John Carter is set to be the first big event movie of 2012 when it hits the big screen later this week.
Andrew Stanton makes his live action movie debut while Taylor Kitsch takes on the title role in what is the biggest movie of his career to date.
Stanton & Kitsch were joined by Samantha Morton, Willem Dafoe, Lynn Collins and producers Lindsey Collins & Jim Morris in London to talk about the new movie.
- MGM were going to make this movie as an animated picture way back in 1931 since then there have been several efforts to get it together, there was even one notion that Tom Cruise was going to be John Carter, so how come it’s taken so long to make this futuristic, science fiction film?
Lindsey Collins: There is so much that goes into a movie to begin with but to make a movie this bi takes that much and more. But I think that it’s the fact that the technology wasn’t ready, and I think that is why they wanted to make an animated movie initially to avoid all that technology thing.
When Andrew talked about it initially that was the biggest challenge because we wondered whether we would be able to be in a desert having a conversation between John Carter and Tars Tarkas and have it feel real.
Had you not been able to buy that simple scene then there would have been no point in shooting a really epic spectacle; it was one of the most difficult scenes to do and so we had to prove that the technology was up to the challenge.
- There are a whole host of John Carter stories so are there any sequel plans?
Jim Morris: The first three books are known as a trilogy and a lot of people read those three books so when Andrew started out he did beat outlines for three films, not presuming that there would be three films but hoping that there would be.
But if there are more movies we are not boxed in from a story point of view we have thought through the character arcs and the narrative arcs of the film. We are in the process of readying a script for a second movie and we hope to be able to make it.
- Andrew you were a kid that found himself at midnight in a candy store making this movie as since you were ten or eleven this has been your dream.
Andrew Stanton: Well it has been my dream to go and see it I never had the hoobers to think that I would be in film or directing let along doing this movie. I was ready to by a ticket and go and see it since I was eleven years old.
- Did you have to take care then that you didn’t let your passion for the subject matter get in the way of things.
Stanton: Oh no I wanted it very much in the way because that is the only thing that is going to keep you going. Making movies, no matter what kind of movie it is or what the subject, is hard and it’s going to be wrong more than it’s going to be right - so what is going to get you out of bed each day and face it?
It has to be something you love so much that you would be willing to see it even if nobody paid you. I couldn’t think of anything I love more than seeing this on screen.
- Samantha I believe that you have said that when you tackle a character from well love literature it is crucially important that you deliver for the fans of that work, you have played many literary characters in the past.
Samantha Morton: Yes there was the nerve aspect of that was huge. But it was more to me about finding the spirit and being connected on that and understanding that.
This character has a much bigger life and this is a birth of this person, this is the beginning of a very long journey; that is exciting because it is like having a secret. It was a huge responsibility but it was also a pleasure.
- Willem it’s hard enough having to play a character without a. having to use stilts b. having to wear pyjamas with all the motion capture dots and c. having to learn an invented language - so was that part of the fun or at times a headache?
Willem Dafoe: It was a lot of fun. They are all tools and if you embrace them and they are opportunities. If you take the stilts I found out what it’s like to bee nine feet tall, which is a new experience for me, so if you take experience and you apply it to entering the character than you can invest that character with an energy and a curiosity that you didn’t have before. So you kiss those stilts because that is a gift that they gave you.
And although we didn’t use the language a lot it allowed me to find the voice and find out the register so I don’t see these things as problems but as opportunities.
Andrew Stanton: I don’t know if we ever really talked about it a lot but it made you guys (the Tharks) parental and you (John Carter) the child because it was always that relationship that we know as children through adults.
- Lynn despite your background being in marital arts I am told that you were still slightly nervous about all the action films that you would be doing in this film.
Lynn Collins: Yes for me what was the most challenging aspect of the stunts and the fights was that my adrenaline would get incredibly high and I would fear that I wouldn’t be able to control my fierceness.
Then we would have to do a more relaxed scenes and it was hard to go from this high adrenaline rush to something where you would have to relax. But at the same time it was so much fun and I was conquering fears constantly.
- Taylor the movie was such a demanding role for you so this must have been the toughest thing that you have ever done?
Taylor Kitsch: There was many times where I thought that you (Stanton) had a vendetta, especially that great white ape sequence. But he (Stanton) made a great point when we were filming; I don’t know whether it was to motive me or what, but it was ’the more we beat you up the more you are going to be liked’.
So much he sacrifices for Dejah, for the cause, the Tharks and himself so to say the least this was the most exhausting thing that I have ever been a part of.
- Lynn talking about your fears I gather that you had a fear of heights which has now gone away so what happened?
Lynn Collins: I don’t know if it has gone away and I am sure if we do a second movie I am sure that I will be thrown around again, I will have to do it all over again. The first stunt that I saw the stunt doubles were way up in the corner of the studio and I was like ’wow that is so great’.
And I started walking away but they were like ’No Lynn it’s time to get into your harness’ and I saw Taylor getting into his and he just looked at me and said ’No regrets Collins’. So from that moment my fear was completely overcome by this challenge from this man - so I guess I should thank Taylor.
- With this role and that dress, much like the character of Princess Leia in Star Wars, poster of you are going to be all over the walls of boys’ bedrooms so are you ready for that? And how long did you spend in that dress?
That dress is amazing! Mayes C. Rubeo designed it and it had 100,000 Swarovski crystals on it and it was incredible but it was much lighter than you might think.
Playing this part I never once, really and honestly, never felt sexualised even thought I wasn’t wearing that many clothes. But that is just how she was and how she existed on Mars but that dress is actually Zodangan it’s not from Helium, she actually says ’this is too vulgar for me’.
