Q: In what
way is Johner an interesting character for you?
RP: Well,
he's part of a very interesting sort of a conglomerate of characters.
He's a gun for hire, with no real allegiance to anyone. This film
takes place two hundred years after the last one, and I'm not sure
how far in the future that was, but it's well in the future. So obviously,
the world isn't the world as we know it. And it's not really defined;
it's anybody's guess as to what the parameters of law and order are.
But clearly the crew of the "Betty," which is the ship that Johner
and company are on, is a group of "guns for hire," and will do anything
for money. And there's about six of us. How many are there? There's
Johner, Christie, Elgyn, Hillard, Call, Vriess ... yeah, there's
six of us. Of the six, each of us has our own unique sort of world
view. Johner is the total underachiever in the group. He doesn't
want to lead, you know. He doesn't want to follow. He just wants to
be free to be the sort of loose cannon that he is, and he finds himself
in a situation that is tailor-made for his personality and for his
sort of free-wheeling spirit.
Q: Are they pirates?
RP: Well, "pirates"
has a connotation to it that is sort of, you know, "shiver-me-timbers."
These guys are maybe more like mercenaries. They're guns for hire.
And this particular assignment that they're on when we find them is
a rather benign one; They're just delivering some cargo. They don't
really know what the cargo is, and the less they know, the happier
they are. So they make the delivery, spend a couple of days on the
big mother-ship -- on which there are these experiments being done,
which they don't know anything about. And ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately,
in the couple of days that they spend taking a shower, grabbing some
spare parts, hangin' out and gettin' a little R & R, all hell breaks
loose.
Q: What's the difference
in working with Jean-Pierre on this as opposed to "City of Lost
Children"?
RP: In his approach,
there's very little difference. He's a tremendously visual and visceral
film director. The camera is as important a character as the actors
in his work. This was true of "City of Lost Children," and
it's true here. Resurrection is more chock-full of action sequences
-- and we're working in English. Those are the two major differences.
Having worked on "City of Lost Children," I'm very prepared
for the way Jean-Pierre works -- in this sort of a shorthand that's
developed between us. It's made working on Resurrection rather
easy and pleasureful.
Q: Can you talk about
the underwater stuff? What type of training did the cast members go
through to be able to do that?
RP: Really the only
training we did was we spent a few hours rehearsing some of the more
fundamental scenes, getting used to breathing off a regulator. Getting
used to doing a take that lasted maybe thirty/forty seconds. And then
getting used to being available for the safety divers who were down
there with us to find us at the end of a shot, and get the regulators
in our mouth again -- because there was no coming up. So we did a
lot of test runs. I think the most difficult thing about the underwater
stuff is that in order to keep the pool safe and bacteria-free, the
chlorine level was intense and the higher the chlorine level the worse
the visibility is. So we would rehearse scenes with masks and everything
would be hunky-dory, and then they'd do the count-down, we'd remove
the mask right before action and all of a sudden we were totally blind
and you were just hoping and praying that you hit your mark, that
you sort of were in decent proximity to where the camera needed you
to be, and that you made it through the take without, you know ...
dying.
Q: To all that chaos
underwater you add an alien, gunfire, set dressing ... What is it
like when you go down in there?
RP: There were times
when the biggest danger was thinking you were comfortable down there
and became blasé. I remember I did a shot that required about fifteen
or sixteen takes, and for the last couple I would come up and get
the direction from Jean-Pierre and then go back down ... I didn't
take any of the precautions I needed to, and I got this incredible
pressure build-up in my head -- I thought I was having a stroke. I
was making the signal to "cut," but I can't go on because my eyes
were literally bulging out of my head, and I thought my brains were
gonna explode. And nobody saw me doing the "cut." So they yelled "action"
and for some strange reason -- I guess it's the twenty-two years of
training -- I went on and did the take in this incredible amount of
pain, and barely made it through. But this was the one that they printed,
so obviously, one thing feeds off another.
Q: There's no fear
like genuine fear.
RP: The biggest
trap was thinking that you could become comfortable down there, and
the minute you did it you were dead. It was a rather dangerous situation.
There were about five times where I saw God -- I was really out of
air and I was ready to just start breathin' ... Luckily, just at the
point where I couldn't last another quarter of a second, somebody
found me and stuck a regulator in my mouth. When you're acting panic
you're letting your air out -- And if you let all your air out and
the director doesn't call "cut" for another ten or fifteen seconds,
that's a lifetime.
