ith Paycheck, Hong Kong action director John Woo, Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman turn their talents to yet another big-screen adaptation of a short story by legendary SF author Philip K. Dick—in this case, a 1953 tale about a man who scrambles to recover three years of lost memory before shadowy pursuers kill him. Screenwriter Dean Georgaris and Woo have updated the story, beefed up the romance quotient and inserted homages to Alfred Hitchcock, whom Woo cites as a major influence.
In this version, Affleck plays Michael Jennings, a reverse engineer who agrees to take on a top-secret project with the understanding that his memory will be erased after he's done. But when he goes to collect his $100 million paycheck, he discovers that he agreed to forfeit the money in exchange for a manila envelope filled with random objects. Just as this news sinks in, he's captured by FBI agents and finds himself on the run from assassins. With only the objects to guide him, he must reconnect with Rachel, a woman he's forgotten, to uncover the secret that could cost him his life.
Affleck, Thurman and Woo took a moment recently to talk with Science Fiction Weekly about Paycheck, which opens Christmas Day.
Ben Affleck, isn't it true that John Woo first offered your role to your friend Matt Damon?
Affleck: Interestingly enough, John went to Matt first for the movie and because he saw The Bourne Identity, and he loved what Matt did in it. And Matt was obviously flattered to meet John Woo, and he sat down with him. But he was like, "I can't do two amnesia pictures. Otherwise, people are going to say, 'Why are you doing so many amnesia pictures?'" He called me, actually, and said, "I met with John. There's a really good script. You ought to check it out and get on this." As luck would have it for me, John was in New York to meet with Matt and flew back to Los Angeles, and on the plane the movie that they were showing was Changing Lanes. And I got offered the movie when he got back. I had just heard from Matt, and I was like, "You're kidding!"
It seems like there's a conscious effort to evoke North by Northwest in this film. Is that right?
Affleck: Absolutely. That was another one of those moments where an idea is kind of circling in a movie. First, when I talked to John, he talked about Hitchcock movies, and he talked about North by Northwest. And actually DreamWorks and Paramount partnered on the movie, and I got the DreamWorks call from Steven Spielberg, which is always a great call to get, because you're like, "Steven Spielberg is on the phone? I guess that I'll take it. Yeah, I'm here." One of the things he talked about was ... "I think that it could be like North by Northwest." And I thought, "Well, all right. Clearly, this is something to pay attention to."
I think that there are several homage-to-Hitchcock shots. For one, there's a Rear Window shot. There's a Vertigo shot that you can recognize. And there's clearly the running in front of the train with the gray suit ... a direct homage to the running from the airplane in North by Northwest. I love classic Hollywood movies, and I liked that John was bringing an element of [them to this].
Were you familiar with the short story and did you read it beforehand or afterward?
Affleck: I actually hadn't read "Paycheck." But when I saw Blade Runner, it totally blew my mind. I read
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, on which it was based. No wonder they changed the title. Total Recall had a different name. It's something like "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," and I read that. And I was a fan of his books. [But] I hadn't read "Paycheck." I thought that it was an original script when I got it. I was like, "Who is this guy, Dean Georgaris? This is a good idea." And then someone said, "Oh, it's based on Philip K. Dick." And then I read the short story, which was written 50 years ago, and I thought that he did do a good job of taking the central concept, which he's true [to], and the really smart story mechanism that Dick laid [out] and fleshed it out in what I thought was an interesting way. So I read it afterward, which is the short version of that answer.
Can you talk about working with Uma Thurman, who had just come off starring in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill?