What you would normally see Dejah in is what she is wearing in the Hall of Science, the long robes - but I don’t think the guys are going to be having posters of me in the long robes (laughs).
- Andrew this is your first live action movie so was it a relief to get out and do this type of movie?
Andrew Stanton: Yeah I felt like I had was let outdoors for the first time in twenty years, not that I felt held back, but it was definitely a boost that I kind of needed to feel all fresh again. But I did get a little more than I asked for.
- I was wondering what thoughts lay behind the back-stories of John Carter and Dejah Thoris?
Andrew: Well I just wanted them to have more character and more growth, for me you watch movies because you want to watch character growth and change you don’t want to watch static constantness.
In the books they are sort of who they were and they just repeated and reacted the same why every time and that works in a serial nature and for a simplistic story that didn’t ask much more than that but those became clichés over the hundred years.
Clichés come from something that works but then they have been abused then they become a cliché that is an off putting thing. They were built off of archetypes so we started with that same core for both of those characters but they had to have more to them so that we could relate to them.
- How protective have the Burroughs’ estate been of the work?
Jim Morris: We had a very good relationship with the Burroughs’ estate, Danton Burroughs was Edgar Rice’s grandson and he was the keeper of the flame of everything his grand father and he has unfortunately passed away.
But before he did Andrew presented what he wanted to do with the story and Danton was thrilled and thought that e (Andrew) had solved some problems that had made it difficult to make it into a movie before.
They were really happy about that and they were great people and they worked with us very closely - it has been a good thing.
- Lindsey what was your experience of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ work before you started work on this movie?
Lindsey Collins: Only that the sense that Andrew had talked about it for a long time along with Mark Andrews, who is the co-writer and the second unit director. There is a culture at Pixar where a lot of people have been heavily influenced by these books; you don’t get far at Pixar without embracing star Wars and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
So I read the first book and then waited for the script to finish and then read that - and I have taken a peak at the outline of the second one so I am excited; I have a sense of where it is going and it’s exciting.
- Andrew are people who are not aware of the work of Burroughs gob-smacked that almost every sci-fi movie, book and TV show since the fifties has plundered the work of Burroughs.
Andrew Stanton: I think plundered is a bit of a harsh word. I am a fan of almost everything that gets associated with this property as its inspiration and I love it all.
Me being a fan of it over thirty six years I have never felt like ‘hey they have stole’ to me it’s the influence that the Beatles music had it just made great artists do stuff that was of a similar inspiration but then they gave it their own thumb print.
That is what great art does it inspires other artists to do great art - and that is what it should do. There’s nothing in this world that wasn’t influenced by a bunch of key things, nothing came completely out of a vacuum. For me that is the best compliment that you can the work.
So if I can be a fan and know that book from the first sense to the last and not feel like I have seen it be robbed and put on the screen then I have always felt that room to just literally put the book on the screen, so that is where I came from.
- It’s interesting that the ‘From Mars’ has been taken out of the title was there a reason for this?
Andrew Stanton: Well that is a marketing problem that’s their issue of how to get people past their first impressions. You see it all the time with subtitled movies people are like ’oh I don’t like to read’ so they rob themselves of a great movie.
Sadly people are victims to their first impressions but the worst thing to do is to be making content that you are making out of fear based on what you think first impressions will be.
- So ‘From Mars’ was taken out so people weren’t assuming it was a sci-fi movie?
Stanton: Well they did find a lot of people were saying ‘well I don’t like sci-fi’ and walked away. I know it’s hard for you to believe but there are a lot of people who don’t like sci-fi.
Lindsey Collins: I think that they thought that it was going to pigeon-hole the movie a little bit if anything this movie is such a broad big film.
I think the concern was initially that ’Mars’ in the title was going to be something that was so specific that it would make people think that they knew exactly what it was and make their decision on whether they wanted to see the movie or not on that word alone.
Stanton: Burroughs tapped into something out of sheer innocence a hundred years ago that was so mythic that a kid in the seventies, a kid in the thirties and kids now can still get into the book - and that is what we tried to grab; the timeless mythic part.
Samantha Morton: My daughter saw the movie last night, she is twelve, and interestingly her initial reaction was that it was like a costume drama to her, she didn’t know it was the future because it’s in its own world…
Stanton: That is how the books were for me
Morton: She wouldn’t have known the word sci-fi because one minute you are in nineteenth century American and the next minute you are on Mars. I was just so innocent and I just thought that was so beautiful - it is what it is and it’s in the world that you are in.
- Taylor you are quite bulked up in the movie but here you are today all slimmed down so how did you about working you physique?
Taylor Kitsch: It was just about being honest character. It’s funny when I first got the role, and you are in the mix for months on end; and I was saying to myself if I got the role I was going to get comic book big. But then once I finally got the script and understood the role…
Andrew Stanton: that was my fear I was saying don’t get comic book big.
Kitsch: Once I started studying the Civil War, which is what I truly grabbed on to for this cat, I discovered that they average 145 pounds; so it’s finding that balance of escapism and then it’s also staying real; so it made no sense to be all bulked up in that age. I am very happy with the happy medium that we have with this character.
- Andrew you were on Twitter this morning answering questions from fans so how important is it to be connected with the fans in this way?
Andrew Stanton: I just want word of mouth to get out there about what I really meant, there are a lot of downsides to social media but one of the great things is you can cut through all of the BS and go straight to the person and ask them yourself.
I love talking to people who are true fans or who have a true love of cinema and so if I can talk to them directly then great.
John Carter is released 9th March
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw