Latest / Cinema Yūgen / KENT'S CLASSICS: Inside the Mind of Event Horizon: A Chat with Screenwriter Philip Eisner

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KENT'S CLASSICS: Inside the Mind of Event Horizon: A Chat with Screenwriter Philip Eisner · Cinema Yūgen

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G'day, that's right, it's that time again. Time for CINEMA YUGEN!
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Music.
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I don't know. Yes, welcome back Cinema Yugen, the other fan requested Kent's
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Classics for July. was my interview with Philip Eisner.
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Phil Eisner, who is the screenwriter of Event Horizon.
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Now, I loved Event Horizon when I first saw it in the cinema.
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It's emerged as a cult classic over the years, certainly one of the better Paul
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W.S. Anderson films in his catalogue.
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Phil Eisner was a great chat.
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It was another fan request for this month. So here we go with the second Ken
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Classics for the month of July.
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Here he is, Phil Eisner, the man behind the Event Horizon.
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Welcome, Phil. Thank you. Yeah, it was really, really, really cool.
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I remember it specifically because I went to the theater and a friend of mine
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was just coming out. and he had a very visceral reaction.
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Because he came out and he was really angry. He was angry at first.
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And then he said, oh, that was, not that it was a terrible movie,
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the horror and all that had really gotten to him.
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And so he really, you know, it sort of had,
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the rest of the movie had just stopped for him and he was just sort of very
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eked out, I guess you could say, by the visions and all that sort of stuff.
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So I was like, wow, that must be good. If it freaks him out,
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I often am drawn to those sorts of films where people come out with a very visceral
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reaction and say, oh, geez, it must be impactful then.
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Yeah, there weren't many people who saw it and their reaction was,
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People really liked it. I think my favorite review, which I sent to Paul Anderson,
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but it was some newspaper in Seattle, and the reviewer hated the film,
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but at the end of it, but it was like you said, it wasn't because it was incompetent.
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It was, they hated the film because, I believe she said, this is a mean and
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spiteful film, and I don't think anyone should see it.
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And Paul's response when I sent him the review was, I think we've reached out and touched someone.
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I was like, yeah, we really have.
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Well, anyway, I guess we should start at a good place to start, which is the beginning.
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Beginning how did you your journey up
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until event horizon like how did you come to to
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screenwriting and yeah sorry well just just briefly your sound went out a little
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bit but did you ask me where where i sort of started writing and where event
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horizon came from and all of that yeah a couple of things i i mean i don't remember
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writing it but there's like my mother saved like apparently Apparently,
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I wrote a play like when I was five or six sitting at a manual typewriter.
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So I think for a lot of people, you know, anyone who wants to be a writer,
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it's like it's like there's so many things to want to be.
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You know, I wanted to be an astronaut or either that or, you know,
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be in charge of a nuclear submarine.
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I mean, those are the things that you want to be. I think if you're a writer,
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it's something that you just kind of do. And then if you're very fortunate,
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you'll end up getting paid for something that you were going to do anyway.
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And certainly in my case, it was something that I fell into.
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I've always loved film, and I wasn't kidding about the George Miller Film School.
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I grew up in Texas, and there was an ice storm that hit Fort Worth.
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And no one in Texas knows what to do when ice hits because we're in Texas.
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So for a week, I was literally housebound for a week. And this is back in the days of VHS.
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I had a VHS from Road Warrior or Mad Max 2 from Blockbuster.
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And I couldn't return the video because we couldn't drive anywhere.
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Went and over the course of that week i we
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you know and friends of mine that we came over and we were sitting there
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just watching the road warrior and when
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it was done we'd rewind it and watch it again and by day four we're watching
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it we were stopping it going back and going frame by frame and going oh that's
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how toady gets his hands his fingers chopped off that's how they were able to
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suck a guy under the truck so we're figuring out how to do all the gore you know Suddenly,
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it was like, oh, editing. Who knew?
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It was seeing that sort of seamless construction. So it seems just a natural
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progression for me and the things I'm interested in to try my hand at a script.
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And I was fortunate that maybe it was the third thing that I worked on.
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I had a deal with Largo Pictures' Larry Gordon at the time, and my favorite
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movie has always been The Shining.
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And I just said, what about something like The Shining in space?
