Moviehole.net talks to Patrick Lussier
How did you decide on Nathan Fillion and Katee Sackhoff?
When I first read the script I wasn’t at all sure what to expect. Frankly I thought it would be a direct continuiation of the first film. But it wasn’t. Matt wrote something so clever and unique with such a strong main character who had to have such range, from unbelievable sadness, hope, strength and dread. Nathan Fillion was who I began seeing as I read it. I knew that I wanted him to be Abe. I knew he would take the character beyond what was beautifully written on the page. I’ve wanted to work with Nathan again since working with him on Dracula 2000. This part felt perfect for him. Thankfully Paul Brooks and Shawn Williamson agreed having both just finished SLITHER with Nathan. We all knew there was no one else we wanted.
For the role of Sherry, Brad Kessell one of the Gold Circle executives and myself kept discussing Katee as a prototype for the role (my son and I are huge Battlestar fans and we had the goal to convert as many others as possible). We weren’t sure what her schedule for Galactica was but we assumed, as we would be shooting before the regular TV seasons ended that we wouldn’t get her. When I talked to Matt about her, he too was on board with how perfect she would be. The guys at Rogue loved the idea. And so we did some homework, discovered that BSG shot off season and had actually finished in December. I met with Katee on a Saturday and I knew instantly that she would be perfect. On Monday we offered her the role and thankfully she said yes. Katee brough so much heart to the role of Sherry. Her relationship with Nathan’s character in the film grounds it with such sincerity. Our only problem was we wouldn’t be finished shooting before Galactic started up again. With the overlap of the two shows, and Galactica getting Katee first there were a couple of days where she bascially worked around the clock, shooting Galactica all day then shooting with us at night. She was amazing through all that, continually giving such a powerful performance. You’d never know she hadn’t slept in days.
How involved were you in the development process? Did you do any research? Help on the script? Summon up any ghosts?
Matt did the bulk of the research. He had the story so well mapped befor I began working on the project with him and the producers. The script was already so strong and smart. However, in the original draft there was a school shooting. We all knew that we couldn’t shoot that - the subject matter didn’t sit well with us and was too risky for this kind of film. So we spent a lot of time creating new versions of what that could be. It went through several permutations and we still hadn’t nailed it.
The first most significant one was to make the character early twenties, and rather than a student, we decided he played piano in shopping mall (where the patrons ignored him and he played crap muzak which he hated). While scouting we discovered we couldn’t get clearance for any of the malls that would be appropriate so Brian Pearson our director of photography suggested a hotel lobby. That worked and then he suggested that the lobby of The Orpheum theatre might be good double for a hotel. It was friendly to shoot in, very supportive for filmmakers and visually stunning. We got in there and realized it was three stories high… and presented an opportunity for a unique massacre none of had seen done before. Everything else fell into place after that and we suddenly had the biggest set piece in the movie.
Beyond that, most of the script stuff we worked on had to do with budget. Matt wrote so many spectacular set pieces, some of which were too big for our modest stack of cash. He’s a great colloborator and always would come up with variations on a theme that would be closer to our grasp. We also did some augmentation to certain scenes after Nathan was locked down. With him we knew we had an opportunity to stretch the main character in the direction of Nathan’s obvious strengths.
Clint shot a review to me of the film from DVD Talk that described you as the Brian DePalma of the direct-to-video world. What do you think of that?
Yeah I read that DVD Talk review… loved it. The ‘DTV DePalma’ is an amazing compliment. When we were tweaking the script in the last week before production, Matt and I would talk about DePalma a lot, especially BLOW OUT which we were both huge fans of. That film, UNTOUCHABLES, DRESSED TO KILL, CARRIE OBSESSION, are all incredible DePalma films. There are several sequences where we discussed DePalma’s style, not to mimic it, but there was, especially in his early films, such a great sense of dread and impending doom that just consumed each frame. We took inspiration from that beyond a doubt. Condition Dead is a great script by Dave Davis, a very cool action zombie film. We’re looking for a home for it. Other than that, I spent a lot of last year working on THE EYE for Lionsgate and Paramount Vantage, working on it primarily as the film editor amongst other things. The film has turned out far better than any of us expected. Jessica Alba does a pitch-perfect job in it. I’m looking forward to it’s release on February 1st. I also have a couple other things on the burner. We’re still courting studio interest for HEADHUNTER, the adaptation of Michael Slade’s brilliant novel.
Who WOULD win in a fight : Starbuck or Malcolm Reynolds?
Doesn’t matter who would win, it’s just a fight you’d want to see. I can pretty much gaurantee you that it would end with both of them lying on the floor laughing in a state of bruises and mutual respect.
- Full Interview: [warning - may contain spoilers]
www.moviehole.net/interviews/20080109…