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Interview: Steven Soderbergh, Matt Damon and Laurence Fishburne on Contagion

Damon Houx — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 19:19:10 +0000

Contagion, the new disease thriller from Steven Soderbergh is a rare smart and entertaing disaster movie. So it’s no surprise that it attracted performers like Matt Damon and Laurence Fishburne. We were at the junket, and they were obviously happy with the movie they made, but the material, it’s easy to see how they got such a great cast. Check it out…

Disease Control

Why was the timing for this type of outbreak movie perfect for Contagion?

Steven Soderbergh: I guess we’re going to see if the timing is perfect or not. The only thing that would indicate that the timing might be good is my reaction to Scott (Z. Burns) purposing this, the reaction on the part of the participants when we went to them to float the idea of developing it, and the reaction from Warner Brothers when we presented them the script. Everyone felt there was a place for an ultra-realistic film about this subject. Nobody hesitated. It all happened very quickly — uncharacteristically quickly, actually — considering what the business is right now for adult dramas. So that made me feel like maybe we’re on to something.

Did doing this movie change your behavior?

SS: I don’t know if my behavior has changed. I’m just really aware of it now. I’m aware of the fact that all of you have touched all of these recorders that are in front of us, somebody set up this microphone, I was handed some lip balm by one of the makeup people, which I took a Kleenex and cleaned off, but who knows if that worked. So don’t get near my mouth. Having gone through it, I’m always going to be conscious of it now. It was fun, during the preview, to watch the lights come up and 400 people realize that they’re next to a bunch of strangers and that they’ve touched everything. You could tell they weren’t happy.

Would you be the guy who is extra prepared and overprotective, or let loose, in terms of an outbreak like in the movie?

Matt Damon: I think, with kids, I’m probably more protective than I’ve ever been now that I have children. I try not to be. My wife’s name for me is “Red Alert.” I sometimes just check to see if the kids are breathing, but no. I think it’s a probably tendency to be a little overprotective without trying to be a helicopter parent.

Do you have a stock pile of supplies?

MD: No. After the Northridge quake, I had. I put the flashlight by my bed for like two weeks and then forgot about it.

Where was your germ paranoia before the movie and then after working on the movie?

Laurence Fishburne: I ain’t afraid of germs. And I ain’t afraid of getting sick. Dying — that’s some other sh*t.

Filming

Was there a list of things that you were definitely not going to do in this film?

SS: The one rule that we had was: we can’t go anywhere where one of our characters hasn’t been. We can’t cut to a city or a group of extras that we’ve never been to that we don’t know personally. That was our rule. And that’s a pretty significant rule to adhere to in a movie in which you’re trying to give a sense of something that’s happening on a large scale, but we felt that all of the elements that we had issues with prior, when we see any kind of disaster film, we’re centered around that idea. That suddenly you cut to Paris where you’ve never been, and something happens and it’s a bunch of people you have no emotional engagement with. We were trying to have it be epic and also intimate at the same time. So that was rule number one.

What did you think of the script?

LF: I was blown away by how smart it was, because a lot of what is being made now is stupid. So I was honored to be asked to be a part of it, because it’s a really smart movie.

MD: I had a similar reaction. Actually, we were getting ready to do something else — another project that we are still going to do — and Steven (Soderbergh) called and said, “I’ve got this other thing and we’ve really got to make it now because it’s really timely.” And he said, “I think it’s the best thing Scott (Z. Burns) has written.” Which is saying quite a bit, and I obviously think a lot of Scott. So he sent it over to me with a note saying, “Read this and then wash your hands.” And I read it and I had the same reaction that Laurence did. I just really want to be in this movie. It’s a terrific, riveting, really fast read, and really exciting, and really horrifying, but it managed to be touching to.

Can you tell us how you managed the epic and intimate scenes of the movie?

SS: Honestly, I was just trying to keep it very simple. And that meant the entire film is shot with two lenses, basically, and when I would look at a scene, I would try to figure out how few shots I needed as opposed to how many. I really wanted it to be in terms of style — one of the simplest movies I have ever made. Often, that can require more thought than just walking in saying, “I’m just going to cover the hell out of this and figure it out later.” When you’re going in saying, “I really want to keep this simple and I want every shot to have a purpose, and I want every cut to have a purpose; I don’t want any waste. I don’t want any shot… If you pulled one shot out, it meant something would be diminished.” That was my approach. So that was really it — eye level, no crane shots, no throwing the camera around; just keep it simple so that all that you were paying attention to were the performances.

I understand that Jennifer Ehle was cast because you saw her performance in Michael Clayton, which was cut out of the finished film. What did you see in that which made you want to cast her?

SS: That was an amazing performance, and so…that sounds horrible. I had known who Jennifer was for a long time, and this didn’t take a lot of thought, honestly, I have a somewhat long list of people that I’ve seen in the course of my career and thought, “Wow they would be great to work with.” And I did know from Tony (Gilroy) that they had really good experience and I wasn’t in any danger. So I’m just glad that worked out and of course now she’s reteamed with George (Clooney) in Ides of March. So it’s all happening this year.

