Interview with Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin
Category
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Short filmTranscript
00:00I'm gonna hit you guys with a hard-hitting one
00:01right off the bat.
00:03Do you know if bunkers like the ones featured
00:06in the movie actually exist?
00:08Yes. Yes.
00:09Do they really?
00:10Can you tell me about them or no?
00:12Or is it like a lockdown secret?
00:13The fragment has hit central Florida.
00:16Oh my God.
00:18Wait, are some more pieces gonna hit?
00:20Come on, let's go.
00:21But the sky's on fire.
00:26We watched it as a family last night
00:28and my wife woke me up this morning
00:29still thinking about it.
00:30She came out of the shower early and was like,
00:32yeah, but what about this part?
00:34And because I think that I wanna emphasize
00:36it relies heavily on the kindness of strangers.
00:39Like there's nothing really special
00:41that your guys' characters are equipped to do.
00:43You just keep going forward
00:45but you rely heavily on the kindness of strangers.
00:47And I'm wondering if that's something that appealed to you
00:49when taking on the story.
00:50Yeah, I love that part of the story.
00:53But it's also the kindness of strangers
00:55and the danger of strangers
00:56because you see beautiful people doing terrible things
01:01but for the right reasons.
01:03But a lot of the time there is just such heart
01:06and humanity in there by the people that pass.
01:08And by the way, that's the world that we live in.
01:10There's a lot of darkness out there
01:11but there's a lot of light and we can't forget that.
01:14And I think that's why despite the fact
01:16that this movie pummels you, it's intense, it's a ride
01:20but at the same time, it fills you with hope.
01:23Even at the end as it all goes through
01:26you're kind of left with the feeling
01:27that maybe we're only moving on to something greater
01:30and wiser now and more connected
01:32and appreciating what is important in life.
01:36These events, just like the pandemic,
01:37always in some ways allow us to tap
01:41into a greater consciousness and remind us who we are
01:44and what's important, which is connectivity
01:46and love and tribe.
01:48Marina, I'm really curious when you take on a part
01:50like this because it is devastating scene
01:53after devastating scene emotionally.
01:56If there's any hesitation that you're gonna take this on
01:58because you're gonna have to live in this headspace
01:59for months at a time and live in this-
02:01Yeah, I definitely had to gear up to it.
02:03I was a little terrified.
02:05I have a work motto that says,
02:07if I am scared to do it, then I should do it.
02:12And this was definitely a movie that scared me
02:14because of the emotional commitment
02:15and the physical commitment.
02:18It's really these two characters,
02:20the whole movie, in different peril at different times
02:23and then also together.
02:26So, you know, I would have to rise to the occasion,
02:28but I really enjoy a challenge.
02:31We're scared.
02:32We'll find him.
02:33It's okay.
02:34Clark's largest fragment will hit in less than 24 hours.
02:39I'm wondering if there was something really humanizing
02:40about giving the threat a name, like Clark.
02:44Every time I heard it,
02:44it sort of brought me back into the story.
02:46Yeah, I think that most of the time,
02:51extraterrestrial things are given more of a number
02:54or some kind of a classification
02:56that doesn't feel emotional.
02:58But right now there's a hurricane called Sally.
03:01I mean, talk about a lovely name
03:03that is just going to wreck the Gulf region right now.
03:06And I like the idea of what it conveys
03:11that it is more of an emotional attachment to something
03:15because we've given it a personal name
03:18of what that event's going to be.
03:19You know, to me, it was always two monsters in the movie.
03:21It was not only Clark, but it was humanity itself.
03:24Will we turn on each other?
03:26And are we capable of heinous things
03:27when it's life or death?
03:28Or will we do right by each other?
03:30And there's so many scenes in this film
03:31because you guys rely on practical effects
03:33as often as you can in this,
03:35where you guys in the middle of huge crowd scenes,
03:38and I can't help but think, like,
03:40how hard that's going to be to do in the immediate future.
03:43Have you thought about obstacles like that
03:45in terms of telling a story of this size,
03:47the types of precautions we're going to have to take on?
03:49I don't know how we do that before there's a vaccine.
03:53I don't see how that's possible.
03:55I think smaller movies, certainly,
03:57and I think that's what we're going to see a lot of
03:59in the coming months as things reopen.
04:02Or, obviously, if you're in a country
04:04where there aren't many cases,
04:05then that's definitely something that you can do.
04:08They're going to be harder to put together,
04:09but we're going to figure it out.
04:10I'm in the middle of leaving on the next film
04:14that Gerard Butler and I are going to do.
04:15We're going to go three in a row together,
04:17and there's some scenes with massive crowds in it,
04:20and you just realize that we all have to make
04:24lemonade out of lemons,
04:25and we all have to figure out clever ways to do things,
04:27and we finished Greenland during the pandemic.
04:31I mean, this movie was filmed, cut, screened, tested,
04:35locked before there was ever anything called COVID,
04:37and what we thought was hypothetical
04:39suddenly becoming much more of a reality.
04:41It was a very surreal experience to be on a mixed stage
04:44and then suddenly be in the middle of the pandemic.
04:46In fact, we got shut down from the California state
04:51because of it, and you suddenly realize
04:53the more different parallels with it.
04:55But you also, I was really moved by a team of people,
05:00and I'm talking about 300, between visual effects
05:02and editors and colorists and mixers.
05:05We all went to our couches, just like we are right now,
05:08and we finished the movie remotely.
05:10So I love the fact that we can all get it done,
05:12and we'll get it done moving forward.
05:14Just get up and rethink things,
05:15and I think there's something
05:17a really favorite producer of mine said is,
05:19I think things like this will end up knocking the rust off
05:22of antiquated ways that we used to do things
05:25and finding better ways to do it.
05:26Yeah, that's good,
05:27because this was a great return to practical also.
05:29You know, it was great to see you immerse yourself
05:31in sets like this.
05:32Two days.
05:33They got it all wrong.
05:34There's a ton of fragments.
05:35Planet killers.
05:36Space agencies are predicting an extinction-level event.
05:41All right, get up.
05:41We're just trying to get to safety.
05:45Do you know if bunkers like the ones
05:47featured in the movie actually exist?
05:49Yes.
05:50Do they really?
05:51Can you tell me about them or no?
05:52Or is it like a lockdown secret?
05:54No, there's nuclear concrete bunkers dug into the ground,
05:58and I think I heard that they can have been forgotten about,
06:00and a lot of them had been covered in ice,
06:02but that had receded again.
06:05But they're there.
06:06In Greenland, right?
06:07In Greenland, yeah.
06:08Yeah.
06:09Yeah.
06:10I want to go find one.