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And he – something that's ultimately – it's not – there isn't a monster,
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where the monster is the environment itself.
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And it's going to just hold up a dark mirror to what you bring to it.
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You know, in many ways it's all Event Horizon is it's like Luke's failure in
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the cave, but for 90 minutes.
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You know, if the Buddha went to the Event Horizon he would walk around going,
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what's the big deal? There's nothing here.
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Yoda, the Event Horizon would be nothing.
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Sam Neill, Sam Neill has a problem going to the Event Horizon.
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So it's so that was really the genesis of it.
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And And then Larry, you know, so I'd had this idea and it's just a terrible coincidence.
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My father died in a skiing accident around this time. I was maybe 24.
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Wow, I'm sorry. And I didn't really have this. Oh, thank you.
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But it was one of those things. So I'm both in a dark place.
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And it was a thing of I didn't really have the story worked out,
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but it was I think it really was a thing of Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin and
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the other executives were like, this kid's just lost his dad.
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We got him under contract. It's a good concept.
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Roll the dice. You know what? He needs a project. He needs to work.
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And so you know you know
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i have to admit it was that that stood that pitch
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was literally about the extent of the pitch that they signed off on
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shining in space well here's some science to back it up
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and they're like yeah okay go go do it and so it was a real leap of faith on
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their part and then i sort of went into a very dark hole because i was already
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there and one of the execs that worked for Merrilee Wyman sort of kept me from
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going too far down into the holes.
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She kept pulling me out. And finally, it took a long time to write the first draft.
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It took like almost eight months, but at the end of it, you know,
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I had that, that first draft.
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And based on the first draft, we were able to get, there was some business stuff
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that had nothing to do with the creative process.
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But when that was cleared up, we were able to get Paul Anderson and it was,
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it was kind of a perfect match. Right. Yeah.
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Well, I watched the film again last night and I was listening to the the commentary
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with Paul and his producer, Jeremy Bolt.
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Yeah. And he brought up a couple of things that I wanted to...
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He talked about in the original draft that he read, there were aliens involved,
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something to do with aliens that inhabited the ship or something like that.
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In the original ship, so in the original draft, there wasn't any reference to,
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there wasn't any Latin, there wasn't anything that linked it to a sort of Judeo-Christian hell at all.
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Right. everything was so the vision of hell they had because and that's something
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that i kind of this was sort of an ongoing war that we had with with the studio
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which was they wanted it to be.
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The ship has gone to hell that's what it's been it's been to hell
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it's been to hell and i was
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always pushing it back against it because and this
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is a personal thing i mean there's nothing not to attack anyone's religion
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or faith but the idea that there's an incredibly powerful
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fallen angel that is personally invested in my
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damnation to me is comforting compared
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to a universe that doesn't know i exist
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and doesn't give a shit and won't remember when i'm gone that
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that even an eternity of torment is preferable
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to avoid and so the
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void to me is far more terrifying and so
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i so so the vision of hell originally was an
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utterly alien landscape so there were it was
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it was very cthulhu and it was very lovecraftian it was sort of if you had a
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vision through the gate it was a vision of sort of like actually now that i
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think of it it was kind of like the the heptapods from from the arrival right
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it was like squamous tentacle things that were moving around.
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If you can imagine, and they did play the heptapods, I think,
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certainly for awe, but also for a fair amount of fear.
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But if you can think of taking that and making them even more slimy and sort
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of going, no, we're going to go for fear, that was kind of what I was going for.
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And he came back and they said, like, let's lose the alien thing.
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And then it was this thing of let's hint,
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you know, we don't want to go over the top with
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like you know we don't want we don't want darkness from legend
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to come out of the portal at the end no like but
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we want to hint at something that sort of links it back to Judeo Christian mythology
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I'm like and if it's a hint you know I'm like okay anything is alright you know
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as a typical writer hmm all writers are like that it's like we want you to change something okay.
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All right and it wasn't
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and the fact is that like the latin like like the
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latin broadcast save yourself from hell completely paul's
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idea was brilliant you know so
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many people are coming up to me like that's so brilliant i'm
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sitting there going yeah isn't it yeah that
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was my idea no it wasn't my idea that was paul's
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and and it really kind of sets the tone of because
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it is a weird juxtaposition why in space
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are we getting a latin burst of
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right yeah and now what's that going on well
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i mean that's a great trailer brother when oh well you know where he says you
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know i think you know what does it mean he's like save me you know yeah and
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then we have and it really sets up the fantastic thing of like i i think i i
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thought it said save me but yeah it's It's not me.