Character Work

Matt, you’ve played both family man and action hero characters. Which type of character comes more natural to you?

MD: Obviously the action guys come way more natural. No, if the director is good and the script is good, it all comes pretty naturally, and if those things aren’t in place, it’s impossible no matter what the role is.

Laurence, can you talk about the complexities of your character, who is somebody of authority in the film?

LF: It wasn’t really that complex for me, once I talked to Dr. Lipkin, who had really strong opinions about how all this should play out. He was with us every day, and he is really committed to what he does. He loves what he does. So we’d be working, and he’d be on his phone and he’ll go, “Let me show you this.” And it would be something that could potentially be an outbreak almost every day. He has some new disease that the CDC is tracking and keeping an eye on. So it became really easy to go, “Oh right, so the stakes for this thing that you do are always here.” The personal stuff that I have as Ellis Cheever was telling my fiancé, soon-to-be wife, Sanaa Lathan, to get out of town, to leave, to pack up, to not talk. That’s really easy. Any human being in that situation is going to do that, I think.

How important was it to use the right equipment and terminology in this film?

MD: Would you believe it if I was like, “Pass me the thingy.” It might take you out of the movie. “We’ve got an outbreak of some hush-mish-a-ma.” I don’t know. Fishburne lost me with that performance.

LF: I did that for a long time, but I think that’s how I got this job. So it wasn’t all bad.

Dealing With Death (Scenes)

Matt, how did you relate to your character?

MD: I thought a lot was easy to relate to. It was just on the page. Working with Steven is very different from working with anybody else. To give you an example of a day, we go and we shoot. We’d talk about what we were going to do, we’d figure it out, we’d execute the plan, and then we’d go back to the hotel and go to the bar. And in the back room of the bar, they’d deliver the footage, and Steven, Scott, and I, and Greg Jacobs, our other producer, and A.D., and Michael and Stacey (Sher)…we’d sit there and talk while Steven put on headphones and opened up his laptop and sat in the corner for 45 minutes or an hour. And then, at the end, he’d take his headphones off and he’d turn the computer around, and he’d show us what we shot that day, cut.

So when you’re working that way, it’s like making a movie in your backyard with your friends. It’s like the body is out on the operating table and wide open, and you talk about it. “All right, what else do we need?” It’s very different from going off on my own and doing three months of research… It feels more like the hocus pocus is taken out of the experience.

One of my favorite scenes that we did was this scene that I find out my wife is dead. You know very early on in the movie. And I went to Steven and I said, “Look, I don’t know what to do.” How do you do this scene? It’s five minutes into the movie. We’re not invested in me or her, we don’t care. And Steven goes, “the slump?” Everybody knows the slump. You’re down in the hall and just see that guy slump down. And I’m like, sh*t, I don’t know. What do you do? We’ve got to find some shorthand to do. You can’t dwell on this thing. We’re five minutes into the movie.

We had a guy there who had done this a lot, and we talked to him, and this doctor who delivered this news, and we asked for certain trends, like what happens? And he said, “Sometimes people fall apart, but there is this other reaction that we get just as much.” And I said, “What is it?” He said, “Well, it depends on what kind of death it is. Is it the kind of death where you’re not expecting somebody to be dead?” And I said, “Right, exactly,” and he goes, “Oh, what you get a lot is absolute…it just doesn’t…it’s just too much.” So they have this specific way that they put it, and Scott had written it. It was close. He just intuited it and it was close, but he had written words like, “She had passed away,” and the guy says, “No no no. She didn’t die.” You have to be completely specific and look at the person, and you have the social worker with you. There’s a whole script that they go on, and they expect you to not even get it. They expect you to go like, “Okay, can I go talk to her?” because that’s the reaction that people have.

So working with these guys, I get up in the morning and I’m freaking out about how the hell I’m going to do this scene, and I end up going to work and getting this scene that’s really interesting, and I’ve never seen it done that way, and I totally believe that’s the way. And these doctors who actually do it say, “Yeah, that’s actually how it goes down a lot of the time.” It’s a very long-winded answer to a very short question.

How was filming Gwyneth Paltrow’s autopsy scene?

SS: Gwyneth is a trooper, we got into that room and we had an actual medical examiner there who does that sort of thing all the time. We asked them to walk us through the steps in which someone has died under these circumstances. And when they got to the part where they said, ‘Well, we cut here and we peel the skin over the front of the face,’ I immediately turned to Greg and said, ‘Okay, we need to find a flap of something that looks like pizza up on one end without the sauce, that we could attach some wig hair to so that we could do this.’ And so we scrambled around and we found we were able to do that.