Affleck: Let me tell you something, there was no question that Uma was tougher than me, no doubt in my mind. I was kind of doing the stick move [martial arts moves with a kendo stick], kind of with a sideways look to her the whole time. "What do you think, how was that? Pretty good, right?" She's great, man. She's my age or maybe even a little younger than me, but she's been successful so much longer than I have. And so she's real professional. She's seen this business. She's done countless movies with countless great directors, and it shows in her work. She's not someone who relies on her looks. She's a great beauty, but she's smart, educated, sophisticated, and she's a professional. She shows up. She's ready to go. She's never late. She's really sharp, and she keeps you on your toes. And she's also like a great mother. She's got these two incredible little cherubic kids, little blond-haired angels there floating around the set. They're really well educated and precocious. I'm like, "You're a little princess." And she's like, "No, I'm not. I'm a little girl. I'm 6 years old. You're stupid." I'm like, "OK! All right! So much for the baby talk with the kids." Obviously, they've never been talked to that way.
There's a perception, rightly or wrongly, out there that movies with you in them are supposedly being canceled because of the failure of Gigli and all the press you get.
Affleck: That was the [Robert] De Niro movie.
Right. And so is this movie important for you now, is your career in peril?
Affleck: Yeah, I'm finished. Is that what you mean? [Laughs.] I think that's a little bit more operatic than the truth of the situation. I mean, there are a couple of factors. I happen to know that this movie works, and I've been at the test screenings, and so I was always sort of thinking, "Well, I have Paycheck coming." And if I knew that this was a dogs--t movie, then I'd probably be sweating it. But luckily, I know that it works. It's tested well. The reactions are good. It seems to have a good feeling around it. So I'm pretty comfortable in that regard. But there's always a certain amount of pressure, no matter what. Every time that you do a movie, if it doesn't work, it's never a zero-sum game. ... There is a certain thing where your name moves a few notches down the list and maybe you have to hustle a little more to try and do something. ... There are actors out there who haven't been in a hit movie in seven years. So I don't worry about it too much. I also know that I have these two movies in the can. Jersey Girl is an exquisite, beautiful movie, and I'm as proud of that as I am of anything in my career. And I'm really proud of this movie, and I have this comedy coming next year that I've already shot called Surviving Christmas. It's a great, funny movie. Like, I rent James Gandolfini's family for Christmas, because I'm lonely. It's really very funny.
The movie Disney canceled was Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.
Affleck: Robert De Niro had a deal, [but] he got sick. When we couldn't get De Niro, it became a fight over casting. And I'm set to do another movie for Disney. And so it's like, that's what happens, and no one goes back and says, "Oh, well, I guess that we were kind of wrong about that," and that's sort of frustrating. But it's part of the deal. One of the other things that Gigli was really instrumental in showing me and helping me discover was that it's not the most important thing in the world. It's a movie. It can bomb, and ... my identity is not so deeply entwined with my professional career that it's going to affect my self-esteem or my happiness or any of that stuff.
Can you talk about working with John Woo?
Affleck: I found him very helpful, and you underestimate John's understanding of English at your own peril because otherwise, he'll be like [mimics Woo], "I understand exactly what you're saying. Don't be ridiculous." I think that John likes to play a little bit of a game where ... if he doesn't want to hear what you have to say, he kind of pretends that he doesn't speak English and shakes his head. But he's lived here for 10 years, and John Woo speaks English better than I do. One thing that's really different from a lot of directors that I've ever encountered is that I really believe, and I've come to understand, that he sees movies as a long dance. He is going to choreograph that between the performers and the camera. And they're always moving, and they always have to be in step with one another. And that movement is deliberately designed to evoke whatever feeling he's trying to engender in the audience. ... That goes for dramatic scenes. It goes for action scenes. And it was really, really a wonderful learning experience for me as someone who wants to be a director.
John is also really character-driven. I think that's what elevates his movies so that they sort of transcend what people think of as the shoot-'em-up genre, in that they're really always based in what the character is doing and feeling. This movie, you see the recurrence of themes that John has worked with throughout his career; friendship, betrayal, love, doves and guys going like this [mimes pointing a pistol], which was the high point for me, I have to admit.
I was like, "Please, John, let me do it!" I was like a little kid. I was begging him. [mimics Woo] "OK, you go like this then." He's forever giving me the beleaguered grunt. I think that he directs action scenes from a character-based perspective, and he is spare with his direction. But that's something, frankly, that I prefer. A lot of directors are more interested in impressing you with how they are directing, so that you get a ton of talk, which is really not helpful, and you can only sort of play so much until the rest of it becomes lost, and it's like, "All right, we can sit down here and bulls--t one another about how deeply we're thinking about the subtext, but really, what's the scene about and what's really happening here and what am I feeling?"
