“Barbie” Casting Directors Allison Jones And Lucy Bevan on Populating Barbie Land

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Since its release last month, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie has been hailed as a marvel of a balancing act between sincerity and hilarity. On top of the nuanced script, Barbieland is populated by a Barbie and Ken of every stripe, for every type, despite dozens of characters who share a mere two first names (plus the singular Allan). Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) and her dependent Ken (Ryan Gosling) were early commitments to the Warner Bros. project, but for co-casting directors Allison Jones (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lady Bird) and Lucy Bevan (The Batman, Belfast), casting the wild melange of supporting doll roles meant combing through audition tapes of a who’s-who roster of actors thrilled at the chance to be immortalized as two of pop culture’s most iconic plastic figures.

aption: (L-r) MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie, ALEXANDRA SHIPP as Barbie, MICHAEL CERA as Allan, ARIANA GREENBLATT as Sasha and AMERICA FERRERA as Gloria in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

The actors needed to be funny, of course. But what set apart the audition tapes (more on that anachronism in a moment) was a pure and well-rounded earnestness. “The thing that Greta did always stress was that none of these people were sarcastic or winking at the camera. They were really Kens and Barbies,” Jones explained. In addition to being able to land a comedy beat, the actors needed to be sincere, truthful, and guileless. “There were certain scenes we used to audition, and the fine line between the comedy and sincerity of those characters is a difficult balance,” Bevan said.

 

Because casting took place during Covid, Jones and Bevan reverted back to the use of taped auditions. “Huge actors went on tape with only seeing a few pages of dialogue,” Jones said, and since “everybody was Barbie in the script,” the pair wound up working in reverse, sending the tapes they liked on to Gerwig, who then identified particular talent for different Barbies and Kens. “She really made the characters for who she liked best in different auditions,” Jones said, designating Issa Rae as President Barbie, for example, and looking for Ken’s arch-rival Ken by seeking out the actor who would be best to “beach off” with Gosling’s character.

Caption: (L-r) EMMA MACKEY as Barbie, NCUTI GATWA as Ken, SIMU LIU as Ken, MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie, RYAN GOSLING as Ken and KINGSLEY BEN-ADIR as Ken in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: ISSA RAE as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

Before it became a go-to quote in the Barbie fandom lexicon, rival Ken’s challenge — “I’ll beach you off any day, Ken” —  was one of the film’s audition lines. “Those scenes were fun to audition,” said Bevan. “Some of the Kens would take off their t-shirts, and we were like, no, no, you don’t need to take off your t-shirt. But Simu [Liu] just nailed that [line] in the film.” Allan required some demystifying. Jones used pictures of different Allan dolls owned by a Barbie collector friend, sending them out to agents to shed light on this previously unknown resident of Barbieland, now immortalized by Michael Cera. “I’m so happy that in perpetuity now he’s like an icon for being Allan,” Jones joked.

Caption: (L-r) ISSA RAE as Barbie, SCOTT EVANS as Ken, SIMU LIU as Ken, EMMA MACKEY as Barbie and NCUTI GATWA as Ken in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

Since the film’s release, the internet has teemed with anecdotes of beloved comedic actors who wanted to be in Barbie but aren’t. It’s not because they aren’t funny enough. “It’s rather a boring reason, actually,” Bevan said. “On a movie like this, it was a hugely ambitious shoot and a complicated schedule, and you can have brilliant ideas, and people’s availability either does or doesn’t work.” Thanks to strict Covid rules in the UK, where most of the film was shot, and the scale of the project, even smaller roles required a three-month commitment. So, no gossip there.

Caption: (L-r) RYAN GOSLING, MARGOT ROBBIE and Director/Writer GRETA GERWIG on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk

Even auditioning was a commitment, given Barbie‘s closely-guarded script. Bevan and Jones got to read it in its entirety, of course, but were limited to sending the actors’ sides (short script excerpts). “And now you have to send things through websites where you have to go through layers of passwords to get to the sides,” said Jones, of the effort actors went through to tape themselves. “So it was very secretive. I don’t think anybody knew quite how good it was,” she added. But just as Gerwig has become a name who can draw in movie-goers no matter the project, so too is the director for the actors themselves.“We weren’t allowed to send the script to anybody. So people did a lot of it on faith,” Jones said. “Everybody wanted to work with Greta, for good reason.”

 

For more on Barbie, check out these stories:

Historic Success of “Barbie” has Made Greta Gerwig Highest-Grossing Female Director Ever Domestically

“Barbie” and Greta Gerwig Make History Again

“Barbie” Hair & Makeup Artist Ivana Primorac Conjures Personality From Plastic

Pretty in Pink With “Barbie” Production Designer Sarah Greenwood & Set Decorator Katie Spencer

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) ANA CRUZ KAYNE as Barbie, SHARON ROONEY as Barbie, ALEXANDRA SHIPP as Barbie, MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie, HARI NEF as Barbie and EMMA MACKEY as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

“Blue Beetle” First Reactions: A Funny, Poignant, Exciting Film Led by a Stellar Xolo Maridueña

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A heartfelt story steeped in Latin culture with charismatic characters and a ripping plot—you couldn’t ask for better first reactions from Blue Beetle, the second-to-last DC Studios film to premiere during the new tenure of James Gunn and Peter Safran, who are taking DC Studios in a brand new direction. (Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which is due in theaters on December 20, is the last DC Studios film from the previous era.) From the tenor of these initial reactions to director Angel Manuel Soto‘s Blue Beetle, it sounds like there might be plenty of people hoping that star Xolo Maridueña’s Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle becomes a part of Gunn and Safran’s new-look DC Universe.

Maridueña stars as Jaime Reyes, a college graduate who inherits some spectacular (and unpredictable) powers when he comes into contact with an alien scarab. Jaime’s newfound abilities present some serious post-college challenges for a young man trying to find his way, one of those being unpuzzling why the alien scarab arrived on Earth in the first place and what he’s supposed to do with these spectacular abilities he now possesses. 

The film comes from aforementioned Charm City Kings director Angel Manuel Soto, from a script by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, and is the first DC film to focus on a Latino superhero, centering Jaime’s family, which includes his mom, dad, sister, grandmother, and uncle.

Blue Beetle arrives on August 18. Let’s take a quick, spoiler-free tour of the first reactions:

For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and Max, check out these stories:

Historic Success of “Barbie” has Made Greta Gerwig Highest-Grossing Female Director Ever Domestically

“Barbie” and Greta Gerwig Make History Again

“Barbie” Hair & Makeup Artist Ivana Primorac Conjures Personality From Plastic

Featured image: Caption: XOLO MARIDUEÑA as Blue Beetle in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action adventure “BLUE BEETLE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/™ & © DC Comics

Historic Success of “Barbie” has Made Greta Gerwig Highest-Grossing Female Director Ever Domestically

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The Barbie phenomenon has proven to be the summer’s biggest storyline. Co-writer/director Greta Gerwig’s critically acclaimed imagining of the life and world of Mattel’s iconic doll has broken box office records and made history repeatedly since its July 21 premiere. Let’s break down the numbers.

Gerwig is now the highest-grossing female director domestically, with Barbie now surpassing Frozen II, which Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck directed. Barbie has made Gerwig the highest-grossing female director of a live-action movie, now that Barbie surpassed Captain Marvel, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, with a global total of $1.184 billion thus far.

Barbie has also entered the Warner Bros. pantheon, surpassing The Dark Knight Rises and three Harry Potter films in their top ten highest-grossing films of all time. Barbie‘s stunning opening weekend was the biggest domestic opener ever for a female director, solo or otherwise, and after a scant 17 days after its release, became the first live-action film in movie history directed by a woman to join the coveted billion-dollar club.

If Barbie can pass $1.43 billion, it will pass Frozen II and become the top-grossing movie of all time, whether live-action or animated, to be helmed by a female director. At the rate Barbie‘s breaking records, there are few people who would bet against this juggernaut.

For more on Barbie, check out these stories:

“Barbie” and Greta Gerwig Make History Again

“Barbie” Hair & Makeup Artist Ivana Primorac Conjures Personality From Plastic

Pretty in Pink With “Barbie” Production Designer Sarah Greenwood & Set Decorator Katie Spencer

The Barbenheimer Phenomenon Was Real, and Historic

Greta Gerwig Makes History as “Barbie” Becomes Biggest Opening Weekend Ever For Female Director

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) MARGOT ROBBIE, ANA CRUZ KAYNE, Director/Writer GRETA GERWIG and HARI NEF on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk

How “Sanctuary” Cinematographer Ludovica Isidori Turned a Single Room Into a Dynamic Psycho-Emotional Arena

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How do you make a single location subliminally consume an entire story? That was the question Italian cinematographer Ludovica Isidori had to answer in director Zachary Wigon’s sophomore film Sanctuary.

Starring Christopher Abbott (Girls) as Hal, an heir to a luxury hotel empire, and Margaret Qualley (Maid), a dominatrix named Rebecca who is equal parts seductive, smart, and clever, Sanctuary is a slow-burn psychological thriller that reveals the intimacy of their unorthodox relationship with delicious restraint. It’s a relationship that has major business benefits for Hal—Rebecca has transformed Hal into someone capable of taking over the family business. His renewed vigor, however, is unpromising for Rebecca as he wants to end their arrangement. What ensues is a series of power plays that flash between reality and fantasy: Hal wanting to start a new life and Rebecca reminding him of her worth. All of it is confined to a single space – a hotel room.  

“The biggest conversation Zach and I had was how to make a movie that belongs to cinema,” Isidori tells The Credits. “We wanted the audience to know they were in for a ride and be aware they’re watching a movie. So we thought the camera could sometimes call attention to itself without taking away from the performances. It gave us the freedom to make this a much bigger journey.”

The visual grammar was planned with storyboards – the first half of which was made using phone apps. Camera moves matched the emotional tenor and power dynamics of scenes, sometimes zooming, moving 180 degrees, or breaking the fourth wall for effect. Isidori considered specific camera language for when the two characters cohabit the same frame or when they were opposite poles. For moments when their “egos are maxed out” or “stakes are heightened,” the camera whip pans as if it’s grabbing for attention. 

Framing was also based on the story’s timeline and who was moving it along. In the opening sequence, which sees Rebecca pull out papers and ask Hal about his ability to take over as CEO, the camera reveals the space through a series of connecting dolly shots. “The reason we chose dolly instead of Steadicam or handheld was dictated by the idea that it’s a first date,” says Isidori. “Your body language changes throughout the night. You’re first figuring it out. You’re a little more rigid, a little more uptight and staged. And then you loosen up.”

Rebecca (Margaret Qualley ) and Hal (Christopher Abbott) in Sanctuary. Courtesy Neon.

As the two sit at a table and Rebecca begins to ask him questions, shots were rhythmically edited to the score from composer Ariel Marx building to a climactic reveal. “We choreographed and rehearsed that scene the most,” notes Isidori. “The shots were meticulously planned, and the zooms built this pressure cooker, ticking bomb effect. Some of the shots were instinctual based on the performance that unfolds in front of your eyes. Having Zach’s trust for those moments was phenomenal. It was a combination of planning and letting your instincts take over when something works well. It adds that little sparkle.”

Margaret Qualley is Rebecca in Sanctuary. Courtesy Neon.

One captivating scene that shows the power dynamics between the couple is when Rebecca tells Hal to clean the bathroom. Here, Rebecca sits in a chair wearing a green velour business suit and a white puffy shirt ordering him around. The camera looks up at her in a display of dominance. “Margaret sat down like a boss, and it made us want to put the camera down and look up at her on a wider lens and under light the scene. It’s not a beauty choice, but it works,” she says. “On the reverse angle [showing Hal], it gives a sense of voyeurism. We embraced the nature of the role game.”

Rebecca (Margaret Qualley ) and Hal (Christopher Abbott) in Sanctuary. Courtesy Neon.

In another scene where Hal loses control, the camera mimics his mindset with a spiraling frame. “It’s the idea that he’s losing his point of reference. He’s existing in a world of rule,s and now that the rules are gone, he doesn’t have an anchor point anymore,” explains Isidori.

