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photo by en |
Bruce Greenwood attended the Berlin Film Festival to participate in two days of celebrations surrounding the film's German premiere. A live webcast of the Press Conference was done from the festival's website and is available to view but not download at the following URL:
Berlin Film Festival Website
A Transcript of the Questions & Answers for Bruce:
Question 1: (Directed at both actors) What did you do to prepare for this?
Answer: That's a long question to answer. It's one of those things…you do a lot of research, and then a little more research, and then you go to bed and listen to tapes and wake up in the morning and watch film. And do a little more reading and then give it up to instinct. And hope for the best.
Question 2: This is two questions for Mr. Greenwood. Was it difficult to play a character the American people probably think they know so well? And the other question is about Basic Instinct. Why didn't he do it?
Answer: Yes. (long pause.) Yeah, of course, I was nervous about it. Because people have such high expectations, and everyone thinks they know Kennedy so well. And then I discovered pretty quickly after lying awake in bed at night that worrying about it wasn't gonna get me anywhere. And I had the job whether I liked it or not. So I dropped that part of the study. I decided to ignore other people's expectations and chose not to watch any other films or other representations of Kennedy. I watched a lot of file footage, of course, and tried to keep it a personal journey for myself.
As far as Basic Instinct goes, we were all standing in this very small boat and the water kept getting higher and higher and the boat kept getting more and more tippy and I thought: I'm getting out!
Well, it's a metaphor for what was going on politically that I'm not free to discuss. I wasn't sure if the movie was gonna be made at all. Over this weekend, I decided I don't know what's going on and opted to get out.
Question 3: And Mr. Greenwood, I adored your voice. How did you get it so deep? Because I'm a radio man and I'd like to know that.
Answer: As far as the voice is concerned. I listened to a lot of file footage and discovered that Kennedy, behind closed doors in quiet conversation, his voice was much lower. Actually lower that I can ever make mine go. I couldn't even get as low as he was when he was talking quietly.
When he was orating in front of a large crowd, his voice was almost two octaves higher. In the address to the nation, which we see part of in the movie, in the original address to the nation he begins out low and by tape 2 he's way up there. There's something about the way he spoke, that the more animated he became, the higher his voice got and the more androgynous.
And one Question answered by Donaldson that commented on Bruce: Question: Could you address the challenge of making this movie come alive even though the story is talking - albeit important talking - that takes place at desks and in oval offices. So how do you make it gripping?
Donaldson: The most difficult part of solving the problem is sitting on either side of me. It was finding two great actors to portray the Kennedys, two actors who could get into these real characters and make them come alive by putting up performances that transcend the real people and make the audience get involved with them.
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Bruce fields question at the press conference and laughs it up with Roger Donaldson | ||||
photos by en | ||||
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