The first day of shooting

Tony Scott

I went to Charlie Sexton, who recorded this particular track for us. At the time, I thought, God, nothing can ever be as good as Elvis. But in the end, I think it served his purpose, and it's a great track. And Charlie has a great voice. This first scene was the first scene I shot in the movie. It was my first day of shooting.

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Tony Scott

Um, and, uh, it was my first day with Christian, you know? And Christian and I had been talking about the characters and who his character was, and I felt, you know, we're never quite in sync with what we were both thinking, who this character was, yeah? And, um, you know, you never really truly get an understanding of where the actors, or what the actors, where his head's at until you start to do the scene, yeah? And, um...

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Tony Scott

Anyhow, after my first day of shooting, I realized that Christian was off to the right and I was off to the left. And I said at the end of the first day of shooting, you know, I want you to take a look at Taxi Driver. And I wanted Christian to take a look at Taxi Driver in terms of the darkness of the character because I felt his character in this first scene in the bar, he was pushing it a little too light. And I wanted a much darker soul. And...

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Did you work with the writer on the script of this? Yes, I mean, Andrew Marlowe is the writer, and we worked a lot in this month before we started shooting. And even into the production, we constantly, we always do it like that. It's never really like that. You have a script, and then you shoot it, and that's it. You constantly, film is always sort of things in development to the very end. And so we work, yes, on a daily basis with the writer. And then we had also Paul Attanasio,

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So this is back on LAX airport, but it's meant to be, of course, Russia, where Gary and his bad boys are coming. And this was, I think, Gary Oldman's first day. Yeah, it was. We shot that pretty early on. And boy, from the first day on, when I saw him doing this part, I just fell in love with this guy. Great choice. He was very good, very good. Yeah, I thought he's great. He's wonderful. Did you have a voice in the casting? That's always people ask me, do I have a voice?

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Yet I can tell it again, the story here, that I always wanted Glenn Close from day one, but it's a part that's only really a supporting partner, very big. I did not have great hope that we would get her. She's a big star. Cut to Harrison Ford a few weeks later, and there was a...

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Hello. My name is Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I'm the director of Alien Resurrection. Hi. I'm Dominique Pinon. I played Vriess, the guy on the wheelchair. And I'm Hervé Schneid, the editor. My name is Sylvain. I was a storyboard artist and a concept artist on Alien Resurrection. This was designed, composed, shot almost entirely and never used, because we couldn't complete it for budgetary reasons. But initially, in the first opening of the film, we looked at the mouth. The mouth of an insect. Except we didn't know it was an insect. We mistake it for an alien creature. And the camera backs out and actually reveals a little bug. And in one camera move, as it keeps on backing up, we see a finger crushing that insect and sticking the insect into a straw. And splattering that insect against the glass as we recede... And we go all the way back into outer space and actually reveal a giant spaceship, which is where the story begins. I remember especially about the main credit. When I arrived in LA, I was waiting for an offer from the studio. You can imagine - a poor French guy like me, I was very scared. I was in a hotel, waiting for the answer, and I didn't sleep because of jet lag and because I was scared. I thought "OK. To prove to myself I am able to make this film, I have to find a good idea for the main credit, for the first shot." Immediately, I found the story of the guy alone in a big spaceship, with the milk shake and the pipe. He scratches insects, he puts them in the pipe, he blows the insect on the camera. I was very happy about this idea. I told this idea to the studio and they were happy, too. We began to work on it, but it was very very very expensive. One day, my line producer told me, if you could find another idea, because we have not enough money to finish this idea. This is a secret - I was pretty relieved. In fact, I think it was a little bit too funny for the beginning of Alien. I didn't say anything to the people. I said "You want to cut my idea?!" But, in fact, I was very happy, and I prefer the credit we have now. This is a model, and at this time, we hesitated about to use CGI or models for the spaceships. And Pitof preferred to use models. Maybe it was one of the last films with spaceship in model. That was very impressive. I came once on the set while you shot the models, and it was really big. - Yeah. Not really big. It's never enough big. And Pitof made a lot of parts, and he mixed the different parts.