And while it took about forty minutes of having Gwyneth in that position, Greg actually ended up being the person who put the skin flap over. And she was stalk still and didn’t say a word. She asked the medical examiner, ‘Talk to me about the rest of my face. What about my mouth?’ And the examiner said, ‘Okay, your tongue would be extruded just a little bit. You’ll have some sort of yellowish fluid coming out of your nose.’ And she wanted it to be exactly right. I think she had a feeling this was going to be some sort of weird iconic image somehow. There were no tricks there, no freeze frame, no high speed frame rate. That was just her being stalk still with some really good effects.

Contagion opens September 9. Check it out.

Contagion: Movie Review

Damon Houx — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:00:14 +0000

Fall is off to a great start with Steven Soderbergh‘s Contagion kicking off the September releases. With an all star cast – including Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet and Jude Law among others – the film follows a new disease from Day 2 on as it infects the population, and scientists and doctors attempt to control and cure it. Soderbergh deftly avoids most of the genre’s pitfalls by keeping the film in a “you are there” approach that grounds the material, and will have most audiences reaching for the Purell when the film ends.

The Players:

Directed By: Steven Soderbergh
Written By: Scott Z. Burns
Starring: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle
Original Music by: Cliff Martinez
Cinematography by: Peter Andrews (aka Steven Soderbergh)

The Plot:

Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) returns to Minnesota from a trip abroad with what appears to be a slight cold, though possibly just jet lag. The next day she’s having seizures and is hospitalized. It’s a huge shock to her husband Mitch (Damon), especially when she dies shortly thereafter. He’s immune, but his son and daughter are not. As the disease spreads the CDC reacts by sending in Dr. Erin Mears (Winslet) to investigate Beth’s death and they try to contain the outbreak, but between Beth’s stop in Chicago (to visit an old lover) to the others in Hong Kong who were around her, the disease quickly goes global. The government tries to both solve it – with the lead doctor being Dr. Ally Hextall (Ehle) – and contain it. But in the 21st century word can’t be contained, especially when people like Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) write about it on the internet and hope to profit from it.

The Good:

Ensemble: One of the things that old school filmmakers knew about using a lot of stars in their films was that having familiar faces grounds you immediately in which location you’re at, regardless of where the last scene took place. Marion Cotillard’s character is in Asia, Jude Law’s in San Fransisco, Matt Damon’s in Minnesota – the film darts around the globe, but because the plot follows the disease you never feel lost, and all of the actors get a moment to shine. With all the heavy hitters in the cast, it’s surprising that Jennifer Ehle walks away with the movie. As one of the key doctors trying to figure out a cure, Ehle manages to be smart, confident and surprisingly sexy (especially for someone wearing a Tyvek suit for much of the film). Though Ehle’s been acting for a while now, this is that role. She’s going to be in a lot more shortly.
Follow the Disease: Though the film does develop its characters well enough, the film never tries to drum up too much added melodrama for the situation. There is some melodrama – especially with Damon’s Emhoff character, who has a family that isn’t safe and as the disease progresses has to worry about his daughter not only staying safe, but also the fact that she’s a tween girl who wants to live a normal life. That works – it humanizes the consequences – but often these films pile incident on incident (often there’s a couple about to get divorced, a love triangle, etc.). As such the film work like gangbusters because it functions more as a procedural.
Getting Under Your Skin: The film opens with a sequence where it shows people touching things, be it public locations, their faces, or a glass handed to them. Soderbergh does a brilliant job of setting the viewer on edge on how easy we treat most of the world, and how often people expose themselves to the possibility of germs. There’s just enough of that to make anyone freaked out.

The Bad:

Cleanliness: Though never as terrible as Traffic at its worst, there are some plot points that either go nowhere (the Cotillard section feels like a throwaway, though that’s the point), or goes for the hammer of obviousness. This may be a byproduct of this sort of storytelling, and for the most part the film does a good job of avoiding being cloying. Thankfully such intrusions are kept to a minimum, but they’re also the things that stick out later as why the film isn’t a masterpiece. But, hey, settling for being a really good film is good enough.

Overall:

This is Soderbergh at his best; Contagion is fascinating to watch. Though some might prefer a more horrific “what if” situation, the film communicates great ideas about how our society functions, and where it breaks down. And more than any recent picture, Contagion really captures the internet era (arguably the film is more about that than the disease), where people are texting their reactions to tragedy, and someone leaking word about a possible shutdown or blockade goes as viral as the virus itself.

Rating: 8.5/10

Photo Gallery:

Trailer:

1-1 Interview: Screenwriter Scott Z. Burns on Contagion

Damon Houx — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:07:14 +0000

When you craft a film about the next pandemic to rip across the world, you’ve got to do your research, and Scott Z. Burns was very invested in finding out the realities of Contagion. Working with Steven Soderbergh for his fourth time, the two weave a portrait of how disease changes peoples lives, from the victims (Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow) to the people dealing trying to control the spread (Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet) to the head of the Center for Disease Control (Laurence Fishburne) to the doctors working on curing it (Jennifer Ehle), to those who wish to profit from it (Jude Law). It’s a dense script, but made simple, and we talked about the writing process on the film. We also talked briefly about his work on David Fincher‘s upcoming 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Check it out..

