{"id":110395,"date":"2019-10-08T08:00:37","date_gmt":"2019-10-08T07:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=110395"},"modified":"2019-10-07T18:20:56","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T17:20:56","slug":"gemini-man-ang-lee-elizabeth-winstead-and-clive-owen-on-the-clone-sci-fi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/interviews\/gemini-man-ang-lee-elizabeth-winstead-and-clive-owen-on-the-clone-sci-fi\/","title":{"rendered":"Gemini Man: Ang Lee, Elizabeth Winstead and Clive Owen on the clone sci-fi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Director Ang Lee and Stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Clive Owen on high-concept sci-fi film\u00a0Gemini Man<\/em> that\u2019s been two decades in the making…\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The year is 1997. A group of Scottish scientists have just unveiled Dolly the Sheep, sparking a lively debate around the possibilities and dangers of cloning. And somewhere in Hollywood, a group of execs are having a similar debate\u2014only they\u2019re not talking about a sheep. They\u2019re laying the groundwork for a 20-years-in-the-making movie that, like Dolly, will be the first of its kind. <\/span><\/p>\n

Elsewhere in Hollywood, Will Smith, fresh off of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air <\/i><\/b>and Independence Day<\/i><\/b>, is having one of the best years of his career. He\u2019s starring in the soon-to-be-classic sci-fi film Men In Black<\/i><\/b>, and his first album is about to go nine-times platinum. Little does he know that two decades from now, when the script for Gemini Man<\/i> <\/b>finally lands on his doorstep, he\u2019ll be trying to tap into the way he felt the year of its inception. <\/span><\/p>\n

Back when it was first conceived in \u201897, Gemini Man<\/i><\/b> somehow managed to be both a product of its time and truly ahead of it. The plot, which revolves around a 50-something government assassin forced to face off against a younger clone of himself sent to kill him, feels so at home with the decade\u2019s sci-fi summer blockbusters that you can almost smell the popcorn just thinking about it. But filmmaking technology was nowhere near ready to bring the clone to life in a satisfying way. The project lost steam, passing through the hands of multiple writers and directors as the decade gave way to the next, and despite various murmurings, it seemed to have been consigned to the limbo that is development hell. <\/span><\/p>\n

Cut to 2017. Over the ensuing decades, the script for Gemini Man <\/i><\/b>had made its way to Paramount, where Skydance Media CEO David Ellison decided the time had finally come to make it a reality. He had one person in mind to finally wrangle Gemini Man <\/i><\/b>into submission: visionary director Ang Lee. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI remember he said, \u2018I think the technology is in reach\u2014I don\u2019t know, but I want to be the first one to do this,\u2019\u201d Lee recalls. \u201cBased on my experience with The Hulk<\/i><\/b> 20 years ago, and more recently with the tiger in Life Of Pi<\/i><\/b>, I thought in theory we could do it. I knew it would be very difficult\u2014harder than we imagined\u2014but it was about time we gave it a try.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Filmmaking under a microscope<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Before Lee could find out whether his theory was correct, he had to cast his leading man. Over the years, countless actors had been considered for the role, including Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Sean Connery, and even Nicolas Cage (which would have been a very<\/i> different movie). But Lee had a specific vision for who he wanted. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody would immediately think, you\u2019ve got to get the biggest movie star for the last\u00a0<\/span>30 years,\u201d he says. \u201cSo there are two or three people who could do it.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Will Smith ultimately landed the dual roles of Henry, the 51-year-old assassin on the brink of retirement, and Junior, the 23-year-old clone that\u2019s hunting him. It makes sense: at this stage in his career, the only person who could really bring Smith down is himself. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTake Will Smith today, with the skill he has today, the knowledge, and put him in a younger, attractive body, and give a soulful performance\u2014I think that\u2019s a real treat\u201d Lee enthuses. \u201cThat was the biggest dream of the whole project, to see what that looked like.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The actor\u2019s extensive body of work gave Lee and the VFX artists plenty of reference material to work with when creating the younger character. But it also ensured viewers had a yardstick to measure the clone\u2019s accuracy against, making the team\u2019s job significantly harder. After all, we all remember what Will Smith looked like as a younger man. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot just put on hair and makeup, smooth out wrinkles, and call it the younger Will Smith,\u201d Lee says. \u201cI spent a long time persuading Skydance we should take the more expensive way and start from scratch\u2014just build that character digitally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To call Junior a digitally de-aged version of Will Smith would be doing a massive disservice to the talented effects team at Weta Workshop who spent two years creating a perfect CGI model of a 23-year-old Will Smith, down to the very last pore. Junior is a fully digital creation, with great care and attention put into recreating the subtle changes that occur in the face as we talk, become agitated or upset, and so on. Every layer of bone and tissue was mapped out on the computer, every blood vessel accounted for. By all intents and purposes, they created a digital clone of Will Smith. <\/span><\/p>\n

