t's still a bit of a fantasy Island.
Director Michael Bay is aware of that, and that's why he seemed a bit uneasy at first when he unveiled the first 45 minutes of his upcoming epic The Island to cast members, crew and some press. He wasn't finished, he had to get back to the editing room, he was making every excuse he could before the screening at the Academy Theatre in Beverly Hills, Calif., but he also seemed secretly proud.
After the screening, and after a few Coronas, he sat down with about a dozen press people and talked about the film, which got the go-ahead only last fall. He cast Ewan McGregor as the lead, Lincoln Six-Echo, who lives in this seemingly utopian world in the mid-21st century. Lincoln becomes a bit uneasy about the sterile monotonous world, and he has disturbing nightmares. His friends in the community are chosen one by one by lottery to go to an island that is the last uncontaminated place on Earth. Lincoln discovers there is no island, and he tries to help his fellow resident Jordan Two-Delta, played by Scarlett Johansson.
They discover that they are clones, being harvested for parts by rich and powerful people in the outside world. Michael Clarke Duncan's character, for example, is a pro football player who needs a liver. Then there's an engineer at the institute who befriends Lincoln, played by Steve Buscemi, and a special forces police officer who tries to stop them from escaping, played by Djimon Hounsou. The concept was created by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, and the screenplay was written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who wrote for TV's Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess as well as The Legend of Zorro and Mission: Impossible III coming up. The high-powered producing team of Laurie MacDonald and Walter F. Parkes also answered some questions about the futuristic action thriller, expected to open July 22.
Michael Bay, it seems like you went out of your way to avoid a big bang-up Michael Bay opening.
Bay: Hah, yeah, that's true, I really had to bite my lip hard so as to prevent myself from shooting any big action sequences in the beginning. But you saw the freeway scene that will be toward the end. I may be up for it. It's a tough and intense post, and the print will be delivered to theaters dripping wet.
What were some of the science-fiction influences in this story? Obviously people will make comparisons to Blade Runner and Logan's Run, and some from writer Philip K. Dick. Did screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci go back and look at some of those movies?
Bay: Logan's Run, sure, there will be some comparisons. I haven't seen that film since I was a kid, so I wasn't consciously aware of it.
Orci: We knew we were going to deal with this subject matter at some point or other, so we did some research, but we didn't necessarily go back and look at every cloning movie ever done, and there aren't that many, really. I never saw Logan's Run.
Kurtzman: But Blade Runner was deeply in our consciousness. Science fiction can be very distancing, and in this case they're exploring what it means to be a human. That's where we started from; we started with a guy who goes to work every day and realizes there's something very wrong with his life. And, yes, there's no doubt Philip K. Dick is an influence.
What do you think of recent headlines showing that this idea is more of a documentary than a futuristic movie?
Walter Parkes: As a producer it was slightly unnerving to read the headlines in the Los Angeles Times last week about human cloning. It's slightly more timely than we expected this to be. But the idea of being able to clone an adult human and the sophistication we have in the film is not something that's happening right now.
Co-producer Laura MacDonald: Science fiction in general is about taking a look at new technology and exploring the possible consequences to see what it is all about, as well as the moral and ethical issues. We're not saying [cloning] should not be developed. Look, Walter wrote WarGames about what can go wrong with computers, and that was early on during the advent of computers in our daily lives. We were certainly not saying we should do away with them.
Johansson: If you're asking me about whether I believe in stem cell research, yes, I do. If this kind of technology can cure Alzheimer's [disease] or polio, then that's incredible. If people are playing with fate, or creating a master race or changing their child's eye color, then that seems strange to me, but the positive aspects are good.
Scarlett Johansson, this is a strong dramatic role for a woman in a science-fiction film. Did you have something to do with that?
Johansson: Yes, the science-fiction genre always portrays the damsel in distress. Michael worked with this. In the first script my character was completely different. I mean, first of all, my name was Esther. There you go right there. I was pregnant, I was a womb, I had horrible asthma and had to stop constantly, and Ewan had to take care of me and I almost died, and it was kind of the classic—Ewan was the big macho man and I was helpless young girl. We were about the start the shoot and Michael and I [were] thinking of way of give some integrity to my character. We changed the name and entire character. He was very proactive to make me kick-ass, not make me some weakling. Michael was very respectful of that, making me create a strong female character, which was great.
Michael Bay, you are known for pushing your actors, did you do the same on this set?
Bay: I don't do 16-hour days. I do 12-hour days. It's counterproductive. Working with [this cast], they're consummate actors. I'm impressed with Scarlett. She had her 20th birthday on this set. Every actor has a different process. There was some ad-libbing on this, particularly with Steve Buscemi. I work very fast, and it gives us the opportunity to try a lot of different stuff.
There are 250 shots in this movie; there are a lot of sets. I'm one director who always stays on the set, sometimes talking to an actor, always multi-tasking. Being a director is an all-consuming job, trying to balance real life and work. It sucks the life out of you. There's so much pressure in this town to succeed, and in the big scheme of it, when you look at life, does it really matter? OK, the box office was not that good, does it really matter in grand scheme of things? No.
Scarlett, can you compare working with Michael Bay and Woody Allen (Match Point) or Brian De Palma (The Black Dahlia)?
Johansson: I don't know that there is a comparison you can make between Michael and Woody. Let's put it this way: When I told Woody that I was doing a Michael Bay movie, he was like, "Who?" [Laughs.] You know, he's so totally separated. He's such a snob when it comes to that kind of thing. I told him, you've got to see The Island when it comes out. It's going to be great. It's a really great science-fiction movie. And he goes, "Oh, I like science fiction." [Laughs.] So, we'll see if we can get him to the premiere.
Michael is so incredibly energetic. He never, ever leaves the set. I was convinced he never went the bathroom for five months. Brian is a 65-year-old man. He's been doing it for a long time. He ends his workday at 5:30. We start at eight, we end at 5:30. It's very civil. I mean, he's very quiet, he's very experienced. It's a totally different experience because we're doing a film noir drama, you know, and we're doing it precisely to the film noir standards, so it's a different kind of focus that he has. Michael is busy directing 300 extras on a huge, huge action movie, where we have everything, as The Black Dahlia is so much lying and a whole twisted story and all this. Brian is only focusing on the actors.
Michael Clarke Duncan, you've worked with Bay before in Armageddon. Is it any different this time around?
Duncan: Michael Bay owes me bigtime for doing this movie. I was only doing a small role for two days. I am running a lot, and they shoot these things into my legs, and they were attached to my calves, and they shrunk my calves down so badly, and I was sweating.
Djimon Hounsou: That is true, there was a lot of running. I think it was more running than I ever did in any movie, or in my whole life. By the second day, after doing all the running, running, running, I wondered, "Did any of us read the script?" Everything happens so fast in a Michael Bay movie.
Bay: I would say to them, "Today you're running, running, running, look, look, look, ponder, run, run, run." Running a movie is like having a machine that you have to ramp up. You start fast and hard and have a lot of setups, and that starts it off at a good energy level, you start with very high energy. I love working with actors: That joy that you have working with them. Just as much as I love big movies, I love the intimate moments.
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