tar Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith is getting all the buzz these days. Everyone's dying to see if George Lucas can pull a rabbit out of the hat and send the franchise into history with style and pizzazz. But there's another high-profile SF film opening up just a couple of weeks before Revenge of the Sith, one that's based on a SF franchise nearly as popular and storied as Star Wars, one with a loyal, large and vocal fan base. And that film is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, based on the first book in the Hitchhiker's Guide series by the late Douglas Adams.
Set to open nationwide on April 29, the film aims to pull off a mean feat: capturing the sardonic, cheeky, anarchic and very British tone of the Adams adventure without either alienating Brits (by Hollywood-izing it for American consumption) or Americans (by making it too bloody British). Whatever anyone ultimately makes of the film, the story goes like this: Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) is beamed off Earth an instant before it's obliterated in order to make way for an intergalactic bypass. He's then thrown into an adventure that finds him zipping through space with an attractive young woman named Trillian (Zooey Deschanel); Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), aka president of the galaxy and Trillian's current beau; Ford Prefect (Mos Def), Arthur's best friend, who happens to be an alien; and the aptly named Marvin the Paranoid Android (with Warwick Davis in the costume and Alan Rickman providing his voice), who's got a brain the size of a planet.
Freeman, Deschanel, Rockwell and first-time feature director Garth Jennings took time recently to speak to Science Fiction Weekly and other reporters about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Zooey Deschanel, we hear that of everyone in the cast you're the only one who was actually acquainted with the books. True?
Deschanel: That's probably true. I was the only one in the cast with a computer or an iPod too.
What's up with that?
Deschanel: I don't know! None of them have computers. Even those who did, they were like, "Yeah, I got one, but I don't use it" or "I don't set it up yet" or "My assistant hasn't set it up yet" or something, and I was like, "What? C'mon, you guys." Martin only listens to vinyl, and he's like, "Computers? Ugh." But I had read the book when I was a kid.
Does that mean 11 or 12?
Deschanel: That was 11. Or 10, whatever. Fifth grade or something.
What did you think of it?
Deschanel: I thought it was just the coolest, most sophisticated thing ever, but I had no idea what I was reading. I read the words, but did I understand them? I don't think so.
For anyone not familiar with the books, how would you describe Trillian?
Deschanel: She's an incredibly intelligent person who is lured off the face of the Earth by a very charismatic, galactic politician. She is so bored with being on planet Earth that she ...
She's actually an alien, though, right?
Deschanel: Well, if you haven't read the book ... I was told not to reveal that, but I was like, "But they can just pick up the book and find out." "No, you can't tell anybody about the alien part." But she's half alien.
If you went to a SF convention and met the hardcore fans, could you handle it?
Deschanel: I don't know! It'd be really interesting. I love that movie Galaxy Quest that Sam's in. So funny.
Why do you think fans so love Hitchhiker's Guide?
Deschanel: I think that the book is just so clever and really brilliant, and it's got this underlying philosophical element I think works on many different levels, which is what a lot of things that have big followings have. So people can get different things, and every time you read it you get something different from it. It's really funny; let's not forget how funny.
The Trillian-Arthur romance that develops in the film isn't really there in the book. What were you and Martin Freeman aiming for there?
Deschanel: We certainly looked at movies like The Apartment and Annie Hall and a lot of screwball comedies in the '30s. I think we tried to create a tension where it's so obvious these two people should be together, but for different reasons they're against it. He's bitter and she's stubborn, but you want for them to be together and you can see that they just love each other, but they can't do it for some reason. I always find it interesting, no matter how many times I see it. I always liked that in a film, and I think that kind of thing can make a romance really interesting. It's there [in the book], but it's very, very underlying. Part of translating the source material into the film is making it one whole piece, because the book is told in episodes. For a movie, you have to make it one whole thing, and this is a thread that you can continue through episodes throughout the movie and throughout the book. This was a connecting element, as well, story-wise.
Martin Freeman, how well did you know the Hitchhiker's Guide as a book and TV series?