To make things even more complicated, Ang wanted to shoot the film at 120 frames per second. For reference, most films are captured at just 24 frames per second. He also wanted it to be 3D in 4K resolution. The result is a movie that is so vividly detailed it looks like you could step right into the screen. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat would scare away most of the visual effects companies,\u201d laughs Lee. \u201cI had to convince them that it\u2019s more daunting, but you also have more things to work with. It\u2019s a better chance to make it work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This form of filmmaking also created additional challenges for the actors, who had to adjust their performances to work with the intensive cameras. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAng had a theory that the acting had to be tweaked a little bit because of the intensity and the detail with which you\u2019re shooting it,\u201d explains Clive Owen, who plays antagonist Clay Verris, Henry\u2019s former mentor and the adoptive father of Junior. \u201cThe amount of action, the detail\u2014it really sort of attacks the senses in a different way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Ang told me was, basically, if there was any single moment that was not totally and completely truthful or authentic, the camera would be able to pick it up in every way,\u201d says Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who plays Danny, a level-headed DIA agent who becomes an ally to Henry. \u201cTo me, that was actually a really exciting thing, because that\u2019s really what you\u2019re always trying to do as an actor is to get the most truthful performance. And I think that\u2019s what\u2019s most interesting to Ang. That\u2019s what excites him about this new method of filmmaking\u2014pushing these boundaries and pushing it further and further into complete truthfulness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Smith and Lee on set<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Humanising the clone<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Truthfulness was especially important when it came to the character of Junior, since it was vital that the audience believe the digital person on screen was really there. Yet despite being rendered on a computer in the real world and created in a lab in the movie\u2019s universe, Junior is perhaps the most human character in the film\u2014driven by a powerful motion-capture performance from Smith. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very skilful and a very hard-working and disciplined actor,\u201d says Lee. \u201cThe hard thing is to unlearn what he knew and get to the innocence that is the most important thing in portraying the clone, which is the most sensitive human being throughout the whole movie. That\u2019s how I wanted to portray this young man\u2014not to see him as a robot or the Terminator.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