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It's Tutu me. Yeah. Yeah. It's yourself.
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From hell. Yeah. Very delicious. Very creepy. Well, yeah.
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It's not, it doesn't hurt to have Jason Isaac say it. Yeah. And he did,
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you know, he's got that great sort of thousand yards stare when he says it. You know?
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Yeah. He's also, he's one of these actors, like, I think the next,
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I mean, he's been in a ton of, he's been in so many things, but it's like the
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next thing, the next big thing I saw him in was, was Armageddon.
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And, and then I'm watching Armageddon and it's like, it's amazing.
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You can, you know, it's wonderful to have actors that, and I don't want to take
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away from the craft of any screenwriter, but you realize there are actors out there that,
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you can give the most bold exposition to, and they can say anything and it will work.
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They can just say, this is what's going to happen.
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I will just tell you the story. it won't even we're not even going to be clever
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about it we're just going to feed the audience what they need to know you have
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Jason Isaacs or someone like that and they'll just,
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And they'll say it, and it's like, oh, that was really entertaining. Yeah.
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And if we said it, you know, they'd be turning off the podcast right now.
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They'd go like, oh, duh, no. Yeah, save me.
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Yeah, exactly. Save me. They're going to watch Rainbow Six videos.
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Let's just watch guys killing each other, Rainbow Six.
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But they often, they were sort of going through as they were watching it,
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obviously, and talking about their favorite lines, that being one of them.
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The other one was Fishburne's line.
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When he he sees the the clip you know when they finally clean up the clip he's like we're leaving.
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And of course but of course lauren still lives it much better
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than i have but uh no it's it's it's great
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we're leaving yeah yeah i mean
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because that's that's something that they you know it was a it
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was an old eddie murphy joke when he wanted his
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live shows he says you know and people in the haunted house why
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do they stay you know and he says you
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know if it was a if it was my family like get out
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of the house honey we're leaving you know although it's
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it's it's it's true it's like you know yeah i mean why why would they stay in
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the house and one of the things that we did is we kind of really set it up where
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they were on a mission to get there and then once they got there stuff happened
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so they couldn't really leave and the minute it was like okay okay,
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what happened to the crew?
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We know what happened to the crew. Mission's over. We're out of here.
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It was also, that was one of those beats that was, I don't know,
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one of the things that I remember.
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You know, when we had the early previews of it, we did a very early preview
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and we didn't have the effects in.
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There was a rough edit. They'd done the sound mix in three days and it tested quite poorly.
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But that one moment got a huge laugh from the audience.
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And then afterwards, there was actual discussion of like the audience laughed.
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Maybe we should maybe we need to cut that line.
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And it was just this thing of no, cut the line. It's like that's a laugh that
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you want. That's that's a good laugh.
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That's a good. it's more of a relieving laugh to us
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like yeah we're leaving we're just yeah it's like
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we're not saying yeah because things are getting hairy
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another one of the things that that
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i overheard that i wanted to ask you about is you said initially
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the script began with the lewis and clark on a mission they were oh yeah right
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yeah is that true not true that that is true and that That was one of those
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cuts that we absolutely had to make.
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We made it, I believe, at the time that we had to cut it.
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It was one of those things that it was when the studio greenlit the film,
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but it was like one of these things of, we're going to greenlight it,
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we're going to make it, but here's the changes that we have to do for the greenlight.
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And one of the problems was, it was a really, really fun sequence,
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and it established the characters through action.
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So that we saw the risks that Laurence Fishburne's character would be willing
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to take to not leave someone behind.
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We see the rescue team rescuing somebody.
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So you're seeing them in the hatch. You're seeing them, you know,
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we're also establishing the dangers
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of the vacuum and exposing someone to space and all of these things.
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And ultimately though it
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ended up i think when the budget came in it was
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the entire sequence was was
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running millions of dollars and it was
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just we will not be able to make our days you
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know you're not going to be able to we can't fit these pages into this budget
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into this box right yeah so what are you going to do so was the scene okay so
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you have that as as your introduction so was the scene still there with them
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you know the round the table thing.
