Ridley Scott was on fine form, talking about the evolving process as the film found its feet (and how much was already done before the light turned green) and it’s a fascinating read with each of the actors giving hints to the inspirations behind their characters as well as the experience of working on such an anticipated film.
You can read my brief description of the footage shown here.Â
You can see the pictures from Prometheus we revealed yesterday here.
The Q&A follows below,
CHAIR CHRIS HEWITT: Ridley you had an idea for a prequel to âAlienâ based around the Space Jockey for a long, long time but at what point did that coalesce into something solid, into this?
Ridley Scott: Well, I watched the three subsequent âAliensâ being made, which were all jolly good in some form or other. Does that sound competitive? Because Iâm really competitive! So I thought the franchise was fundamentally used up. How long ago was the last âAlienâ?
âAlien Resurrectionâ was 1997.
RS: 1997, so I must have thought about it for three or four years and thought in all of the films nobody had asked a very simple question which was – who is the big guy in the chair, who was fondly after âAlienâ called The Space Jockey. I donât know how the hell he got that name; there was this big boned creature who seemed to be nine feet tall sitting in this chair and I went in to Fox with four questions. Who are they? Why are they there? Why that cargo and where were they going or had they in fact had a forced landing? And so in fact it was a study of a pilot and Tom Rothman [co-chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment] said, âThat sounds good to meâ. And so off I went with two writers, John Spaihts and Damon Lindelof and we came up with the screenplay, the draft. Itâs interesting when you start off with an interesting idea like that and you donât know whether itâs going to be a prequel or a sequel, it gradually adjusted itself into much larger questions and therefore now the actual connection to the original âAlienâ is barely in its DNA. You kind of get it in the last seven minutes or so. What you saw here was a montage of what comes out of the film, just to give you a taste of whatâs to come, so some of it felt a bit disjointed but you may have caught a bit of it, but there is a little bit of it right at the end that gives you a connection. Thatâs about it.
But there are Easter Eggs in the film, I donât know if anyone saw the planet is LV-223, I believe and the planet in âAlienâ is LV-426. Was it fun putting those things in, layering those little references?
RS: Yes; but the more I got into another story the less inclined I was to take on board that it was connected to the original.
Noomi, letâs talk about Elizabeth Shaw. This film is about faith versus science and she represents the faith side, doesnât she?
Noomi Rapace: Yes; she is a scientist and she grew up in Africa and her father was a priest, so she has been raised close to God, seeing different cultures and different people living under different conditions from a very early age. She has been travelling around, seeing different life forms since she was quite young. But her father died when she was young so she has been on her own and she has been able to turn and to use God and things that have happened to her in a constructive way. So she became a scientist but she still has a great gift of believing. Itâs an interesting conflict that we [points to Ridley Scott] were talking about a lot, being a scientist but still believing in God. What sheâs looking for out there and this whole mission is very personal to her; itâs like something she has been living with and waiting for and wanting to do her whole life, in a way.
And is it about retaining faith in the middle of horrible things happening to you? Visiting hell, essentially?
NR: Yes. She goes through a lot of things in the movie and she transforms. You know in the beginning she is not maybe naĂŻve, but she is full of hope and a true believer and then things happen and she becomes a survivor and a fighter and a warrior in a way. Iâm not sure that she is so convinced at the end of the movie. I think she realises that it wasnât really what she expected.
Michael you play David, the shipâs android, the sort of ancestor if you will of Ash Bishop and âAlien Resurrectionâsâ Call, we might as well mention her. Did you look at Lance Henriksen or Ian Holmâs performances in any way?
Michael Fassbender: I didnât; obviously Iâd seen the films before, but for some reason I didnât want to go thereâŠ
RS: âŠhe copied all the time!
MF: I copied other things. Actually, I watched âBlade Runnerâ, for some reason I watched that and of course Ridley had suggested âThe Servantâ. So I watched âThe Servantâ with Dirk Bogarde and then there was âLawrence of Arabiaâ and âThe Man Who Fell to Earthâ. And then Greg Louganis the diver popped into my head, I donât know why. Just the way he sort of moved. As a child, watching the Olympics or whatever, I was, âWow, whoâs that guy?â It was such a weird walk it made me laugh, but it also felt very efficient, centred, like yoga with economy of movement. So I thought that would be interesting to take something on board.
And Charlize, what can you tell us about Meredith Vickers? In this series company employees tend not to be trustworthy. How about Vickers, where does she come out?