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Pitof, was that making fun of Americans, the way those soldiers are chewing gum? Yes, sort of. It's very Jeunet. And they're chewing in sync. And it's... Yes, it's... - Making fun of Americans. Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis made this fake Sigourney. It was a real pleasure to work with this guy. Here's our first shot. The body of this little girl was based on photographs of Sigourney as a child. Then we worked them into a sculpture based on a life cast of an actress that the casting agent got for us. Look at this beautiful morph. Oh, yes, indeed. We morphed to Sigourney as an adult. That face looks an awful lot like the way she looked in Alien 3, when we took a life cast of her. That's right. And we used a body double to cast the body, didn't we? That's right. And we used a body double to cast the body, didn't we? This is the surgery scene. That was a nice little mechanical chest I made with some digital help there. The laser beam is digital. So it's part of my stuff as a second unit director. That's right. This was a fun little surgery scene, with some of the interactive tissue. Silicone chest that was laid on top of Sigourney. I love the look of this. Darius Khondji did a great job. The way the slime looks is almost metallic-looking. It's got such a beautiful reflectivity. Isn't that great? I love this. It's really disgusting. How it's... Then pop! The head pops.

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Dominique Pinon plays in all my films, and for me he is the perfect actor. He's so inventive, so nice, so perfect. It was amazing for me to bring this actor to the States, because Sigourney Weaver and the studio asked me to have Dominique Pinon. I told this story a lot of times, Dominique, but it's true: I didn't hire you, the studio wanted to work with you. I was very happy, obviously, but, I remember, when Sigourney wanted to call you by phone, and we called you in Paris and you didn't believe me. You said... "No. It's a joke." I remember very well that call, actually. The studio were a little bit worried about Ron Perlman. They appreciated the guy, but they weren't sure it was the right guy for the character. By luck, it was the first day of shooting and they saw the dailies. They came to see me on the stage and they told me "You're right. He is perfect." The set is basically what we call the Betty cargo bay, which is just a lovely, beautiful industrial piece of design. All the rust in the back of it. It's hard to convey just how incredible it was in real life, when you walk through it. It was just absolutely staggeringly detailed and gorgeous. Pitof, none of the ships were digital. That's all models? Pitof, none of the ships were digital. That's all models? I would like to make more digital stuff, but Nigel really wanted to have the real texture. I guess he was right because... They're beautiful. They are gorgeous. Is that background digital? Or was that a model also? The background is a mix with the digital and models. We had a model, but the size had been enhanced in postproduction. Also, it's a lot of layers of small things to make the texture real. So it's not just shooting the miniature as it is. There's a lot of work after that - to have the texture, to get the smoke, to give the depth, and all these things. Is shooting miniatures more time-consuming than doing it digitally? It was more efficient to shoot miniatures because the technology of digi was not as flexible as today. The idea about this film is that these guys are a bunch of hoodilums that are smuggling weapons on board a military ship. The thought was: they'll get strip-searched, and they have to have weapons at some point, so Jean-Pierre's take was that the only way you could bring weapons is by hiding them in plain sight. The two places where he thought you could hide them was a Thermos - which somebody is carrying, which turns out to be a gun - and the wheelchair. The thing about the wheelchair was designing it as a breakaway piece of technology, where every piece could reassemble itself into a weapon. Although the idea's really good, at some point the focus on that was a bit lost - you see all the characters breaking out weapons. I'm not sure how clear it is that they're recombining the wheelchair. But that's the way it was designed, as you could actually take pieces of it apart and snap them into weapons when the scene demanded it at some point. That little wheelchair was built on a structure which we called a mule, which is a six-wheeled radio-controlled robot which is a six-wheeled radio-controlled robot that's designed to lift enormous pieces of equipment in industrial settings. That mule was available to us, so Fox said: "If you can design the wheelchair around this, it'll save us money." So that's what we did.

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I was more excited about the acting part. I didn't look at it as a break. I didn't look at it, you know, at that time you have no idea how the movie's gonna come out. You just know you're working with legends in the making. I mean, you know, already Bob and Marty had such a massive work that it was great just to be playing make-believe with people who were so passionate about that, because I loved the stories that they were telling. You know, I remember the first day of rehearsal,

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I think it was easy for him to jump in that position of my father figure or my older brother that would take care of me in a way. And it's easy for him to get so upset when I get killed in the movie also. Working with Bobby was great. I'd always wanted to work with him. And after the first day we worked together in the scene where we go to get Henry Hill to come back, I remember, and it was very touching to me,

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threw himself back so violently at the first shot that he went flying against the bar and cut his hand. They had to take him to the hospital. He cut it on a pitcher that fell. I mean, I think everybody in that room felt, including me, felt like I killed that kid. Sick maniac. I don't know if you're kidding. What do you mean you're kidding? You're breaking my fucking ball?

