"Underworld 2" - The Interviews...
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2005 Interviews with:
Director Len Wiseman
Actress Kate Beckinsale
Actor Scott Speedman
Creature effect-maker Patrick Tatopoulos
Q: What was the best part of playing Selene again?
Kate Beckinsale: I love that character I just think she’s a really great [character] to be, very cool and also has a vulnerability that you didn’t really get to see as much in the first movie. So in this movie we get to open that up a little bit. To me I wasn’t really an action ‘type’ before I did this. I found that a real challenge too. And my husband likes me in the outfit. [laughs]
Q: What caused you to create this concept for the vampires? Most of the time we see different styles: An older style of vampire, a more romantic style of vampire. What was your influence and what were you trying to achieve with this vision?
Len Weisman: I wanted to do something that was different. I really do approach things from what I’d want to go see. And this was something that I hadn’t seen yet in both of those species. It was based off of that. I just wanted to see something that was fresh, that I could use some of the old aspects of vampires and werewolves and mix it up and make it new. So it was really more, what would I want to go and see at the theater myself.
Q: Kate, what characters, comic books, books or novels, or movies did you watch to develop Selene for yourself?
Beckinsale: It’s hard to find really solid female action heroines. Alien, and [I] studied Terminator, and then he (indicating Wiseman) made me watch LA Confidential to study Russell Crowe. It was immensely helpful!
Wiseman: When I first pitched the concept to Kate I said: ‘If you want to know what inspired me about Selene’s character, take a look at this movie.’ [And she said:] ‘I don’t really see Kim Basinger in Selene a lot.’ And I said ‘No, no, no. Look at Russell Crowe and just the way that his character and how he feels wife-beaters have destroyed his life.’ So anyway that’s the reference there.
Q: Patrick, can you talk about your creature design on this film?
Patrick Tatopoulos: First, for Underworld: the werewolves you saw in the first movie are coming back in this one, you will see them again. But we have a new breed of creatures, vampires which are actually a hybrid creature. We still have Kate with the teeth and lenses, which is good. And we have a brand new werewolf as well that you haven’t seen in the trailer. Len put [it] together for very good reasons. But it’s coming together. A lot more stuff to come.
Q: Kate, you’ve been in many different types of movies, which character was the hardest to put yourself into?
Beckisale: I actually find Underworld is one of the hardest. At one time my favorite, but I do find that having to be such a tough warrior, bad-ass but also she’s genuinely responsible for the vulnerability in the movie at the same time is really a fine balance. And the costume is quite tight. They’re all different in their own way.
The thing is, I don’t think ever want to approach a movie in a really different huge way from another kind of a movie. It’s all the same stuff. I find, like the way I work it’s a little harder when people keep stopping you and you’re having to move your arm a different way. I think Scott found the same thing, These movies and really, really fun and really difficult and satisfying but they kind of dip slightly from the level then say a Shakespeare movie or something like that.
Q: Kate, how did you identify with your character?
Beckinsale: Initially when I first read the script, I thought: ‘Wow, this is a really big stretch.’ But when you find that she’s lost of people in her family, she’s coming from a place of real loss. I think everybody had their own way of identifying with that particular part of it. I found that whole back-story very interesting and what brought her to becoming such a tough person. I don’t feel quite as tough myself, at least not on that level. But everything that was behind the story I found really intriguing.
Kraven’s not in charge of her anymore. She’s out there on her own. We thought we Len and I both felt she was very sort of repressed in the first one. We wanted to open up the feel of the film, to give her just a tiny bit more humor. It’s not like gags and all that stuff, but just to have a little lightness. A little bit more fun with it this time. So in terms of her relationship with Michael, that’s kind of opened up a bit as well.
Q: For Scott, What was it like to play a werewolf? How did you prepare yourself?
Scott Speedman: I don’t really know, I mean. [I was] really just getting ready to do all that crazy stuff. I like doing all that stunt stuff. [It was] more than thinking about: ‘Gee what’s a werewolf like in the world?’ But I trained really hard and got Len to trust me, tell him I could do all that stunt stuff. And I did that, right?
Wiseman: Yeah.
Q: Now that you’re doing a sequel do you have enough clout to get your Director’s Cut to the theater, rather than us waiting six months to see it on DVD?
Wiseman: Actually both Lakeshore and Screen Gems have been fantastic, they have been very supportive of the film and what I wanted to do. It’s given me much more freedom in that regard. Yes, absolutely so. There still stuff that will go to a probably an extended cut just in terms of things that I want to hold off on, in terms of pacing and such. It’s much more in my control now.
Q: Kate, previously I recall you said that the costume design left you very dehydrated and couldn’t get out of the costume easily. Is that right?
Beckinsale: It’s not so much that the costume made me dehydrated it’s just that it takes 20 minutes to get the corset off and undo the zipper and take…I don’t want to give everyone a visual. When you’re shooting obviously they don’t want to give you a half-hour break so you try not to drink too much water and need to bother anybody. But actually it’s a very comfortable costume, fortunately. (To Wiseman) You like it a lot. He liked it a lot. [laughs]
Q: Were there improvements to the costume for the sequel?
Beckinsale: We had some problems in the beginning. Where ever they found the stretchy rubber stuff the first time has gone bust or disappeared or something. So we had problems with it ripping in strategic places, every time move my leg or lift my arm up there’d be a giant gapping hole. We had to scout around for some new fabric. Other that that it’s pretty much the same.
Q: For Kate and Scott: how much more physically demanding was the stunt work in comparison to the first movie?
Speedman: A lot more. There was a lot more for me to do stunt-wise, that I had to train for.
Beckinsale: We had a lot more money in the budget to do more fight sequences. So we all got to beat each other up a lot more than we did the first time
Q: Was the overall Matrix-feel of Underworld intentional or just an out-growth?
Wiseman: In terms of the whole Matrix thing: it was funny. It’s a style I happen to like. I like dark visuals, I like slow-motion. If you’d seen my music video/commercial reel that that was done ages ago, it had a lot of the same style and vibe. What’s funny is that I think a lot of where we got the Matrix thing for is because we’ve got Kate in a tight, black leather suit, and the black trench coat.
I remember when I saw the trailer for Matrix for the first time and I thought: ‘How the hell can they rip off Blade?’ [Here they had a] black costume and black trench coat. And then when I saw Blade for the first time, I remember thinking: ‘How could just they rip off T2 like that?’ You know you’ve got
Beckinsale: I must say, it is quite hard to make the transition back into regular clothes. I’ve gotten used to how I look now all shiny in leather. It’s a bit sad when you get back into jeans.
Q: Patrick, can you comment on the difference between working on Underworld and Silent Hill, design-wise?
Tatopoulos: Silent Hill is a little different in the sense that the designs are already done. But you are expecting to see those. So my take on the design was very little, it was mostly about ?. In the case of Underworld, the sets we used we created from scratch were a lot different and in some ways more exciting.
Q: What about Bill Nighy’s role in Underworld 2? Does he come back from the dead?
Beckinsale: Sadly, he’s not in it as much as he was. We’d visit him a bit and that was very [nice]. …He’s just a kind of rock star / god to us. We were sorry to see him go so quickly. We sliced his head in half last time. If we had only known he was going to be so cool we wouldn’t have done that.
Q: What do you guys think of your action figures?
Beckinsale: Mine had a touch of the she-man about her. I wasn’t that happy.
Speedman: I never saw mine.
Beckinsale: Liar, liar, liar!
Speedman: [laughs]
[end]
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Staci Layne Wilson reporting