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Emerald City |
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Director Paul Greengrass reunites with Matt Damon for GREEN ZONE. |
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What did you set out to achieve with Green Zone?
PAUL GREENGRASS: To make a big thriller set in Iraq. And as a filmmaker, your primal responsibility is always to tell stories that people want to hear.
How did Green Zone come together?
PAUL GREENGRASS: I made my first Bourne film as all these events were unfolding. And after that, I started talking to the screenwriter, Brian Helgeland, about this project. We had worked together on The Bourne Supremacy and were looking to doing another movie, and we pretty quickly got to the idea of the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because it seemed to me like it had all the elements for a great thriller.
What were those elements?
PAUL GREENGRASS: It was a high stakes story full of secrecy, intrigue and spies. And it was also very physical.
How would you describe this movie then?
PAUL GREENGRASS: Green Zone is a fictional film set against a real backdrop. And I always wanted it to drive towards a character.
And that main character is Miller, played by Matt Damon...
PAUL GREENGRASS: Chief Miller is a guy who is leading a small team that has to go to a certain place and fight through great danger only to find out that there are no weapons of mass destruction there, which gives you a great premise for an action thriller because straight away he will come out and ask the question we all did: “What happened?” And that pitches him on the journey to discover the truth, getting himself into more danger – and more intense action – as the story unfolds.
What was your main concern?
PAUL GREENGRASS: It was his journey I was concerned about, until I read Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone.
How did Chandrasekaran’s book help you?
PAUL GREENGRASS: I remember reading the first five pages and thinking that he had painted such a perfect picture of the Green Zone – that portion of Baghdad where Saddam had his palaces and where the coalition forces had now established their headquarters. It was a little oasis surrounded by palaces, swimming pools and guilt that had been taken over by the Administration; but it was also a place of intrigue, danger, conspiracy and faction fighting. So, as soon as I read the book I knew Miller would end up there, and that’s why I called the movie Green Zone.
This is your third movie with Matt Damon...
PAUL GREENGRASS: Matt is fantastic! Every director wants to work with him, and that’s because he is a brilliant character actor – he can do all sorts of parts and disappear into them – and also a great physical actor. On top of that, he has the ability to be a movie star and dominate a big film.
And he is easy to relate to.
PAUL GREENGRASS: That is a quality the great Hollywood actors going back in time have had. Matt is capable of embodying a quiet integrity and making you feel he is on your side, which is particularly important on a film like Green Zone. You may have action; but you also need a heart that is clear and filled with purpose, and Matt Damon brings that to the movie.
How would you describe your relationship with him on set?
PAUL GREENGRASS: We are mates and we have such fun on set! Directing a film is a very lonely business, full of highs and lows of the most intense kind, and it’s great to have someone like Matt next to you who is trying as hard as you are and shares your passion.
In Green Zone you have managed to assemble a strong supporting cast around him...
PAUL GREENGRASS: In any film your central character is critical, but it’s absolutely imperative to understand that the rest of the performances make him come to life as well. And I tried to fill this film with actors whose work I love and admire.
What do you think Greg Kinnear brought to the role of Clark Poundstone, Miller’s main obstacle in his search for truth?
PAUL GREENGRASS: I kind of cast him against type because I wanted that optimism, inner certainty and humanity that he brought to the character. I think Greg Kinnear is quite brilliant.
Amy Ryan plays the journalist, Lawrie Dayne...?
PAUL GREENGRASS: I needed a very accurate picture of a working journalist; but also for her to embody what had gone wrong, and she was amazing.
Yigal Naor is General Al Rawi, the man who Matt Damon’s character is searching for throughout the movie...
PAUL GREENGRASS: And his performance is compelling because he manages to paint this senior Bathist general with all the colours of ambiguity that I wanted in the part. You can never quite tell whether he is a dark character or an opportunist, a man who took a chance for his country or a man of ambition looking into the future.
And you have Brendan Gleeson as the CIA agent Martin Brown...
PAUL GREENGRASS: He plays a hard-bitten Middle Eastern expert who saw the folly of what was unfolding around him and was trying to make his own sense of it. I believe Brendan brings a real power and energy to the part. And it’s great to see a CIA agent not be the bad guy for a change!
Another key role is the Iraqi, Freddy, embodied by Khalid Abdalla.
PAUL GREENGRASS: Freddy is the young Iraqi who helps Miller, and he is also a soldier who has fought for his country; so, he has that instinctive understanding of the war. This is the second time I have worked with Khalid, who is one of the UK’s outstanding actors. The journey his character takes is a dramatic one, and that moment in the alley when he tells Miller about his hopes and dreams is electric.
You also got to work with your friend Jason Isaacs on Green Zone..?
PAUL GREENGRASS: How could I forget the man with undoubtedly the finest moustache in World Cinema! Jason and I are friends, and we worked together many years ago. I believe he does an outstanding job in this film because he has to be the relentless pursuer. He stepped in, gave everything he had and really served the film. Jason Isaacs is a fantastic actor, and he has a 20 minute action scene with Matt that is quite something.
How much action is in the movie?
PAUL GREENGRASS: A lot, as I tried to outdo what we had done in The Bourne Ultimatum.
How would you describe the look of Green Zone?
PAUL GREENGRASS: I wanted it to look as realistic, exciting and immersive as I possibly could.
But the line that separates the good guys from the bad guys is blurred...
PAUL GREENGRASS: Yes, because I always thought the film should have moral complexity. Even Miller’s hands aren’t completely clean, and we see how he is educated as the story moves on. As agent Brown says to him, “Look, there are no easy answers here; only hard choices…”
Discover Green Zone on DVD and Blu-ray at JB Hi-Fi » |
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