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That's later on so the scene around the table well the the briefing scene with
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with dr where that that was always that was always there the problem is that
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but there were things like you You know, there's things that we kept.
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The mama bear, the baby bear reference, all of that was still there.
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But you actually, it just had a different tone when you saw it in action.
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And I think it really helped the actors in the sense that everyone missed that sequence.
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I actually think it's not like the studio was saying, this is a terrible sequence.
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It's just like, we don't have the money to do it. And, you know,
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how are we going to do this?
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Yeah. Well, it's essentially another big action sequence, isn't it? Right.
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And it's a huge one. And it's not on the event horizon. It becomes one of these
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things that you find out.
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It's like, ultimately, when you're making a movie, if you have anything that
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can be cut, it will be cut.
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And it's not because people don't like it. It's because, you know,
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no matter how much time you think you have, you don't have enough.
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No matter how much money you think you have, you don't have enough. and that
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goes and it doesn't matter if what scale of
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filmmaking you're making it at you know it's
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it's it is not enough but in
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in that particular sequence what we ended up doing is we
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shifted some character dynamics around it was very important that we in the
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in the original scripts they weren't able to save justin justin went out the
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airlock yeah and what we were able to we We changed it so that Fishburne would save Baby Bear.
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That way, Jack knows where they are. So that we would be able to establish both
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the danger that they're in, in space, and also not lose this great heroic gap.
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They do no so there were elements of it that we were able to preserve but it was a lot more,
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in in the lewis and clark sequence they actually had to
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you know they found a miner in a one
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in one area so they actually had the lewis and clark's umbilicus on the other
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side of the fuselage of the mining craft and they had to plant explosives and
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below the hole so he was actually going to be sucked out through a hole that
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they blew in the hole into the into the into the docking collar and And then
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they were going to have to get him in.
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And so you had the whole thing of, you know, don't have any oxygen in your holes,
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close your eyes tight, blow all your air out. You know, they were going through
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the entire rescue procedure.
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But instead of him going out that way, he was being blown into the Lewis and Clark.
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So we were able to save some of the drama. Right, save some of those elements.
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Another thing that I heard Paul mention was that they had guns initially,
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but he took the guns away.
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Yeah you know i i think that was in the first in the
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first draft i i i there was a 45 no like
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like cap miller had a 45 and then at some point and i
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think the reason it's in there the reason i put it in there is because you know
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i'm an american i grew up in texas and so the idea of like why why does he have
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a 45 it's like why wouldn't he have a 45 like why do you have a 40 you don't
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have a 45 what the hell is what kind of messed up country do you live in where
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you're not where you're not walking around with a 45. What the hell, man?
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But then it was pointed out to me, and quite rightly, that this is possibly
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the absolute worst place on earth for a firearm.
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It's like kindergarten is a better place for a firearm than inside a capsule, inside a spacecraft.
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It's the worst. Let's see, do we have oxygen tanks nearby? Yeah,
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lots of flammable stuff. up.
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How thick's the fuselage? Well, it's just thick enough to keep the atmosphere
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in without holding the radiation.
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So, oh, so if I fire this gun, it'll go through the wall and we'll lose our atmosphere. Oh yeah.
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So at some point you go, all right, maybe guns is a bad idea.
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It's the kid with the shanghai that lives in a glass house. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
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So we've placed that with the rivet gun.
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Another thing that I overheard that I thought was interesting,
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he said that Paul said that they.
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Was very, his word, atmospheric, but there weren't a lot of big scares in the reading.
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In the, you know, I mean, because obviously they have, there's a lot of moments
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in the film where there's those big, you know, moments.
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But instead, there wasn't a lot of those on the page, but you had a great sort of atmosphere.
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I heard, hold on, hold on, your sound went out for a second.
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Sorry, yeah. What I heard is, so this is what I got.
