GREGORY
HOBLIT: (Director - credits include Frequency, Primal
Fear):
"The box office and the reviews are well out of my hands, but if the guys
from the National Association of World War II POWs are happy with what we've
done, then I'll be okay."
Hoblit
on Farrell • Back to top
 COLIN FARRELL:
"The project came to me because Edward Norton, who had worked with Greg on
Primal Fear, was supposed to do it but it didn't work out. I read the
script and really liked it. I thought it was a nice honest piece of writing
with really well-defined characters, and I was very surprised to get an
offer."
Farrell
on robbery • Back to top
BRUCE WILLIS:
"Colin really had the hardest job in this film, because he's not
like that guy. Colin is a sweet kid, but he's also a tough guy, and this role
calls for a little different set of muscles than being a tough guy. There's a
restraint in his performance and I think he did a really great job with
it."
Willis
on Hoblit • Back to top
 HOBLIT on
Farrell:
"There's a warmth and spontaneity to Colin that is endlessly charming, and
he was perfect for the role because he really was young. Edward [Norton] is
over 30 years old; Colin was 24 years old [when the shoot began]. Colin in much
more age appropriate, he's still a boy; Edward's a man. It would have been
harder to get Edward to feel like some wet-behind-the-ears innocent. It wasn't
hard to do with Colin."
Hoblit
on shooting in Prague • Back to top
FARRELL on being
attacked by robbers during the shooting of the film:
"One guy got me in the head, but I got the better of him and I ran home. I
did get a bottle stuck in my arm. They didn't get any money, not a penny. I
think he was more drunk than I was; it was the clumsiest attempt at a robbery
I've ever heard of in my life."
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HOBLIT on the
location's resonance:
"It was weird shooting at Barrandov Studios [in Prague], which was where
Hitler made his propaganda films. The whole studio is an exact design of a
studio in Berlin, and to walk through those hallways and stand on those
soundstages, knowing he'd walked those hallways and been in those rooms was
peculiar for everybody."
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top
WILLIS on
Hoblit:
"Greg is my favorite kind of director. He's a great storyteller. Films
that have courtroom scenes in them can be very dangerous, because it's really
difficult to make them move the film along, and I think Greg is a master at
that. He likes layers, which I like also; he likes having characters have
secrets and he tries to keep them from the audience. That's how this film
works. It's a suspense drama set in a prisoner-of-war camp."
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