Total Recall Movie Interviews – Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale, and Bryan Cranston
[Music] coming in this one of the challenges is that you’ve got to play the part so that we can believe you whether it’s reality or whether it’s recall right I’m curious what what you do to prepare for that uh that would would have been a little I think that would have been a little meta for me to get into I think it would have been I would have had to objectify I mean you always of course objectify anyway you know you start off objectifying the script and the character and then you get closer and closer and closer until hopefully you’re the subject but but I think that would have been a little bit staying outside of too much so I just kind of focused on just the Simplicity of being a man who who one minute believed he had a a a very complete life albe it one that he was experiencing a level of discontent in and then the next minute he is uh exposed to the possibility SL reality that everything in his life has been a fabrication everything from his marriage to his work to his name his very identity all his memories have been a fabrication so I just I just that was enough well we definitely talked a lot about you know walking the spine line of what do we want people to believe at what point and we want to push it and we want you to think maybe it is fake maybe it isn’t as we go along in different points of the story but for performance sake it’s real it can’t not be real otherwise if I’m not feeling it genuinely and believing it then you as n member definitely are not going to feel it so even if she was even if she is a figment of his imagination she is a genuine figment and I played her genuinely as through the whole thing as as you know as deeply emotionally as I could as an actor the only control we have is just go after things that that are unique or compelling storytelling and that your character that you’re playing that you can embody this character that you can bring something to this character that is Meaningful and captivating that that that I feel comfortable in in jumping into and and Total Recall is no different you know you take on an iconic movie of 22 years ago and you realize well I don’t want to do what Ronnie Cox did as well as he did but I want to have a new take a fresh take on what it was and so I pitched Len Weissman with the idea that um that cohagen was really a father figure to to Colin’s character and and that’s where I think we we had a nice jumping off Place uh so it must be interesting when when your husband who’s the director turns to you and says I want you to play the wife of the hero who’s secretly a killer spy and you haven’t really said and a psychotic mental crazy as well I that’s that’s what was kind of offensive about it from a wife point of view um but no it was it was really a great part Ian I felt so lucky to to to have it playing the part pre-recall and post recall as the same character or do you look it as two completely different roles I mean you know my character is playing a role herself so um I’m I have to be as good as she would be in that and I think she’s pretty good so probably the same I don’t I’m not attracted to bad for the sake of being bad there’s many things that I’ve turned down because uh it’s a guy who is a killer and I go why because he kills people and it’s like all right bored already I’m already not interested in this guy if you want me to to consider this we have to explore the why and in here with Total Recall the why was very clear is that to me it was that cohagan has very clear distinct ideas of what would bring about a better society and the resistance is trying to prevent him from bringing this to life and um and I thought that’s good I like that because I can get behind that kind of sensibility narcissistic as it may seem from an exterior point of view but he believes his way is the best and if you just follow me I will lead you to Utopia how how familiar were you with the the Pulver Hoven film beforeand or did you try to avoid it um familiar with it we watched it and would occasionally watch it during lunch and look at scenes again and talk about you know oh are we funny enough are we too funny are we dark are we too dark um so quite familiar with the film um obviously wanted to do something very different um but it’s you know it’s a beloved a beloved piece of Cinema in many of our Lives including you know Colin Kate and mine it feels like a a lot of practical uh sets yeah it was how does that uh help you get into this world I think it really helps I mean I I must say I would be nervous of doing a movie where you’re sitting on a green crate holding a tennis ball pretending I mean I think it’s incredible when people are really good at doing that but I I do think that would be quite quite difficult I think and we were never in that position you know sometimes you know we have this kind of crazy set and then there’d be a sort of strip of green you know but that didn’t didn’t really take away from it the the sets were fully realized practical down to the tiniest detail and we were in all the tents and purposes hover cars you know spitting around hundreds of miles an hour so uh I feel pretty lucky about that there’s a great little nod to it too when you’re on the fall reading the spy who loved me because it’s either it’s either foreshadowing or it’s maybe he just loves spy novels yeah I know I know and there was a whole there’s whole I mean if if you not they did go in there was any need to but if you went in on the books that were that were in in the apartment there was more than one um uh broccoli book there was more than one Bond book in there and it was just yeah it was a little I think kind of just a little cinematic knot of the head that possibly there were you know you can’t truly subjugate the experience of a human being nature can can do it but some where inside there’ll be a voice however lightly whispered that will always remain you know
This video originally ran on ComingSoon.net in 2012.
Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale, and Bryan Cranston are interviewed by Silas Lesnick.
In need of a vacation from his ordinary life, factory worker Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) visits Rekall, a company that can turn dreams into real memories. Thinking that memories of life as a superspy are just the ticket, Quaid undergoes the procedure — but it goes horribly wrong. Suddenly, Quaid is a hunted man. He teams up with a rebel fighter (Jessica Biel) on a search to find the head of the underground resistance and take down the leader (Bryan Cranston) of the free world.