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The stuff John Hughes would write, things that I hadn't heard... ... John must've known by talking to people from Chicago. "Silver tuna." - "Silver tuna." The Big G. You know, these kind of things. First day of shooting. - Yeah. First day of shooting on the picture was this scene. And we knew we kind of had something special... ...with your performance and just the look of the film. We did a tremendous amount of setups in one day. I think probably 31 setups in one day, which was... That's a lot. - Which is a lot... ... for something that wasn't being done for television. And, uh.... "I

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And, now, I can't remember if this was you... ...or the stuntman running across the bridge. Or even just-- Or one of the stand-ins. I remember I had like 10 stand-ins. Oh, that's true. That is true. And so then you guys would do a lot of, like, just stuff after I'd go off... ...or at the same time, even. "I'm a criminal." I think this was the first day too. Yeah. - Yeah. This entire concept of the Wet Bandits... ... I'm trying to remember if that was in the original script or not. I don't know or.... I think possibly it was. I thought... For some reason, I had... I have a memory of Dan Stern coming up with it, and I could be wrong. You know, that's why I really wish John Hughes was here because he could... But Dan, for whatever reason... ...was obsessed with the concept of the Wet Bandits. The Wet Bandits and the Sticky Bandits. - Yeah. But this whole look of Dan's is this sort of white-trash, trucker look. It's just something that didn't catch on, unfortunately. And just the contrast in size between the two of them... ...and just height and just build. But the, uh... All of these were little touches by Dan, which, on a movie like this... ...people, you know, don't talk about, don't notice... ...but putting the snow globes from each house with the... You know, attaching them... There's a scene on the deleted sequences... ...where Dan wanted to... He's stolen a cappuccino maker, and they share a cappuccino in the truck. I remember that. - I think it was that scene. This was all shot backwards. - Oh, yeah, that's right. Coming up here. This. So I would scream, and then the car would back out... ...and I would walk backwards. And we did it several times. And it looked pretty awful each time... ...and then finally, that one shot, it worked out perfectly. Well, you had somebody shaking the van, right, you know, at the beginning. And I had to walk, like, backwards, like, heel first or whatever.

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Are those microwave dinners.... Uh, it was interesting, I have this funny... You know, you'll sometimes read reviews about films... ...and people will accuse filmmakers and studios of using product placement. But it's such a difficult question sometimes in movies... ... because if you see orange juice that doesn't look real... ... then it takes you out of it. So it's a very... We had no product placement for any of this movie... ...because no one thought it would do any business. I think the only product placement came later... ...with something called Juicy Juice. That was it. - I remember that. But all of this stuff... Well, I-- Remember when I'm doing the--? Saying grace at the table? And we did one where it's like, "Macaroni and cheese dinner"... ...and the other one was, "Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner." We did two different takes of that. - Oh, my God. Okay, this was scripted, and then at the very end... ... you just told her to keep asking questions. I'm just like.... I forgot what it was. I think you ad-libbed that, "You're a stranger." That was... "Can't tell you that, because you're a stranger." And that got, again, a big laugh. Oh, this was good. - Day one. I had to let go of the strings on the inside of the bags. Oh, yeah, you controlled it, right? Yeah, at the right time, I just let go of the strings... ...and the whole bottom would fall out. Earlier I was talking about the furnace. I had forgotten to mention, when you were eating the candy... ...when you were watching Angels With Filthy Souls for the first time... ... you fell asleep. And you woke up to the entire house coming to life and chasing you. So there were nutcrackers and toy soldiers, and it was a... It was just a sequence I storyboarded for months... ...and the studio said, "You don't have enough money to shoot it."

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That father to have a beard, sort of an older guy. And when he showed up the first day, he was cleanly shaven. And I told him, why did you shave your beard? I told you I wanted the beard. But for some reason, he thought he looked better without the beard. So we actually had to put a fake beard on him. So when I look at a close-up, I don't want the audience to not think that I don't notice what they notice. But John was his name. But he was great. He was a great guy to work with.

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It worked so well like that. Yeah, I was, I mean, again, I'd said I was a writer and a producer in television for a lot of years, but I'd never directed. And I thought I thought I would be easier. But the first day on a set as a new director, boy, you get you get baptism by fire. But, you know, I had a lot of good people and a lot and a great crew. And and Warwick was terrific. And there's eating the bug. And I love that.

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from day one from the very first draft and here it is and his mother was there and he was like eight years old and he had to say it in front of his mother and we got permission but uh... and that's the one where i have a memo that the trimark memo was take it out and i said no it's gonna work and oh it's it's one of the biggest punch lines out there and i do have the memo i might even take a picture of it because i know

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I always saw Sally in this part. I don't know why. You know, Wendy Finerman, the producer, suggested her in, like, the first day or first week that I, you know, signed on to do the movie. And it's just like, wow, yeah, Sally. And I sent Sally the script, and I was very worried about it because, you know, she has to play, you know, ultimately Tom. I mean, when you say it, it's not really that way. Say, Sally, why don't you play Tom Hanks' mother?