To help Smith get into the right mindset to play a younger version of himself, Lee gave him some homework. He asked Smith to watch his performances in films like Bad Boys<\/strong> <\/em>and reflect on what made them work\u2014from the way he walked and talked to the subtle ways his charm shone through.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the actor\u2019s craft has advanced significantly over the past decades, Lee also told Smith to act \u201cless good.\u201d The director wanted to tap into some of the naivety and innocence that made the Fresh Prince so endearing. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the hardest thing,\u201d Lee says. \u201cBecause it\u2019s a 50-year-old big movie star, and you want to talk to him about innocence. But he\u2019ll do it. You have to give Will credit\u2014it takes a lot of courage to put himself out there and be examined with such clarity\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was in rehearsals where Ang was getting him to tap into the younger sensibilities\u2014give himself a younger energy so that it wasn\u2019t just the mature Will now who knows what he knows, but tapping into something a little more naive, and playing around with the balance of that,\u201d recalls Owen. \u201cI was super impressed with his dedication, his preparation. If you\u2019re doing scenes and the camera is on me and not on him, he\u2019s as present as he is when the camera\u2019s on him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, playing two characters, Smith was on camera a lot<\/i>. To film the clone\u2019s scenes, the actors would have to play the same scene numerous times, sometimes against Smith\u2019s body double, and sometimes against thin air. Finally, they recreated every scene again in the motion capture studio, matching their speech patterns and body movements to their earlier performances, which played on screens around them. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a bit surreal by the time we got to the motion capture work,\u201d reflects Winstead. \u201cThat was the strangest part, because Will had to be dressed in this grey suit with dots all over his face and little bobbles stuck all over him. I think for Will it must have been a really strange experience\u2014it was strange for me for sure, but I really felt for him, because he was the only one in the scenario who was actually going to be on camera creating this totally new performance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe one thing about this technology is everything takes longer,\u201d says Owen. \u201cIt\u2019s a much slower process in terms of getting everything set up. But actually, once you got into playing the scene, all that stuff disappears. The technology recedes into the distance when you\u2019re committed to the acting.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fathers, sons, and big philosophical questions<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just making Junior look real that mattered to Lee. In bringing two versions of Will Smith to the screen, he wanted to convey the complex emotional journeys of these characters who are so alike and yet so different. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to examine nature versus nurture, so I wanted the two of them to have very different upbringings,\u201d says Lee. \u201cHenry, the older one, grew up with a single mother without a dad. And the other doesn\u2019t have a mother and grew up with a stern dad.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Clay Verris, who created and raised Junior, has turned the kid into a weapon, just like the older assassin he mentored years earlier. But that doesn\u2019t mean he doesn\u2019t love the boy. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cClive Owen\u2019s character is not just a villain,\u201d says Lee. \u201cHe has a belief in the system. That\u2019s the kind of villain I like\u2014it\u2019s not that they enjoy being bad, but they believe in something. They\u2019re convincing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Owen agrees. \u201cHe\u2019s very close and he feels very passionate\u2014he\u2019s brought this kid up and it\u2019s a kind of passion project,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s something quite blinkered about it, but with people who are pushing things forward, they can be a little blinkered about the way they see everything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Just as Junior is to Verris, Gemini Man <\/i><\/b>proved to be something of a passion project to Lee. As soon as he heard the pitch, the director knew he wanted to be involved. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not really the story or the genre,\u201d he says. \u201cBut when I saw it was a chance to do a man meeting his younger self in an action movie, a lot of ideas hit my head. What would you tell your younger self? When your ass gets kicked, how do you respond? What is the relationship\u2014can you be honest with yourself? How does a clone feel? Does it have a soul?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

These philosophical questions were at the centre of Lee\u2019s vision for the movie, which is set in the not-too-distant future. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I love about science fiction and horror as well are the metaphors that they bring forth,\u201d Winstead says. \u201cI love that they seem to allow us to talk about things that are uncomfortable that we might not be able to really talk about in a fully open, literal way. There are several metaphors in this film about facing your past and facing yourself, and learning to embrace that and not carrying it around anymore.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

For Henry, Junior is more than an annoyingly persistent and skilled threat that seems able to anticipate his every move. The clone is a painful reminder of a past he can\u2019t escape.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for Junior himself, Lee was curious about exploring how a self-aware clone would think and feel. Since Verris is obviously not Junior\u2019s birth father, Lee reasoned that the boy would have questions about his history and parentage similar to the experience of an orphan. It was this angle that he decided to play with, juxtaposing Junior\u2019s exceptional technical skill with his still-developing emotional landscape. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJunior is the heart of the movie,\u201d Lee says. \u201cIt\u2019s a very sympathetic character, and he still needs to find his way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The combination of high-concept science fiction and high-octane action with a dramatic centre also drew Winstead to the film. Her character\u2019s idealistic outlook helps counterbalance Henry\u2019s more jaded worldview (though it\u2019s easy to see why he\u2019s jaded with his own clone trying to murder him). <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDanny really becomes kind of a rock for him,\u201d Winstead says. \u201cThey look after each other in this very professional, kind way that to me was very refreshing on the page when I read it. I thought this feels like a very real woman who is strong in a realistic way\u2014not only physically strong and capable, but she\u2019s really strong of character. I thought that that would be really nice to be able to play.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reimagining the cinematic experience <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