Freeman: I was certainly an admirer, and I was familiar with it. I think, growing up in England, you do have a common familiarity with it. The books were around the house. So I was familiar with them as opposed to such a fan, like I've always wanted to play Arthur. I certainly didn't have that feeling about it. But I knew it. From the age of 9 I knew who Zaphod Beeblebrox or who Ford Prefect was. I think in England if people have not read it they kind of know what it's about. It is part of the culture, really.
Considering how popular and iconic Hitchhiker's Guide is in your native England, how vital was it not to ruin the whole thing, and how complicated was it to not have that happen when you have an American studio, American financing and the truth of the matter is that American box office is ultimately a huge chunk of any film's international gross?
Freeman: Well, fortunately, it didn't really feel like that in the going to work. Going to work for four months, it felt like we were making a very small British film with some American actors. We knew, yes, it's a Disney film and ultimately that it was going to be a bigger film than it would be if it was just British money, that's for sure. But it didn't feel like it was particularly being Hollywood-ized or all the things that people would fear about it—and legitimately fear as well, because it does happen that people get the wrong end of the stick and start beating people over the head with it. It still felt like it was being true to the story. It still felt like it was being true to the spirit of it. There was a big respect, a big acknowledgement that we were doing this for someone who is no longer with us, i.e., Douglas Adams. So he was sort of an ever-present force behind us. Not that we went in to pray at the Temple of Douglas every day, but we were just aware that we wanted to do this well because, A, we've got pride in our work and who wants to do a bad job ever?—and B, because the reason we've all got a job is no longer here, so we kind of want to do him proud.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is the second book, and the end of this first film clearly sets the stage for a sequel. How interested would you be in reprising your role as Arthur for another go round the galaxy?
Freeman: I would be open to it certainly if Garth and [producer] Nick Goldsmith were involved. If it were the same creative team, that would make it a lot more attractive to me. The thing is, this one took 25 years to come to the table when the author was still alive. Now that Douglas is no longer with us, I would worry about something that came up next year. I'd think, well, just quality-wise, to make a good table doesn't take five minutes. To make a good table takes six weeks. I think you'd have to worry about, "OK, are we just rushing something out here?" But if the script was brilliant and Garth and Nick wanted to do it, and if people wanted me to do it ... Who knows? I might flop in this. I don't know. If people wanted me to do it I'd probably be up for it. The thing is I don't want to get out of being Tim from The Office just to jump into being Arthur Dent for 20 years.
Sam Rockwell, this is actually your second big SF-comedy. Can you compare/contrast this and Galaxy Quest?
Rockwell: It's definitely a similar kind of thing. It is sci-fi/comedy. It doesn't come around very often, so it's weird that me and Alan [Rickman] are in this movie. This is my second sci-fi-comedy, and I'd be surprised if there was a third.
But what about a Hitchhiker's Guide sequel?
Rockwell: That would be great. That would be fun. I am signed. I think some of it is negotiable, but I'm signed if there is a sequel. So we'll see.
There's a little of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in your performance. Who else are we seeing in there?
Rockwell: There's a little Freddy Mercury, and definitely some Elvis Presley. I tried to go real heavy on the Bill Clinton for a while, and then it just became too much of an imitation. So we kind of went somewhere between Elvis and Bill Clinton with the voice. And there's a little bit of Vince Vaughn in there. Then, with George W. Bush, sometimes there was a little bit of that bravado and that arrogance. When they're getting hit with the paddles, that was very George Bush. The thing about reading. "I don't have a lot of time for reading. President of the galaxy, baby. I don't have a lot of time for reading." But I got a lot of that from Vince Vaughn, actually. Vince Vaughn is very quick with his tongue. You've seen him in his films, and he's a very charming guy. So some of Vince's charm and Bill Clinton's charm, and Elvis Presley's in there because Zaphod had to be charming. So I was grabbing from everything I could get to make this guy. He's got to be this sort of icon, this larger-than-life guy. He's the guy at the party, that guy, the life of the party.