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You know, like, for example, when Kennedy's got the football at the very first shot, that was actually in Rose Garden. But we found that image of him and we put him in the Oval Office with our, you know, background plate. Stuff like that. So we just looked at everything. And then when we found the bits of film, we went back, revised the script to try to weave the story into what we had. And I know the joke of, like, when Kennedy says, I believe he said he has to go pee.

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from day one of shooting. He's editing. I don't look at it, but he's there cutting because, you know, there always comes that moment where you got to like maybe see something and see how the movie's coming together to see where you are. So my endless conversation with my editor in dailies is, oh, you know, don't throw that out. Don't use that. That's never going to work. You know, it's like just cut it all out. But there's also that's

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I really wanted to get the feel of Cairo in the 20s, and I think this is about as close as you can get. I don't think Cairo nowadays even looks anything like Cairo in the 20s. And so Marrakesh doubled very nicely, and the people were great, and the extras were very authentic looking. It was kind of a fun scene, especially the next one coming up where we had 500 prisoners. It was a lot of fun. This is, I think, the first day of filming, actually, this scene right here.

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leads, they seem to work with the audience. Especially this little thing right here where Brendan about gets his head blown off. I added this the night before we started shooting it right here, this whole thing. And I was just hoping that they wouldn't take Brendan's ear off before I finished shooting the movie. I'd say that actually looks quite dangerous. I think the look on his face was, I'm going to kill the director. I mean, those squibs are awfully close to his head, but you know, whatever. Yeah, Brendan was such a trooper, but no...

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The first shot of the CG mummy. Although Arnold Vosloo, who plays the mummy, plays Imhotep, he was a little disappointed because he was hoping it would be like, you know, gooier or scarier. But being PG-13, we had to, you know, there was a certain limit as to how gooey and scary and disgusting a mummy could be. These next special effects shots, we shot them at dusk, right as the sun was setting.

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Paul M. Sammon

Now, Tommy Noonan goes through a lot of changes in this film's costumes, and interestingly enough, they didn't develop this in the final shooting script, but the idea was that he was not only a very powerful drug dealer, but he was a religious figure. In fact, that first shot you saw him sitting in the dark surrounded by the wall, the actual scripted version had him in a priest costume in an auditorium with 2,000 followers who were on their knees singing hallelujah.

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Paul M. Sammon

Here's a funny joke coming up. Now, this little lead that's supposed to be feeding information into Robo's head, when we first shot this, you'll see in a second that Robo becomes more independent, and he will pull this thing out of his head. What the crew did is they glued it for the first shot, and he couldn't do it. And he couldn't do it and kept trying, and then he goes, all right, you guys, and he started to laugh, and the whole crew busted up. There were more crew people in the back. That's Dennis Pollack.

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wonderfully beautiful, you know, dancers. Well, I'll tell you, it was again, a nightmare where, you know, for the amount of money that we couldn't pay, we had like really, really bad people kind of swirling around. And I was going, oh, this is not gonna look the way I want it. And suddenly what happened in the days before we started shooting is that someone in that community visited the site and said, this is gonna be a really cool movie. And suddenly every stripper in town

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music right from day one. And so people already get used to this completely, this temporary score of scores from other films. And so in a way, they've already made the decisions. This film will have piano and orchestra. I mean, look at the instruments that are in this film. Who could have possibly temped in, you know, a shehnai and a piano? It's not possible. And so the fact that we came up with that concept

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Frank Marshall said it was pretty standard that Raiders of the Lost Ark was 73, but they had no gorillas, and it wasn't an ensemble. They started shooting September 26, 1994, and went through January. As we're starting to get into the technological aspect of this movie, and we're about to go into the Travacom company and whatever you'd call it, control room,

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amassing whatever knowledge he could. And at one point, he crashed the set of Marlon Brando's One-Eyed Jacks and watched cinematographer Charles Lang creating the gorgeous VistaVision images of that film. And that's what really hooked him on the idea of becoming a DP. When he graduated from high school, he bought a 16mm camera and started shooting everything he could, you know, student films.

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moving about, if any. So I really like seeing it get up and about. And that first shot of the Bambi Burster, they call it, that's completely convincing. I think that looks brilliant. I love that. I really like the idea behind it and everything. And I really appreciate the fact that they've gone back to Giger's original smooth cranium concept as well, away from Cameron's variation. And that they hired Giger...

