Phillip Noyce: “Angelina Jolie will set the stage of a new genre”
Phillip Noyce, whose thriller "Salt" with Angelina Jolie in the title role has rolled out on July 22, 2010, is considered a master of militants and movies about spies. In an interview with the resource Noyce told the Hollywood Reporter about why Angelina Jolie better than Tom Cruise and his love for "sleeper" agents.
- Why did you stop choice for this film?
"Too much attractive plot: a woman accused of a crime escapes and tries to restore her good name."
- However, the main character was a man, when you first started to discuss the project.
"I first met with the leadership of Columbia Studios and Sony Pictures in 2007. A year later, they contacted me and we will continue the talks. It was assumed that the main role is played by Tom Cruise but eventually we realized that the image of Ethan Hunt, which he created for the franchise "Mission Impossible", is very similar to what we were going to offer. And then we got the idea, at first sight strange, suggest a major role to Angelina Jolie".
"It did not take long to realize that this is a great concept: we only win if the main protagonist in the movie would be a woman and if this woman is Angelina Jolie with her appearance and excellent talent of dramatic actress. Therefore, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, screenwriter Kurt Wimmer and I traveled to France and spent a week discussing details with Angelina".
- In a scenario Salt was married. What happened to his husband?
"You're right. In the third act of the film, according to the original script, Edward A. Salt saves his wife and child from the bad guys. It was absolutely predictable for the audience twist. But our basic rule is that during the entire movie viewers do not have to guess what will happen in the next 10 minutes. And we decided to make a film that can be compared with the snake that crawls, resets and changes its skin. We tried to make our picture fulfilled its destiny: amaze and amuse.
- So, besides her husband, none of the other characters didn't "suffer"?
"No, but the whole environment, all the people with whom was associated Salt have changed. For example, her boss Ted Winter. With Edward Salt Winter bound strong male friendship, is not nearly as with Evelyn. On the role of Winter, we have invited Liv Schreiber, because we needed an emotional actor, able to show the passion of Winter to his prototype.
"More is always interesting to see how a woman with the mind and muscles fool the bad guys. Not to be a feminist to enjoy this picture. I hope if the movie will be successful, Angelina will set up a new genre, conquering space not only for herself but for other actresses too.
- It seems that in your film you devote the whole time to tricks rather than the "green screen" special effects and digital.
"When articulate action-scene, we expected to use more CGI-images than actually happened. We don't take into account two things: Angelina Jolie and Simon Crane, our coordinator for tricks, with whom Jolie has been working together more than 10 years. Angie loves heights. She loves the risk to a certain point, because she relies on Simon, who knows her limits. He is a true professional.
- You used as villains Russian spies, who went out of fashion with the end of the Cold War.
"For a long time I was interested in "sleeping" agent. I read a lot of material about the "moles" from World War II and was looking for a scenario in which I could use gained knowledge. I have always been held by one question: what would happen if an agent, sent by a hostile environment, imbued with her sympathy, love the new system - it doesn't matter, totalitarian or democratic?"
- How do you think the film will meet in Russia?
"We want to be sure that Russian viewers don't suffer from paranoia, because villains in the film - not the ordinary Russian people. These are people from the "laboratory" of the KGB. Jeff Davidson, a consultant, responsible for foreign versions of films, together with his Russian colleagues have devised a brilliant idea - to create a special style of speech for Orlov, who expresses himself, as it was the custom in the old school of KGB. This will allow Russian viewers to treat the situation with the same irony with which it would react to, and American viewers, who understand that nobody is going to fight with them".