Out of the Furnace: LA Press Conference with Christian Bale, Zoe Saldaña and More ‘Out of the Furnace’ is in theaters tomorrow Friday, December 6. The film is a wonderfully acted mix of redemption drama and revenge thriller. A couple of weeks ago I attended the press conference in Los Angeles. Here are some of the most interesting answers from Zoe SaldañA, Scott Cooper, Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson and Casey Affleck. Director Scott Cooper Working with these actors: Well, directors go their whole careers without being able to tell personal stories and to work with a cast as talented as they are. And I don’t even consider it work; I honestly and sincerely consider it a privilege to see the type of work and the preparation and the care that these actors put into helping me realize my vision. There was no ego on the set. They were always questioning. They were taking a script that was decently written and elevating it in every way and making me a better filmmaker and making me really understand more about who I am as a person. And after the modest success of my first film, I found it very daunting to have to live with those kinds of burden of expectations. For someone who grew up with very little money and who had very little money after Crazy Heart, you can get tempted to make movies for the wrong reasons. When you have two little girls who want you to make that movie – or need you to make that movie – and you just can’t, you have to be true to yourself and to your artistic world view. I chose to tell a personal story. When you tell a movie like this that’s emotionally charged as this is, it’s a risk, certainly. I could have taken a much less risky path after the success of my first film, but as one of my great cinematic heroes, Francis Coppola, would say, ‘If you aren’t taking the highest, greatest risk, then why are you a filmmaker?’ Zoe Saldaña Playing a character in love with two men: Torn…I think Lena has been torn by her life. She’s probably had a rough life. I needed to build that for her and understand that, and through endless conversations with Scott, we came to the conclusion that she hadn’t had it easy. I needed to know why she just couldn’t stick by the person that she truly, truly loves and she went with somebody that worked in law, that symbolically is going to keep her safe. And it has to do with her inability to cope with danger and pain. I think being torn between two men that have been really good to her is small potatoes in comparison to the torture that she has to live with herself knowing that she just has to make decisions that are going to protect her physically. Filming on location: You walk in with this fear of wanting to see something that you can imagine being so heavy. And what you learn from it and take from it is a strength that you’re able to absorb from these people. It’s very easy to leave when things go wrong, but to stick around and to basically give life to a town because of everything it gave you – generation after generation after generation – to me is what defines a true American. Woody Harrelson Appearing relaxed on camera: Well, I think it’s important when you’re acting to be as relaxed as possible, even if you’re doing something intense. So you’re basically in a state of dynamic relaxation. I think these other actors might agree with me. Perfoming with Affleck and Bale: I was worried about [Casey] eating my face. (laughs) We were just talking about that before because I was saying working with Casey is like working with a wild animal; you really don’t know if he’s going to bite you or want to be petted. [It was a] really great experience; Christian is one of the greatest actors who ever lived. There’s a level of confidence in the actor you’re working with that really helps a lot. It makes all the difference. Christian Bale Him and Affleck playing brothers: Not really. It just happened. Even though Scott and I had been saying, ‘We want Casey for the role,’ and there were a lot of conversations about that, Scott and I were eventually saying, ‘We’re not doing it without Casey.’ And then I didn’t actually meet Casey until we were doing a camera test in Pittsburgh a couple days before we started. All of the prison stuff was done in two days. The very first two days of filming we did all of that prison sequence stuff, so we just got thrown in the deep end, which was nice. That was it. It just happened. Casey’s a fucking great actor and he was wonderful to work off of. Being on location: It obviously helped so much being on location. If you understand what I mean, the different between performing for the rectangle of the camera versus a world being created and the world finds things within that. You know what I mean? There’s a huge difference in that because what it takes away is performance. You don’t feel like you’re performing; you’re just doing it and you’re existing. Casey Affleck His preparation to portray a war veteran: Not anything special. But I did some preparation that starts with reading the script over and over and trying to absorb it, and then talking to Scott a lot about where he’s coming from because it’s not really a part of the movie – it doesn’t delve into [his history] too much, which is good. Then watching some documentaries, things like that, then talking to some veterans and just trying to piece together what – as much as you can – an experience like that might be like for somebody. These guys now in these wars have done more tours than the average soldier in other wars just because it’s not a volunteer army and they’re careerists, so they spend a lot of time over there with a constant level of anxiety. Understanding what those symptoms are when they come back with some post-traumatic stress disorder and the depression, the frustration, the alienation, and feeling like people don’t want to hear what their experiences were and how lonely that can feel, then you have to just forget about that stuff and just be in the living room – there you are talking about cleaning the bed pan or something – and you just hope that all that stuff imbues whatever moment you’re in and not try to bring it to every little scene because you don’t carry around your history in that way; it’s just background noise, and you hope whatever research you’ve done bubbles up to the surface at the right time when you’re playing a scene that’s an argument about a beer and then suddenly you’re sharing some experience that you weren’t even planning on sharing. You just hope that you’ve done the work so in the right moment it clicks and makes sense. -‘Out of the Furnace’ is in theaters tomorrow Friday, December 6. “From Scott Cooper, the critically-acclaimed writer and director of Crazy Heart, comes a gripping and gritty drama about family, fate, circumstance, and justice. Russell Baze (Christian Bale) has a rough life: he works a dead-end blue collar job at the local steel mill by day, and cares for his terminally ill father by night. When Russell’s brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) returns home from serving time in Iraq, he gets lured into one of the most ruthless crime rings in the Northeast and mysteriously disappears. The police fail to crack the case, so – with nothing left to lose – Russell takes matters into his own hands, putting his life on the line to seek justice for his brother. The impressive cast of Christian Bale and Woody Harrelson are rounded out by Casey Affleck, Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana and Sam Shepard.”