You’ve mentioned that the idea for Contagion came from working on The Informant.

Yeah, there’s a scene in The Informant where Matt Damon’s character is with Scott Bacula in France on the phone, and he goes off on a rant. Bacula’s character coughs, and he starts saying “Great, now I’m going to get this and I’m going to give it to my kids, and who pays for that? Who compensates? Who pays for it when a government worker makes a private citizen sick?” And I was intrigued by the tertiary effects of an outbreak, and that’s what Steven (Soderbergh) and I wanted to get into, how it’s not just the disease, but all the other things a disease causes.

You mentioned this to Steven and he was in right away?

I think the pitch took all of thirty seconds, and he said “great I’m in, let’s do it” So I started doing research, and met some really amazing scientists, and a year later we had a script, and a lot of really wonderful people who said they’d throw in with us.

Where did you start with research?

I started a few different places. I was introduced to an epidemiologist named Larry Brilliant, believe it or not. And Dr. Brilliant had done a TED talk a couple years ago, and I watched that in preparation of meeting him, and then when I met him he walked me through what happens in a pandemic, and how some people have to march forward in time with the disease to keep the population healthy while others have to walk backwards in time to try to find its origins. And that began to suggest a structure to the movie.

Dr. Brilliant sounds like a really good rap name.

(laughs) And he’s an amazing guy, he was my rabbi through the process, and he introduced me to a guy at Columbia University named Dean Lipkin, and Dr. Lipkin is a world renown virologist, and around the world when they don’t know what it is he gets a sample and has a lab in Columbia in New York that uncovers a new virus every week.

That’s scary (laughs)

Very scary. So I went there and I met with him, and spent some time in his lab, so we sent Jennifer Ehle and Kate Winslet and Laurence Fishburne, so everyone would get steeped in the science that inspired me to write the script.

You have the idea of the new disease, when you’re breaking down the story, did you decide quickly if it would be an ensemble, or did you think of sticking with the doctors because that was part of your research?

No, I always thought it should be an ensemble, and so did Steven. We wanted to have one character working forward in time – as Larry had suggested – so we needed a Laurence Fishburne character, and we needed some epidemiologists, so that was Kate Winslet and Marion Cotilard’s characters working in the field. And it also felt like you needed an audience’s proxy, and that became Matt Damon and his family. And then I felt like it needed someone who spanned across those two worlds, and I started thinking about how information and misinformation has the same transmissive pulse that a virus has, and that’s where Jude Law’s character came from. He was the final piece.

How do you structure it then, do you have the wall of notecards, do you think “oh, we haven’t been with this character in a while” or is that a more organic process for you?

Yeah, that’s exactly what I do. I kind of develop storylines for each of the character, and look for the most interesting points, so it’s kind of like a baton where everyone is advancing the story when you come to them. So you look for the opportunities, but then so does Steven, and that’s where he’s amazing at transitions. He’ll say that’s really the mark of the direction – someone who can move from one point to the other at the perfect moment. So write a little bit that you’re going to throw away because you need to create the entire arc for those characters even if you aren’t with them every minute.

So in some way you wrote a screenplay for each character, and then integrated it?

I wouldn’t go that far, but there were notecards that were suggestive of that.

When people were hired did you have to bump up any of the roles, was there any consideration for that?

Less when people were hired, but Steven has me on set the entire time, because of the way we work – we shoot during the day and he cuts it at night – and if we see a really great opportunity, if we’re sitting around the bar with Matt (Damon) we’ll say “oh that’s really cool, but if would great if Matt’s Emhoff’s character did this” We only had people for a week or so, and we used those opportunities to add or fill ideas as we were working, so we did a little bit of that.

How was it working with Mr. Soderbergh for the second time?

Well, it’s kind of the fourth time, I did work on Ocean’s Twelve, and he produced a movie I did called PU-239, and was very involved with me during the post-production part of that. I love working with Steven, and I have such respect for him as a director, but beyond that the process that he allows me to be a part of is a dream for a writer. I get to be on set every day, I get to give notes on the cut, and he allows me to be the steward of the story, and that’s my job on set is to help Steven and the actors, and let him keep focus on the macro.

And you’re working with him on The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Yeah, so I hope I’m doing something right.

Have you heard anything about that lately?

The script is in, and Warner Brothers wants to make the movie next year, and we’re going to start casting once we get this out into the world.

How would you compare working with Steven Soderbergh versus working with David Fincher on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?

It’s funny, I’ve known David for a while, and I did visit the set of The Social Network. And they’re very different. Steven will do two or three takes, and David will do thirty or forty takes. It’s a different approach to filmmaking that they have, in a way, I think their taste levels are similar, and they’re friends, so I think they respect each other’s films, but they have really different processes, David is a little bit more inclined to get into detail earlier in the process, and Steven is more inclined to figure stuff out on set.