While this movie is about creating a perfect clone, Lee set out to create something entirely new. The director, who has always been interested in pushing boundaries in his filmmaking, describes Gemini Man <\/i><\/b>as \u201cnew cinema.\u201d While other movies have played around with some of the elements of this filmmaking style before, bringing them all together has been a gargantuan effort.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a different language and I think you should treat it differently and make movies differently,\u201d says Lee. \u201cLight it differently, go about just about everything somewhat different, so it\u2019s watchable. Even just watchable takes a lot of effort. It\u2019s exciting, but it\u2019s also scary because of the whole ecosystem you have to deal with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To make the film watchable, let alone visually stunning, Lee had to make huge changes in the way he\u2019d normally shoot a film. This could lead to bizarre situations for the actors, like the need to film nighttime scenes in bright daylight since the cameras needed a lot of light. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time, I didn\u2019t really understand what was going on with the cameras and the technology\u2014it\u2019s so above my head and so beyond my comprehension that I was just following along!\u201d Winstead admits, chuckling. \u201cWatching the movie, I was like oh my god, I didn\u2019t realise so many of these scenes we were doing were supposed to be at night!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

But Lee didn\u2019t just take this more challenging route because he thought it would look impressive (which it does). He took it because he truly believes it\u2019s the way forward. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a huge fan of this technology,\u201d says Owen. \u201cHe\u2019s convinced that this is the future of film and that in 10 or 15 years\u2019 time, it will be everywhere. Because he thinks that film has to be able to change and adapt\u2014you have to be able to pull people into the cinema and give them an experience that they\u2019re not going to be able to get at home.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s what digital cinema ought to be,\u201d Lee explains. \u201cI think this is the baseline. 24 frame rate is lower than we see in life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Even 20 years after the script started doing the rounds, Gemini Man <\/i><\/b>may still be somewhat ahead of its time, since many theaters are not currently equipped to show the film the way Lee intended it. Despite this, it may still causes audiences to do a double take. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re actually engaging as if this happened to you,\u201d says Lee. \u201cOnce you get into that world, your mindset is a lot sharper. It\u2019s not how we processed film in the past. It\u2019s a different process altogether in your head.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the beauty of it is, you\u2019ve got a great star in Will Smith, you\u2019ve got a really good script that\u2019s been worked and honed, and the thing about Ang Lee is that he\u2019s not only at the forefront of what\u2019s happening in the technological aspects of filmmaking, but he\u2019s a true artist,\u201d says Owen. \u201cIt\u2019s not like this is just going to be a sort of unusual, visceral, visual experience\u2014there\u2019s also a story and a plot, and it\u2019s bringing together all of that and using the technology to make something that really grips and holds the audience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Winstead, who says she often feels a disconnect with 3D films, Gemini Man <\/i><\/b>bridges the gap between the immersion of 3D and the beauty of movies shot on film. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt lives somewhere between a film and virtual reality,\u201d she says. \u201cYou get to watch this story and really feel like you\u2019re a part of it. And I felt that in watching it. You can get mesmerised by the shots and the scenery and really be taken on a journey. It was really beautiful to watch.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

This article first appeared in SciFiNow issue 162.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Gemini Man\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>is in cinemas from 11 October 2019. Get all the latest sci-fi news with every issue of SciFiNow.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ang Lee and the cast of Gemini Man talk ageing down Will Smith, sci-fi metaphors and more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":110399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2615,1718,7],"tags":[6477],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/MV5BZDYxOWFiNTQtYjI0Ny00MmRhLTg2ZGMtODliMzc0MjZkZDk1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjg2NjQwMDQ@._V1_SY1000_SX1500_AL_.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110395"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}