Roland Emmerich, John Cusack & Amanda Peet Take Us to the End of the World in 2012
Written by Judy Sloane Thursday, 12 November 2009 22:15
Interview
The end of the world has long been a fascination with filmmakers, whether it be zombie hordes, alien attack or environmental disaster. But the apocalypse has never looked as stunning as it does in Roland Emmerich's big-budget 2012, which sees John Cusack and Amanda Peet as an estranged couple who must work together to survive when the world starts falling apart. We caught up with the hard-working trio to discover just what it takes to live through Armageddon...
Is this the most physical film you have ever done and what was it like working on set? What was there to look at?
JOHN CUSACK Yeah, this was a pretty action-packed show, but it wasn't really any different from a lot of other films in a way because it was amazing production design. Usually you have the entire set built and then in back of the set will be a green screen. But there is a massive production 
design when you walk onto a set. At the end when we're in the mountains, would be a huge glacier field with flooring underneath and then blue screens in the background. So we always were acting with regular sets, it's just that the backgrounds would be digitally enhanced. And Roland's got a whole army working so effortlessly you could come in and just kind of do your acting job. But yeah, there was a lot of running, jumping, tumbling. You've got to stay stretched out or you'll definitely pull a hamstring for sure.
AMANDA PEET Roland is really thoughtful about this kind of stuff. I remember, I have a two year old and we were shooting long days in a tank, we were in the water, and I guess I had kind of had it a little bit. Sometimes I start to get deluded that I know something that the first AD or the producers just haven't thought through. I went up to Roland and said 'Why are we moving through tanks? We need to go back to the other set and go back to the tanks again.' Roland was like 'Well, do you want to be in a tank for two days in a row?' I was like 'No.' I realized that was why, so he's incredibly humane.
Roland, were you determined to have some sort of happy ending?
ROLAND EMMERICH You can't make a movie like this and end it where everybody is dead. People get upset. In a sense, this is a modern re-telling of Noah's ark. There are survivors and, at the end, there is hope. That's exactly what we were looking to make. I'm also very suspicious of governments and it's an expression of that.
John, what made you want to be a part of this film?
CUSACK I think it was the combination of the project, the director, and the actors. It was nice to be wanted. You get the call for Roland Emmerich's next movie and he wants you to do it. That's a nice call to get. Then I read the script and I thought it was a real page-turner and very surprising. By the end of the film I thought it actually got quite emotional and very tense. I just thought it was a really good, big, epic movie all the way around. You have this scene where Rome burned and Paris fell. How do you shoot that? Then California falls into the ocean. The story would get bigger and bigger. The catastrophes got bigger, places where the characters are safe got smaller and smaller. Yet, the movie actually got more intimate as it went along. There's just a scene in a car. I hadn't seen that in most action films. Usually once the explosions start, the characters stop. I thought that was very clever. It was a terrific script and I was happy to do it.
Roland, you got to destroy a lot of major landmarks in the movie. What were you especially excited to destroy in the film?
EMMERICH (laughs) Well, it's not like I walk around 'oooo, I could destroy this' or 'I could destroy that'. It always comes out of the story. Jackson Curtis (John's character) lives in L.A. and I live in L.A. and everybody in L.A. talks about 'the big one' where California sinks into the ocean so we just decided to do that. That was a great starting point. And Yellowstone National Park got put into the story too. Sometimes it's born out of something interesting. Like we're destroying the Sistine Chapel.. 'we're already there so why don't we have the church fall on people's heads'?
CUSACK I don't know. I think it's a combination of what people kind of view me as and what kind of roles they want to give me. There's usually not much drama in people that are really happy and well-adjusted. Not a lot of conflict there and I'm definitely flawed so I'm sure it comes through in my characters, but I think it's just who you are. It's kind of the human condition. By expressing that, then it's usually okay. Most people are damaged.
This film is tapping into the paranoia about the end of days. So, is it a cautionary tale or just a cool popcorn movie?
CUSACK I think it taps into the paranoia all over the world about how out of control the world feels. Everybody sort of knows what all the problems are, with global warming and all of those things. This smartly doesn't get into the politics of it, it just gets into the fact of what's important to you? What are your values and that feeling you have when something bad happens that cuts through the B.S. I think movies like this give you that sense without the real tragedies having to happen. I think that's maybe their function and why people like them. They give expression to people's fears and you get a release and then a sense of humor, so there is something to the fact that at the end of the movie you can see that there are no more divisions between Russia and the United States, or China, and everybody is on the same playing field. That's kind of a nice populous myth that we all wish one day could happen.
We know Roland is great directing big effects films but talk about him as a director for actors.
PEET I have to say that I definitely emailed a couple of people before I agreed to do the movie, to make sure that Roland wasn't some kind of scary, sadistic kind of director. All the reports back were kind of incredible. Like 'He's the greatest man to work for. He's so lovely, and gentle.' All things that seemed to be completely antithetical to being responsible for this kind of a scale production. I think it is really incredible how intimate he is able to be, and how gentle, and he never loses his cool.
CUSACK Usually there are directors who do the scale and scope thing, then there are directors who can work with actors. It's very rare that someone is able to do both at that level. He's earned the right to work the way he wants and he makes it, very much a family environment, it's just him and a couple of people. So it feels like you've making a film with four or five people and just a really big crew. He makes it seem very personal. There is also the sense too where you realize that the special effects are not going to matter in this film if we don't have the characters and the acting. Whether that was learned from experience or if he always knew or whatever, however he got to that place he spends as much time on the characters as he did on the special effects.
Roland, what do you hope audiences will take away from the film.
EMMERICH These kinds of movies are really about celebrating life. It's about survival where regular people become heroes and I think people can identify with that. They'll probably ask themselves, 'could I be as brave as Jackson Curtis (John's character)'? That's what I hope people take home.