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There's a miniature shot of the alien running up, then it cuts to a close-up of Tom. We did do a fake head of Charles Dance - it's coming up here in a minute - where the creature punches a hole in his head. And we had to do a head cast of Charles in an extreme expression. And as I recall, he was great about it. He's actually, for as serious as this character is, he was a very jovial guy. Yeah, I guess it was like an animatronic head, dripping. In order to do this movie, we built a complete silent motion-control dolly that could go at running speed, which we wound up never needing to use. You could actually run with it at high speed and it would repeat, and it was quiet enough to shoot sound. Of course, when we got to England to set it up for the first shot, nothing worked. We were tearing our hair out and found out the system wasn't grounded because they had run an extension cord into the hallway. But then, once we found that, we didn't have any problems. But that was in order to enable us to shoot scenes with pans and tilts, and then scale those moves to shoot the scenes back at the studio with a rod-puppet alien one-third scale... with a moving camera, so it wouldn't skate around in the scene. I think this rod-puppet technique is very interesting. I think it still has some validity now, even in the digital era. Yeah. - And probably now, I don't know... Well, I guess you'd still have to do the motion-control stuff to match moves. Or track it now. If you're gonna do a CG character, you can track it. But you wouldn't be able to track like that with a miniature puppet, would you? You'd have to use motion control. It's a real mechanical lollapalooza. But there is a nice presence to it that really looks like a physical thing. It gets around some of the difficult issues of CGI, in that the lighting is playing on it. And the director can direct it. Fincher could come by and direct the puppet. Five guys, you know, operating this character against bluescreen, there were some pretty bizarre mountains of equipment to get these shots working. And flags, and stands, and wires everywhere. And flags, and stands, and wires everywhere.

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He came onto the set the first day, and he was so energetic and so pumped to have a line that he wouldn't stop bothering me to have. There's Frida Kahlo. That was the reference. Oh, I didn't know. Oh, my God. I didn't even know. This character, yeah, this is the Frida Kahlo. I wanted to have Frida Kahlo in there. That's great. You don't let any artistic stone get unturned. That's funny. Yes, it's the classic scene where they don't know what they're eating, but I love that Stallone says, Ratburger, sure.

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1,800 more effects shots in that sequence, and they wouldn't have looked any better. Well, it's hard to argue that, especially when you've got someone like Phil Tippett on the case, definitely. By the way, this is the first shot we shot in the whole movie. This one right here? Yep, that was it. Why do you think people had such a problem with him flying? Because I just remember there being such a negative reaction to that at the time. Why do you think that was? I think the same reason that they would have...

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claimed the throne of Scotland... This was actually the first day of principal photography here. This was the first shot, I remember. And it was murderous because it kept raining and we kept stopping. I learned that day that this region had the highest precipitation in all of Europe, so...