For intimate moments, characters would gaze directly into the camera as a way to visualize emotions and control. “The questions we thought about is what creates intimacy and what is the closest proximity you can create through a lens,” says Isidori. “Our answer was them acting to the lens as if it was another person. At the same time, there is a play with the audience. Is Rebecca seducing him or us?”

Color and lighting highlighted the emotional space of each character. Practicals were supplemented with LEDs and tube lighting throughout the location, with decisions being made not simply based on the room alone but on how they played when the characters were next to each other. In scenes where practical lights were smashed by a character during a fit of rage allowed the cinematographer to change the mood organically. For instance, the hotel bedroom is lit with tungsten but changes halfway through to green.  “It works because of where they are emotionally,” says Isidori. It’s a hint to the contaminating world of light outside affecting the narrative inside. Isidori also switched between anamorphic to spherical lenses for visual subtlety. The first and last acts use anamorphic for the theatrical feel, and the middle section uses spherical to let the characters take the lead.

“It’s a layered movie because there’s a play within them. A natural role play,” says Isidori. “Then there’s all these layers that keep shifting, and there is this play with the audience that happens as well. We tried to support all that so you, as an active viewer, are a participant.”

 

Sanctuary is available now to stream and/or rent on a number of platforms. 

Featured image: Rebecca (Margaret Qualley ) and Hal (Christopher Abbott) in Sanctuary. Courtesy Neon.

 

Emmy-Nominated Casting Director Theo Park on Fielding the Perfect Squad for “Ted Lasso”

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There isn’t an Oscars category for casting directors (yet), but the Emmys have recognized the foundational importance of the people who find actors with the talent and the chemistry to create magic on screen. Without casting directors, a lot of your favorite moments onscreen would likely never have happened. 

In an interview with The Credits, two-time Emmy winner and current nominee Theo Park, nominated for her stellar work on Ted Lasso, talked about how she became a casting director, her favorite scene from the hit Apple series (which garnered 21 Emmy nominations in total), which Ted Lasso actor made an immediate impression, which one had to be persuaded to take the job, and which one never had to audition at all, despite having no background in comedy.

 

I don’t think children grow up and say, “Someday, I want to be a casting director.” So, how did you find yourself in that job?

I think a lot of us casting directors are failed actors, some ex-actors, or at least people who have aspired to be an actor. And that’s what I did. I wanted very much when I was a child to be an actor. And then, when I got into my teens, I realized that it’s really hard to be an actor, but I still had a passion for performance.

So you kept performing?

I did film at university. And became an agent after working in television for a bit. But realized when I was an agent that it wasn’t quite creative enough. We were looking after fabulous actors but not really being involved in the creative process. So, I flipped it. Instead of selling actors, I decided to buy them. And I was really lucky. I just landed a really fabulous job helping out a casting director in London called Nina Gold. I was her assistant for a few years, and she taught me wonderfully. And I’ve been on my own for about eight years now.

Theo Park

What is the most important quality that a casting director has to have?

Probably an understanding of actors and their work and their craft and what they go through to create a performance. I think having had that background; it has definitely put me in good stead.

So, does it begin with you sitting down with the showrunner and talking about the characters and what they’re looking for?

Yes, absolutely. You’re normally sent a script. And in the case of Ted Lasso, I was sent the pilot script, so that gave me a good idea of the world. And then you talk to the creatives. In this instance, it was Jason Sudeikis, and he talked me through all of the characters, who was going to be a regular, and who were the important characters that we needed to focus on. And then we’d talk about their arcs because I’d only read one script and a lot of it hadn’t been written yet. And then I’d go away and come up with some ideas, and then we’d talk again.

Brendan Hunt, Jason Sudeikis and Nick Mohammed in “Ted Lasso” season two, now streaming on Apple TV+.
Brendan Hunt, Jason Sudeikis and Nick Mohammed in “Ted Lasso” season two, now streaming on Apple TV+.

What about when you’re actually taping a performer?

When it’s a taping situation, as in the creatives are either out of the country or already shooting, and they can’t meet a whole load of actors in the flesh, we will get people to just audition with us. And then I might be a bit more selective and only send Jason half a dozen of the best people. And he and the creatives get to choose the pick of the bunch.

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 10: (L-R) Phil Dunster, Stephen Manas, James Lance, Hannah Waddingham, Charlie Hiscock, Juno Temple, David Elsendoorn, Cristo Fernández, Kola Bokinni, Annette Badland, Jeremy Swift, Yvette Nicole Brown, Moe Jeudy-Lamour, Billy Harris, and Theo Park attend Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” Season Three FYC at Saban Media Center on June 10, 2023 in North Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

If you’ve read just the script for the first episode, do you have some idea about the arcs that some of these characters are going to have? Because even through the first season, I don’t think we would have guessed where the characters played by Toheeb Jimoh or Nick Mohammed were going.

No, we didn’t. For Toheeb’s character, Sam Obisanya, I didn’t know anything about what was going to happen; apart from that he needed to have this lovely warm glow, a lovely positive energy to him. And that matched Ted in a way. And Toheeb came in, and you look at him, and he’s just so beautiful. And the warmth just exudes from him, doesn’t it? So, he was easy. Everyone just said, “Well, he’s it.”

Jeremy Swift, Toheeb Jimoh and Hannah Waddingham in “Ted Lasso,” now streaming on Apple TV+.​

But for Nick Mohammed and Nate, yes, Jason did talk me through the arc of his character, certainly for Season One. Because we actually had to persuade Nick Mohammed to come in for it. He didn’t want to come in for it originally because he felt it was too similar to a slightly downtrodden character that he’d played in his own show, Intelligence, a wonderful comedy show that he did with David Schwimmer. And so, we were able to tell Nick, “This is different; there is this character arc.” And he gave it a go and totally nailed the audition.

Nick Mohammed and Jason Sudeikis in "Ted Lasso," coming soon to Apple TV+.
Nick Mohammed and Jason Sudeikis in “Ted Lasso,” coming soon to Apple TV+.

I have read that Juno Temple, who plays Keely, had not done comedy before. What brought her to the role?

I’m a massive fan of hers. I’ve seen all of her work. I think she’s exceptional. She was actually Jason’s idea. And we all thought behind the scenes, “Oh, gosh, would she ever do this? Would she ever sign up for further seasons on a TV show when she’s such an indie film darling?” But he persuaded her. She didn’t have to audition. He knew she had it in her.  He’s very, very good at casting, I have to say, Jason is. He always makes the right choices.

 

Just as in real-life football, the team in the Ted Lasso cast had tremendous diversity.

Yes, this is set in the world of Premier League football. There are people from all over the world playing in Premier League football clubs. So, that was really important from the start. Is it a challenge? No. It’s just exciting. It’s exciting to be able to cast different people everywhere within the show.

Cristo Fernandez in “Ted Lasso,” now streaming on Apple TV+.​

I’m fascinated by accents. Was everyone using pretty close to their own accents, or was there a lot of accent work?

What is quite funny is that one of the things that Jason said to me is, “I want people to be playing themselves. I don’t want any accents. I want to really believe these people. We should just be casting close to type.” But ultimately, nobody’s really using their own accent. Nick Mohammed is using an accent. Juno Temple is using an accent. Toheeb is using an accent. Billy Harris [Colin] is using an accent. Billy Harris is not from Wales. He is from Essex.

Did Jason realize this?

I wonder if a lot of it slipped under the radar slightly, and Jason didn’t really know that everyone was working so hard on their accents. Because it’s quite subtle, especially in the UK. A lot of the accents are very subtly different to maybe an American audience.

 

What about Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca?

Hannah Waddingham’s accent, what she’s doing for Rebecca, is very close to her. But she’s able to do anything. She’s a real chameleon. She can do any accent under the sun.

 

Tell me a movie that you think is especially well cast.

I absolutely love Bridesmaids. It’s my favorite movie. Well, after When Harry Met Sally. Both are cast exceptionally. But Bridesmaids, Oh, my gosh. Every single performer in that film is incredible and hysterical. It’s perfection. It really is.

What makes you laugh?

There’s a scene in Ted Lasso I rewatch quite a lot, Season Two, Episode Three when he turns into Led Tasso. The sequence is the funniest sequence in the whole of the three seasons, and I rewind it and watch it again and again. Just comedy genius.  I loved him doing that because it was just a throwback to the absolute pure comedy bones that that man has. I just loved it.

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Featured image: Brendan Hunt, Jason Sudeikis and Brett Goldstein in “Ted Lasso,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

 

 

“Oppenheimer” Production Designer Ruth De Jong on Helping Christopher Nolan Build the Bomb

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Oppenheimer is a colossal achievement. Christopher Nolan’s film is an exquisitely calibrated epic, brimming with ambition and ingenuity, appropriate for its titular protagonist, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the brilliant physicist who led America’s Manhattan Project during World War II. Nolan and his crew, including production designer Ruth De Jong (Nope), reached for the stars and succeeded in their quest for a pure, tangible vision in presenting one of the most important and dangerous minds of the 20th century – the father of the atomic bomb.

In the brisk and often unnerving three-hour epic, J. Robert Oppenheimer is in a race against the Nazis. The American government enlists him to help them build a weapon of mass destruction, despite his affiliations with communism, which will plague him years after the war. Oppenheimer, both careful and careless in his quest to prove his theory correct, becomes a celebrity when his team succeeds—at a remarkably swift pace— and their achievements a vision of unprecedented horror when America dropped two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. As Oppenheimer famously quoted from the Bhagavad-Gita after the successful testing of the bomb, “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.”

In a narrative that spans decades, Nolan brings Oppenheimer’s inner life to the screen, revealing his thoughts, dreams, and nightmares. The critical and commercial success of Oppenheimer, now extending its run in IMAX theaters due to popular demand, is a credit not only to Nolan but to the incredible crew he assembled to achieve his masterpiece, including Ruth De Jong and her masterful design work.

For a movie that’s about obsession, it didn’t call for it in the process of making it. During a recent interview with The Credits, De Jong reveals the modern touches in the unconventional, idiosyncratic summer blockbuster and why working on Oppenheimer was likely not at all what you might have imagined it to be.

 

In the case of Oppenheimer, you have to capture both the period and the protagonist’s point of view in these environments. How’d you balance that?

I think there was freedom. I mean, Chris and I wanted to be correct to the periods and bring people right there to that time, to that place. There was no obsession with that from Chris’ standpoint; he was always interested in pushing modernity in the sense that if it was the 1920s, but we were shooting a car that was built in 1931, he’d like the way the 1931 car looked. I’m paraphrasing, but he was like, “I almost find it too distracting because it’s almost like we’re in 1925, and here’s this very boxy, early Americana vehicle when I don’t want to be distracted by that. I wanna make this film timeless with the overarching period correctness, but not to the degree that it’s distracting the film.” I felt very much the same way.

L to R: Emily Blunt (as Kitty Oppenheimer) with writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy (as J. Robert Oppenheimer) on the set of OPPENHEIMER.

So you were encouraged to depart from the period?

I think a lot of period films can be so full of period objects screaming what moment in time it is. We tried to do the opposite and make it as timeless as possible and peel back and simplify—less is more. There was some specificity where we honed in on it was the creation of the atomic bomb that you see throughout the entire story. Recreating that to its exact specs, the Trinity Tower, everything else, of course, all the houses were in the ilk of the period, but there wasn’t an obsession. I mean, we got to shoot in Oppenheimer’s house, his actual house, but all of that, you take a little bit of creative freedom because you’re never gonna find the absolute exact chair Oppenheimer was sitting in.

L to R: Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer and David Krumholtz is Isidor Rabi in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.

There’s not a single CGI shot in the film. How’d that impact your work? Was it kind of comforting knowing your work wouldn’t be altered in post-production?

