Clash of the Titans
Clash of the Titans was one of the big blockbuster movies that had everyone flocking to the cinema when it was released earlier this year.
Louis Leterrier's film is a remake of the 1981 classic of the same name and saw Sam Worthington take on the central role of Perseus. With an all star cast Gemma Arterton played Io while Jason Flemyng played Acrisius.
- What was it like working with Louis Leterrier? How did he handle the sheer scale of the project and bringing everything together?
Gemma Arterton: He's amazing. It's hard, I think, with these projects because not only have you got this fantasy world to create, you've got to create this world that we've never seen before. But also he has all the huge cast to deal with as well.
But he cast really brilliant actors and everybody involved, the camera crew, everyone, they were real genius, top of their game.
Because everyone wanted to be involved in Clash of the Titans and so it kind of took care of itself from that respect so he could look at the special effects, and the tying the whole thing together. And yet he has just so much energy, didn't he?
Jason Flemyng: He's amazing guy. The actors that he cast wouldn't necessarily have been cast in Clash of the Titans had it been just an American production. And I think that's really added something to it.
I think the journeyman, and all the other actors around the journeyman are these strange faces who we've known from European films and who would never probably get the chance without Louis being, you know, the governor.
By doing that I think he made sure that for his own sake that the acting was kind of looking after itself, and then all he had to worry about, and it's a lot to worry about, was the huge monster that was the film set. I think it went well for him.
- Can you talk a little bit about your approach to each of your characters and how Louis Leterrier helped you?
JF: Louis? The visionary French director, Louis? Okay. He basically, with me, I'll be really honest. I'm not being self-effacing, but 80 percent of the performance is obviously the make-up, so for me it was just a patience thing about coping with the fact that I had to put this stuff on and then resisting ripping it off during the day.
So that was really my job, then I go 'rawr' and that's it. So my part was quite easy. It was just a question of patience really. That's ridiculously self-effacing.
GA: Yeah, it is, isn't it?
- What approach did you take with your role considering it was not in the original?
GA: Well, I actually looked at all of the myth behind Io. There's so much written about her which I used to inform what was in the script because she's quite enigmatic in the script and there wasn't much for me to reap myself in with, just that.
So Louis and I, we would collaborate quite a lot actually and meet up and talk about it and are we going to play that.
It was really freeing for me actually because I didn't have to worry about being compared to a previous person playing it. Burgess Meredith was probably the closest to my role in the original film.
It was really great actually to play within this mad action, very male testosterone-fueled film, to play someone really, really feminine, like an angel or a mother figure and a really strong woman. It was really great.
- Can you talk about the scorpiachs sequence?
GA: I remember when we were filming that scene, it was for me a big moment because obviously it's such a famous scene in the original and I loved the original.
The sequence in this film is brilliant. It's just a brilliant, brilliant action sequence. We were filming it for about a week in total because it was sort of two fight scenes that joined together, yours and then it goes into the Scorpiochs.
It was crazy that we would do it in sections because there were so many different things happening. We were at the top of a volcano in altitude so the oxygen was a bit lower.
But it was really good. The Scorpiochs had been built and then obviously CGI did a little bit. There was one set that exploded, like we had watched this whole exploding set.
JF: It was amazing as well because it was literally geographically two hours up a mountain and then you'd arrive and there was a corner that you went around and then suddenly it was all there. It was really breathtaking.
GA: It was like being on another planet.
JF: Luna.
GA: Yes, Luna. We filmed that in Tenerife and Tenerife hadn't been used for filming for 40 years. It was just incredible because what it offers in terms of landscape is quite unparalleled because there are so many different types of landscape.
JF: Amazing. It's like micro climates everywhere. You can have rainforests and you can have the desert.
GA: And the beach and you know everything.
JF: It was amazing wasn't it, Gemma?
GA: Oh, we loved it there.
- How much filming did you do at sea and what was it like?
GA: Well, I didn't do any.
JF: You did looking over.
GA: I was looking over and because they used a lot of water tanks but I wasn't involved in any of that. They actually built a boat which they used and had all of the crashing waves. And the sea stuff was in Tenerife as well with beautiful cliffs.
JF: I think geographically, our Clash of the Titans using Tenerife was really iconic.
GA: Tenerife and Wales. They used beautiful beaches in Wales.
JF: Amazing.
GA: Beautiful.
- Of the different amazing locations, which was the toughest shoot for you both?
GA: Wales.
- Why?
GA: It was cold and wet and it rained. We filmed there in July.
JF: It rained for 28 days.
GA: Yeah, it was just solid rain, rain, rain. That is where we filmed the scene before we go into the underworld, before Medusa's lair there's and all this load of gray slate.
JF: That's sort of the slate mines and that's an original slate quarry. It's incredible. It's amazing looking.
GA: It films beautifully but when you're there it's just gray and rain and it was really cold and I was thinking “gosh, it's July, it should be warm and I was laying down most of the time in this kind of nighty-type dress, absolutely freezing while they were kicking butt.
