Relativity Media brought the cast and director of Immortals to San Diego for the annual geekfest known as Comic-Con. It was the perfect audience to show off new footage from the action epic to, and after the cast participated in a lively Q&A with fans, they sat down to discuss the film with a small handful of journalists.
Directed by Tarsem Singh (The Cell), Immortals is the story of Theseus (played by Henry Cavill), a peasant who is our only hope when a mad king (played by Mickey Rourke) declares war on humanity.
Chosen by Zeus (Luke Evans), Theseus must rally supporters – including a priestess named Phaedra (Freida Pinto) and a slave (Stephen Dorff) – to do battle for the sake of all mankind.
Paired up for our interview, Pinto and Dorff discussed the appeal of Immortals, what distinguishes this film from other Greek epics, the action, the weapons, and costume choices.
Stephen Dorff and Freida Pinto Immortals Interview
What was it about Tarsem Singh’s vision that drew you in?
Stephen Dorff: “I met him a few years ago about another movie that he was going to maybe do. I just thought he was a very talented guy and I was looking to do something a little more genre after some of the more serious films I’d been doing. It was a good part. I liked the part of Stavros. He’s kind of the most grounded of the movie. He’s kind of your ‘every man,’ you know, because he doesn’t have…he’s not a god. He’s not dressed in gold, and he’s not dealing with any kind of loss, except basically he’s a thief and kind of a slave. And ultimately, he’s kind of intrigued by this beautiful woman sitting next to me and ultimately decides to team up with this crew and go and help.
He realizes he’s probably going to die on his own anyway, so why not go out with a pretty girl and a crew instead of a really sad and lonely death in a slave train? So, that was pretty much the crux of it for me. I thought I could do that part really well.
I knew Tarsem had something to prove. It had been a while since he’d gotten to flex his muscles. We saw a little of it in The Cell and The Fall, but for the masses, we felt like, ‘You know what? Let’s go for this one.’ Again, not having seen the film, I think it’s starting to feel pretty strong, so that’s good. [Laughing] It’s better than saying, ‘Oh, that looks like a dud.'”
Would you actually say that if you thought it did?
Stephen Dorff: “Probably, yeah. I’m pretty honest usually. I’m kind of brutally honest usually. I’d be like, ‘What happened?’ No, probably if I didn’t like it, I just wouldn’t show up to things. From what I hear and some of my friends have seen it, they say it’s really strong. They say Freida’s great, I’m great, the movie works, so we’ll see. They could lie. They could be stroking my ego.”
Freida Pinto: “Well, for me, his vision was really determined before the film was made, so even though they had a script – he was a writer for the visual part of it, and knowing that he made films like The Fall and The Cell, and had directed Losing My Religion… I mean, you see all these amazing things in terms of the others that he’d shown in the past, I just knew that it was going to be different than what I had done in the past, the three other films that I had done before. So I guess it was the way he sold it at the first meeting that I had with him and how he envisioned me to be.
And what I think was amazing is that he decided to play it not like the typical Greek epic because I think we’ve seen that. It’s been done, and we’re tired of it. And this was his take, it was his vision, and the studio was going to let him do it. You just feel comfortable knowing that you will have certain things that you can contribute and he will be open to taking suggestions because it really doesn’t depend on a book or something that someone else has written about the character. So that was nice, the openness was really great.”
What is it that sets it apart from other Greek epics? What distinguishes Immortals?
Stephen Dorff: “I think it will look different than anything you’ve seen.”
Freida Pinto: “Visually, yeah.”
Stephen Dorff: “Visually, I think that he’s created a world that we haven’t seen. I don’t know. Story-wise, it’s stuff you’ve seen. It’s all in the execution. You could say it’s like Star Wars in that way. I mean, the trifecta of the three of us on this journey kind of thing. But I think it should feel original. It’s definitely for the 300 crowd mixed with [the fact], I think, it’s completely amped up from that. It’s a much more broad movie, as far as the scale in that movie. So I’m just looking forward to seeing what the audiences think. It’s too bad we couldn’t show them the whole thing, but I think we have a little ways to go before we open so they didn’t want to show it yet – and I don’t think it’s done yet.”
Do you get in on the action?
Stephen Dorff: “Yeah, I do. He’s kind of a rogue warrior. Theseus [played by Henry Cavill] does more of the fancy stuff. But Stavros jumps out of the ceiling and kills some people. I do get into some fights.”
Freida Pinto: “It’s rougher. The fighting that you do is rough.”
Stephen Dorff: “I’m more of the street guy. I bring more of a modern-day feel to the character. Since we’re not doing these accents and talking like we’re in the Greek mythology times, I’m not like, ‘Hey, what’s up, dog?’ I’m not saying that kind of stuff because that would be ridiculous, but I am kind of talking like we are right now. Like, ‘Hey, look, why don’t we just head south and we could follow the English guy, or we could have our own little party down south?’