It was great because I’m not a fan, either. It’s usually like, “Oh, all you need to do is build this, and don’t worry, we’ll extend this and do this and that.” How it affected our work was we had to be smart with the budget. We had to build enough, but not too much, but enough to make it feel like the town was growing and evolving. I just was smart about building every single building that we did 360 degrees, so you could shoot behind it, in front of it, on the side of it. Chris and [cinematographer] Hoyte [van Hoytema] took full advantage of that. I think it was liberating knowing there was no CGI because you had to do everything on camera, and it created an entirely immersive experience for the cast.

L to R: Benny Safdie is Edward Teller and Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.

As you said, the job didn’t require obsessiveness, but were there any details you did obsess over?

Early on, I got too engrossed or ingrained in the actual research. We had an incredible researcher, Lauren Sandoval, who did a magnificent job and had so many inroads to the Library of Congress, and the US government, getting all declassified documents as well as all these archives across the country and the world. She was speaking to libraries in England and France and all over the place. We had just incredible photography that a lot of us had never seen before, Chris included. You’re going, “Well, look at the chalkboard behind Oppenheimer and look at this thing.” I remember at one point, Chris was just like, “Ruth, let it go. I’m selling popcorn; I’m not making a documentary.” [Laughs]

L to R: Cillian Murphy (as J. Robert Oppenheimer) and writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan on the set of OPPENHEIMER.

[Laughs] That’s a great way of putting it. So, you could be more interpretive of the time, if that makes sense?

It is almost a dream back to the past. There were certain things, like telephones and water fountains, that looked like they were from the 1800s. I would say, “It’s from 1935.” Chris would be like, “Get it out of here,” because it became too kitsch. We wanted almost to be utilitarian. There was a 1970s water fountain, and he was like, “No one will notice. No one.” The minute you start to draw attention and start to dress every corner, it becomes too obnoxious.

OPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

How’d you approach the bomb and its surroundings? Who were your closest collaborators for that section of the film?

We were all under such a crunch to do this epic movie for very little, you know, and everyone’s like, “Oh, you’re on a Nolan movie?” And I’m like, “No, I might as well be on an indie movie. This is not comfortable. We don’t have cash flowing to pay for things, and we have to be smart about our decisions.” And you know, Chris is like, I only really need to see a couple of bits. Like, when Ciillian’s up in the shed and looking at the atomic bomb, there were just some moments that were very important to Chris, but when I got together with Scott Fisher from special effects, and Guillaume [DeLouche], our prop master, it was like, we have to build this entire bomb.

Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.

So, again, he could shoot it 360?

It doesn’t make any sense just to build a piece of it to save some money. This is the main character of the entire film. Chris told us no, but we did it anyway. I think he is forever grateful because then it changed; he ended up following the evolution of this thing getting created, and it became more integral. It was areas like that where we tried to be smart about what we wanted to feature and why, and that just felt so important. Chris didn’t say no because he didn’t want us to build it. He was just trying to help us with our budget. He’s like, “Look, I can be smart on my end and figure out ways to shoot around it.” But we knew at the core; we’re not gonna limit him in that way. That’s not fair.

Oppenheimer is in theaters now.

For more on Universal Pictures, Peacock, and Focus Features projects, check out these stories:

“Oppenheimer” Composer Ludwig Göransson Creates a New Kind of Atomic Scale

“Oppenheimer” Stars Robert Downey Jr. and Florence Pugh Were in Awe of Cillian Murphy

“Oppenheimer”: Character Actor David Dastmalchian Doesn’t Want to Disappoint

Christopher Nolan on Exploding Myths & Exposing Humanity in “Oppenheimer”

Featured image: Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.

 

“Heart of Stone” Stunt Coordinator Jo McLaren on Taking Gal Gadot to New Heights

Posted on by babrams

Jo McLaren is a longtime stunt professional who has worked on a slew of hit films and TV series, lending her talents to hits as disparate as Titanic, Dr. Who, and the Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, and Avengers franchises. As an in-demand stunt coordinator, she has kept productions safe while creating some of the most inimitable action sequences in the business.

Her newest project is Netflix’s Heart of Stone, starring Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone, a brilliant intelligence operative working for a shadowy peacekeeping organization tracking and dismantling global threats. Stone is embedded in an MI6 unit led by agent Parker (Jamie Dornan), playing the role of a computer expert untrained in combat or armaments. When her unit gets targeted by assassins, she unleashes her many talents and skills to keep them safe while neutralizing a dangerous plot putting the whole world at risk. 

McLaren partnered with Gadot, director Tom Harper, and a slew of stunt professionals from across the globe to make the action in Heart of Stone believable yet bold enough so that Rachel Stone is more than a match for other those legendary cinematic operatives, James Bond and Ethan Hunt.

McLaren spoke to The Credits about working with Wonder Woman herself, as well as collaborating with extreme sports stunt coordinator JT Holmes and stunt driving expert Rob Hunt. 

 

Director Tom Harper wanted the action in Heart of Stone to feel exciting but also always within the realm of possibility. How’d you help him achieve that?

Tom and I spoke at length, not just the two of us, but with the second unit director, Rob Alonzo, and the other creatives. Tom was very keen on making the best action we could, really dynamic, fast, and exhilarating but believable. So everything we did, we questioned, “Do we believe it? Would this actually happen? How would somebody be able to survive this, really?” Gal was having to fight mainly bigger, stronger men, so we had to make sure that we believe that. We made all her fight styles technical, so she would have technical prowess over whoever she was fighting.

Heart of Stone – Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone in Heart Of Stone. Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.

Part of making it believable is building the action around character and story development. What is an example of how that translates in the action sequences with Gal’s character? 

When they’re in the safe house, and she has a great, gritty fight with The Blond [Jon Kortajarena], we wanted her to use the environment and be clever about it, and she really uses the space there to her advantage. It’s a bit of cat and mouse, and she uses the mirrors and reflections and things she can find within her environment. Not only does she have technical skills, but she’s a woman about to take on a guy twice her size. She has to use her brain, look around, and find what will give her the advantage and ways of protecting her colleagues.

All done in what is essentially a normal apartment. 

We had a fantastic set, where we had all these wonderful separate rooms that interlinked, and you’d have different viewpoints from her and from The Blond, where you can see how she could outwit him by going out one window and coming in another door. She’d come up behind him, using everyday objects as weapons. We are very much with her emotionally and physically in the fight. 

Frying pans!

And fridge doors! We had a lot of fun with that fight. 

Heart of Stone. Jon Kortajarena as The Blond in Heart of Stone. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023.

What was your role as stunt coordinator in terms of collaborating with the coordinators in different locations and with extreme sports stunt coordinator JT Holmes?

The coordinators in different locations were not so much part of the creative. That was down to myself, our director Tom, JT, and the second unit director Rob Alonzo. We had wonderful guys around the world that had the title of stunt coordinator, and they were there to help me by bringing fantastic local talent to set, as opposed to helping me create the action. JT and I worked very closely together because of what happens in some of the aerial stuff, and on the slopes, I had to recreate that on a blue screen for close-up wire stuff. My fight coordinator, choreographer, assistant stunt coordinator, and stunt doubles were a really close-knit team. We were at the action helm, but it was very much a team effort. Add to that all the fantastic folks all over the world; it was like a big, collaborative family. 

Heart of Stone. (L to R) Enzo Cilenti as Mulvaney and Jamie Dornan as Parker in Heart Of Stone. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023.

What can you say about the scenes in the Italian Alps? It had to be freezing!

Right. In the Alps, we were working a lot on the slopes and up on the glacier, so we had many night shoots because the slopes are open during the day. We had a lot of small timeframes to get sequences done. It was a huge amount of planning before each day. We had a war room where we’d go and work out each shot for the day, so it would be super-efficient when we got onto the mountain. We had to allow for high winds and bad weather, which can change things on a dime when you’re dealing with freezing temperatures. That itself was a huge challenge, as was getting any kind of equipment up the mountains, but it was also very exciting. Creating action and working in a real environment is what we all love to do most, going to locations instead of working in CG. Everybody was just fantastic. 

What was your role in terms of working with Gal and her stunt double? 

Gal is brilliant. She’s done a lot of action movies, so she has this great muscle memory, and she’s also such a quick learner. She’d come to a stunt rehearsal and pick up the choreography really quickly, and she brings not just all that physical presence but also her fantastic performance and character to whatever action has been created. 

Heart of Stone – BTS – (L to R) Director Tom Harper, Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone and Jamie Dornan as Parker on the set of Heart Of Stone. Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.

Who was working with her as her stunt double? 

We had a few because we have different units running. With the extreme sports stunts, JT worked with Gal and stunt double Karen Lewis. For the stunt work I did, all the fights and wire work, we had her normal stunt doubles, Stanni (Bettridge), and Eniko (Fulop). They were the two doubles that I worked with really closely. They did the majority of the stunt work that Gal didn’t do herself. She loves to do stunts, but there are some stunts insurance just won’t let her do. 

What about the sequence in the van? Stunt driving is its own animal requiring specific expertise.

We had some of the best drivers in the world. Rob Alonzo designed a lot of the car sequences. He has fantastic creative ideas. Then I brought in the best car guy in the UK, if not the world, Rob Hunt. That whole sequence ran so smoothly because of the brilliance of both Rob Alonzo and Rob Hunt. I do a lot with the main unit on that particular sequence in Lisbon, then go over to the second unit because it’s so much fun being around all the car stuff. I got talent from all over the world, a lot of UK guys and girls, including the brilliant stunt driver Nellie Burroughes, who doubled Gal in the van and drove and jumped it. She’s a tough cookie because when you’re inside a van like that, it’s not designed for that kind of punishment. It’s reinforced, but you still get thrown around. Her execution of precision driving was brilliant. 

It all starts with the director, but you’ve got to have the right stunt folks to keep it safe and as dramatic as it looks onscreen.  

Absolutely. It’s all in the planning and preparation and getting the right people in under Tom’s guidance. I rate him as one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with. He believes in the power of collaboration. Also, Rob Alonzo is the best second-unit director because he was a fantastic stuntman and stunt coordinator, and he brings all that knowledge and experience to his action sequences. I’ve learned so much from him. I never stop learning, and the international talent made it such an amazing journey. I’m proud of them all, and I think you see all their work shine onscreen. 

 

Heart of Stone premieres on Netflix in the US August 11th. 

 

For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:

“Heart of Stone” Director Tom Harper on Accepting an Impossible Mission With Gal Gadot

Gal Gadot Gives Arnold Schwarzenegger a Few Key Lessons in “Heart of Stone” Promo

Phoebe Dynevor & Alden Ehrenreich Sizzle & Slash Through First “Fair Play” Trailer

 

Featured image: Heart of Stone – Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone in Heart Of Stone. Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.

 

 

“Red, White, & Royal Blue” Co-Writer/Director Matthew Lopez on Crafting a Modern Love Story

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First-time feature director Matthew López also co-wrote the script of Red, White, & Royal Blue, based on the popular novel by Casey McQuiston, which arrives just in time to add a dash of romance to the end of your summer. It’s a love story about Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of the President of the United States Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman), and Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), the grandson of the British King (Stephen Fry), second in line for the throne.

In an interview with The Credits, López talked about some of the most challenging scenes, the one thing actor Clifton Collins, Jr. could not do, and the classic movie romances that inspired him. 

You’ve got one of my very favorite actors and one of my favorite people I’ve ever interviewed in the film, Clifton Collins, Jr, who plays First Gentleman and Congressman Oscar Diaz, and father of one of the story’s main characters. I am such a fan.

He is just the loveliest human being on the planet. That’s what I can say about Cliff. He’s so kind. He’s so generous. He’s so desirous of a connection to the work that he’s doing and to the people that he’s working with. He makes you feel like this is the most important film he’s ever made. And I’m sure every director who has ever worked with him would tell you the same thing.

Clifton Collins Jr. as Congressman and First Gentleman, Oscar Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime

How did Taylor Zakhar Perez, who plays his son Alex, feel about working with him?

I know Taylor loved working with him. He really looked up to him. It’s really easy to love Cliff. And the best thing about it is, it’s one thing if Cliff was a nice guy and that the performance was just so-so, but then, he’s the loveliest man, and then his performance is just so effortless and natural and lived in. He wears the character like a loose garment. There’s something perfectly natural about this man.