Did he also let you put those Red Sox references in?
Affleck: He did, he did! I love him forever. Well, I mean, I got the script, and it was the Mets, and I got family in Boston. Houses will be burned down.
John Woo, can you talk about all the Hitchcock homages in Paycheck?
Woo: After I read the script, I thought it could be a very suspenseful, romantic and fun movie. ... [It] had so many clever designs and so many good gags and so many big surprises, and the whole story was about finding the truth, you know? And it made me feel ... I could make a movie [in] Alfred Hitchcock style. ... I always loved Hitchcock's movies. I'm a great admirer of him, and I must say that I also have learned so much from him. ...
There are several scenes in the movie that were actually homages to his films. Like the scene where Ben has a chase scene with the train. And the camera angle, the atmosphere ... was inspired by North by Northwest. I just told the guys, "I want to make a scene like North by Northwest, ... [in which] Cary Grant [gets] chased by the plane." So then I came up with the idea of using the train.
And also using two love birds, you know? It was from The Birds. And then there was [the] suspense moment when Ben finds out he's been cheated, and he [comes] home, closes the door, makes the phone call, and all of a sudden, when the camera comes around, we see the door's open. And he closes the door, and he sees another door open. And the camera keeps following him. And then one shot, and the shower shot, those camera angles and camerawork is pretty much like Psycho.
And the whole tone of the movie, the pace and the character of Michael Jennings, how he ... goes through every clue, trying to find out what's happening, and he's drawn into the mystery, trying to find out the truth and himself. The whole tone and the pace and the feel is pretty much like The 39 Steps. And then, also, of course, I've also learned, you know, for Hitchcock movies, it's not only about the suspense. They also have so much of the romance and they also have a ... great sense of humor. They're so funny.
How familiar were you with the short story?
Woo: To be honest, I [didn't] read any of Philip Dick's books before this movie. I read the script. And after I read the script, I said, "Actually, the original version was pretty close to the points in the story." ... And then I find ... that in the short story, ... it's a pretty different. I find that he had a very interesting character, and he also had some great meaning from the original story. And then I read a little more of his short stories, I found out that for Philip Dick's books, it's not only an interesting story, [it] also [has] a lot of philosophy. And then I [went] back to the script, I find that there's a very interesting theme in the movie. It's all about a man controlling his own destiny. And ... [has] so much a courage to want to change things. So that's really interesting. And then I asked the writers to explore the theme more, and make that ... bigger. In the short story, there's not much of a love story. ... And I would like you to have more of a romance, ... just like Hitchcock. ... For Michael Jennings, he's just a simple guy. He's not a superhero. He wanted to change his own fate. But somehow, he has some problems. He cannot change it by himself. ... Maybe love can help him change. Love can make him change. So that's why I suggested adding more of a love story, and to make the female role bigger.
On the other hand, before I made this movie, there [were] so many pressures around the world. So many bad things happen. So many unhappy things happen, especially after 9/11. I feel so much anger and sadness. And also I heard that there's a lot of young people, especially in Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and in Japan, ... they're very depressed. And they don't see much of a future. They don't see much hope. And some of these ... very young kids, they give up their lives so easily. It's so sad. And I had been asked to say something to them or to meet them, you know, to give them some kind of encouragement, but I didn't know how. So after I got the script, I [thought] it's a good opportunity to say something about it, to let young people know ... that the future won't be that bad. There will be always be hope. There will always be a future. There are a lot of good people around. And just don't give up, and you're not alone. If something bad [happens] or you're not happy, just change it. ... Don't escape. So that's why I added those kinds of elements into Michael Jennings' character. So we see him, after he found out what he [has] done is pretty harmful for people, he just wanted to change it and he wanted to face it. ...
