Daily Archives: March 30, 2011

Talking with Jake Gyllenhaal, star of the science-fiction thriller “Source Code” on a sunny March Friday at South by Southwest in Austin, I asked him if he was able to enjoy SXSW at all or if he was busy with the promotional dog and pony show for “Source Code.” The actor — hair cut short, smiling — waved off such concerns: “Listen, the wonderful thing about SXSW is you’re able to just be yourself and go around. There’s no dog and pony show here at all. That’s what’s wonderful about it. I love Austin.” This, of course, was just a few hours before the now-infamous “Urinalgate” incident where a “fan” tried to take Gyllenhaal’s picture after the premiere of “Source Code” while the actor was, uh, freshening up.

But before all of that, Gyllenhaal was immensely eager about “Source Code” and his director, Duncan Jones. “Duncan and I met just because he had a project he was interested in me for that he wrote, and I just wanted to meet him generally — because you never know. We met, and it was a very fleeting meeting, very short. I thought, ‘That guy’s cool. Who knows if he’s even interested?’ Then, ‘Source Code’ came up, and they went, ‘Who are the people you would love to work with?’ And I went, ‘I think Duncan Jones would be amazing for this.’ They said, ‘OK, we’ll roll the dice and see if he responds.’ Four months later we were doing the movie.”

And Gyllenhaal was playing Capt. Colter Stevens, a U.S. soldier plunged into a new experimental program. The program aims to stop a large terrorist attack by putting him in the last eight minutes of the experiences of a man who died in a previous terrorist attack. It’s a mix of adrenaline and IQ, with Gyllenhaal as an everyman against fate. “That idea was fascinating to me, and the idea of the ‘source code’ itself, which was this scientist invented a computer program that allows you to go into somebody else’s body for what would be the last eight minutes of their life — that computer program encapsulated a spiritual idea that fascinated me.”

It’s not the first time Gyllenhaal has played fast and loose with space-time, in the wake of “Donnie Darko.” I asked him if he read the script for a project like “Source Code” in a different way. “The most difficult day was the first day, because (Jones) decided to shoot the movie in sequence — I think for clarity for himself, because there are so many variations going on all the time, and particularly the first establishing variation is the most important. On the first day, we had schematics of the patterns of each one of the passengers, because depending on the angle of what was being shot and how my character would affect them, we’d have Source Code 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and I had it in my script — the visual idea of each character and how I could even improv, affect them and not mess up Duncan.”

Gyllenhaal laughed recalling Jones’ drive to clean up the plot of “Source Code”: “He was staying in this hotel; we’d meet up or he’d come to my house, and he would have pulled out things, and I would go, ‘But that was such a great scene.’” Gyllenhaal laughed, imitating his director’s rationale for his cuts: “‘I understand, that was a great idea. Believe me, it won’t make sense.’”

–From my article at The Rundown

After the surprise success of “Moon,” director Duncan Jones knew he wanted to step his game up a little and jump from shooting in the U.K. to the U.S.A. “As far as the choice to do ‘Source Code‘ in order to experience filmmaking here in the U.S., Hollywood-scale filmmaking, that was a conscious choice. I came out of a little British indie film. The opportunity was to go for it, work with a collection of incredibly talented actors through a mini-major studio situation and experience that side of it, which I did, and I’m glad I did. I think I came out of it fairly unscathed. I certainly appreciate how that side of filmmaking is done. I had Jake on my side, which made a huge difference. In fact, I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t know that Jake was on my side.” I pointed out the irony that Jones wanted to get engaged in the American film industry, and the second he did that, they shipped him off to Montreal. He laughed, “Well, that is the American film industry now.”

Given “Source Code”‘s eight-minute limit for Colter’s journey, and “Moon”‘s one-man cast, I asked Jones if he thinks that, for science fiction, the restrictions in the plot make a film what it is. “I think so, absolutely,” he said. “I think that the mechanics were all there. I think Ben Ripley had a very strong script that they’d obviously been working on a very long time before I got involved. My interest in doing it was because the script seemed smart and incredibly pace-y, which I loved. Having come off ‘Moon,’ which was a bit think-y — it was quite slow-paced in some ways — I’m very proud of it, but I wanted to do something dramatically different, especially pace-wise, and having more than one actor.”