Q: What's Johner's
relationship like with Call and with Ripley?
RP: Well, Call
is the new kid on the ship, and Johner is just along with his
underachieving ways -- he's a hard-drinking, hard-living, hard-loving
guy ... and I use the word "love" advisedly. He's a lusty fellow.
He's had his day in court with Call and he got shot down, is
what I think, so he puts up with her. He still doesn't trust her 'cause
she hasn't proven herself in battle. So there's a sort of a wariness
to his relationship with her. In the course of the film, we come to
find out that he was right not to trust her. Ripley ... the
first time we meet, there's a lot of pyrotechnics initially, spurred
on by Johner's womanizing. He's not a particularly chivalrous
guy, and Ripley possesses this sort of strength and power that
he is awed by. Here's this chick that just makes him look like, you
know, a reed in the wind. And he's a pretty formidable guy himself
-- So he has a tremendous amount of regard and respect for her. And
it's the first -- it's the only -- real relationship that he has with
any kind of order. The order of power is the most primal pecking order.
The only thing he's guided by is the very primal, "eat, drink, man,
woman."
Q: He gets in a little
bit of a fight with Ripley. There's this basketball scene ...
RP: Yeah, that's
our first meeting, what I was referring to.
Q: I hear she sunk
the shot.
RP: Amazing. Top
of the key. I'm not gonna tell you about it. It's something you're
gonna see when you see the film, but it was truly amazing. And I ruined
the shot because I broke Derrick down. I was so, like, "whoa."
Q: What does it mean
to be a part of the Alien series? Were you a fan of the movies
before?
RP: A tremendous
fan of One and Two. Never saw Three. I'm not a fan of those kinds
of movies, generically, but there was a nuance so heavily portrayed
in both "Alien" One and Two. The juxtaposition of "reality" and the
"work-a-day" sort of feel of those characters, who you really did
care about, against these aliens which were truly nightmarish because
of how well-realized they were in the realm of creating monsters for
the screen; was as engaging as anything that I've ever seen on the
screen. The pedigree of people who have been a part of the Alien
series is something to aspire to -- Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Finscher.
And just the cast of actors that have peopled these stories ... I
really do feel as though there's a legacy there that one humbly needs
to tip their hat to, when one is embraced into this world.
Q: I'd like to talk
about the effects a little bit. Did you have to interact with nothing,
as it were?
RP: Uh hum, constantly.
Constantly interacting with your imagination and your imagination
only. And you know, sometimes your imagination is very fertile, and
sometimes it ain't, and that's what take two is all about. But it
sort of makes for a problematic acting exercise, and you just try
to build up as much of a visual story in your mind that will feed
you emotionally. That's the exercise.
Q: What's going on
in the scene that you're shooting today?
RP: Um, I'm not
sure how much is cool to say, and how much is too much. But one of
us has been thought to be a terrorist plant, so we're rounded up in
the scene, the whole crew of "The Betty" -- all six of us -- and we
are about to be incarcerated and expelled or tried, or whatever it
is that's about to happen. Concurrently with this, which is a major
dramatic moment, 'cause we're just minding our own business and we
don't even know that one of our crew members is not who she says she
is. We come to find out in the scene. That's the beginning of our
finding out. But concurrently the aliens are sensing that this is
their time to make their move and, you know, they're all heavily guarded
and caged and they figure out a way to rectify that situation. So
while this is happening, that's happening, and everything comes to
a head and this is really a springboard to the rest of the movie,
where it's "us against them" and, you know, "may the better being
win."
Q: What kind of ride
to you think people can expect from this movie?
RP:
I think that in terms of the "mano a mano" sort of feel of this film,
it's more like Alien I and Alien II than it was like
what I -- what I understand Alien III to have been like, which
was more a sociological sort of experiment. This is a jeopardy movie.
This is people fearing for their lives and running against time and
running against elements that they have no idea what they're capable
of doing. But they know that they're bad and they know that they can
kill you. And people drop like flies and it's loaded with excitement.
It is a thrill ride, you know, and all that stuff is a given, and
all we're here to do is try to inject a little humanity into it so
that the audience will care about who it is that they are watching
drop, you know.
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