JF: They did a shot where they took me up in a helicopter, and left me on the top of a hill by this quarry. It's actually a mountain. They took me to the top of it, they left me on the top of the hill on some rocks and then they flew off and they were going to fly past in the camera to film me. And I've got the full thing on like that.
And I was standing there thinking, "Blimey, that's a bit quiet up here." As I was standing there, two climbers walked past me and they were like, 'All right?.' 'I’m making a film.' And they were like, 'Really?' 'Yeah, yeah, I'm just an actor making a film.'
And they were just completely flabbergasted by this sort of monster on top of a rock with no one around and the next minute the helicopter came past.
GA: How surreal for them.
JF: Yeah, they were like, "You're never going to guess what I saw when I was climbing."
- Can you talk about the fight scenes?
JF: I've got these wrists, so there's not a great call for me getting asked to do lots of warrior parts, but Clash of the Titans was great because I got to fight loads and loads of guys.
I was kind of handicapped by the fact I had a club foot and rock as an arm but it was great fun.
GA: The final fight is brilliant, that fight between you and Perseus.
Clash of the Titans is out on DVD 26th July
Clash of the Titans was one of the big blockbuster movies that had everyone flocking to the cinema when it was released earlier this year.
Louis Leterrier's film is a remake of the 1981 classic of the same name and saw Sam Worthington take on the central role of Perseus. With an all star cast Gemma Arterton played Io while Jason Flemyng played Acrisius.
- What was it like working with Louis Leterrier? How did he handle the sheer scale of the project and bringing everything together?
Gemma Arterton: He's amazing. It's hard, I think, with these projects because not only have you got this fantasy world to create, you've got to create this world that we've never seen before. But also he has all the huge cast to deal with as well.
But he cast really brilliant actors and everybody involved, the camera crew, everyone, they were real genius, top of their game.
Because everyone wanted to be involved in Clash of the Titans and so it kind of took care of itself from that respect so he could look at the special effects, and the tying the whole thing together. And yet he has just so much energy, didn't he?
Jason Flemyng: He's amazing guy. The actors that he cast wouldn't necessarily have been cast in Clash of the Titans had it been just an American production. And I think that's really added something to it.
I think the journeyman, and all the other actors around the journeyman are these strange faces who we've known from European films and who would never probably get the chance without Louis being, you know, the governor.
By doing that I think he made sure that for his own sake that the acting was kind of looking after itself, and then all he had to worry about, and it's a lot to worry about, was the huge monster that was the film set. I think it went well for him.
- Can you talk a little bit about your approach to each of your characters and how Louis Leterrier helped you?
JF: Louis? The visionary French director, Louis? Okay. He basically, with me, I'll be really honest. I'm not being self-effacing, but 80 percent of the performance is obviously the make-up, so for me it was just a patience thing about coping with the fact that I had to put this stuff on and then resisting ripping it off during the day.
So that was really my job, then I go 'rawr' and that's it. So my part was quite easy. It was just a question of patience really. That's ridiculously self-effacing.
GA: Yeah, it is, isn't it?
- What approach did you take with your role considering it was not in the original?
GA: Well, I actually looked at all of the myth behind Io. There's so much written about her which I used to inform what was in the script because she's quite enigmatic in the script and there wasn't much for me to reap myself in with, just that.
So Louis and I, we would collaborate quite a lot actually and meet up and talk about it and are we going to play that.
It was really freeing for me actually because I didn't have to worry about being compared to a previous person playing it. Burgess Meredith was probably the closest to my role in the original film.
It was really great actually to play within this mad action, very male testosterone-fueled film, to play someone really, really feminine, like an angel or a mother figure and a really strong woman. It was really great.
- Can you talk about the scorpiachs sequence?
GA: I remember when we were filming that scene, it was for me a big moment because obviously it's such a famous scene in the original and I loved the original.
The sequence in this film is brilliant. It's just a brilliant, brilliant action sequence. We were filming it for about a week in total because it was sort of two fight scenes that joined together, yours and then it goes into the Scorpiochs.
It was crazy that we would do it in sections because there were so many different things happening. We were at the top of a volcano in altitude so the oxygen was a bit lower.
But it was really good. The Scorpiochs had been built and then obviously CGI did a little bit. There was one set that exploded, like we had watched this whole exploding set.
JF: It was amazing as well because it was literally geographically two hours up a mountain and then you'd arrive and there was a corner that you went around and then suddenly it was all there. It was really breathtaking.
GA: It was like being on another planet.
JF: Luna.
GA: Yes, Luna. We filmed that in Tenerife and Tenerife hadn't been used for filming for 40 years. It was just incredible because what it offers in terms of landscape is quite unparalleled because there are so many different types of landscape.
JF: Amazing. It's like micro climates everywhere. You can have rainforests and you can have the desert.
GA: And the beach and you know everything.
Tagged in Jason Flemyng Gemma Arterton