You guys are in pre-production, perhaps it’ll be a little different when you’re shooting.

I’m pretty sure I know that Sorkin was there, so I hope that David will have me around. It’s fun to be there, and watch people work with your words. But it’s also – Steven also gives me a lot of access to the actors, especially Matt, and Steven’s attitude is “you guys should feel free to talk amongst yourselves, and share ideas because you get to set, if it’s not the way I think it should go I have an opportunity to change it there, but if I don’t give you that access, I never get to know what you might have done, or what you were thinking of.”

One of the strongest things about Contagion is how it avoids the pitfalls of the genre, did you guys watch Outbreak beforehand, or some of the disaster movies of the 70’s, like The Swarm?

We didn’t watch them, we did talk about some of the tropes of the genre, and what we wanted to avoid, and what we could learn from.

Was there anything that stuck out as a do that, or don’t do that?

The only thing that was specific was more of a philosophy of our films, which is that we wanted the science to drive the movie, and we didn’t want anything that happened in the movie to not be possible in the real world.

(Spoilers) in one section a doctor tests a vaccine on herself. Was there any thought of going for a more apocalyptic version of the story?

Not really. The whole idea of it came from a book Dr. Lipkin gave me called Who Goes First? About Scientists who’ve done that kind of move. And sometimes when scientists explore vaccine and cures it goes really well, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Having done the research, did you show it to Dr. Brilliant and Dr. Pitkin when you finished it?

Dr. Lipin was on set almost every day, and he and Larry Brilliant read the script and offers a lot of notes, and we shot at the CDC (Center for Disease Control) and they read the script and passively endorsed it by letting us be there, so there were a lot of scientists who looked at it, and made sure we were operating in the realm of possibility.

I assume that Doctor notes are very different than studios notes.

(Laughs) they are, and sometimes they’re things you kind of scratch your head at, but sometimes you learn more, because they’ve had to put on Tyvex suits and they know what the issues are when you’re dealing with a hot zone.

You started with the writing and directing of PU-239, are you looking to go back to directing?

Yeah, I wrote a psychological thriller, it’s set in a world of psychopharmacology, and Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing it, so I hope to be shooting around the first of the year, we’re starting to cast that as well.

And what can you tell me anything awesome about 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?

I’m not really not supposed to talk about it that much? Anything awesome I can say about it? What David and I wanted to do is not just turn the book into a movie, we wanted to be inspired by the book, and really push ourselves to come up with something extraordinary, and that continues to be the goal. I don’t know if there’s anything I can give away.

Giant Squid?

I am not going to comment on the giant squid. (laughs)

Contagion opens September 9, check it out.

George Clooney Eyeing Steven Soderbergh’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Krystal Clark — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:52:51 +0000

George Clooney might reunite with frequent collaborator Steven Soderbergh on a new project called The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Does that title sound familiar to you because it should. The film will be based on the 1960s television show of the same name that originally starred Robert Vaughn. According to The Playlist, Clooney might be interested in taking on the lead in the big screen adaptation.

Sources close to the project claim that Clooney is already in negotiations to star in the film. Even though the movie is in the early stages of development, Warner Bros chief Jeff Robinov has already signed off on Soderbergh’s take on the original material. Interestingly enough, the film wouldn’t be an update or a contemporary reboot of the show. The story will still take place in the 1960s, and since Clooney already looks like some of the leading men of that time he should fit right in.

According to Wikipedia, the series “centered on a two-man troubleshooting team working for U.N.C.L.E.: American Napoleon Solo (Vaughn), and Russian Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum). Leo G. Carroll played Alexander Waverly, the British head of the organization (Number One of Section One).”

Do you think Clooney would be a good fit for The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

Damon, Winslet, Law, Cotillard Join Soderbergh’s Contagion

Krystal Clark — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:38:23 +0000

Steven Soderbergh is currently gathering a group of acting “super friends” to star in his next feature film. No, we’re not talking about Knockout, or even the big screen bio-pic Liberace, we’re referring to Contagion. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, it’s because Soderbergh’s known for quietly putting together amazing films that no one ever hears about until he’s ready for them to.

According to The Playlist, Contagion will feature four noted Oscar nominees and winners with Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, and Jude Law rounding out the bunch. All the actors mentioned have deals being negotiated to star in the film that’s described as an action thriller. The story will center on the “outbreak of a deadly virus,” and will have a multi-strand storyline similar to Traffic.

The script for Contagion has been written by Scott Z. Burns, who previously penned The Informant! and The Bourne Ultimatum. Obviously, whatever he wrote in the film’s screenplay delivers, because it has a respectable group of actors on board ready to bring it to life. As for the much talked about Liberace, it will go into production in 2011 after filming on Contagion has wrapped.

Soderbergh is such a low key director but he always manages to attract top notch talent when it comes to his films. We’ll let you know more about the cast and story of Contagion as soon as the info becomes available.

What do you think about the cast of Contagion? Who else do you think would fit into this group?