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Taylor Hackford

At this point, seeing a guy walk up to him in the bar, Keanu is completely convinced... ...that one of his friends has put this guy up to it. And this actor, who is Ruben Santiago Hudson... ...is a fabulous actor. He won the Tony for an August Wilson play, Seven Guitars. I saw him on stage and just felt, "I want to work with this guy." So when the role of Leamon Heath came up, you know, I had Tony Gilroy... ...kind of tailor the role to fit Ruben, and then convinced Ruben to do the film... ...because he has a very unique quality. He's not your totally assimilated black character. He may have gone to Harvard, he may have gone to Yale... ...but he's maintained a lot of his own roots and integrity, and at the same time... ...he's smart like a whip and he knows he's got Kevin hooked. The next scene that you're about to see hot cut to Kevin's roots: A Southern church, and this congregation is real. Judith Ivey, who is being introduced here as Kevin's mother. You know Kevin was raised in this church, he's coming... ...and taking a look back at his past, was totally fundamentalist... ...and deeply, deeply rooted in Jesus and God. Judith Ivey is part of this group. I had to spend a lot of effort convincing Pastor Lovell and his church... ...in Gainesville, Florida to participate in this film, because I feel that... ...you know, the things that they believe in, the things they're after... ...have everything to do with establishing good and evil in the world... ...and fighting the devil, and that's what this film is about. But they were fabulous, and they really got the spirit of God in them. And I thought it was important to see that Judith Ivey is a believer. She is one with her God, she loves Him. And, you know, she's a formidable presence for good in this film. At the same time, she's a tough mother, and you can see that... ...she has raised him in a certain way and she doesn't particularly approve... ...of what he's done with his life. He's a lawyer, and you establish his wife... ...over at the car, Mary Ann, who obviously is a party girl, a liver, and not... Neither one of them are in church this morning, and Mother is not that happy. This sequence is important to understand that Kevin Lomax understands scripture. He may have made a choice at this point to stay outside the church. If you notice, he's half in, half out of the light. Tony Gilroy wrote this in the script. Kevin Lomax stands outside the congregation. He's half in, half out of the light. He is part of it and at the same time... ...he can't bring himself to walk in. There's a dichotomy in him, which you'll discover later. But in this instance, when his mother calls up and says: "Quote the Bible to me and mention scripture," he can quote it back to her. He knows what he's talking about. He was in that church and a devout member at one point. Now you get a sense of Mary Ann. She is a good person. She's trying to help this character. She doesn't want to get the company to repossess her car. But she's tough, and she's a businesswoman. You also have a sense, right here, of the fun that these two people have. Keanu, you know, biting off her earring and handing it back to her... ...that was totally spontaneous. He came in, did that. It was quite wonderful. Now you have a sense of the married couple. They've got Mother-in-law... ...and Mary Ann's no dummy... ...she knows exactly that she's persona non grata in that household. It isn't that she doesn't like her mother-in-law, but she understands... ...what she needs to do, like have a child. And right now you establish another theme of the film: "Let's give her a grandchild and everything will be all right." Mary Ann is ready. She's working. She's professional. But she's ready to start to have a family. But you hot cut to Kevin Lomax who's taken the deal. He's in New York. At the beginning it's just a vacation. He's going to consult on the selection of a jury. You see Foley Square, the seat of judicial power in New York... ...all the Federal buildings, the State buildings, the local... Everything is right there in one space. It's a very, very sobering look at the power of the legal community in New York City. And at the same time, for a guy from Gainesville, Florida, it's very impressive. Kevin's here. He's excited. He is working as a consultant... ...to one of Manhattan's best and most famous criminal trial attorneys. His name is Meisel, played by George Wyner. And in this moment I wanted people to see that Kevin Lomax truly has a talent. When you talk to criminal attorneys, you realize that they say... ...that between So to 95 percent of winning a case is selecting a jury. This is a scene that I think talks about the inside of lawyering... ...and the reality of how you win. You win by psyching-out everyone that's gonna be on that jury. Those are the people that are gonna make the decision of whether you win or lose. This is where Kevin Lomax shines. He has an intuitive spirit. At the end of the scene, you realize he's got something else. He's got a sixth sense. Now, it's important, when we see this courtroom, to understand... ...that I wanted authenticity in this film. You're in New York. You have some of the best looking courtrooms in, I think, the United States. At the beginning, Warner Bros. wanted me to go to Canada and shoot in Toronto... ...which is an entirely different judicial system and the courtrooms... ...don't look the same at all. I fought to shoot this film in New York... ...not only for the fantastic exteriors, but also for these interiors. This is a film about big-time lawyering, and you want to feel, when you see the sets... ...and these aren't sets, they're locations. You want to feel that this guy is in the big time. He's gone from Gainesville, Florida to the top of the food chain. We shot in probably seven or eight of the best courtrooms... ...you could find anywhere in the world. Look at these paintings up on the wall here in New York. You feel that this is the justice system. Now Kevin is exhilarated. He comes out of his first day... ...in the New York courtroom and he knows he's done well. He didn't know how he would measure up, and how he measures up is... ...he's