You really feel a sense of the character’s history, particularly in that scene in the kitchen.

There was just one problem. Cliff does not know how to chop vegetables! The only thing I can say bad about Cliff Collins is that he does not know his way around a kitchen. So, the most unnatural bit of acting you could ever see in the film is Cliff Collins cutting a red pepper.

I was watching the scene with Henry and Alex in a literal closet, a very important scene, and yet I could not help thinking it must have been a nightmare to film in that cramped space.

I will be honest with you, for as lovely as that scene ended up, it was nobody’s favorite scene to film. Nobody looked back on that day and said, “That was a fun day.” It was a pain in the ass for my production designer, Miren Marañón, my DP, Stephen Goldblatt, my camera operator, and the two actors. We hated it!

 

What helped you all get through it? 

It’s funny because there was so much joy and good humor and great, great chemistry between not just the actors but the actors and the crew throughout the whole shoot. So, the fact that the scene of maximum discomfort for our characters was one in which all of us were just mutually miserable for about five and a half hours was perfect for that scene. Nobody wants to spend five and a half hours locked in a closet shooting in a space where the camera and the lights can barely fit, let alone the actors. But I will say that it fed into what is going on in that scene, which is these two people stuck in a space that they don’t want to be in. So, for verisimilitude, I guess it was worth it.

I also was extremely impressed with the party scene. It was shot in such a dynamic way. And I love the little pause with the ladies looking at their phones.

It was a hard-won scene. We actually filmed it in two sections, six months apart. We got all of the scene work and the beats down, and we got what we thought was sufficient party atmosphere beats. And we started to cut the film together, and I realized we just didn’t have enough. And so, we went back in January for a few days of reshoots on a couple of other things, and I got them to rebuild part of the set for me. And we brought in just a bunch of people, and we just had a big party and shot it.

Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime

Reshoots are often the name of the game…

That was one of the great lessons for me as a first-time filmmaker, thinking I had enough and realizing that I didn’t, and then being given the opportunity to go back and get more of what I needed. But one of the blessings of that was because I had cut the scene already, then I got to plan the new shots very carefully. We got to invent moments and grab them.

Why was it important to you to have such explicit scenes of two men, one gay, and one bi, together?

First of all, it’s so specific in the book. And I knew that as someone who’s turning this particular book into a movie, to deny that Alex and Henry have some really energetic and connected sex would be to miss out on what makes the story special. You never see Harry and Sally have sex. This is a story about two people finding themselves in each other. And for queer people, because our sex has so often been outlawed, because we ourselves are against the law in some ways, I needed to make sure that the queer audiences who see this film understood that this was being made by a queer filmmaker who I think our sex and our love is beautiful.

Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime

It’s also such a big moment for Alex.

It is just insufficient for straight audiences to love and support us and not understand us holistically. I wanted to make sure that it was unambiguous to the audience what was happening to these characters. I think it’s a very specific scene of understanding between them. For Alex, it’s the first time he’s having sex with another man. For Henry, Nick and I decided together that it was the first time that Henry was having sex with someone he had feelings for. That scene is through the looking glass for the audience in some ways. I think you come out on the other side of that scene much more connected to those characters. And I think it’s because of the way we decided to do that scene. I don’t think the back half of the movie would resonate if we didn’t have that scene in it.

Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime

The wardrobe is very important in defining the characters in the film.

Costume designer Keith Madden did such gorgeous work on it. And again, specificity was just the key. There were a lot of things in the novel that helped us understand these characters. The decision to have double-breasted suits on the royals, on the royal men, on the princes, and the king — we used the same tailor that the actual royal family uses.

Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime

And for Alex?

We wanted to put Alex in a very well well-fitted Armani suit or a leather jacket. The biggest thing for us, the biggest conversation, was about dressing the female President, and we included Uma. We actually wanted the same thing.  So often, American women in politics with power are asked to surrender their definition of their own femininity in order to hold on to power. And we wanted to create in Ellen someone who absolutely has command of her power in the world but has never let go of her own sense of individual femininity. And that was very strongly reflected in the costume choices that we made.

Uma Thurman as President Ellen Claremont and Sharon D. Clark as the British prime minister in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime

This is a movie that has a lot of the beats of the traditional romantic melodrama. What were some of the classic Hollywood romances that inspired you?

For me and for a lot of us, because I made sure that everybody watched this before we started, it was Bringing Up Baby. When you think about it, if you go back and you look at Bringing Up Baby with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, there are whispers of Alex and Henry there. You’ve got the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. And you’ve got this free spirit who upends the life of a stuffed shirt.

How did that classic inform your filmmaking choices?

What I was looking at with a lot of the screwball comedies from the 30s was how loose the actors were in the frame together, how much they were allowed to just play, and how much those directors allowed their master shots to really tell a lot of the story. I really chased after that. And I encouraged the actors to watch them, too.

Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo credit: Jonathan Prime

Any other films inspire you?

The night before we shot that scene in Nora’s office, I rewatched Broadcast News, and I had Rachel Hilson [who plays Nora] watch that movie the night before we shot it. Moonstruck was a huge influence for me. And what I loved in these films was the specificity of the characterizations. My job was to make sure I captured that specificity and preserved it in the edit. Within specificity is where we find universality.

Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry, Malcolm Atobrah as Percy Okonjo, Rachel Hilson as Nora Holleran, and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Credit: Jonathan Prime

Red, White, & Royal Blue streams on Amazon Prime Video on August 11.

For more on Amazon Prime Video, check out these stories:

“Swarm” Production Designer Sara K. White on Creating Fractured Spaces for the Celebrity-Obsessed

Rachel Weisz Delivers Double the Trouble in Prime Video’s “Dead Ringers”

“Daisy Jones & the Six” Makeup Department Head Rebecca Wachtel Captures the Many Faces of Stardom

Featured image: Director Matthew López behind-the-scenes with Nicholas Galitzine as Prince Henry and Taylor Zakhar Perez as Alex Claremont-Diaz in Prime Video’s Red, White & Royal Blue. Photo Credit: ROB YOUNGSON

 

“Heart of Stone” Director Tom Harper on Accepting an Impossible Mission With Gal Gadot

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Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has had success both with critics and audiences and Barbie is breaking box office records. It makes good sense, then, that Skydance, the production company behind the M:I franchise, would want to partner with global superstar Gal Gadot to create a female-fronted action film. Enter Heart of Stone, the new Netflix release that puts Gadot front and center as intelligence operative Rachel Stone, a woman not only with computer savvy and a quick wit but the physical skills rivaling those of James Bond and Ethan Hunt. With a script co-written by The Old Guard’s Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder (Hidden Figures), Heart of Stone offers a great balance of character development and edge-of-your-seat action. 

In it, Stone is posing as the computer tech in an MI6 unit led by agent Parker (Jamie Dornan). She’s actually a top undercover specialist for a secret organization called the Charter, a covert peacekeeping organization even spies believe is only a rumor. The Charter keeps the world safe by using cutting-edge technology to track and neutralize global threats. For MI6, Stone plays the role of a fragile, brainy computer tech until her colleagues are put at risk. She’ll need to deploy all her abilities to save them and the world from Armageddon.

At the helm of Heart of Stone is director Tom Harper, who responded to the script because it’s centered on a strong female lead and featured action scenes grounded in reality. The Credits spoke to Harper about all the challenges and the fun of working with Gadot and filming high-octane action set in exotic locations around the world.  

 

Gal Gadot was attached to Heart of Stone from the beginning, and the film was developed as a potential female forward action franchise. What was your collaboration with her, and how did it shift and change as the film progressed?

Before I started working on the movie, I spoke with Gal, and we both believed the core tenet of what we wanted to achieve was an action thriller grounded in reality. As the character in the film grew, we grew together, which is always nice for a director/actor relationship because you start building trust. We knew the journey we were on, but filming is a delicate, fragile thing, and it takes time to trust each other properly.

Heart of Stone – BTS – (L to R) Director Tom Harper and Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone on the set of Heart Of Stone. Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.

There are so many strong female characters from different cultures and perspectives in Heart of Stone. It isn’t just Gal; she’s surrounded by other powerful women. 

That really was just baked into the film’s DNA. It was always Gal at the center, and as we were developing and casting other roles, it happened organically. 

Heart of Stone – (L to R) Sophie Okonedo as Nomad/King of Hearts and Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone in Heart Of Stone. Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.

You are known for being very prepared, but sometimes you have to work around the unexpected. Were there discoveries that came through the challenges of shooting in so many exotic locations? 

I do tend to be very prepared because that frees me up to be open to what happens on a film set. No matter how well you prepare, you never really know what’s coming. Some of the most interesting parts of making a film come from the unexpected or from places where you didn’t realize it was going to happen. As an example, we went all the way to Morocco to shoot some of the desert sequences. I had this idea that the moment we got there, it would be very hot, with gray vistas and blue skies. When we got there, there was a sandstorm, and the visibility was awful. It was all dusty and hazy. Initially, I was like, “Oh, this is this is a nightmare. We’ve come all this way, and it’s totally not what I imagined or thought it would be.” But actually, it was great. This is why we come here.  It’s those surprises. It feels different and gives it an edgy quality. I’ve seen a million films in the desert with clear skies and beautiful vistas. Each location comes with its own things like that, and you have to have an open mind when filming because change is the only constant. 

Heart of Stone – BTS – Director Tom Harper on the set of Heart Of Stone. Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.

Lisbon is a great example of finding ways of leveraging a city’s unique qualities, like the many very narrow streets. 

Lisbon is a place I’ve been to previously on holiday, and I stood there and thought, “Oh my god, this would be a great place for a car chase.” It’s full of narrow cobbled streets, and it has incredible tiles and textures. Also, it’s built on these seven hills. There are lots of levels, so you get dynamics in that way as well. There are restrictions in some ways and opportunities in others. I’d much rather relish the opportunities than film in a big parking lot with visual effects.  You get those happy accidents. The restriction leads to creativity and getting results you likely wouldn’t get any other way. 

The car chase there definitely takes advantage of the many gorgeous locations in the city. Can you talk about that scene? 

I’d credit the production team in Porto with a lot of the problem-solving in terms of getting permissions. Among our many plans, we hoped to smash cars up in the central square and into trams and throw them down steps in a major tourist spot within the city. That was a big deal to do safely for both people and the historic architecture. One of the highlights of the job was going to Lisbon, standing on a street corner, and going, “Okay, what can we do here? What can we move? Can we drive a car down these steep steps and throw it over this bridge? What about this tram? Can we swerve around it?” You can’t write things like that sitting at your desk. You have to be right there, in the street. The writers create the broad strokes brilliantly, but then as director, I can tailor it to the location. If this film feels so grounded, it’s because we tailored it to all these wonderful locations, so I hope that comes through. 

You collaborated with extreme sports stunt coordinator JT Holmes on a sequence in the Italian Alps, which features a jump off a 3000-foot cliff. 

Yes, that was JT working with our stunt coordinator, Jo McLaren. They must have gone out to do that jump every day of the four weeks we were there, constantly looking at when the weather was right. The prevailing wind they needed was actually in the opposite way, which was great for a lot of the other work we were doing, but one big jump off the mountain face was the one we needed. We got to the last day. It was a very small unit, with two people jumping, one cameraperson and Rachel Stone’s double with a parachute, who was going to be flying through the gulley, and I was on the mountain floor. I remember looking up and just praying they could and would make the jump that day. I don’t know what we would have done if they hadn’t done it. The wind was right, and the light was right, and I could see them up there, but almost immediately, they disappeared behind a rock face. I thought,  “Oh my god, what’s happened? Was the pressure too much, and they just jumped when they shouldn’t have?”  For minutes, which seemed like an eternity, we were all breathless. And then, whoosh, just out from the gulley, they shot. It was perfect. I hope people find it as exciting as we did filming it. 

 

Heart of Stone. (L to R) Enzo Cilenti as Mulvaney and Jamie Dornan as Parker in Heart Of Stone. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023.