And of course, from Philip Dick's book ... it seems to me his book was written for the movies. It's very cinematic. So I thought ... "I think if we can add more action to it, it'll be more interesting." The action always creates some very dangerous situations, and it's always a fun thing to do.
Did Ben beg you to let him have a scene in which he points a pistol at another character pointing one back at him?
Woo: That was true. ... Originally, he did use the gun, but he never killed anybody. And originally, [it was] just run, run, run, you know? And just shoot back and run. ... And then Ben was asking [to do it]. ... So I just came up [with] the move ... in the subway tunnel, pointing the gun with Colm. ... Feore. And ... at the end of the movie, just using the same thing with Aaron [Eckhart], you know? So he liked the movies. He liked Hardboiled, The Killer, and he had the poster and all. He's sometimes just like a kid, you know? He wanted to do something interesting. ... And I think it's fine. And for the motorcycle chase, he really wanted to do some crazy stunts by himself, but I didn't let him do it. Because ... he and Uma did some pretty dangerous driving, by himself, going into the opposite traffic ... and very, very close. And he did the slide skid, you know?
Uma Thurman, had you read the Philip K. Dick story before you did the movie?
Thurman: No, I hadn't.
Have you read it now?
Thurman: Nope. I made a John Woo movie. I was all Woo'd out on this one. I would have made a western with John Woo.
Why?
Thurman: Why? Because I think his filmmaking style is masterful. I think that he's one of those directors that you talk about his movies as cinema, and win, lose or draw, you can take a movie of his that maybe someone didn't like and you sit and you watch it and it's breathtaking to me, that kind of filmmaking. I've spent my whole life watching filmmakers' work, and it's passion, so I like to be in that kind of hand; I like to see it, I like to watch it. It feels really good.
You said this was a fun movie after starring in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Why?
Thurman: Because I got to play the girl. I had a really nice time. Ben did all the heavy lifting. I got to watch John Woo work, Ben hit people. I wasn't covered in blood. John Woo had been a big inspiration to Quentin. ... The intense gauntlet of work and a lifetime struggle and defining moment of work that Kill Bill was, when John Woo called me ... it just seemed sort of like it was kind of meant to be. It seemed like I probably wasn't in good enough condition to carry a movie in that moment, but to go work with him it was almost like a heal. It was like, "Let me go see that, let me see how he does it." And that's why it was fun.
Did you give Ben any pointers on martial arts?
Thurman: I thought he handled the action superbly, actually. ... I play a biologist, and I'm the girl. .... That's why the few things that I do in the action are very street, self-defense. But [what] I really did enjoy was [that] I felt so entitled to comment on the action, and none of them knew what I had just been through, really. They really didn't have any idea. But I kind of liked to slightly brag, like, "Would you like a slap-kick, or should I do a stop-point?" I kind of had the stunt lingo, and could deal with pretty much anything they wanted to throw me. That was also very neat. I would never have thought that I would have that kind of self-confidence about a field that women are pretty much excluded from.
Had you met Ben before?
Thurman: I had met Ben before. I actually sat with him one night with a group of actors and friends on election night, the last election, and I was totally struck then by his humor and his intelligence. And we're both from Massachusetts, and he really just reminded me of like the kind of people I went to high school with. He just seemed very easy and familiar and fun and gracious, like somebody from home. That's what he seemed like to me.
You felt comfortable?
Thurman: Totally comfortable. He was great to work with. ... I haven't had a lot of parts where you kind of work with a leading man in a certain way, and it's kind of playful. I tend to get different sort of things. I haven't done a lot of straight-up romantic kinds of things. They're usually some other thing is at play. So that was really fun for me, especially after Kill Bill, where, since I had to do them all in, I didn't keep a co-star around for very long. I was quite lonely, and it went on for a year, 156 days of shooting, not including training, but training was the most fun, because everybody was together. So it was quite nice to actually be interacting with somebody who was not choking me, at an acting level. So I just really enjoyed it, and I found the off-camera, on-camera playfulness and ease that we had with each other really was a joy.
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