think I first met him. He was a friend of my son's. We went to school with him. But I didn't know he was an actor. I didn't know he was the grandson of Tom Conti. And then when we were casting Jeremy, Sophie, the casting director, sent in the tape, and one of them was Arthur, and so...

47:16 · jump to transcript →