Heart of Stone premieres on Netflix in the US on August 11th. 

For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:

Gal Gadot Gives Arnold Schwarzenegger a Few Key Lessons in “Heart of Stone” Promo

Phoebe Dynevor & Alden Ehrenreich Sizzle & Slash Through First “Fair Play” Trailer

Looking Back on What Made Tim Burton’s “Wednesday” a Thing to Savor

Featured image: Heart of Stone – BTS – (L to R) Director Tom Harper, Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone and Jamie Dornan as Parker on the set of Heart Of Stone. Cr. Robert Viglasky/Netflix © 2023.

 

Gal Gadot Gives Arnold Schwarzenegger a Few Key Lessons in “Heart of Stone” Promo

Posted on by babrams

In case you missed the news, Arnold Schwarzenegger is Netflix’s Chief Action Officer, a role he’s been working toward, it seems, his entire life. Now, two months into the job and getting a feel for it, he’s part of a new promo for Gal Gadot’s upcoming Netflix spy thriller Heart of Stone. 

Here you’ll find Gadot bellying up to Netflix’s coffee bar only to find Schwarzenegger himself there making the fuel. Why? Because since he’s taken over his new role, he wants to infuse action into every aspect of Netflix’s world; thus, nearby, a poor sap’s coffee explodes in his face. Exciting! Luckily for us, there’s also a peek at Gadot’s upcoming Heart of Stone, which she promises has “everything you want in a spy movie.”

Arnold goes on to tell her he’s an expert in espionage and lists off some of his key assignments—FUBAR, True Lies, Spy,… Jingle All The Way.

“You were a spy in Jingle All The Way?” Gadot asks.

“No,” Arnold admits, “but if I would have been one, you’d have never known.”

We’ll leave the tasty final turn to your viewing pleasure, but let’s just say that Gadot gets the last laugh.

Heart of Stone comes from director Tom Harper, with a script by Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder. Gadot stars as Rachel Stone, an intelligence operative for a global peacekeeping agency racing to stop a hacker from stealing its most dangerous weapon.

Check out the promo here. Heart of Stone arrives on Netflix on August 11.

And here’s the official trailer for Heart of Stone:

For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:

Phoebe Dynevor & Alden Ehrenreich Sizzle & Slash Through First “Fair Play” Trailer

Looking Back on What Made Tim Burton’s “Wednesday” a Thing to Savor

How the “Wednesday” VFX Supervisor Created Thing, Nevermore, and More

“Extraction 2” Director Sam Hargrave on Lighting Chris Hemsworth on Fire, That Helicopter Scene & More

How “Stranger Things” Editor Dean Zimmerman Helped Shaped the Feature Length Season 4 Finale

Featured image: HEART OF STONE. Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone in Heart of Stone. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022.

Phoebe Dynevor & Alden Ehrenreich Sizzle & Slash Through First “Fair Play” Trailer

Posted on by babrams

 Netflix made its play, and now one of this past Sundance’s buzziest films is coming to the streamer this fall.

The first trailer for Chloe Domont’s romantic thriller Fair Play has arrived, revealing a look at the story of a newly engaged couple who is forced to keep their relationship a secret in their financial cutthroat world. Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) work at the hedge fund Crest Capital in entry-level positions, and the policy at Crest is no intra-office relationships. At first, things seem to be going fine, although their worlds begin to get topsy-turvy when Emily gets promoted over Luke, shifting the power dynamic between them. What lengths will they go to advance at Crest, and what will they sacrifice to do so? Their relationship? Their lives?

When Fair Play premiered at Sundance, it was one of the most talked about movies at the fest, and Netflix eventually outbid competitors to the tune of $20 million for Domont’s feature directorial debut.

“I thought [finance] was a great backdrop because the high stakes are ripe for drama,” Domont told Variety after Fair Play‘s Sundance premiere. “It feeds into the toxicity of the relationship, and vice-versa.”

It’s an auspicious feature debut for Domont, who has directed television episodes of Ballers, Suits, and Billions. Fair Play had some big named executive producers, including Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman.

Check out the sizzling first trailer below. Fair Play hits Netflix on October 13.

Here’s the official synopsis for Fair Play:

When a coveted promotion at a cutthroat financial firm arises, once supportive exchanges between lovers Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) begin to sour into something more sinister. As the power dynamics irrevocably shift in their relationship, the couple must face the true price of success and the unnerving limits of ambition. In her feature debut, writer-director Chloe Domont weaves a taut relationship thriller, staring down the destructive gender dynamics that pit partners against each other in a world that is transforming faster than the rules can keep up. Also starring Eddie Marsan, Rich Sommer, and Sebastian De Souza, Fair Play unravels the uncomfortable collision of empowerment and ego.

For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:

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Featured image: Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich appear in Fair Play by Chloe Domont, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute

“Talk To Me” Directors Danny & Michael Philippou on Crafting the Year’s Most Unsettling Horror Film

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Danny and Michael Philippou do not pull their punches in their chilling feature film directorial debut Talk to Me. Having honed their craft over years making short films, the twins crafted a horror movie that screams with confidence and passion, where not a single scare seems to miss the mark. There’s a reason the powerhouse mini-major studio A24, behind some of the best horror films of the last decade, got behind these two.

Talk to Me is led by a young woman Mia (Sophie Wilde), grieving over the death of her mother, who is part of a group of friends who figure out how to commune with the dead. The recipe to conjure spirits is surprisingly straightforward—shake an embalmed hand, welcome a spirit inside, and experience the other side. What if once a spirit is conjured, it doesn’t leave? As Mia grieves the mysterious loss of her mother, she finds out the hard way what happens when you make contact with the spirit world.

Talk to Me is a delightfully sinister and visceral experience, arguably the year’s most unsettling, unstinting horror film. Danny and Michael Philippou talked to The Credits about crafting their unholy vision, a sensual feast of horrors that the late, great William Friedkin would have admired.

 

Often in film, it’s what you don’t show that’s scarier, but here, what you do show is scarier. Was that an intention?

Danny: For the most part, we knew we wanted to build up to those scenes of horror and not shy away from it while we’re doing it. And so, it’s not all the way through the film that we’re showing this really extreme imagery. But once things happened, we didn’t want to bat an eye.

Michael: Show the consequences of the actions that these kids are making.

Danny: On top of that, there was a sequence we shot that was initially two and a half minutes; we had to cut it down to 15 seconds because it was too much. That trip to hell never would’ve gotten past the sensors.

Michael: Even when we were watching it, we were like, ‘This looks like a different movie.’ We suddenly ventured into some interesting, very violent territory.

(L-R) Zoe Terakes Credit: Andre Castellucci

Even with all the intensity, there are horrors that are subtle, as well. For example,  the sound design and the score work in a way that’s almost as ruthless as the visuals. How did you accomplish that?

Danny: Michael was so OCD with sound and music. He did a temp score for the entire movie. He was in every sound session giving brutal notes. It was like, “Oh, my God. Let the person work, Michael.”

Michael: When we’re mixing manually, when they bring things down, certain tracks, I can hear it. I’m like, ‘Can we not do it manually? Because I can hear that drop too quickly.’ So, I’m really annoying, I guess, but I have a certain vision in my head, especially with merging the sound and music. I wanted them both to be equal and not have music buried under sound or sound buried under music. We’re having them both work in sync with each other, which wasn’t easy to do.

Danny: The biggest shout-out to our sound designer, Emma Bortingnon. Every time that we’d give Emma a whole bunch of notes, she’d go away, do a pass and then bring it back. And it’d be like, “Whoa, listen to this.”

Michael: And a shoutout to our composer, Cornel [Wilczek]. We actually had to redo the music for a few different reasons, and Cornel came in last second and saved us. Man, I would send so many notes, and he’d get them all. It was amazing work.

(L-R) Sophie Wilde Credit: Matthew Thorne

What originally happened with the score?

Michael: The music didn’t work the first time around, so we were able to really focus on the sound design and really nail out the sound of the possessions and atmosphere. And then, the second mix was implementing the music cohesively. So, it was a blessing in disguise, but I can’t wait for the next movie to start music earlier in pre-production.

This movie doesn’t hit you over the head with rules, but did you both have rules for yourselves?

Danny: We had the thickest mythology that breaks down every single rule. All the backstories of the spirits the kids connected to and why those kids are connecting to them. We broke that all down, but we wanted the kids to be in over their heads. We didn’t want there to be some expert that can explain things and didn’t want there to be an easy out.

Any rules for yourselves for how you went about filming?

Michael: We wanted it all to be grounded in Mia’s point of view, so you never see a spirit outside of what Mia sees.

Danny: Another subtle, small thing that we did is remove every single lens flare from the film except for in the dream sequence that Mia has. That’s the only lens flare that we have in the film to help differentiate one world from the other. Just subtle things like that.

Michael: Camera movements. The way things look in the possessions is different from how it looks standard. Finding that visual language was invaluable. And then also, through sound, you can communicate so much. You don’t need to do it visually. Different ways of saying things without saying them.

Danny: And then, there’s subtle sound design and music things that we had tied to each demon as well. Once this certain demon is connecting with Mia, there’s a certain sound that underlays that.

Michael: And even how they died, that’s incorporated all into the soundscape as well. Man, it was such an amazing experience, and we learned so much. Because usually, just trying to do it ourselves is one thing, but then, doing it with professionals and having those conversations, your mind blows over with all these ideas.

(L-R) Sophie Wilde Credit: Courtesy of A24

Did you both talk through how Talk to Me would be interpreted and what message people would take away from it?

Danny: I like leaving that stuff up to interpretation. I know what it means to me and what we’re saying, but I like hearing everyone’s take on it. So, I don’t want to explain too much, but I think you can interpret it anywhere that you want. 

Michael: It was like witnessing a tragedy leading up to a car crash.

Danny: And I was a bit in a dark head space when I was writing some of this stuff, and that’s just expressing it and putting it on the page. And some of that sadness is in there.

Michael: You’re a sad man. Get this guy a therapist.

(L-R) Sophie Wilde Credit: Courtesy of A24

[Laughs] Well, the passion shows in the movie. Did you both have conversations about loss and how to express it best creatively?

Danny: We lost our grandfather, who helped raise us. Our parents weren’t home that much. And he passed away when we were thirteen, in our house on Christmas day. It’s pretty insane. It was a hole ripped out of your life a little bit, and you’re looking for something, anything to fill it with.

Michael: So much of the film is about connection. Mia is having every ounce of intimacy stripped away from her throughout the film. Some people say that she’s an unlikable character, but I really empathize with Mia.

(L-R) Sophie Wilde Credit: Courtesy of A24

She has PTSD, and sometimes, you make unreasonable choices when you’re experiencing it.

Michael: Especially without the right guidance as well. You can get into the wrong crowds when you’re trying to fill a certain hole. You can get led down a different path.

Talk to Me is in theaters now.

For more films from A24, check out these stories:

“Priscilla” Trailer Finds Priscilla Presley Taking Center Stage in Sofia Coppola’s Biopic

“You Hurt My Feelings” Cinematographer Jeffrey Waldron on Re-Teaming With Nicole Holofcener

Michelle Yeoh Makes History & “Everything Everywhere All At Once” Wins Big

Featured image: (L-R) Sophie Wilde Credit: Courtesy of A24

“Haunted Mansion” Cinematographer Jeffrey Waldron Gathers Ghostly Delights in Frame

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Directed by Justin Simien, Disney’s Haunted Mansion has an all-star cast, a funny, touching script, killer New Orleans scenery, and for a wellspring of inspiration, the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, which holds particular sway over the movie’s aesthetic. The original ride veers from comedic to creepy, which for cinematographer Jeffrey Waldron (Little Fires Everywhere, The Morning Show), worked well as a starting point for designing different aesthetics for Haunted Mansion’s various astral planes. 

