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THE MOVIE: Push

THE STARS:
Chris Evans • Dakota Fanning • Camilla Belle • Djimon Hounsou
DIRECTOR: Paul McGuigan

THE CONCEPT:
Set in the deadly world of psychic espionage, Nick (Evans), a second-generation telekinetic who has been in hiding since the government agency called the Division, murdered his father, is confronted by Cassie (Fanning) a 13-year-old clairvoyant who seeks his help in locating a briefcase she claims holds $6 million.

U.S. RELEASE: February 6 2009, Nationwide • Rated: PG-13

THE COMMENTS:

PAUL McGUIGAN:
“When I first got the script, I was quite surprised that somebody would send it to me, but it’s nice when somebody thinks about you in another way. The only reason I would do a film like this would be if I could do it the way I wanted to. And important part of my decision making was to have a strong point-of-view of how I was going to shoot it. The way I wanted to do it was handheld, and use a place like Hong Kong to its full advantage. It’s the first time I’ve actually worked in a city that was actually that city.”

CHRIS EVANS:
“One of the reasons I liked the movie was even though it’s got this great sci-fi/action/special powers back-drop, there were some real relationships and some real character arcs. And, when I heard Dakota’s name, I thought, ‘This could be great.’ She’s so good at doing emotionally relatable content. You root for her. You like her. You see her in a movie and you can’t help but feel connected to her. This type of arc, with those type of characters, I figured, ‘Man, I could really phone this thing in and it’s still going to work because she’s that good.’ She could develop a relationship with a stalk of corn and it’s going to work. She’s great at what she does.”

DAKOTA FANNING:
“The relationship my character has with Chris’ is the center of the film. I was pretty much in every scene with Chris’ charcter and it was great. What I love about movies is getting to have different relationships with different people in those films. I thought it was really important to develop Cassie and really create a character for her, and it was fun to come up with ideas of how she should look. The pink hair was my idea.”

DJIMON HOUNSOU (Henry Carver, head of Division) on playing a bad guy:
“Playing a bad guy was one of the reasons I took this, but the most important reason was the theme of the story, to tap into that occult world. Most of us are very doubtful about whether it actually exists and whether governments are utilizing that or not. I like playing a bad guy, especially one whose bad attitude is justified. You can be a little malicious.”

CAMILLA BELLE (Kira) on her fight scene:
“What I loved about the fight scene is that it wasn’t martial arts, it wasn’t anything that had to do with formal training. And our stunt coordinator, Nick Powell, had done films like Braveheart and Gladiator, films where you really remember the fight sequences, and I felt like I was in good hands with him. We had about a week and a half of training. It was more about choreography, it’s almost like a dance with your partner. So we would choreograph and we’d practice, and then when you get to the day it’s all about muscle memory in your body, you know what to do, and hopefully you don’t hit the other person in the head too many times and it just works out smoothly.”

McGUIGAN on using a hidden camera to shoot on the Hong Kong streets:
“Usually what happens when you make a movie is you choose a street to shoot on and then you take everyone off the street and populate it with your own extras. You can’t really do that in Hong Kong. We couldn’t afford that amount of extras, so we basically had to let Hong Kong dictate how we worked, which was nice and essentially how I like to work. But you don’t want people to muck with the camera, you don’t want people to look in the camera and so the idea was we had these hidden cameras and we would shoot a master shot and then we would punch in if we felt we needed to and populate it with our extras. So it was a bit of both, but for the big shots that’s why it looks quite an expensive movie because we were fortunate enough to be able to use the location – we weren’t shooting Hong Kong for New York (he laughs).”

EVANS:
“There were some rough stunt scenes in this, but that was part of the appeal. A lot of times, with the stunt work, you don’t get to play. You’ve got to take a backseat. But Paul really wanted us in there, actually participating. That’s rare, and it was exciting. Granted, there were some scenes where I said, ‘You guys handle this one. I’ll be watching from the monitors.’ But whenever you can get your hands dirty and actually feel like you’re a part of it, it’s great. “

FANNING:
“Cassie’s very sarcastic and she has these funny lines in the movie. It’s stuff that I would never really say in real life. She just thinks mostly about herself, but during this movie she learns to let other people in. [When I work] I become the character when they say action, and when they say cut, it’s over. I think it might comes from doing it since I was so young.”

McGUIGAN:
“The film for me was a great joy to do, and I hope that comes across. This film is not going to make you walk out of the cinema crying or worrying about the children or the planet. It’s going to hopefully make you go, ‘Hey, I had a good time tonight. That was fun.’”

Written by Judy Sloane. Back to top

Visit the official Push site
Images above © Summit Entertainment
Feature © 2009 Visual Imagination.
Not for reproduction.

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