McGregor, Quaid, Douglas, Join Knockout

Krystal Clark — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:09:25 +0000

A while back we brought you news about Steven Soderbergh‘s upcoming femme fatale flick, Knockout. The director cast professional fighter Gina Carano in the lead role, and with such a daring move you’ve got to have some serious backup, so he brought out the big boys for the supporting cast.

Today, several sites have posted news regarding the casting for the film including Movieline, who reported that Inglourious Basterds star Michael Fassbender had landed a role. They recently interviewed the actor and learned that Soderbergh will start filming early next month in Dublin. Other than that he couldn’t give any specifics on his part, except that it will have some level of physicality.

Next in line, The Playlist revealed that Michael Douglas, Dennis Quaid, and Ewan McGregor will also co-star, and gave a small character description for each. All the male actors will be a part of Carano’s special team. Douglas will play an older government official, Fassbender and a yet to be named actor will be members of her commando spy unit, and McGregor will be the owner of the private military company she works for.

The specifics on Quaid’s character haven’t been released, but we’re sure he’ll be in the thick of whatever drama the script has to offer. There’s also been a slight change in the film’s story, which originally centered on a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Now she was raised in the military, and left to work for a Blackwater-esque company to make better money but is betrayed by one of her teammates.

It sounds like Soderbergh’s creating a super team of actors to protect the novice star at the center. This isn’t the first time the director has put an unknown in a lead role, and it probably won’t be the last. To see these men in a military action flick does sound intriguing, especially if its done in the same tone as the Bourne movies.

What do you think about the latest castings for Knockout?

Steven Soderbergh Talks Knockout

Krystal Clark — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:07:34 +0000

Steven Soderbergh is developing a kick-ass film entitled, Knockout that will star fighter turned actor Gina Carano. The director recently spoke to Empire about his vision for the top secret project that’s had Hollywood buzzing for the past month. From what we can tell, Knockout is a spy thriller about a girl with some serious martial arts skills who uses them to fight corrupt forces.

When Soderbergh first cast Carano as the lead in the film, many people were surprised that he went with a professionally trained fighter as opposed to a professional actor.

“I felt, somebody is going to look at her and go, ‘She should be in a movie!’ And I felt like, Why shouldn’t I be the person saying that? If you start following the female mma fighters, Gina pops out pretty noticeably.”

Carano has made a few appearances on television with stints on NBC’s American Gladiators, the Showtime documentary, Ring Girls, and the Michael Jai White film, Blood and Bone. We’ve seen action films with strong female leads in the past, but Soderbergh plans on raising the bar with Knockout.

“I’d been wanting to make a spy action film for a while, but hadn’t really determined what I was going to bring to it that would distinguish it from the traditional approach. My desire is for it to be a very realistic portrayal of somebody who gets hired, as these people do, by the government, to go and perform certain duties that it would be inappropriate to give to the military,” says Soderbergh. “That could be anything from a hostage-grab to surveillance to an actual killing…”

The screenplay for the film is currently being written by Lem Dobbs, who previously worked on The Limey and Kafka.

Plot details are scarce, but Soderbergh did state that the film is “a combination of a Bond movie and Point Blank”, though, “more on the scale of From Russian With Love than, you know, Quantum Of Solace… Something where the characters and the story are as prominent as the action stuff.”

Production on Knockout is slated to begin sometime next February.

What do you think of Soderbergh’s description of Knockout? Are you interested in the film?

The Informant: Movie Review

Mali Elfman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:21:16 +0000

It’s time for Steven Soderbergh‘s latest film, The Informant! starring Matt Damon as “Mark Whitacre” or “0014″ to hit theaters! This is Soderbergh’s second film in his back to back productions with The Girlfriend Experience and another one of many films with Matt Damon after the Ocean’s series.

Check out a full rundown below…

The Players:

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Screen Adaptation by: Kurt Eichenwald
Book by: Kurt Eichenwald
Cast: Starring Matt Damon alongside Melanie Lynskey, Scott Bakula and Joel McHale
Executive Producer: George Clooney, Michael London and Jeff Skoll
Original Music: Marvin Hamlisch

The Plot:

Matt Damon plays Mark Whitacre, an ADM employee who works for a lysine developing company ADM who is trying to weasle his way into upper management when his life takes a sudden turn. Is it because he has a master plan? Is it because he’s cares about what’s right? Is it because he’s a complete idiot? It’s not clear, but he decides to take a job working for the FBI as 0014 (because he’s twice as smart as 007). So what’s the truth? You’re going to have to see the film to find out…

The Good:

Matt Damon!: If anything in this film deserves an exclamation point, it’s Damon for his performance as this pathetic, self-involved, oddly pity-able, and yet completely ridiculous character. He absolutely nails the role and keeps you interested from start to finish. Damon’s career has been an ever changing one, from his action-hero role in the Bourne series, to his over-acheiver con-man role in the Ocean’s series, and now this, he’s one of the most dynamic actors out there today. People are constantly categorizing him as a sex symbol, a comedian, or an action star, but he proves in this film that he is one of the top character actors out there.
The Look: Acting as his own Director of Photography, one thing is for sure it’s that Soderbergh knows how to set the tone for a film without having to use excessive lighting, make-up or special effects. When it comes to his shots, he’s a straight-forward guy, which allows for him to execute twisty, turn-y stories well. And unlike when other directors who try to have complex plots, his actually make sense.
The Inner-Monologues: Damon has a series of inner-monologues throughout the film which are probably the funniest thing to watch. The only problem is that they do begin to get a little distracting and could have been cut down a bit. I get they by them going on and on it feeds the character, but as an audience member they get tiresome and it would have been nice if they could of come up with another way to express the characters absent minded-ness.
The Music: Marvin Hamlisch who scored two films being released this weekend, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and this, did a great job at intertwining songs from the era with an original quirky and fun score which definitely helped the film clip long. Sadly, even a good score couldn’t help the film from it’s biggest problem…

The Bad:

The Run-time: The film needed a major trip to the chopping block. It needed a good 15-20 minutes chopped off in order for it to keep the pace needed for it to be considered a comedy. Especially in the beginning. The film picks up about a third of the way in, but it starts off far too slow and is filled with far too much unnecessary exposition.
Humor: They’re advertising this film like a laugh out loud comedy and it’s not. It’s funny, but in a “chuckle under your breath” kind of way, not the “have soda leaking out of your nose” way.

Overall:

The film is good and Matt Damon will blow you away, but don’t set your sights on an outrageous comedy or you’re bound to be disappointed.

Check out the film in theaters September 18th!

Steven Soderbergh on Cleo, Liberace, and Limey

Mali Elfman — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:10:22 +0000

Last night we reported that Matt Damon would be joining Michael Douglas in the cast of Liberace, as the famous performer’s gay lover. I reserved the right to take it back in case it was not true (it was People reporting it), but it looks like I don’t need to! FirstShowing got the inside scoop from Steven Soderbergh at The Toronto International Film Festival about his upcoming bio-flick Liberace, as well as his 3-D musical Cleo and the possibility of a sequel to The Limey!

Similar to how Soderbergh shot The Informant and The Girlfriend Experience, he will be tackling Liberace and Cleo back to back…

I’m going to prep the other one while I’m shooting Knockout. So next June, I was literally talking to Michael Douglas last night, and saying I think it’s going to be June-July-August. So that’s going to be crazy.”

Is there some race for “most films directed buy a single director in one year?” Because it certainly seems that way. Either that or he is suffering from an extreme case of film-making ADD. I will give him points on creativity. None of the four projects mentioned have ANYTHING to do with one another. Although I do think that both his films this year could have used a little more of his time and attention, I’m interested to see what he’s got up his sleeve!

As for his 3-D rock-n-roll opera extravaganza Cleo, with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Hugh Jackman, he’s not clear if Jackman will still be on board. Due to scheduling conflicts, the date being pushed back, and Jackson signing on for other musicals, Soderbergh isn’t sure who will be cast in the main role…

…We have the money, we just haven’t scheduled it… He’s [Jackman] attached himself to several other musicals that I think might get made before this, so it– I’ve got to have a conversation with him about that, because I certainly don’t want to be in a situation where it’s not a fresh idea to have him in the movie.

It seems like he was trying to make waves with Cleo, and if all he’s getting is a splash, it’s not really worth it. I suggest Cillian Murphy if he’s really looking for something unexpected. I can’t picture him running around singing to Cleopatra. How about you?

As far as the sequel for The Limey goes, it’s not looking good at the moment…

It’s one of those things again like — we all would sort of like to do it, but it feels like we’re having to force it a little.

The last thing we need is another half-assed sequel and it sounds like the man is not short on ideas, so why waste his time?

What do you think about all this? Who would you like to see dancing around in Cleo? Do you want to see a sequel to The Limey? And what do you think of him tackling both Cleo and Liberace at the same time?

For the full quotes and the full interview (will be posted tomorrow) go to FirstShowing.net!

Matt Damon to Play Michael Douglas’ Gay Lover in Liberace Bio?

Mali Elfman — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:45:56 +0000

Something tells me this is a rumor. I have a pit in my stomach and the source of the story being People doesn’t help the matter. But oh well, here’s the “news,” I reserve the right to take it back later…

Michael Douglas is set to play Liberace in the film biography directed by Steven Soderbergh (this much we had heard before), and Matt Damon has officially “accepted the challenge” of playing Scott Thorsen his longtime lover. Who ever saw that pair coming? They are going to have Douglas playing a campy musical performer dressed in glitter and Matt Damon as the assistant/boyfriend who “outed” the entertainer in 1982 over a palimony suit for $110 million.