“I’ve watched documentaries about the making of the ride. There’s an amazing, really complete book about the making of it, with all the original artwork and visual ideas from the sixties,” Waldron says. “Since shooting, I’ve been [the ride] on another dozen times, and I’m happy to say I feel like we captured whatever that magic is.” That said, the movie’s ghosts bring their worst after midnight, and “doing a film that has a lot of moonlight, a lot of low light, and a lot of different skin tones is a real technical and creative puzzle,” Waldron explained. “I knew we could never go nearly as dark as this ride goes, which sometimes is almost pitch black.” 

A scene still from Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Instead, the cinematographer created a nighttime look utilizing a very soft, moonlit vibe with dim, subtle fill in the shadows. “You can really see everything, even though you feel like you’re looking into the dark,” he said. “To help that illusion, I desaturated a little bit because our rods and cones don’t work as well in the dark, and so we see things closer to black and white. And then, to create contrast, instead of having big, bright moonlight edges, I [used] color contrast. So if there’s a flashlight or headlights, I made sure those were very warm.”

(L-R): Chase Dillon as Travis, Rosario Dawson as Gabbie, LaKeith Stanfield as Ben, Owen Wilson as Father Kent, and Tiffany Haddish as Harriet in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo by Jalen Marlowe. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

There are plenty of both flashlights and headlights as Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son Travis (Chase Dillon) move into and then promptly try and fail to leave a historic mansion outside New Orleans populated by dozens of angry ghosts. They enlist the help of Ben (LaKeith Stanfield), a fallen academic and researcher hiding his own world of inner pain. Ben doesn’t believe in ghosts, at least at first, but he can’t resist the sales pitch from an irreverent priest, Father Kent (Owen Wilson), plus the promise of a couple thousand bucks. When the unusual situation at the mansion proves too much for everyone, Ben and Father Kent bring in a medium, Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), and a local historian with a heart condition, Bruce (Danny DeVito).

(L-R): Rosario Dawson as Gabbie, Tiffany Haddish as Harriet, LaKeith Stanfield as Ben, and Owen Wilson as Father Kent in Disney’s live-action HAUNTED MANSION. Photo Jalen Marlowe. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
(L-R): Owen Wilson as Father Kent, Rosario Dawson as Gabbie, LaKeith Stanfield as Ben, Tiffany Haddish as Harriet, and Danny DeVito as Bruce in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Once the film’s main cast is assembled in the cursed mansion, intentional communing with the ghosts begins. Waldron worked with Panavision’s “lens wizard,” Dan Sasaki, to create a unique lens for the waking realm “that didn’t bring a lot of weirdness to it, so we could save a lot of weirdness for the ghost realm,” where he then switched over to vintage series anamorphic lenses customized by Sasaki such that Waldron could fully give the film’s alternate realms their own sense of time and place. In one scene, for example, as the going gets tough, the tough get a better medium — one who just happens to be trapped in a crystal ball.

To tell Leota’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) story, “we used a very specific Panavision invention that’s an anamorphic portrait lens. Just the middle is in focus, and the rest is an oblong smear of glass. It’s all optical — it’s all in camera — but I liked the idea that when you’re looking through a glass ball to see this story, you actually feel the crystal ball elements of the glass there,” Waldron said.

Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Frequently, however, plenty really was there. “One of the things Justin really wanted to maintain was a sense that we were putting as much in front of the camera as we could, which is unusual for a modern ghost movie,” the cinematographer explained. “You could shoot 360 and see this fully designed, fully built house, whereas usually there’d be a lot of digital completion going on these days.” Ghosts who had speaking lines were also present. “Their faces are tracked and modified, but the bodies, in terms of wirework and flying, were done practically, so the actors could interact with them physically in space,” said Waldron. Similarly, lighting details typical of haunted mansions (candles, old lamps, candelabras) also tended to be genuine — production designer “Darren Gilford and his team were two steps ahead. Not only did they create this super brilliant set that takes the ride and just amplifies it into a real aged classic mansion built on all this iconography, they put lights where we needed them,” the cinematographer said.

Lindsay Lamb as The Bride in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

And since this is Disney, the ghosts, sets, and trappings may be as real as can be, but the movie’s creepy mansion and various spectral planes remain spooky without becoming terrifying, with plenty of laughs from Haddish and Wilson playing two hacks in over their heads. “If you look at the history of the ride from 1969, there were a lot of conversations about how far they were going to go horror and how far they were going to go funny and fun, and we definitely went down the same road,” Waldron says. “A big part of that was not to embrace tropes of horror or comedy, but to create what felt like a timeless, painterly mansion film that felt rich and big and could easily lean into horror, but could also lean into funny.”

Haunted Mansion smoothly veers from eerie to droll, helped by the DP’s visual clarity, no matter the hour, and an aesthetic sense of place, whether that’s the house, the bayou, or the realm of the un-living.

Haunted Mansion is in theaters now.

For more stories on 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:

“I Am Groot” Season 2 Trailer Reveals Baby Groot’s Sweet New Adventures

“Haunted Mansion” VFX Supervisor Edwin Rivera Gives These New Ghosts a Spectral Charge

Donald Glover and Brother Stephen Glover to Write “Lando” Series

Featured image: Lindsay Lamb as Ghost Bride in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

“Oppenheimer” IMAX Run Extended Due to Popular Demand

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The Oppenheimer phenomenon continues on the biggest screens.

Due to popular demand, Christopher Nolan’s epic biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by a sensational Cillian Murphy) will stay in IMAX theaters nationwide through the end of August. Previously, Oppenheimer was scheduled to conclude its run on IMAX 70mm format on August 17, but now exhibitors will keep Nolan’s masterpiece on those colossal screens through August thanks to massive demand.

The love for Nolan’s film, one part of the Barbenheimer phenomenon that swept the nation on July 21 when Nolan’s film and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie opened simultaneously, is not surprising. Yet this extended run in IMAX theaters is especially poignant considering Nolan’s longstanding love of the format—he’s arguably its greatest champion, having used IMAX cameras on many of his films and tirelessly promoting the beauty and the spectacle it provides.

Nolan recently explained his love for the format in an Oppenheimer video: “Oppenheimer’s story is one of the biggest stories imaginable. Our film tries to take you into his experience, and IMAX, for me, is a portal into a level of immersion that you can’t get from other formats.” His longtime collaborator, cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, explained how Oppenheimer used the format not only for the major spectacles (like the Trinity Test, the first detonation of a nuclear weapon) but the quieter moments, too. “IMAX is a format of spectacle, it’s made for vistas and the grandeur, but I got very curious to discover this as an intimate format,” Hoytema said. “The face is like a landscape; there’s a huge complexity and huge depth to it. How can we get this camera closer to people? How can we get this medium also as a very intimate medium.”

The 70mm film prints for Oppenheimer were roughly 11 miles long and weighed 600 pounds. The amount of time and effort it takes to process all that film is considerable, but the results speak for themselves. Oppenheimer has already exploded to $550 million at the global box office, a massive milestone for an R-rated drama that’s more than three hours long and tackles such a weighty subject. IMAX theaters have accounted for a massive $114.2 million of that, which is incredible when you consider that currently, there are only 19 theaters in the United States and 30 worldwide that have the capability to play films in 70mm, so those tickets are often the hardest to get. If you’re a Nolan fan and haven’t yet seen Oppenheimer in an IMAX theater, you’ve now got a much better chance at making that happen.

For more on Oppenheimer, check out these stories:

“Oppenheimer” Composer Ludwig Göransson Creates a New Kind of Atomic Scale

“Oppenheimer” Stars Robert Downey Jr. and Florence Pugh Were in Awe of Cillian Murphy

“Oppenheimer”: Character Actor David Dastmalchian Doesn’t Want to Disappoint

Christopher Nolan on Exploding Myths & Exposing Humanity in “Oppenheimer”

Featured image: Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.

“I Am Groot” Season 2 Trailer Reveals Baby Groot’s Sweet New Adventures

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For those of you mourning the end of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, and thus, the end of watching everyone’s favorite alien tree person, Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), grow up, good news has arrived in a small package. The trailer for season two of I Am Groot has arrived, meaning that your time enjoying the company of one of Marvel’s most beloved characters is far from over.

In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Groot was a teenage jock, but he’s still at his most adorable age in I Am Groot, with the season two trailer revealing Baby Groot voyaging across the galaxy on many too-cute-for-words adventures. Five new shorts featuring the miniature alien tree person will find Groot in all sorts of sweet predicaments, all enlivened by his bottomless curiosity.

Baby Groot will use the Guardians’ spaceship to explore new regions of the galaxy in shorts from writer/director Kirsten Lepore, who returns to shepherd Groot through season two. The adventures begin when I Am Groot streams on Disney+ on September 6.

Check out the adorable trailer below:

Here’s the official synopsis from Disney+:

The troublemaking twig returns to mischief in the second season of I Am Groot. This time, Baby Groot finds himself exploring the universe and beyond aboard the Guardians’ spaceships, coming face-to-face—or nose-to-nose—with new and colorful creatures and environments. Vin Diesel is back as the voice of Groot in five all-new shorts. Kirsten Lepore, writer/director of season one, returns in the same capacity for season two. The supervising producer is Danielle Costa; producers are Craig Rittenbaum and Alex Scharf; executive producers are Brad Winderbaum, Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso and Kirsten Lepore. Dana Vasquez-Eberhardt is co-executive producer.

For more stories on 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:

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Featured image: Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) in Marvel Studios’ I AM GROOT exclusively on Disney+. © 2022 MARVEL.

“Barbie” and Greta Gerwig Make History Again

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It’s a Barbie world—it’s also Greta Gerwig’s world—and we’re happy to be living in it.

Gerwig is now the first-ever solo female director to helm a billion-dollar movie, as Barbie surpassed that major milestone this past weekend. Gerwig’s gangbusters take on Mattel’s iconic doll has nabbed $459 million in North America and $572 million internationally, putting Gerwig in the exclusive billion-dollar club and making her the only solo female director in it. Frozen and Frozen 2‘s Jennifer Lee co-directed with Chris Buck, and Captain Marvel‘s Anna Boden co-directed with Ryan Fleck.

Barbie‘s unbelievable success was also achieved at warp speed—Gerwig’s film hit the milestone a mere 17 days after its premiere, making it the fastest film in Warner Bros.’s 100-year history to do so, vanquishing Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which had the previous record of 19 days.

The reasons for Barbie‘s success begin with Gerwig—or, to be as factual as possible, they begin with star and producer Margot Robbie, who recruited Gerwig to write and direct. Gerwig and her partner Noah Baumbach co-wrote the script, and then Gerwig directed what has become a true cinematic phenomenon. The phenomenon has been aided by Gerwig and her starry cast, a best-in-class marketing campaign, incredible word of mouth, rave reviews from critics, and, of course, the spectacle of Barbenheimer, the rabid film fans who were clamoring for the release of both Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in the same weekend.

Barbie now joins Spider-Man: No Way Home, Top Gun: Maverick, Jurassic World: Dominion, and Avatar: The Way of Water as films that crossed the billion-dollar threshold during the pandemic era.

“This is a watershed moment for Barbie, and no one but Greta Gerwig could have brought this cross-generational icon and her world to life in such a funny, emotional, and entertaining story, one that is resonating with all four quadrants of moviegoers and literally turning the entire world pink,” said Jeff Goldstein and Andrew Cripps, Warner Bros. presidents of domestic and international distribution, respectively, in a joint press statement. “Long lines and repeat viewings prove that movies are back in a big, big way, and we look forward to seeing just how far ‘Barbie’ can go in the real world.”

Barbie remained number one at the box office this past weekend—it’s third in a row—even with competition from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Meg 2: The Trench, and Oppenheimer.

For more on Barbie, check out these stories:

“Barbie” Hair & Makeup Artist Ivana Primorac Conjures Personality From Plastic

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The Barbenheimer Phenomenon Was Real, and Historic

Greta Gerwig Makes History as “Barbie” Becomes Biggest Opening Weekend Ever For Female Director

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) RYAN GOSLING, MARGOT ROBBIE and Director/Writer GRETA GERWIG on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk

“Haunted Mansion” VFX Supervisor Edwin Rivera Gives These New Ghosts a Spectral Charge

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The spirits have materialized for Disney’s latest comedy adventure Haunted Mansion. Everyone’s favorite spectral residents, from the hatchet-wielding Bride to the Hatbox Ghost, are coming out of their coffins for a swinging good time. The film fleshes out the skeletal stories of the spooky spirits who haunt Disney theme parks around the world. VFX Supervisor Edwin Rivera, who hails from visual effects studio DNEG, cast the classic characters in a new light.