smarter than they are. I mean, he has to feel great. He's walking down the street. He's saying I'm a guy from the hicks, and someone's watching him. This is the introduction of John Milton, who's played by Al Pacino. It was important to me to establish a very nice introduction to him. One thing that Al did, and you'll start to see into this... ...he chews on licorice all the way through this film. You don't explain it. You know he's doing something. And instead of just walking away, getting in a limousine, he goes downstairs... ...into the subway. Why would he do that? He's well dressed. That's it. But immediately I go into a time lapse sequence... ...and I wanted to see day and night change. I wanted it to also say that this trial's been going on for a long time. When Kevin walks in, Mary Ann says, "You're home early for a change." Time has passed here. You've seen it pass. But more importantly, you see Al Pacino going down into the subway... ...and you see that the next images are not real. There is a certain kind of power that this person... ...we don't even know who he is yet, exudes. I thought that the time lapse would be both unique in terms of time passage... ...and, at the same time, extraordinary in terms of the potential power... ...that this man has. Now you've got Wife and Husband in... Mary Ann's got room service all over the room. Clearly, they've been there for a long time. She's watching TV. She's having a good time. She's been shopping. She's been to a lot of things, but her husband's been gone every day. And now you see the way they play. Kevin looks like he's defeated. It looks like he's lost the case. She feels badly for him. You can really see how she would, you know, how warm and wonderful... ...and sweet she is. But he's kidding her. You can really see the slyness, I think, in Keanu Reeves here. And, at the same time, he killed 'em. He actually chose the jury... ...and won the case, almost an impossible case. It was like a savings-and-loan fraud. This is white-collar crime. The guy sitting there in the trial, with his white hair... ...looks extremely legit. But the fact is that, you know, he's like Charles Keating. You know, he stole not millions, but tens of millions of dollars. And in this instance, the next shot is, they are in John Milton's domain. This is Milton, Chadwick and Waters, and I wanted a location that immediately... ...established the power of this law firm. This is a real building. It's the Continental Plaza in Wall Street, in the financial district, Downtown... ...and you see what New York power is all about. That view is a three-bridge view. You're gonna see all the way up the island of Manhattan. But the important thing here was, this location was used before in other films. I didn't want to use that same look. There's a unique design look here. Bruno Rubeo, who is my production designer and my collaborator... ...on the last three films I've done... ...we spent probably six to eight months before this film began... ...talking about what we wanted from this film and the look. Right now you're looking at Christabella, the first time we see her... ...and if you notice as she walks forward, I slowed down. It goes in real time. There's no cut there. We ramped so she starts in real time... ...she slows down... ...and comes back out in real time. And Kevin Lomax, he doesn't know why he's fascinated by her. We'll find out later. But look at the design in this. It's ultra modern. We used both an Italian architect and a Japanese architect. This is the Italian. He used prefab concrete in the walls. Milton's office. You know, the rest of the building is very impressive... ...but this office is something else again. It's cold, it's austere, and it's incredibly impressive. Look at that fireplace in the background. It's set up off the floor. Bruno had a design in mind. The furniture in this place is... You have a big, massive place. But look at the furniture. That little settee in front of the fire: it's delicate, it's small. This whole room exudes taste and a certain stylistic quotient. John Milton, you know, it's a huge room, devoid of furniture, very minimal... ...this is a man who has real taste and real choices that he's made. At the same time, this whole law firm is very, very modern. For the design quotient of this film, I want you to be able to see this sequence... ...and then later on, when you see where Milton lives, see the dichotomy... ...the difference. This is cutting-edge modern architecture to the nth degree. What Bruno wanted to do, and I wanted to do in this instance... ...is establish Milton's environment. Here it's cold, corporate, but, at the same time, undeniably impressive... ...austere, ultra-designed. Milton is very smooth. You know, Al Pacino always gets this rap: "Oh, gee, he's over the top." He's not. Al Pacino can play everything. And everything he did in this film was calculated. I mean, it was one of the great experiences in my life to work with an actor of... ...his deep, deep ability, his deep, deep talent... ...and his uncompromising attitude towards all his work. At the same time, Keanu, who had this... I'm saying this because here's these... ...two actors meeting for the first time. Keanu, who had done a lot of young-man roles, a lot of teenage slackers... ...in this film is anything but that. Kevin Lomax is precise. He is not a Harvard educated, a Yale educated guy. He came from a small school in Florida, went to a small law school. But all criminal attorneys that are really great usually did that. They come from the street. He's street smart. He thinks on his feet. And he's up against a guy, for the first time, that seems to have a little bit more... ...on the ball than even he does. He's never met anybody before that is his equal. And Milton keeps blowing his mind, like he does right now. You see this office. All of a sudden, he goes and taps on the door... ...opens up, and I wanted this sequence to truly be a moment... ...that would blow everybody's mind, not only Kevin Lomax's. He walks out on a roof terrace and, effectively, I'm using... Again, this is from a Japanese design. Bruno and I saw an architect... ...that had a pond on the roof in Japan, and I said that is a perfect idea... ...for what