Francis Lawrence interview: Water For Elephants, pachyderms and I Am Legend

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Water For Elephantsis a real departure for you, surely?

It is, in a way.

Im a movie guy.

But I love to build worlds.

And also, in terms of the kind of story, its a love story.I Am Legendwas not.

This, I also think, is a movie that works that way.

I like that mix of emotions in a story.

I suppose the thing the film has in common with your earlier films is its technical challenges.

And in a very different way, for me.

So, I really wanted to do a movie that I could approach in a more organic way.

There are still visual effects, but theyre much more in the distance.

I was really disappointed by that part of the process onI Am Legend.

What was interesting withI Am Legendwas that I wanted to do it with real people in the beginning.

We actually cast this huge group of people, like, fifty dancers and parkour guys.

And we shaved their heads and they worked with movement coaches and we created this behaviour for everybody.

And we built these suits.

This guy called Christien Tinsley built them.

We actually started to shoot with them.

They had to be aggressive, and I just wasnt convinced it was going to work.

When I saw the dailies, I broke out into a cold sweat.

It didnt work at all.

And one night, we shut that all down and decided we were going to go for CG.

We basically postponed anything we were going to shoot with creatures until much later.

We went to a whole other design process.

It just kills it.

From what youve just said, it makes sense.

If youd had six more months, those effects would have worked far better.

I think thats also one of the mistakes.

They should have just been hidden.

They should have been much more hidden in shadows and barely getting a sense of movement.

It would have been much more viscerally scary.

So, I assume the elephant inWater For Elephantsrequired quite a few effects shots?

There were no effects shots.

Other than that, the elephant did everything.

Its because of what we just talked about that I wanted to do as much in-camera as possible.

Because although its the elephants trunk, people are going to think its an animatronic trunk.

Theres no animatronics, no CG animals.

But you cant really have lions and tigers running in a crowd of untrained extras.

Why do you always end up working with animals in your movies?

So, I always seem to be around animals.

Going back to the technical considerations, the bits on the circus were well handled.

Were they difficult to achieve?

It was one of the more difficult days.

The days you look forward to become your hell days.

The days youre dreading become these amazing days.

In theory, it should work.

So, I had to do it with a cut, which doesnt actually hurt the sequence.

We hadnt just built these big sets.

But I think you still get it.

We really shot it on the train in the real train cars, and they were all linked up.

That sequence reminded me a little bit ofGoodfellas.

Theres something immersive, I think, when those kinds of shots are used properly.

Letting the environment be the character.

I was really blown away, as well, by Christoph Waltzs performance, which I thought was remarkable.

Did you have conversations about how dark you should make his character?

Yeah, we did.

We really tried, together, not to judge him, as a character.

Its a mistake people can make on a film like this, where they say that theyre evil.

I think it would have been unfair for he and I to judge him and say hes evil.

Hes built this family and built the circus and hes desperate.

Now, his morality is questionable.

But thats the approach Christoph and I had.

It was scripted, actually, where he had the bullhook and he starts knocking things down.

Thats quite rare in film.

We also added a scene that wasnt in the book.

You know that if someone comes to you with an apology, you might always question their motives.

I thought that was a very important scene to have.

What was the casting like, in general, for this film?

Establishing the correct dynamic between the characters was obviously important.

Behind the smile, shes very tough, and I wanted her to be a real survivor.

I wanted her to have that toughness and Reece has that.

We wanted to build around her once she was on board.

Christoph was actually next.

Christoph came to us and had read the script and really liked the part.

This was before Id seenInglourious Basterds, so I went and watched it and was blown away by him.

Reece, he and I got together and talked and he came on board.

I thought he was great really magnetic, and charming.

Smart, sharp, and he can be really scary too, but in a subtle, interesting way.

I liked the dynamic between the two of them.

I liked the age difference, because it makes their alliance a little uneasy.

And then we found Rob.

When I sat down with him, I realised that hes quite a bit like the Jacob character himself.

And hes just becoming a man.

Hes not a boy anymore.

I thought, if I can get some of that into the character, it would be perfect.

Its almost too simple.

What I like about this love story is that its atypical, structurally.

They dont fall madly in love and then spend the rest of the movie trying to be together.

Its a slow burn.

To her, hes naive and innocent and young.

He cant give her what she needs.

And even when they decide to run away, its imperfect and scary and sad and desperate.

You also did a series calledKings.

How did the making of that compare, because that was quite a star-filled TV show?

Ian McShane, who was great to work with.Kingswas interesting.

It was another one of these things where we got to build a world.

It was an alternate universe.

But the people who watched it loved it, and I really loved the world and the characters.

I think it was just a tricky kind of show for NBC at the time.

They just didnt know how to market it properly.

It was tough, because they ended up selling it on alternate universe, monarchy, and war.

It was an expensive show to make, so it was a bad combination of things.

Im actually doing a show when I get back, another pilot, for Fox.

Its calledTouch, with Kiefer Sutherland.

Thatll be really fun.

Will that tie you up for the foreseeable future, or do you have another feature in the pipeline?

Im developing a bunch of things, but I dont know what Im going to do.

Hopefully, something will line up right after the television show.

As soon as Im back after this tour, Ill start prepping the show.

Well shoot it in June and well be done by July or something.

Francis Lawrence, thank you very much.