“One of the things we added to our ghosts is this thing we called ‘ectoplasmic effervescence’ —it’s a mouthful,” he laughed. “We were trying to mimic bioluminescent algae. If you’re not disturbing it, they don’t light up, but as you move your hand through them, they start to light up. Our ghosts have the same thing. As they move through their ghostly realms, they started to give off these particles that lit up very much like bioluminescence.”

Owen Wilson as Father Kent in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

There’s an authenticity to the scares that adds chills to the atmosphere. Tangible creations laid the foundation for the ethereal. “Justin Simien, our director, very much wanted to keep the movie grounded,” Rivera said. “He wanted real sets. He wanted real actors dressed up as ghosts walking around so that it feels real. There’s a feeling that The Shining or The Ring has that maybe some other movies don’t because there’s this creepy person in the room coming at you. It started from that point, then that gave us the basis of we want to make it feel real like you’re actually there. This is something that, as fantastical as it seems, it at least visually looks like it’s actually happening.”

A scene still from Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Turning human actors into tortured souls was an intensive process. Footage was layered together to capture real performances before transforming them into translucent beings floating through the mansion.

“We would scan their bodies, so we had a CG model,” Rivera explained. “We track that model to their bodies, and that would give us the opportunity to be able to generate the bioluminescent particles. We knew exactly where their body was at any given moment, so then we could create the CG skeleton underneath that was revealed in those transparent spots. We also made sure that we shot clean passes of every scene without any of the actors. Every single time. We had what was behind the actor; then we could reveal that through the empty spots in their body on the face or legs or whatnot.”

Lindsay Lamb as Ghost Bride in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Despite being long dead, these ghosts are simply glowing and boast familiar – yet updated – designs. The textures are spectacularly creepy. Rivera’s team made excellent use of dim and deteriorating details to give the spirits depth.

“Adding a transparency to the shadow areas where you can see that they’re see-through and there’s skeletal structure underneath that’s creepy and decrepit,” Rivera added. “All those little elements were used to enhance what was already there without being distracting.”

The ride employs some impressive optical illusions that originally debuted in 1969, but a mix of practical effects and modern technology sends the images soaring for the film. Perhaps the most famous gag from the attraction is the medium Madame Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis). Rather than gazing into a crystal ball, she floats inside one. Rivera’s crew was committed to finding the right technique to channel her.

(L-R): Owen Wilson as Father Kent, Rosario Dawson as Gabbie, LaKeith Stanfield as Ben, Tiffany Haddish as Harriet, and Danny DeVito as Bruce in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Early on, we talked about maybe having somebody’s head actually in the ball in the middle of a table,” he recalled. “I think there’s a romantic quality to practical effects, right? Very quickly, we found that that was impractical, so we completely scanned Jamie Lee Curtis’ head. She’s a completely CG character. We did a full motion capture scan of her as she’s delivering her lines because then you get all the subtle little eye twitches and facial movements that are specific to her and make you recognize her as her, and then added CG hair and CG lighting for the CG environment that she’s in. She’s completely CG, but all of her acting is as she delivered it when we captured it.”

Perhaps the most recognizable portraits in the mansion are the four unfortunate souls who are hiding deadly surprises just out of frame. As the doorless chamber stretches, their hazards are revealed. Ben (LaKeith Stanfield) and Travis (Chase Dillon) soon find that the deathtraps aren’t satisfied to stay on the canvas.

A scene still from Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“It started off as something very simple, just the stretching room that had the element of danger just because it’s inherently dangerous to be that high up. As we went along, the thinking was we kind of have to kick this up a notch,” Rivera revealed. “The request was maybe we have these different zones mimic the different things that are happening in the paintings. We have alligators, we have dynamite to mask the guy in boxer shorts, and we have these gnarly tombstones coming through and the quicksand. All those different things correlate to the paintings and add the danger and crank up the incentive for these characters to escape through the roof.”

(L-R): Chase Dillon as Travis, Rosario Dawson as Gabbie, LaKeith Stanfield as Ben, Owen Wilson as Father Kent, and Tiffany Haddish as Harriet in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo by Jalen Marlowe. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

While the chamber stretches up, the hallway stretches out. A normal passageway by day, the characters are stuck in an endless corridor after midnight.

“DNEG did a great job creating all the interiors,” Rivera praised. “The endless hallway was only twenty feet long, and they had to make it look like it was miles long. We only built the first floor. One of the more iconic rooms is the dining room. We built the first floor, so anything above that in all the different directions, that was all DNEG.”

 

While the most chilling frights lay inside, the stately manor’s architecture was enhanced by Rivera’s team. “Anytime you see the exterior of the house, that’s 90 percent CG because we only built the first floor – the porch pretty much and the staircase. Anything above and beyond that is completely CG. Anytime you ever see anything of the house from the outside, that’s 90 percent CG. The idea is for you to take it for granted.”

A scene from Disney’s live-action HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The mansion truly earns its frightful reputation. From disembodied footprints to the eyes of statues following you, everywhere you look, you will spot evidence of hauntings. The film features a detail from the ride in nearly every shot. All the references are impossible to take in on first viewing, and some are craftily hidden in the background.

“I think it’s important to have the things that no one notices because it creates the backdrop and the feeling of the scene, but not the focus,” Rivera noted. “This is the mood, this is the room, but then there’s an actor there. You don’t want to take away from them. You want to be respectful of them. When you don’t notice it, I think that’s a win for VFX.”

 

The happy haunts of Haunted Mansion are now materializing at a theater near you. 

For more stories on 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:

Donald Glover and Brother Stephen Glover to Write “Lando” Series

“The Marvels” Official Trailer Finds Captain Marvel Teaming Up to Fight Against Dar-Benn

“A Haunting in Venice” Trailer Finds Hercules Poirot Thrust Into a Terrifying Mystery

Featured image: Lindsay Lamb as The Bride in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Fall TV Watchlist: From “Lessons in Chemistry” to “Lupin: Part 3”

Posted on by babrams

A slew of new series and returning favorites are coming to you this fall in what is, admittedly, a pretty wild TV season considering the simultaneous strikes. But, playing the optimist, we’re hoping a resolution is in the offing, and we’ll all be able to watch new and returning series knowing that things will be back to normal. Hope springs eternal for the film and TV enthusiast.

Onto the upcoming fall season, which includes adaptations of bestselling novels, sprawling fantasy epics, gripping crime dramas, and the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is now well into its TV run as new and returning series come to Disney+.

Below, we take a look at seven upcoming series; by no means an exhaustive list, but one that offers a little something for everyone.

 

The Wheel of Time (season 2)

 

Release date: September 1 

Created by: Rafe Judkins. 

Starring: Rosamund Pike, Daniel Henney, Zoë Robins, Madaleine Madden. 

Quick Peek: Lovers of fantasy, adventure, and Rosamund Pike (a Ven diagram that captures a lot of people!)  — look no further than the second season of The Wheel of Time. If you aren’t yet familiar with the series, the action follows Moiraine (Pike), a member of a magical organization who is trying to find the reincarnation of the Dragon, a powerful individual who has the potential to save the world—or destroy it. This season, we see the main characters in the aftermath of the battle with the Dark One, preparing to face off against evil once again.

Where to Watch: Prime Video. 

 

Power Book IV: Force (season 2)

Release date: September 1 

Created by: Gary Lennon. 

Starring: Joseph Sikora, Isaac Keys, Lili Simmons, Shane Harper. 

Quick Peek: After cutting ties with New York, Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora) heads to the Second City, where he’s on a fresh quest to seize control of the drug world in Chicago. The second season opens with Tommy seeking to avenge the death of his former business partner, amping up the already sky-high stakes as he continues his dangerous mission to become the most powerful drug dealer of all. Be careful what you wish for, Tommy!

Where to Watch: Starz, Lionsgate+ 

 

Lupin: Part 3 

 

Release date: October 5 

Created by: François Uzan and George Kay. 

Starring: Omar Sy, Soufiane Guerrab, Ludivine Sagnier, Etan Simon. 

Quick Peek: Inspired by the classic French story about gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, the third season of this crime drama unlocks another piece of the puzzle of the life of the beloved character, played by the enormously charismatic Sy. Season three promises more thievery and ingenious disguises and will give Lupin’s cute canine companion a bigger role in the action. Woof!

Where to Watch: Netflix. 

 

Loki (season 2)

Release date: October 6 

Created by: Michael Waldron. 

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Sophia Di Martino, Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw. 

Quick Peek: In season one, the God of Mischief (Hiddleston) found himself a warden of the Time Variance Authority and ended up engaged in a series of increasingly dangerous capers, all of which took place after the events in Avengers: Endgame, and all of which presented Loki with bizarre permutations of himself, calling into question everything he thought he knew. Season two will continue to play in the multiverse, as Loki, his buddy Mobius (Owen Wilson), and his paramour (of sorts) Sylvia (Sophia Di Martino) find fresh adventures awaiting them in their timeless corner of the MCU.

Where to Watch: Disney+ 

 

Lessons in Chemistry 

 

Release date: October 13 

Created by: Lee Eisenberg. 

Starring: Brie Larson, Lewis Pullman, Stephanie Koenig, Aja Naomi King. 

Quick Peek: Based on the best-selling debut novel from Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry details the story of Elizabeth Zott (Larson), who is forced to balance her professional life as a scientist with her new domestic role as a single mother. She accepts a job on a TV cooking show teaching recipes to bored yet eager housewives, all while yearning to return to her actual dream of pursuing science. Stellar cast, stellar source material, and one of fall’s most hotly anticipated new series.

Where to Watch: Apple TV+ 

 

All the Light We Cannot See 

 

Release date: November 2 

Created by: Shawn Levy and Steven Knight. 

Starring: Aria Mia Loberti, Louis Hofman, Hugh Laurie, Mark Ruffalo. 

Quick Peek: Travel back to the ravages of World War II in this heartfelt tale based on Anthony Doerr’s best-selling 2014 novel. The series follows the story of Marie-Laure (Aria Mia Loberti), a blind French teen who crosses paths with a German soldier as they struggle to survive in war-torn Europe. In their own ways, they must come to understand hope, sorrow, and what human connection really means as their world is being torn apart. Have tissues at hand. 

Where to Watch: Netflix. 

 

Echo 

Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez in Marvel Studios’ Echo, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.

Release date: November 29 

Created by: Marion Dayre. 

Starring: Alaqua Cox, K. Devery Jacobs, Charlie Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio. 

Quick Peek: After the events of Hawkeye, Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) deals with the aftermath of her actions as a cog in Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio)’s criminal empire. Set in New York City, Maya must embrace what community and family really represent by reconnecting with her Native American heritage and confronting her past, which includes some dastardly deeds and some very powerful enemies. Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil will also be in play, before he stars in his own new series, Daredevil: Born Again. As we said, the Marvel Cinematic Universe now includes the TV realm.

Where to Watch: Disney+ 

Featured image: Episode 8. Brie Larson in “Lessons in Chemistry,” premiering October 13, 2023 on Apple TV+.

 

 

“Meg 2: The Trench” Deep Dive: Jason Statham vs. Multiple Megalodons is Pure Cinema

Posted on by babrams

These days, action movies are hardly lacking — you’ve got John Wick, Ethan Hunt, the Fast & Furious family, the heroes of RRR, and whoever the next James Bond will be — yet we did have one quibble; we needed more man-versus-prehistoric monster shark action. Ever since 2018’s The Meg swam into our lives, we realized there’s a certain center in our brain that seems to demand a single thing; Jason Statham fighting the biggest shark that ever lived. Period. Like the titular Megalodon, our appetite could never truly be whet. Luckily, the latest installment of The Meg franchise has arrived. 