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What I got was that there was a lot of atmosphere,
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the script but there weren't that there weren't a lot of big scares yeah
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in the in the in the script like you did you
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have you said that there weren't any working sort
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of into the script that it was very atmospheric but there
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wasn't a lot of you know like you didn't have like those moments that that are
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where the big scares they weren't i don't know evidence there weren't yeah i
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mean i think there weren't a lot of jumps in fact i have to say my favorite
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meme which is absolutely And this,
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I don't know what point they added this,
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but there was a, my favorite beat, and this is one of the things that happens,
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and if you write something that's scary,
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you're already in on the joke, so most of the time you're not scared.
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And the thing, when I saw the film for the first time, the thing that absolutely
22:10
had me on the ceiling was when Lawrence Fishburne hears the Burning Man,
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and he leans his head against the wall, and all of a sudden you do like six
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cuts in less than a second.
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Oh, yeah, he gets the hell vision of that.
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And I hit the ceiling.
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And then you just have that sound, you know, that sound effect,
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and he's looking around the ship, because I didn't see it coming.
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So that one absolutely got me I have to say the one that got me the first time
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I watched it is just the cut when Samuel is shaving and all of a sudden the
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all of a sudden the blinds come up,
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because I thought he was going to cut himself or do something yeah.
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It's definitely it's got a lot of solid jump scares and the things One of the
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things that I think we really tried to do a mix of is I think that Paul brought
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a lot of that to the table, but he was able to maintain.
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A lot of, a lot of the sort of brooding feeling that you have of,
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of just being in that ship, you know, for me, so much of it is,
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you know, I'm, I love, I love the shots of just, you know, the corridor leading
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to, you know, leading to the containment area,
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you know, where the gravity drive is,
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the, the, the shots of the hallway when, when things are just sort of floating in 3d.
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And it's just like, okay, you know, something's going to happen.
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And I think it's, it's one of the things where you can always scare someone
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by, you know, getting to the jump, but it's also release of tension.
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So there's a definite, there's a delicate balance between winding somebody up.
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And then, you know, that's why, you know, when, when that's,
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when you, when you look at how the film is based, it's done very deliberately.
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You can't have too many of those scares coming one after another,
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because there's, there's nothing to, there's nothing to get you.
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As opposed to like, like you were talking about that, the line we're leaving,
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you know, we get that right after we've seen really the worst images in the film. Yeah.
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You know, like, like, it's just like, what happened to the original crew?
24:20
It's like, oh, are they killing each other or raping each other or beating each other? Yeah.
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Yeah. We're leaving. Yes, they are.
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There's a difference, you know. So, you know, again, I always think it's the
24:39
trick is obviously, you know, if you're trying to do something that's entertaining,
24:43
you can go without a release of tension. Then you go too far.
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And while you might make, you know, a really impressive piece of cinema,
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it may not be a piece of cinema that people enjoy watching.
24:54
I always I always think of it's weird. I always think of something like Irreversible
24:58
as, you know, one of the most brilliant movies I've ever seen that I will never see again.
25:03
And I always have to tell people and someone
25:06
says oh you think it's brilliant should I see it and I always say no if
25:09
you see it it's on you this isn't one of those you know
25:12
it's like goatee it's like should I click on that link it's like
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if you click on that link it is not my fault I'm not
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saying that like to prank you I'm really
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saying I don't know if you want to click on that link you
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know you won't be coming back you know
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there's certain things you see you're a different person afterwards
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words right yeah and i think that with event horizon
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we definitely wanted to make a piece that's as
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scary as possible but still be a piece
25:40
of entertainment no sure you know but another thing too and and and this this
25:46
came up but it's also something that i thought about when i after the first
25:50
time i saw it was when i came out i thought you know that movie and i'm not saying it was like.
25:58
How do we say, it wasn't like I felt it was homageing, but I felt.
26:06
There was a sort of elements of it through there. And that was with the black hole.
26:11
Oh, wow. You know, and, and mainly for the reason that many of the reason,
26:17
cause it was a deserted ship or, or alleged deserted ship.
26:21
Right. And you eventually find out that there was a dark and sinister reason
26:27
behind the, you know, what happened to it, you know, obviously in the,
26:31
in the case of the black hole.
26:34
You know, Maximilian Schell went, and bonkers and
26:37
turned everyone into robots and essentially murdered the
26:40
whole crew um where but but
26:43
you know just and and also i i don't know whether it was the
26:46
design of the ship too which which i sort of left thinking
26:49
geez that reminds me of the the which i had not seen for a long time till i
26:53
saw event horizon and ended up going back and watching it after that and i thought
26:58
wow there was a lot of comparisons but but paul brought up in his in his commentary
27:03
that you went when he He asked you, I don't know if there was a conversation,
27:08
he said that you maintained that you were not influenced or had not seen the
27:12
black hole at that time or weren't influenced by it.
