Directing your first big-budget Hollywood studio movie is a challenging prospect, even for an experienced filmmaker.
UpdatingRoboCopis, in some ways, not impossible.
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Den Of Geek: How was your first time working on an American studio film?
Jose Padilha: I had a real, real good time on the shoot.
And listening to people.
I dont do it just to do it, I do it because I mean it.
Sometimes I ask the gaffer, what do you think about this?
Youve got a lot of smart people whove made a lot of movies together who love their craft.
I love it, too.
So why not enjoy yourself doing it?
Its really hard work.
You have to wake up very early every day, stay in the set for 12 hours at least.
Its a really, really difficult hard working job that people do because they love it.
This is your first time working with a big international cast of very well-known actors.
I always have had the premise that everybody works for the story.
And so for me it boils down to whats the best cinematic way to tell this story.
We can talk about why tell the story thats another issue.
And that goes for the camera, for the director.
Same thing goes with acting.
Its about how we tell the story.
No, I think in this scene its better if you have this line because of this and this.
And we changed the line accordingly.
This is an example of actors going for the story, you know.
And I go, I think youre right.
It was like that in Brazil and it was like that here.
Did you want to make this film yourself or was it offered to you?
It was a general meeting with John Glickman and Roger Birnbaum.
And it was basically about other movies.
They talked about a lot of movies but in the room there was aRoboCopposter.
And I really, really love VerhoevensRoboCop.
I think its a brilliant film.
Did you have any trepidation about remaking such an iconic film?
My relationship to the Verhoeven movie its one of being inspired by it.
It brings good things to me as a filmmaker.
It makes me want to talk about that character.
And so I never got afraid of the movie.
I just felt, This is a great idea.
And you go about it creatively.
If you approach the movie thinking, Oh, what if I fail.
Whats it going to mean for my career, thats already an egoistic thing because youre thinking about yourself.
And somehow when Im making a movie I dont do that.
Brazil used to be a dictatorship, a right wing dictatorship.
And filmmakers in Brazil naturally worked in opposition to that.
Movies in Brazil were censored.
So I love freedom and I love free speech and I love those values.
So fascism is fascism.
It doesnt matter if its left or right.
And that informs my take onRoboCopa lot.
It wouldnt be nice.
You were trained as a physicist earlier in life.
What does the movie say about technology and science?
I think we are getting to a place where certain philosophical issues will be tested empirically.
So we ask ourselves its a key question what is it that makes us human?
Is it because our brain processes information in a certain way?
Is it because we are running some software in our brain?
If we run this software in a computer thats not organic, will this computer feel something?
Will it have a conscience?
We dont know the answer to that.
We cannot emulate the complexity of a brain with computers yet.
But we may one day be able to do that and then we will figure it out.
Those issues are at the core of this character because the characters a hybrid between man and machine.
Hes a man inside a machine.
And hes forced to ask himself, Am I still human?
Then Dr. Norton (Gary Oldman) says to him, But what about your wife?
I want to be alive to watch my kid grow up.
Thats a human thing.
And then they take away his free will.
Because people think free will is part of what being human is.
The movie is a fun movie.
Its a political movie.
But its also a philosophical movie, I think.
RoboCopis out in theaters now.
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