According to People and backed by a French Newspaper at the Deauville Film Festival (with no link), Soberbergh is already rolling ahead with the new film before his latest one The Informant hits theater. They’ve even got Michael in playing dress up already…

“We’ve already done some costume and wardrobe tests on Michael, and they’re very, very, very good…I swear to you, Michael amazed me. He crushed it.”

Writer/director Richard Lagravense penned the script and Soderbergh said “the budget will allow filmmakers to re-stage segments of Liberace’s spectacular stage act, which often involved elaborate stunts such as flying or driving to his piano bench in a Rolls-Royce.”

Can’t wait to see about that! Who thinks this is true?

The Informant Review Round-Up

Mali Elfman — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:39:25 +0000

***Update: ScreenCrave’s Informant! review now posted!***

Over at The Toronto International Film Festival, they just premiered The Informant by director Steven Soderbergh starring Matt Damon and so far the reviews have been mixed. I saw the film a couple of weeks ago and thought that although Matt Damon was absolutely stellar, the film was not without its problems.

In the film, Damon stars as Mark Whiticre, an FBI informant who helped gather incriminating evident against the grain processing company back in the early nineties. We debuted the trailer a while back, and I loved every minute of it, sadly the trailer does represent the movie you will be seeing in theaters, although that’s not to say it’s not any good.

Check out what people are staying about The Informant…

It’s agreed across the board, Matt Damon is absolutely great in the film…

Damon plays the complex Whitacre incredibly well… – CraveOnline
Damon doesn’t just dig into the role physically. He also keeps you on your toes with Whitacre’s happy-go-lucky personality… It’s a welcome opportunity to watch him show off his comedic abilities – AP
With this movie, Damon reveals himself to be one of the few A-listers with real range, in terms of both versatility—his pusillanimous, smarmy Whitacre is as far removed from the steely Jason Bourne as you can imagine—and girth. – VanityFair

Sadly, it’s not the fast paced comedy you might have hoped:

And while The Informant! will most certainly end up residing in the comedy section, don’t mistake it for a fall-down laugh riot of any sort. The film has a dry and laconic demeanor, but it’s (mercifully) lacking in “set up, punch line, repeat” machinations. – Cinematical
The movie insists that all this is hilarious, but it feels like desperate pleading. – THR
Soderbergh doesn’t play any of this for outright laughs but has cast quite a few comic actors in supporting roles — even the Smothers Brothers pop up in cameos, Tom as the ADMchairman, Dick as a judge — and lets the comedy emerge from the head-spinning swirl of events and mental charades. – Variety

As far as Soderbergh goes, the jury is still out…

Soderbergh’s whimsical direction conditions a viewer not to trust this protagonist…. Soderbergh, acting as his own cinematographer under the name Peter Andrews, is in love with the HD digital camera Red Cam, so light levels are low and natural. Which is somewhat at odds with the comic mode of the film. – THR
On paper, The Informant! is maybe the most boring movie of the year. The script is a total snooze and director Steven Soderbergh seems to know he has nothing, so he casts most of the movie’s supporting parts with comedians and plays wacky, circus-like music with each scene; book ending them in bizarrely out of place, brightly colored title cards written in pimp-like fonts. – Cinemablend

It’s problems…

The problem, however, is that I found we never really got to know the real Mark Whitacre. How much was a lie and how much was the truth? – Empire
Everyone else in the movie mostly reacts in bewilderment. Except for Lynskey’s Ginger, the one calm person amid chaos. Is she on to her husband or is she clueless? That answer never comes. -THR

What do you think? Are you still interested in the film?

Steven Soderbergh Casts Gina Carano as a Knockout

Krystal Clark — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:05:00 +0000

Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh really does make his movies for “grown ups.” Soderbergh’s last film, The Girlfriend Experience featured a professional porn actress as it’s lead, and for his next project entitled, Knockout he wants to keep that level of authenticity going. According to Variety, the director has cast real life MMA fighter Gina Carano as the lead actress in the action film.

Knockout is a spy thriller that will be directed by Soderbergh and financed by Relativity Media. The story centers on “a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who is given a second chance to use her skills for constructive purposes.” It’s described as a flat out action film with hints of James Bond, La Femme Nikita, and Kill Bill. Even though it involves plenty of fighting it doesn’t take place inside of a ring. The director plans on surrounding Carano with several name actors in supporting roles.

Soderbergh must have faith in the script for this film written by Lem Dobbs (Limey, Kafka), because he waived his upfront salary. Carano is a lightweight division fighter in the professional mixed martial arts league, with a record that stands at 7-1. She’s also had acting stints on the revamp of American Gladiators, as well as the Showtime documentary, Ring Girls.

Since Knockout will be a straight laced action film I have no doubt that Carano will be able to carry it. On the other hand her acting skills are up for debate. That’s probably why Soderbergh wants to have her surrounded by several “name” actors. Somebody on the set has to know how to deliver a line, instead of a right hook.

What do you think of Gina Carano being cast as the lead in Knockout?

ScreenCrave.com » Steven Soderbergh

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