we want to do here. Here is a man who has such a sense of design and such a sense of grandeur... ...that he has created for himself a balcony, if you will, a terrace, a park on top. But does it have greenery on it? No. It has water. He calls it calming, placid. And at the same time, he's going to take Keanu out there... ...and he's going to talk about his past. He's going to find out a little bit more about him. He asks about his father. Keanu says, "I never had one." He asks about his mother. And in this instance he's, you know, if you look at Al's reactions here... ...this is a long, talky sequence. This is what you do sometimes. By the way, this is real. This is not blue screen. We didn't put the artists in a studio. I fought to get this scene. I fought everyone, including Warner Bros. Nobody wanted me to go up and get this shot. It's on the roof of the Continental Tower. They had re-roofed the place. The building didn't want us up there. I just knew that this sequence was going to define this initial relationship... ...between Kevin Lomax and John Milton. And the two actors are basically 50 stories in the air right now. They're standing on an eight-foot platform. No, it's not right on the edge. It's about eight feet from the edge. But the fact is that they're standing there. We had to get this whole thing in one day, and they have to do... ...a very personal scene while they're perched on the top of this building. You can see Al, at that moment, trying to let us know a little bit how precarious it is. But do you notice any kind of nervousness from Pacino? Not at all. He's easy. And the whole essence here is that Keanu's sitting out there. One, his mind is blown... ...at the beginning, and then somehow he finds himself getting into it. And at the same time, he looks right here and says: "My God, John Milton's standing like a foot from the edge of a 50-story precipice. "What kind of guy is this?" He also wears elevator shoes, which I think is interesting. But the fact is, right here is what the film also is about. It's about pressure. It's about professionalism. And what John Milton has done is taken Keanu Reeves... ...or Kevin Lomax, in this case, up to the precipice. He's showing him: "All this can be yours." And what is it? It's Wall Street. It's the seat of capitalistic power in the world. And he's basically saying, you know, I know you're a hotshot... ...but can you take the pressure? Can you sleep at night? That little speech that Tony Gilroy wrote, I think, fits all professionals in this instance. When you have to deliver on a deadline, you know what he's talking about. Basically, Kevin is there. He's ready. He said, "What about money?" Milton laughs. "Money? That's the easy part." Kevin doesn't have any problem. He can sleep at night. He's a lawyer. He knows how to do it. We cut from that to Carnegie Hill, which is Fifth Avenue in the Nineties in New York. It's probably the most exclusive address in New York. Central Park is on one side. You have these beautiful, beautiful buildings with fantastic apartments inside. And the Heaths. You're meeting Jackie Heath for the first time. I reveal her with that wipe from the elevator, you see her in close-up. Leamon Heath and Jackie Heath, they are absolutely New Yorkers. They've maintained their integrity as black people, but at the same time... ...they are not about to resist the temptations of the city. They want it. They know how to deal with it. They're very sophisticated. Look at the clothes that Jackie's wearing. Leamon makes the money and she knows how to spend it... ...and she doesn't have any qualms about it. This apartment, I wanted to basically establish the sense of awe. You know, John Milton owns this building. He has it for his employees. Although it's usually for partners, and for Kevin Lomax to get an apartment first up... ...shows that he's a little special, and you can feel, right here... ...that they're a little jealous. "Took us six years to get in here." Every New Yorker will understand that when they really want to get into... ...a big building. This is a film about New York. Tony Gilroy, who lives in New York and understands it incredibly well... ...is able to put these nuances in here that are maybe not aimed at everyone. But certainly, you know, you make a film in New York... ...it was important to me that you do something real. Now, you know, Kevin has basically been offered the job. He's got to now sell his wife on it. And this is a big test. If she, you know... He says, "I'll take you home if you want." Of course, if she did, God knows what he'd think. She knows him. She knows what he wants. And at the same time, how could you turn this down? It's very important right now, at this moment... ...to understand that Mary Ann wants this as badly as Kevin does. I mean, who would resist? Come on. They're too big for a small pond. They both want this and, my God, she's looking at this and saying: "Hey, I want to have a family." She says right now, you know, she mentioned kids again. She's mentioned it in the back of the apartment... ...and she mentions it again right now, and she's saying, "I'm in. Let's go for it." And that moment is one of the last moments of true happiness... ...you're going to ever see them have. Now you're at the law firm, and I want to be able to show... ...what big time lawyering is about. These are all partners. It's an international law firm. John Milton has called a meeting. From all over the world, these partners have come. There's Eddie Barzoon, played by Jeffrey Jones, who is Milton's chief lieutenant. He's the managing partner of the firm. There are affiliate offices in major capitals all over the world... ...and you get a sense of what law is all about. It's about copyrights. It's about real estate. It's about EEC and EUC and those kinds of relationships.

11:08 · jump to transcript →

Darren Aronofsky

Throughout the film so we have that shot looking down from the camp from above the closet I think it was actually the first shot we shot of the film And now we introduce all ropes and we actually shot all the Saul scenes at My college roommates parents home on the Upper West Side. They're both Upper West Side leftists professors and

10:56 · jump to transcript →