Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief: Exclusive Interview!
Written by Sheila Roberts Monday, 08 February 2010 20:14
Interview
In an exclusive interview, director Chris Columbus tells us how he's updated Greek mythology with Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief...
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief stars Logan Lerman as the young Percy, an ordinary lad whose life is turned upside down when he discovers he is the descendant of a Greek God. With a stellar supporting cast, including Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman, Sean Bean, Steve Coogan and Kevin McKidd, the film has also got some stunning special effects. Presiding over it all is director Chris Columbus, himself no stranger to the fantasy genre as he previously directed the first two Harry Potter movies. In an exclusive interview with our LA correspondent Sheila Roberts, Columbus reveals why magic and mayhem is all in a days work...
Can you talk about why you decided to trade Hogwarts for Mt. Olympus; what it is about this film that really resonated with you?
It was a matter of deciding it was time to go back and do another big budget, fantasy action adventure film. After the first three Potters, I was pretty physically burned out on movies with a lot of visual effects and it was time for me to do a couple of smaller projects. My daughter was reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief, the first book [in the series by author Rick Riordan], so I really related to it from a personal level.
What triggered it for me was the opportunity to do a movie that we haven’t really seen before for this generation. When I was a kid, there were movies that dealt with Greek mythology, but they were movies like the original Clash of the Titans, which in terms of visual effects was really primitive. So I thought this was an opportunity to deal with Greek mythology which children and adults all over the world are fascinated by and it was not a new genre but a new avenue, dealing with mythological creatures in a contemporary setting. I was intrigued by that, and I thought it was an opportunity to do something different but on a big, big canvas.
How much input did you have in the casting process?
My assistant told me I should go see this film a few years back called 3:10 to Yuma (2007) because of this kid’s performance, Logan Lerman. I went to see the movie and I was really blown away by his performance. I kept it in the back of my head [and] when it came time to do Percy, I remembered Logan and he stuck with me. He came in, we had an interview, and he was just absolutely phenomenal in the interview and he agreed to do a screen test for the studio and he was just mesmerizing. Honestly, you see this a couple times in your life. I think this guy is on the path to become someone like Matt Damon or Tom Cruise. He really is that strong of a performer. He’s sort of like a 45-year-old actor in a 17-year-old body. I was completely impressed and blown away with his performance in the film and it’s all on screen.
You have an extremely strong ensemble cast of actors; what was it like working with Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman?
Pierce and I always wanted to work together again because we did Mrs Doubtfire years ago. That was pre-James Bond. But we never really were able to find anything else, and then this character of Chiron came up. I had a conceptual artist do a character sketch of Pierce as the centaur in the film; it was an amazing sketch and we showed it to the studio and that convinced them and then I called Pierce. His children happened to be fans of the book and he agreed to do the role.
And when it came time to cast Medusa... [she's] terrifying, yet based on Greek mythology she’s very seductive and she has to [make] her captors look at her so they’re seduced by this woman with a headful of 70 snakes. How do you make that possible? You can make her incredibly ghastly and turn her into a monster or you can actually cast someone like Uma, who has this incredible sensuality, and combine that with a real sense of fear and power. So, for me, by combining her strengths as a formidable villain and her seductive qualities, you have the ultimate Medusa.
Do you feel that getting a good cast attached to a project is essential to getting it made?
Well it depends on the project. I think with Percy Jackson it was a matter of finding the right cast to fit into these roles, sort of the perfect cast for these roles, because hopefully, God willing, we will go on to do other Percy Jackson films and you want the cast to grow with their characters. I think for this particular movie it was a matter of finding the best actors. For me, that’s the bottom line. It’s the actors who are really appealing to an audience on screen.
Is there anything special you do to help your actors become more comfortable with one another on set and kind of break the ice? Do you have rehearsals?
Yeah, we do a couple weeks of rehearsals where we’ll just sit and read through the script. That, and with a film like this, this film demanded intense physical rehearsals so Alex and Logan had to do weeks and weeks of swordfighting training, really intense physical training. Logan also, at one point in the film, is flying because he’s wearing Hermes’ flying shoes so he has to work in a harness. While he was flying, he was actually battling a 5-headed hydra so he needed to have that sort of physical training to be able to basically swordfight in the air while flipping over mid-air. So, those kind of physical challenges combined with the usual rehearsal period made for an intense pre-production time.
Do you give your actors a lot of direction or is there room to play and improvise and stay in the environment for a while before you do a scene?
Basically I request that the first couple takes, because we rehearse them so many times, are scripted takes and then there’s room to improvise on subsequent scenes. But yeah, I do give them freedom once I feel I’ve got from their performances everything that I need on camera.
How did this compare to working on Harry Potter? Did you attempt to avoid any of the obvious similarities or resemblances?
For me, it was a matter of finding something that sort of stood on its own. I feel that the Percy Jackson books are one thing and the films are yet another thing. They’re both great. But, for me, it was a matter of working with actors on this film who had a little more experience. The kids in Potter were 10 and 11 years old when we started and we could really only shoot one take of each line before they would look at a camera or lights. If you look at the first film, that’s why there are so many cuts in that film because 
the kids were on a movie set for the first time in their lives, so that was an intense experience. That was more like acting class those first three films. By the time I turned those kids over to Alfonso [Cuaron] for Prisoner of Azkaban, they were pretty high seasoned actors who could get through an entire scene in one shot. I didn’t have that problem on this but we got into this film with actors who had had years of experience. Whether or not they had done a lot of films, they had still done a lot of stage work and a lot of other work so you’re dealing with kids who are significantly more experienced.
What were the biggest physical challenges that you encountered bringing the world of Greek mythology to the screen and shooting this?
Essentially it’s all technical challenges at that point. It’s how do you create -- you know, you’re creating gods in certain situations that are 45 feet tall and you’re creating imaginary creatures like minotaurs and hellhounds. You’re trying to create a performance. You want to get a phenomenal performance from Uma Thurman. At the same time, she’s always got to be conscious of the fact that her head is covered with snakes so there’s a certain amount of weight that she would have to deal with if she had that many snakes on her head. You’re thinking about there’s a whole other layer of performance that goes on top of what you’re doing.
Which brings up an interesting question in terms of how do you use technology in service of the story?
I think it’s really a matter of caring. It’s truly a matter of those characters – those characters are driving the technology which is something that has happened over the years. As technology gets more sophisticated, the technology itself is suddenly being driven by flesh and blood performance. So, for instance, Uma’s performance as Medusa, she’s constantly aware of where her eyes are looking as she’s talking to the snakes. With a slight motion of her head, she’s controlling the snakes and then the animators are guided by that performance. What’s happened is, where visual effects used to be soulless and boring, they’ve now reached a point where there’s an actual flesh and blood motivation for the visual effects in this film and that makes it all the more exciting.
Can you talk a little bit about the tone of the film and how you tried to tell it in an interesting way?
Basically the tone of the film is it’s the type of film that you can bring your entire family too. There’s no real cut off point for this film. I think kids age 7 to 78 can really go see this film. It’s a very entertaining film. I wanted the film to feel sort of timeless so when you’re watching it 25 years from now on television it doesn’t feel like it was made 30 years ago. I really want it to have sort of a classical quality to it. It’s really straightforward classic storytelling and really it’s a film that works for all ages.
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is released on February 12
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