And Freida’s just looking at me like I’m out of my mind. But I think Stavros, for me, I wanted him to feel like the audience could identify with somebody in the movie because everybody has special powers, and I don’t. I just have the needs that every human has: I’m hungry, I’m horny and lonely. I’m really attracted to the Oracle, what do I got to lose? I could hang here drinking water out of my mouth chained up, or I could escape with this crew. That’s kind of the set-up of what happens with our characters.”
Do they at least give you a cool weapon at some point?
Stephen Dorff: “Yeah, I’ve got a sword. I’ve got a bag where I keep my stuff that I steal. Very little clothing. We had this incredible costumer, Eiko [Ishioka], who’s worked with Tarsem on everything. She won an Oscar for Dracula and she’s just a mad genius. I love her as a woman.
When I met her, she’s like, ‘You, Steven, very little clothing.’ And I was like, ‘Huh, Eiko? What?’ And she’s like, ‘You wear a skirt.’ I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no. No skirt for me. I can’t pull that off. I’m good, but I’m not that good, Eiko.’ And she’s like, ‘Okay, no skirt.’ ‘No skirt, I’ll take pants. I don’t care if I have no shirt.’ She’s like, ‘Okay, I’ll make you leather strap.’ I said, ‘Okay,’ so I’ve got a leather strap, pants, leather boots, and a bag. That’s pretty much my costume. No shirt, no jacket, once in a blue moon I get that cheap little trench thing that I wear on my shoulders.
It was definitely the most naked I’ve ever been on film, but it was fun. No, I had a great time with Eiko. She’s a pretty amazing artist and I think she adds a lot to actually Tarsem’s vision and to the look of this movie. She’s somebody who gets a lot more credit than just a costume designer, I think.”
Did you have any input on your costume, Freida?
Freida Pinto: “She pretty much had an idea of what it was going to be like. We knew that we were not going to do like the typical Greek toga thing because, like I said before, you’ve seen it and we’re fed up, now let’s do something different. So knowing that Tarsem and Eiko work very closely together as a team, they designed something that was going to be Eiko’s vision of what feminine beauty should look like.
She decided to put her in a corset, like a really, really tight corset. The only thing that I had a say in was that it was too tight so Tarsem and Eiko came up with the idea that I could have it buttoned up, but it was actually open.”
Stephen Dorff: “I remember that weird red hat you had to wear. That was pretty tricky, huh.”
Freida Pinto: “And drink water…”
Stephen Dorff: “And drink water with this veil and this weird balancing act that she had to do. I was like, ‘Okay, that’s the hardest thing you’re going to have to do on this movie, Freida, right there.’ She was balancing this thing, and I felt bad for her. The girls all had these weird things.”
Freida Pinto: “My neck started hurting because it was literally like balancing a lamp.”
Stephen Dorff: “And poor Daniel [Sharman] with the horns on his back. That takes some courage.”
Did it at least look cool after everything you went through?
Freida Pinto: “Oh yeah, it did. I was at least covered. The men had to bare it all.”
Stephen Dorff: “It looks so weird when you see it on and then on the set when Tarsem starts shooting it, it really comes to life.”
Freida Pinto: “And also the fabrics she chooses in order to make it look that beautiful and rich. And the details… The scarfs that we had were hand sewn, and it took a long time to do it, but everything was specific. It was interesting to see that even the designs that we had on our veils were actually part of things that were there on the wall already. The attention to detail was immense.”
Stephen Dorff: “That’s that connection that Tarsem and Eiko have. It really comes into the production design. It’s much more than just, ‘Oh, I want you to wear this dress in the scene.’ And that’s usually what costume designers do. And this was much more like she’s almost a production designer as well. She’s really a talented woman, great lady.”
Freida, what’s it been like for you to move into these bigger productions with this and Rise of the Planet of the Apes? Does it change the process of acting in films for you as you get into these larger scale movies?
Freida Pinto: “Well, the acting really depends on the kind of character that I’m playing, it really doesn’t depend on the scale of the film. In this particular film, I had to speak a certain way, hold myself a certain way, and have everything internalized. It was meant to be not too much expression, that kind of a thing happening. Like, no one should actually understand what’s going on inside me kind of a thing that I was playing.”
But in terms of the amount of time you dedicate to this film, this film’s going to be shot over three months, you are probably going to work two months, but you give it the three months just because you never know when you’re going to be called back in. They’re big sets; you never know when they’re going to need that set again. You just have to be there, be patient, and have fun when you’re not filming, and that’s what we managed to have.
We had an amazing group of people out there. It’s not quick and intimate – if I could put it that way – because, you know, you don’t have too many people on an independent project. In fact, when I did the film with Michael Winterbottom, we had six people on the set. That was it. We didn’t have a separate hair person separate make-up person. It was just six people on set, the actors go in and actually walk into the railway station or whatever it is, do the bits and come out.
Here, there’s a lot more fussing over. But I guess it’s very specific in terms of independent films. There’s a mark that you have to hit, which you don’t have to do on an independent film. You just kind of play with the environment. So there’s a lot more specific things you’ve got to keep in mind.”