You're actually playing two characters, or one character with two heads. ...
Rockwell: There is a second head, and the second head is more distinguished than in the book or the TV series. In order to have some diversity between the heads I had to make the first head a little more benign, not as threatening. So that sort of helped clarify the main Zaphod personality.
Garth Jennings, how big a responsibility was directing this? You blow it and you're screwed for life, right?
Jennings: Yeah, exactly, I could really do without that kind of pressure. The funny thing was our agent up and said, "They've sent Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Would you like me to read it?" I said, "Please don't send me that script." One, I was already making my own little film, which I'd just started casting. And, two, I thought, "They'll have ruined it. They'll have ruined this thing I grew up loving." I was very concerned that it would be Hollywood-ized. And then they sent it anyway, bless them.
I didn't get it for about two weeks, and when I did read it, it was the loveliest thing. It was exactly that sense of wonder and fun and that humor that I loved growing up, that had been so much a part of all the books. Then the reaction was that people, like me, take this very seriously, and no one wants to see it screwed up. But the minute you go, "Well, I suppose you could do the Vogons like this" and "You could do this," the minute you actually start to think about how it could be made, you realize what a wonderful blank canvas this stuff is. It's gold. And for someone like me it's just amazing.
So the minute I started working on it I forgot about all the pressures, because you're so consumed with "How am I going to do that?" or "Are we going to get that finished by Wednesday?" and just the day-to-day requirements of the job. The fan worries are more abstract.
Simon Jones played Arthur Dent on the British TV version of Hitchhiker's Guide, and you've got him making a cameo in the film. What other kinds of in-jokes and tributes should people be on the lookout for?
Jennings: Simon Jones was just great as Arthur Dent, and we needed a face and voice for that sequence. We actually shot it in 3-D, so if you wear red and green glasses, he actually jumps out. I haven't really told the studio that I did that. I thought it'd be more fun if we just did it. No one really knows. But I just couldn't resist doing it.
The original Marvin robot that was used in the TV series, we managed to track down at the BBC studios. It was all in pieces, like this dismembered body. It was really grim. And they got him out and polished him up and made all his lights work and everything, and it was great. We put him on set in the queuing group, where Arthur is queuing up to save Trillian. He's just in there, volunteering up, and Arthur looks at him. He was quite an icon when I was growing up, that Marvin robot. He even had a record on the charts. He was a smash hit when you were a kid.
And there are other things. Douglas is in it an awful lot. He had cyberscanned his head for a computer game. We had access to his data, so when we built the Temple of Deep Thought, which is this giant nose and nostrils, etc., it's actually Douglas' nose perfectly rebuilt, 30 feet. Not that anyone is going to go, "Hey, that's Douglas' nose," but it just felt like quite a fun thing to do. And then one of the planets, as they're flying through the planet factory, is Douglas' whole head that just is this giant planet. It's quite lovely.
At the end, the final improbability effect is Douglas' face. It disappears and says 'For Douglas.' His mom and family are in it. His mom is the old lady reading the newspaper who couldn't really care less as the Earth is being destroyed, and she's in it again at the end. Douglas' daughter and sister and everybody are around the table. There are tons of things crammed in there. Basically if we needed a prop or a name for something we just used the original material as a reference.
You won't be able to please everyone. Adams diehards may grouse that this or that is missing or envisioned differently than they interpreted it. People who know nothing about Adams may find it too far-out, too British. Some people might love it. At the end of the day, with this film, are you trying to please yourself, the fans, the Adams legacy?
Jennings: I guess it was to make something that celebrated Hitchhiker's Guide, that was warm and funny, something that captured the spirit of what we loved, what originally caught us when we first discovered it. We were kids at the time. I guess I just wanted to make something that was true to the spirit of it and not sell it out, while making it work for the cinema. Douglas had already done most of the legwork. He'd worked out this whole sort of crazy plotline and some of the technical things had already been addressed. So it was really to make something that ... I guess we enjoyed it. We certainly had to make it our own by doing it. It needed to be made from scratch essentially.
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