Meg 2: The Trench promises viewers an old-school summer blockbuster that leans in—way, way in—to the sublime absurdity of its premise. Before we dive into the deep end of what to expect in the sequel, it is necessary to remember and reflect on the original, now streaming on Hulu. Directed by Ben Wheatley and Jon Turteltaub, The Meg follows a group of researchers who discover a Megalodon in the depths of the ocean and attempt to resist its ferocious attacks against them. 

Professional deep sea diver Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) opens the movie on a submarine performing a rescue mission. Amidst vibrant blues and yellows, he helps eight crew members escape from an unknown predator that only he is able to see. Folks, he’s afraid. He has every right to be afraid. What he’s seen makes the great white in Jaws look like Nemo.  

Caption: JASON STATHAM as Jonas Taylor in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Gravity Pictures' science fiction action thriller "THE MEG," a Gravity Pictures release for China, and a Warner Bros. Pictures release throughout the rest of the world. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: JASON STATHAM as Jonas Taylor in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Gravity Pictures’ science fiction action thriller “THE MEG,” a Gravity Pictures release for China, and a Warner Bros. Pictures release throughout the rest of the world. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

For those unfamiliar with the megalodon, one thing to know is that its immensity cannot be overstated. The ancient shark could reach up to 62 feet in length and grew teeth of around 7 inches long. The Meg’s chompers, in combination with their exceptionally large jaws, were enough to easily swallow two adult people side by side. The prehistoric shark has been featured in a few other films like Jurassic Shark (2012), Megalodon (a 2018 TV movie), Megalodon Rising (2021), and The Black Demon (2023)—but it’s safe to say the Warner Bros. franchise has given the megalodon the kind of robust CGI makeover it’s never previously enjoyed.

Back to The Meg, we fast forward five years later; billionaire Jack Morris (Rainn Wilson) travels to his investment Mana One, a marine biology research facility at the Mariana Trench, where he is promised a look at their most recent discovery. Under a layer of hydrogen, the crew uncovers an entire ecosystem untouched by humanity, with hundreds of species ripe for exploration. Of course, one of these species is the bloodthirsty Megalodon, who, once unleashed, begins terrorizing everything it can get its enormous teeth on. Think Jurassic Park meets Jaws meets Cocaine Bear (the Meg wants to eat as badly as Cokey, or Pablo Escobear, wanted more cocaine.) 

Though Taylor was deemed a madman and a coward after his rescue mission freakout five years prior, the leaders of the lab know they need his help if they want to survive. He reluctantly agrees, and together, the group faces off against the beasts — yes, it turns out there are two — until the Megs finally meet their demise. Or so they think.  

The existence of Meg 2: The Trench means that Taylor’s job isn’t finished, and a fresh bloodbath is imminent. Taylor and his friends are in for yet another major battle against the Megalodons, only now they’re much closer to shore.  

The trailer for the new film reveals what made the original so appealing; The unstoppable force of a prehistoric shark against the immovable object of Statham’s balletic grace and gruff charm. We get a clear view of just how ferocious Megalodons have been over the last 65 million years when a scar-faced Meg jumps on the shore and devours a T-Rex just thirty seconds into the new trailer. If you’re keeping score, the Meg has now mocked Jaws’s size and taken out Jurassic Park’s reigning king (not counting the beloved velociraptors or the hybrid dinosaurs that have been such monsters in the Jurassic World franchise.) In addition, the Megs have begun hunting in packs, modifying their solitary killing behaviors in the original.  

 

Meg 2: The Trench also offers new ancient creatures coming into play, like what seems to be a Kraken (because honestly, why not) and primeval lizards. There are helicopters doing death-defying tricks, a la Mission: Impossible. There is Jason Statham riding a giant wave in a super sick jet ski. Pure. Cinema.

The Meg franchise exists to entertain. If it doesn’t quite have the existential horror of the original Jaws, which is okay. The Meg is Jaw’s roided out, utterly lunatic distant cousin. In Jaws, a simple concept like a shark attack was remolded and magnified into a Moby-Dick-like struggle with nature. Spielberg essentially gave birth to the modern summer blockbuster with little more than a wonky mechanical shark and our fear of what we can’t see (Jaws infamously made viewers nearly insane with tension without showing the actual shark all that much.) But like Jaws, The Meg and Meg 2: The Trench are best enjoyed in a group, in a theater, where our fears as almost matched by the size of the screen. 

Meg 2: The Trench is in theaters now.

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Featured image: A theatrical poster for “Meg 2: The Trench.” Courtesy Warner Bros.

“Brother” Writer/Director Clement Virgo on Returning to Filmmaking With His Quietly Devastating Adaptation

Posted on by babrams

Writer/director Clement Virgo followed his instincts when he returned to feature filmmaking. Since his last feature, Poor Boy’s Game (2007), Virgo has been directing TV, working more or less nonstop. He’s directed episodes of Empire, Netflix’s Dahmer- Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, and OWN’s megachurch drama Greenleaf. He was thinking about getting back into features when a friend handed him a copy of David Chariandy’s novel “Brother,” about two Trinidadian immigrants in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough during a smotheringly hot summer in 1991.

“I just knew I had to make it,” Virgo says. “I knew the feelings in the novel, and I knew a way into it.”

Virgo’s adaptation is a gorgeously wrought, quietly powerful return to filmmaking. He marshalls all of his gifts and his years of experience to tell the story of two brothers, Francis (Aaron Pierre) and Michael (Lamar Johnson), deftly teasing out their story along three separate timelines, covering some twenty years of their life in Scarborough to a staggering climax, complete with a gorgeous coda. Brother stays with you—the performances, the recurring motifs, the soundscape (both composer Todor Kobakov’s score and the hip hop that’s such a huge part of Francis’s life), the specificity. In Virgo’s hands, the whole thing appears effortless, the mark of an artist who focuses his efforts on the right things.

Clement screened the film at a Motion Picture Association event this past May in Washington, D.C., co-hosted by the Canadian Embassy, in recognition of the MPA’s partnership with the Black Screen Office. We spoke to Virgo about returning to filmmaking with such an assured, devastating new movie, why specificity creates intimacy between a viewer and a film’s subjects and more.

L-r: John Gibson (Vice President, External and Multicultural Affairs, MPA), Damon D’Oliviera (Partner/Producer, Conquering Lion Pictures), Joan Jenkinson (Executive Director, Black Screen Office), Charles Rivkin (Chairman and CEO, MPA), Wendy Noss (President, MPA-Canada), Clement Virgo (Director), Aeschylus Poulos (President/Producer, Hawkeye Pictures)

What was it about David Chariandy’s novel that made you think, ‘I have to adapt this’?

It was one of those novels that just spoke to me. Like a lot of artists, you don’t know why you’re drawn to something, but this spoke to me in a visceral way and caught me at a time when I wanted to go back to being a filmmaker. I knew the feelings in the novel, and I knew a way into it.

You thread three storylines in such a subtle way, and I’m curious how difficult that was at the scripting stage.

I was very conscious of trying to do something structurally new for me. The great thing about attempting that is that I’m not the first person to try it. I went back and looked at certain films that I thought were very successful at it. I looked at The Godfather Part II, which had that parallel storyline between the father and son. I looked at Manchester by the Sea, which I thought was a beautifully structured film. I find screenplays are really about structure, and once I found the architecture for the story and how each moment and each timeline influences the next and informs what we just saw, I had it. Filmmakers have been playing with structure and time since Orson Welles and D.W. Griffith.

The performances you get from Aaron Pierre and Lamar Johnson are so powerful. As someone who has worked with actors for decades now, I’d love to hear how you managed your relationship with them.

In terms of process, I think every actor has a different methodology for how they work. One of the great things about working in television is that sometimes you haven’t had a chance to meet the actor, and the first time you do is on set. If it’s an ongoing series, you even haven’t cast them, so you don’t have a rapport. So you have to figure out very quickly what they need and what motivates them, and how to be a great audience for them. The great actors are very creative, and if you stay open to that, you get great ideas from them. They make the character so much richer than what you’ve written on the page. And Aaron Pierre and Lamar Johnson brought great ideas to Francis and Michael.

And how were you a good audience for them?

It was to try to help guide them in a subtle way. It’s a cliche, but it’s really a collaboration; it’s trying to be thoughtful and emotionally intelligent about how to inspire, when to push, when to leave them alone, when to encourage, and when to shut up. It’s all the things that you do in any relationship, you’re trying to figure out how to be a good partner and collaborator.

L-r: Aaron Pierre and Clement Virgo on the set of “Brother.”

Your film manages to show, often through the unspoken physicality of how Francis and Michael go through the world, the impact of all the forces arrayed against them—the police, their relationship with their hardworking but often absent mother (a wonderful Marsha Stephanie Blake), their being Jamaican immigrants in a Toronto suburb. I’m wondering how much of that direction and how much is pure performance?

I think it’s really a bunch of different things. It’s cinema in terms of what is the image saying? What are you communicating with that image? What’s the body language, what’s the behavior telling you or not telling you? And how do I, as an audience member, interpret that image? The films that I love communicate through pure cinema. I think that’s the difference between television and film. I just read something that Christopher Nolan said about cinema that’s really interesting. He said that a lot of people think cinema is about plot, but it’s really an audiovisual experience. I thought about that for hours after because it’s true. As a filmmaker, what you’re trying to do is communicate a feeling, a tone. You’re trying to immerse the audience in an experience. Everything is story.

L-r: Lamar Johnson, Aaron Pierre, and Clement Virgo on the set of “Brother.”

Every constituent part within a film is telling one story?

The costumes are story. The set design is story. The lighting is story. You’re trying to communicate non-verbally and have the audience feel something and take something away from the film. How Aaron Pierre walks into a room, what he’s wearing, is the camera with him and subjective, or is it watching him and slowly moving in? It’s all the language and tricks of cinema. Sometimes that stuff is intuitive. You don’t know why you do it. I think most writers and filmmakers, most artists, actually, are trying to create meaning out of their own lives. It’s kind of impossible to hide who you are in your work.

L-r: Lamar Johnson and Aaron Pierre in “Brother.” Credit: Guy Godfree

You made one crucial change in your adaptation, switching the brothers from Trinidadian to Jamaican immigrants. Can you talk about that a bit?

I didn’t want to have to think about it. I didn’t want to intellectualize it, I just wanted to make choices in the moment that felt intuitive. I think that’s the hardest thing, as an artist and a writer, is to get to a place where it’s just pure impulse and instinct. With my background, being born and growing up in Jamaica, I didn’t have to think about the details, I just had to recall and try to communicate and be as specific as I could. I’ve never been a schoolboy in Paris in 1963, but when you see The 400 Blows, it’s so specific to that experience you recognize your own humanity in that story. I’m trying to communicate a collective humanity, and the more specific I am to my own experience, the more it will hopefully translate, and you’ll see your own humanity in my story.

Let’s end with the recurring motif in Brothers, which is Francis and Michael climbing the electrical tower. Can you tell me about filming that?

We filmed it here in Toronto, there’s a decommissioned hydro tower weigh station where there’s no electricity. We got permission from the provincial government to go in and be able to shoot there. We couldn’t climb the tower for real, so it’s a combination of the real space and what we built on our own and with CGI to create that sense of height and jeopardy. But that image is how David Chariandy starts his novel, and I thought it was a beautiful metaphor for the brothers to use that as a visual motif. I’m assuming the audience is going to think something dreadful is going to happen when they’re climbing that tower, but of course, you try to twist that expectation. They get to the top, and it’s like looking out into the future. It’s a MacGuffin, like Rosebud in Citizen Kane or the Lost Ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark; when an object or piece of architecture has meaning in a film, I always find that quite powerful. Like in Mad Max: Fury Road, the image of Charlize Theron falling to her knees in the middle of the desert after that long journey, with the wind blowing sand around her. When I make a film, I think in images.

Lamar Johnson and Aaron Pierre in “Brother.” Credit: Guy Godfree.

Featured image: L-r: Lamar Johnson and Aaron Pierre in “Brother.” Credit: Guy Godfree