AND MORE DETAILS ON: CASTING THE LEADS; KIMBERLY PEIRCE; 'HEAT' REMAKE
Tribute.ca's Bonnie Laufer posted a video interview with Brian De Palma today, and he shared a couple of fun stories about making Passion that had him laughing as he spoke. [Possible mild spoilers here] Providing examples about how Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace sort of took control of building this relationship on screen, De Palma talks about how, after "annihilating" Isabelle (Rapace), Christine (McAdams) comes up to her and says, "Why don't we just kiss and make up?" After laughing a bit, De Palma continues, "And Noomi grabs her like a Mafia Don, sending someone to his death, and really kisses her! I said [putting head in hands], 'Oh, my God'." De Palma told Laufer that was a "Wow" moment, and then continued, "There was another scene which I don't think you can use on your television program. When she [Christine/Rachel] comes in the room to confront Dani... [laughing thinking about it] When she comes in and says, 'We all know what you're after. You're after Isabelle's'-- now my line is 'ass' [the way De Palma wrote it]. Rachel came in and said, 'You're after her cunt.' [A gasp from Laufer] And I went, 'Holy mackerel.'""Our little Toronto girl's got a mouth on her," said Laufer, which got De Palma laughing some more. Earlier in the interview, De Palma discusses how he came to cast the two leads. He said another director was considering Rapace for a movie he was making, and Rapace had sent a few DVDs to him. De Palma was watching some of them, and found her really interesting. "She could be dangerous, and vulnerable, and scary." De Palma said that Rapace and McAdams are represented by the same manager, and somebody mentioned Rachel and his eyes lit up: "Rachel!?! Absolutely!"
'MEAN GIRLS'
De Palma told the Winnipeg Free Press' Michael Oliveira that "Rachel McAdams is a fantastic actress. I've been watching her for years, but especially thought she'd be good for this part because of seeing her in Mean Girls. She really did an incredible job of playing this very manipulative executive." Oliveira writes that while Rapace has a nude scene, most of the sexual content in the film is subtly implied. "I didn't think (gratuitous sexuality) was necessary," De Palma told Oliveira. "It is erotic but it isn't really explicit." Regarding his lead actresses, De Palma said, "They were not afraid to do anything, basically. They felt very secure and confident in what they were doing and I just gave them the space to interact as exciting and dramatically as possible. They would do it all kinds of different ways and I was sort of led by what was happening."
KEY IDEA FROM CORNEAU FILM
Back to Laufer's video interview, De Palma said the key idea from the Alain Corneau film is this: "The worst thing one woman can do to another is humiliate her in public." Laufer asks De Palma about Kimberly Peirce's upcmoming Carrie remake, and De Palma talks about how he has no problem with filmmakers doing remakes, just like plays are constantly reworked. He also reminds her that his Scarface is a remake of a very good Howard Hawks film, and, later, relays a funny story from the making of his version. Back to Peirce: De Palma says he met her in Paris around the time Boys Don't Cry was released, and that they used to go to the theater together around seven or eight years ago.
'HEAT' REMAKE BEING RESET IN NICE, FRANCE
Asked what he is working on next, De Palma tells Laufer about the remake of Heat, "a lost movie of the seventies that was written by William Goldman that Burt Reynolds was in. And I think the first day of the shoot, Burt Reynolds slugged the director, so it didn't come out very well. In any event, it's in a casino town, it's about an enforcer. Jason Statham's going to do it, and we're resetting it all in Nice."