G: Può dirci come è stata la scelta degli attori e cosa l'ha portata a decidere di lavorare con Kristen Stewart?
Peter Sattler: Abbiamo iniziato con un Ave Maria a Kristen (ndr: nel senso che pregavano che lei accettasse). E' stato difficile, ma il ruolo era adatto a lei, così ci abbiamo provato. Il suo personaggio richiede tanta recitazione senza parole e vive molto sul momento. E Kristen è fantastica in questo. Il suo personaggio richiede anche molta rigidità e vulnerabilità che, secondo me, sono dei tratti che lei incarna a meraviglia. Quindi abbiamo mandato il copione a Ken Kaplan, il suo manager, che grazie a Dio l'ha mandato a lei e qualche settimana dopo ci siamo seduti insieme a parlare del film.
Durante quel primo incontro sono stato travolto dal suo approccio al film, dalla sua dedizione per i dettagli e dalla sua passione per il cinema indipendente. Penso che a quel punto avevamo capito che stavamo andando nella stessa direzione e così è stato.
Il processo è stato piuttosto veloce per gli standard di Hollywood. Un’altra decisione che ho dovuto prendere riguarda il personaggio recitato da Payman, visto che lui e Kristen interagiscono durante tutto il film. Così abbiamo organizzato una video chat e dal momento in cui hanno iniziato a parlare sembrava che già avessero messo i panni dei loro rispettivi personaggi.
Payman parlava parlava e parlava e Kristen stava là in silenzio ad ascoltarlo mentre lo osservava e Payman riusciva anche a strapparle un sorriso. Mi sembrava di guardare davvero una scena strappata direttamente dal copione.
G: Come ha preparato gli attori prima della produzione? Ci sono state delle prove?
Peter Sattler: Kristen ama molto intellettualizzare il suo ruolo perché vuole assolutamente vivere il momento. E per farlo bisogna conoscere il personaggio come le proprie tasche. Quindi abbiamo trascorso un sacco di tempo a parlare di come fossero le ragazze come Cole. Davvero, parlavamo e basta e nel frattempo costruivamo la storia del personaggio discutendo di tutti quei piccoli momenti imbarazzanti che sentivamo appartenessero alla sua personalità. Sicuramente la parte più interessante è stata andare a fare le prove nel carcere in cui abbiamo girato il film, con Kristen che percorreva i corridoi avanti e indietro e discuteva di come avrebbe recitato i dialoghi e le scene.
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Q: Can you talk about the casting process and how you ended up working with Kristen, Payman and the rest of the cast?
We started with a Hail Mary to Kristen. It was certainly a long shot, but she was absolutely perfect for the role, so we had to try. Her character requires a lot of acting without words, a lot of living in the moment, and that is something Kristen absolutely excels at. Her character also needed a mixture of toughness and vulnerability which, to me, are traits that she embodies perfectly. So we got the script to Ken Kaplan, her agent, who, much to his credit, sent it on to her, and a few weeks later we sat down to talk about the film. And in that first meeting, I was blown away by her approach to the material, her dedication to the details, and her passion for independent cinema. I think we could both tell that we were pointing in the same direction, so off we went. It all happened pretty quickly by Hollywood standards.
But first I needed to see what they were like together. The entire movie hinges on their relationship. So we arranged another video chat, and the second they started speaking, it was like they were already their characters. Payman was talking and talking and talking, and Kristen was kind of quietly listening to him, wryly observing, chiming in, Payman would coax a laugh out of her. It was like I was literally watching a scene from the script play out before my eyes.
Q: How did you prepare the actors for their roles before production? Was there a rehearsal process?
Kristen and Payman are interesting in that they both work in very different ways.
Kristen really loves intellectualizing her character because she absolutely wants to live in the moment. And to do that, it requires truly knowing your character from the inside out. So we spent a lot of time talking about girls we knew that were like Cole. Really just talking around the character, building out her backstory. Going back and forth about little awkward moments from her fictional life that we felt was the type of girl we were building.
Payman, to some degree, had a similar approach. He would share stories with me about people who knew who had been imprisoned in Iran, and he would invent little rules which he felt defined who Ali was. But what’s interesting about Payman is that he’s an accomplished writer and filmmaker as well as an actor. So he would most often gravitate towards little turns of a phrase, or try and establish very visual reactions or ticks his character could employ on-screen.
I had some time to develop both of these methods with Kristen and Payman separately, but due to Payman’s schedule, we were only able to get him in the states to rehearse a few weeks before shooting. In that time, the three of us spent as much time as possible together. We concentrated mostly on the big scenes. There’s about four or five of them, really long scenes that are the crux of the film. In the first pass, we mostly just dialed in intentions and wants and particular approaches to certain lines. We also auditioned new lines and improvised around the scenes a little to find truth. The script was never sacrosanct; it was always just about getting to the truth of their interaction.
But the most helpful thing we did was actually to go rehearse in the actual prison where we shot. It was here that we worked out the dance of how to play the back and forth of lines as Kristen’s character was patrolling the hallway. What line she said where and how that was going to all work out. As I’ve said before, those scenes are incredibly complicated to stage properly, so it was something we definitely had to work out before hand.
And then, finally, during our last rehearsal at the location, I left Payman in his cell, and had Kristen walk in circles around that hallway for about twenty minutes. We left them there alone to try and get some sense of what it would actually be like to be spend all day stuck there. There’s a very palpable reality to being behind those thick doors, walking those long hallways.
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