27:15
Oh, no, I definitely was not influenced by it. I had seen it as a kid.
27:19
And if I was influenced at all. It was a subconscious thing?
27:23
Well, I was influenced ultimately in the negative.
27:27
In the sense that I was very excited when the black hole came out.
27:31
And then I went to see it. And it was a Disney film.
27:34
And ultimately, they took what
27:35
I thought would have been a really cool concept and then tried to do...
27:38
And remember, this is like Disney late 70s, 80s. This was not Disney when it
27:45
was making... It wasn't making Marvel movies.
27:49
It was not doing particularly well. This is the same era that they made that
27:55
awful adaptation of the Prydain Chronicles, you know,
27:59
the Black Cauldron, which if you've ever read the Black Cauldron or the Prydain
28:03
Chronicles, it's like this fantastic...
28:06
Series and they sort of turned it into pablum you
28:09
know let's make a kitty let's make a kitty cartoon and i
28:12
felt and the thing is and it's not like i was super old
28:15
i mean i i guess i was like in my early teens when i
28:18
saw the black hole but i was already going to see it thinking this is going
28:21
to be smart cool science fiction and instead oh here's the cute robot here's
28:26
our r2d2 ripoff right here's you know and and here's the evil robot i mean it's
28:32
one of those things where it It could have been so much cooler.
28:36
And instead, I found it very camp. I thought the ship design of the ship in
28:43
the black hole was very cool. Right, yeah.
28:45
But that was about it. So if it was an influence, if Paul remembers correctly,
28:52
I definitely maintained it was an influence.
28:54
And if it wasn't an influence, it was a reaction against it. Right.
28:58
As I said, the big influence was, I would say, The Shining.
29:01
Right. i would guess forbidden planet definitely from a from you know being
29:06
haunted by the id but also,
29:09
and then then there's one scene that i absolutely blatantly stole from from the haunting right with
29:15
the banging on the door i mean and and that's not i mean i wouldn't even call
29:18
that homage that's it i mean that was just me like because we're like what's
29:23
what's scary and i'm like banging on a wall scare it's like how is that scary
29:26
and it's like watch the haunting and it's like oh yeah Yeah,
29:29
holy fuck, that's terrifying.
29:32
You know, the scariest scene in the movie. What do you see, nothing?
29:36
Yeah, if you're going to steal, mate, steal from the best.
29:40
Oh, yeah, the Robert Wise version
29:42
of The Haunting is still one of the best haunted house films ever made.
29:46
I've got to say, too, when I was watching either Stella, the Christopher Nolan movie.
29:52
They ripped off the pen through the, you know, and fold faith and time.
29:59
I was like, hey, they ripped that off of Enterprise.
30:02
They did. What the hell, man? Yeah, I was like...
30:07
And get some residual. I was about to say, where's my check?
30:10
Yeah, I was like, where's my check? I only ripped off a Vantor.
30:14
That was the first thing I think I actually mouthed the words while watching
30:18
it in the cinema. He just ripped off a Vantor.
30:23
Very unabashedly, too. Yeah, the thing, I really, like, Interstellar is so,
30:30
I really liked that movie.
30:32
And the one thing that drove me crazy was, was, I mean, seriously,
30:38
I really, really dug the film.
30:40
And the only thing that I found frustrating was one of these things where I
30:46
know you've got to have an ending and you've got to tie it all together.
30:50
And it is a happy ending. And there's part of me that really,
30:55
you know, my heart swells to the same thing that everyone, you know,
30:58
responds to. So in one hand, I'm like, wow.
