Exclusive Timur Bekmambetov Interview (page 2)

23 June 2008

What was the appeal of James McAvoy beacause he is not the first actor, and no disrespect to him, that you think of when you think action role and action hero?

That is why I decided o do it with him because it has to be a journey, if you know this actor as a superman or aperson who can be a superman then ther’s no transformation and there’s no chance to enjoy the transformation, that is why James was perfect because he had never done it before and nobody can imagine him doing this.

angelina Jolie attracts a lot of media attention how did this effect the filming process?

I never had a problem with her popularity, it’s her personal life, but itnever effected the process at all.

You made your name with the Night Watch and Day Watch movies, you also wrote the scripts, what was the inspiration behind the scripts?

The films are based on the book by famous Russian fantasy writer Sergey Lukyanenko and we adapted the scripts from his novels.

What was it about these novels that you thought would be great for the big screen?

It was a story of mythology the conflict between good and evil but the difference is there is an agreement between good and evil. Many thousands of years ago the two sides sign a contract on how they will live together to kep the balance of the world, because the outcome of either side winning the war would be too bad for the world.

It’s a great story because each human being can decide everyday what needs to be done, it’s very huministic there’s no prediction everything is in your hands and you can decide what’s good and what’s bad.

How surprisd were you by there success as they now have a strong cult following, particuarly the first one?

Yes I was surprised, Iwasn’t surprised in Russia I felt that I had made this movie for Russia and I knew my audience and knew that they would like it, but I was surprised that it became an evet outside of Russia.