More than one actor, but not that many sets. I asked Jones how sick he got of the train-car set that is the setting for much of the film’s action. “I was the lucky one,” he said. “I had different problems to deal with every day, in a good way, as all directors do. I had things that I had to deal with. The people I felt bad for were the actors in the background. There was a large fellow who had to sit sleeping on a chair on the train for six weeks: That was his job for six weeks. Those background players who were so important to giving you the illusion of repetition, those were the people I felt sorry for, because they literally had to spend six weeks doing the same thing again and again and again.”

More importantly, Jones knew he didn’t want to kill his film with too much jibber-jabber and exposition. “It’s very evident that you can’t sit there and explain to an audience how this particular sci-fi conceit works,” he said. “You really have to say, ‘Trust me, this is what it is. There’s some technology that does it. Now follow the story; now go with the characters.’ I think it was the right decision to make. There’s always that argument about how much exposition is actually necessary, and my instinct is always to strip it out as much as possible. It’s not the reason we’re sitting there in the cinema watching a movie. We’re there to engage with characters, empathize with them, and be told a story.”

–From my article at The Rundown

Michelle Monaghan, lanky and relaxed in a gray tank top, talked about her work in “Source Code” — specifically, the pleasures of being blown up over and over again in the film’s central explosion. “It’s pretty funny, because there’s a particular scene where my lips go” — Monaghan rubberized her cheeks in slow-mo — “like that. I remember it was one of our final days of filming, and they go, ‘Do you want to do this special effect?’ I was like, ‘Yes, absolutely I want to do this special effect.’ It’s really, really cool where they shoot a lot of fast, quick air — it’s an air gun, or whatever — but it makes your face completely morph. They played it back at a ridiculously slow speed. We’re all watching — the crew and everyone — and I was literally watching my mouth cover my nose; my cheeks were out to here. It was the first time I ever realized I needed braces.”

And Monaghan also appreciated the fact that “Source Code” is ultimately driven by its ideas, not by its face-smashing special effects: “That’s what I found really appealing. Obviously, this is a sci-fi movie and it’s very thought-provoking and leaves you pondering a lot of different things, as sci-fi does. It’s a gray area. It’s a real character-driven movie, and thematically, it’s about living your life to the fullest, and it’s a real love story at the heart of it. Maybe it’s a new trend where everything’s not just straight sci-fi but it’s sci-fi infused with a little dose of romance or drama, a little more heart. It’s not as cerebral. You’ve got to have a little bit of heart, and it was really nice to see that Duncan (Jones) put that as a priority, as well. It wasn’t all a technical, cerebral sci-fi journey, but it was a journey of the heart, as well.”

And a journey without much luggage or variations in scenery, as we only see Monaghan through the same eight minutes — and in only one outfit, and only on one train set. She laughed. “Oh my gosh. The outfit: I lived in it for about 6 weeks or 2 months. It was crazy. We got really used to the train rather quickly, but I have to say it was on a gimbal and it moved all day. It was one of those things where you get off the thing, Jake and I would step down, and we’d both do one of these” — Monaghan wobbled woozily — “and hold onto each other. We’d sit there and watch playback, and he and I would both be swaying like this, like we’d been riding on a train for 12 hours. We’d rock back and forth. There was a fast mode and then a faster mode and then the fastest mode. You know that feeling: It was relentless. It wanted to put us to sleep. It was challenging after lunch.”

She also had to shoot week upon week of scenes approximately 8 inches from Jake Gyllenhaal. That, I joked, had to become tiresome at some point, didn’t it? “No. He’s got those beautiful eyes,” she said. “We really hit it off. It’s a lot of time to spend together with somebody and not really know — you might get along, you might not get along. He’s such a pleasure to work with, and he’s one of the most supportive actors that I’ve ever worked with. He’s got an amazing sense of humor. That’s what got us through. He was great.” Monaghan smiled. “And he is easy on the eyes.”

–From my article at The Rundown