31:02
So love is the answer. sir that's so beautiful
31:05
but the other part of me is sitting there going love are you kidding me
31:08
that's bullshit well like love is the
31:11
what how does that affect quantum mechanics how does
31:14
that allow you to violate the rule of sending
31:17
information through you know you're breaking
31:19
rules why did you
31:22
have to say love why couldn't you just hand wave it and go magic you
31:26
know no it's like you know it's
31:29
like whatever you know at some
31:32
point you know i always think it's like you can
31:35
always find flaws in films even even the best films and
31:38
it's the thing of like kicking back and enjoy it for what it is no and interstellar
31:44
for me you know my favorite bit with interstellar is still like when matt damon
31:48
bites it that is just and the thing is you see it coming but it's And it was
31:54
one of the things that we actually tried to do with Event Horizon 2,
31:57
which is like, what's the danger here? The environment.
32:02
And it was actually the best thing, in my opinion, the best thing about the abyss.
32:06
The scariest thing in there is you've got a man who's losing his mind in an
32:11
environment where you are not allowed to make mistakes.
32:15
Exactly. Right? You're at the bottom of the ocean.
32:18
You can't make mistakes. mistakes and not
32:21
only do we have michael bean making mistakes yeah you
32:25
know he's actually become hostile you know and it's and it's
32:28
brilliant you know and all of those moments are
32:31
you know it's like the things that that it's always
32:34
these little moments where you can you can where you can sort of see the last
32:39
the last vestiges of sanity of a character and in the abyss it's when after
32:44
michael bean realizes he's going to die and realizes what he's done And there's
32:48
that moment where he just puts his hand on his – he sees –.
32:53
Oh, gosh, Elizabeth, I'm spacing on her last name, but the actress in The Abyss,
32:58
and he's got his hand against the glass.
33:00
And she puts her hand out, and it's a recognition. You know,
33:03
he doesn't say, I'm sorry, but it's like, oh, my God, I'm back,
33:06
and I realize what's happened, and oh, shit.
33:09
And she recognizes that, and it gives such pathos to that character.
33:13
And, you know, for me, I always think of, like, when Sam Neill sees Kathleen
33:16
Quinlan's body, you know, and it's that last moment.
33:20
He's already gone crazy and he's already done damage but it's still
33:23
he's like you know why why'd you have to do that right
33:26
yeah still trying not to be taken over yeah that was the that was like his last
33:32
vestige of sanity almost or he's right and yeah and then claire comes for him
33:40
right then she hits him with the bathroom scene and it's done and there's no
33:43
coming back and yeah Yeah,
33:44
and then he's Evil Sam after that. Yeah. Yes.
33:51
He's Evil Sam. He's kept the ring. He's keeping the ring for himself.
33:55
Yeah, he plays it really well. Did you get to go over there?
33:58
Those sets look very impressive. Did you get to...
34:02
All right, so I'll tell this. This is my favorite Hollywood story.
34:07
Okay. And it's my favorite one because it's true. So we're in pre-production.
34:12
They've already started building the sets. And they flew me out to do work on
34:17
the script for like six weeks before we started principal.
34:21
And I show up and it's, you know, the 12-hour flight and I'm tired.
34:28
But I'm arriving like at noon in London.
34:33
Them and they you know they've got the car
34:36
and it's one of those things it's like if you're not used to a
34:39
sort of treatment and i'm not you know it's not like i live
34:42
like this on a daily basis but there's the car waiting for
34:45
you right so the range rover you know picks you up and someone's taking your
34:50
luggage and they're british and the fact that they're british you know it's
34:54
like you know it doesn't matter it's like they could have the east ender accent
34:57
it doesn't matter it's like So when British is like taking your bags and doing things and, you know,
35:04
it's kind of like, you know, Philip Stone in The Shining, right?
35:08
Oh, no, sir, you're the important one. You're like, oh, holy shiz.
35:12
And then they take you out to Pinewood Studios. And, you know,
35:16
you're coming into Pinewood Studios. It's like they shoot James Bond here.
35:20
All the movies you grew up with, it's like hair. They make them air,
35:25
you know. So you're here at Pinewood.
35:27
And then they take you into this enormous stage.
35:31
And I go into the stage, and everyone's sort of ushering me through.
35:35
It's like, oh, Paul, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, Paul wants to see you,
35:39
he's up there, and all I can see is scaffolding.
35:42
And it's about 50 feet of scaffolding. So I'm going over to the scaffolding.
35:48
I'm exhausted. I've been up for 18 hours, whatever. Someone really has your bags.
35:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. They've stashed the bags at this point.
35:59
But I'm going up. I'm going up in this place. It's not the sound stage.
36:03
It's not actually even a sound stage.
36:05
It's this enormous stage, but it's not even heated or anything.
36:09
They can't heat it. It's a big shed. So everyone's wearing parkas and your breath's
36:14
kind of steaming and go up.
36:15
So we did this fight, you know, the five rickety flights and everywhere there's
36:20
like grips and carpenters making sure the idiot writer doesn't walk off the
36:24
scaffold because that's what writers do.
36:26
And I get to the top of the scaffold and I come over and cause you don't see anything.
36:30
And I was walking up the outside of the containment area and I'm looking down
36:35
into the engineering of the event horizon and there's the gravity drive.
36:41
And there is the containment area with all of the spikes.
36:48
And there's all these technicians wiring it and putting things together. And there's Paul.
36:53
And he looks at me with this big grin on his face. And he says, you did this.
37:02
And it's like the best moment. It's like, you know, it's like,
37:05
it's like, what's up there?
37:06
And it's like, yeah, you know, getting married, having a kid.
37:11
The director showing me the set and saying this was you I mean holy shit,
37:15
and that's about as as cool as it gets Oh, I can I can only imagine because
37:21
I mean in this day and age where everything is, you know put in later on,
37:27
Yeah, I mean I mean to walk onto an impressive set is becoming a you know further
37:34
becoming a thing of folklore.
37:37
But I can only imagine having seen some behind-the-scenes stuff.
37:42
It must have been awe-inspiring to walk in there, and it works,
37:48
and it lights up, and you're there. You're on the event horizon.
37:52
Yeah, and the thing, too, is when you look at the cast gave such a fantastic
37:58
performance, and I don't want to take...
38:00
This is not in any way taking away from the talent and the craft of the actors,
38:04
But how much more fun is it to be on a set where, when something happens,
38:13
it's actually happening? No.
38:15
So were some of those explosions, for example, enhanced digitally?
38:20
Of course. But I'll also tell you, when the Lewis and Clark is coming apart
38:24
and there's those explosions,
38:26
that's, you know, that is, that's Jolie Richardson, like, throwing herself out
38:33
of the way of a gas jet that's actually blowing fire at her.
38:36
Right you know they're not faking that stuff you know so
38:39
it's like there's there's how much acting you know the
38:43
thing is it's like that's you know it's
38:46
like they're doing the best thing that you that you really want
38:49
with actors which is they're being honest yeah well and
38:53
they've got something to react to i mean you know
38:56
i mean i as good as an actor is and they you
38:59
know they have to react to a you know
39:02
a tennis ball on top of a you know whatever and
39:05
and some actors yeah they can they can do it and make you believe it but I always
39:10
think that you know I think there's a there's something more I don't know in
39:16
the reaction when they're actually standing there and when you know I mean it's
39:19
like the kids when they see the pirate ship in the game and they saw it for the first.
39:24
For real. Yeah. And it's like, wow. And their reaction is, wow.
39:28
Right. Yeah. And to walk in there and the ball spins around and all the lights
39:32
line up and then there's a big, you know, burst of light.
39:37
It'd be like, you know, even just as a person, forget acting,
39:42
to walk in there and have that thing do that and go, wow, that's cool,
39:46
you know, or I know you first saw it, but, you know.
39:50
Every time I watch the film, though, I just go like, Jack, Jack, do not touch the goo.
39:57
No, I think I'll just... This really scary-looking machine did a weird thing
40:01
and turned into black goo.
40:04
I think I'll touch the black goo. It's like, haven't you seen The X-Files?
40:07
You never touch the black goo.
40:10
It's like if science fiction teaches you anything, it's black goo.
40:15
No, just stay away. Don't stick your hand.
40:21
Something's pulling against you. But anyway, Phil, thank you very much.
40:26
You've been incredibly generous.
40:27
I'm deeply honoured. Thank you. Absolutely.
40:31
Yes, that was Philip Eisner, another great classic.
40:35
And we'll be having some more classics for you next month, so stay tuned.
40:39
And as always, thank you, little Eugonites, for listening to us on Spotify or
40:46
wherever you choose to listen to your favourite podcasts.
40:49
I'm Kent Hill and we'll see you next time on the one and only cinema.
40:56
Music.