Charlize Theron: Itâs weird because I guess thereâs a lot of her that is, that makes her the enigma that she is in the beginning that comes across very quintessentially âsuityâ. I guess, like detached and cold and that she really is just there for the sole purpose of you know, making everybodyâs life hell, as suits tend to wanna do! That sheâs just causing a lot of red tape and sheâs not a believer, sheâs not a scientist, she really is just there to make sure that you think that everything is going to plan. But then sheâs actually there for a very personal reason, of which I cannot speak.
Q: Charlize, we got a really great glimpse of your character now, and I thought it was quite telling in the clip that we saw; everyone else wakes up after the two years of sleeping and theyâre sort of throwing up and getting sick and your character is doing push-ups. I thought that was a really telling glimpse into her, and you get the sense that if anyone is going to make it out alive itâs going to be her. I wondered if you could maybe expand on her as that kind of steely character.
CT:Â I have Sir Ridley to thank for that because initially when I got the script, I spoke to Ridley and we were wondering how we could maybe play more on the mystery, because otherwise she just kinda becomes like a one-dimensional suit. You know there was this amazing performance that Tilda Swinton gave in âMichael Claytonâ and Ridley and I were talking about how when you see her, she doesnât say anything in the beginning of that film, the first time you see her. The kind of panic that is instilled in her says so much without her ever having to say anything. And I said itâd be great if we could come up with something like that, and then Ridley came up with that idea to put me in a physical position where physically Iâm saying ten times more than I could verbally. And when he called me with that, I thought, âOh, fuck yeah, that girl, thatâs the girl I like; the girl that wakes up early, does the push ups, and is like, âdid anybody dieâ?â Like the way she acts, âAre they dead?â I guess you donât realise the power of picking one very specific thing and that one moment was so powerful and I have Ridley to thank for that.
Q: This is for Mr Scott, youâve work with genius designers in the past, how long did you work on designing this new world and who are the people that worked on it with you?
RS: Oh, I knew you were going to ask that question! Iâd have had my little list. But actually I tend to work with one guy all the time now called Arthur Max, whoâs my production designer. Iâve worked with him, since, God, I mustâve done about five or six movies with him now. It used to be Norris Spencer before that. Because I was a designer, I really enjoy the process. And so I really get into it. And so this film, before we were even green lit, I persuaded Fox to spend some smart money, in that the film was completely planned with five designers who are digital designers who can design like industrial designers. From the suits to the kitchen on the ship, to the corridors, to everything you can possibly think of, and then actually climbing into the environment. Arthur Max and these five guys sat in my office in LA, while we were writing and re-writing, for about four and a half months, and by the time I had finished I had a book which was this big and that thick of glossies that were like photographs; theyâre not drawings theyâre exactly what you get on the screen. So I planned the film before we then mustered and put together a huge team, because once that huge team goes together, thatâs where your money runs away. And time and time again Iâd get asked, âAre you sure? I would like to just adjust thisâ and Iâd say, âNope, there it isâ. âWhat about the light?â âThere it is!â And so that became my benchmark. So it worked out economically first, as opposed to trying to work it out on the floor when youâve got a unit of three hundred and fifty people. So designing to me is very important.
Q: How conscious were you of fusing the world of âPrometheusâ with the world of âAlienââŠthe derelict ship, the Giger designs, the biomechanical?
RS: You know one of the problems with science fiction, which is probably one of the reasons why I havenât done one for many, many years, is the fact that everything is used up. Every type of spacesuit is used up, every type of spacecraft is vaguely familiar, the corridors are similar and the planets are similar. So what you try to do is lean more heavily on the story and on the characters, to make that really, to give you lift-off, bad pun! But then during the design process, I think we come up with a lot of fairly, to use that awful word âcoolââŠcool looking things which evolve from the drawing board with the designers saying, âIâve seen that, you canât do that, you canât do thatâ. Then you suddenly start to come up with evolutions of different looks so that as a total package, the film feels quite different.
Q: This question is for Noomi. How does it feel for you to take on this big part? Is it a big pressure for your career?
NR: Well, you know, the first time I met Ridley it was in August, almost two years, one and half years ago, in LA. Heâd seen âThe Girl With The Dragon Tattooâ a couple of times and he said to me that he loved my performance and that he wanted to work with me and I thought I was gonna just pass out! I donât really get nervous; itâs not that I have many people in the world that I really admire and donât really know how to behave around, but I thought I was gonna die. And my English was really bad, so I kinda felt like I was dreaming. And then he actually meant it! So he came back to me a couple of months later and said to me that he wanted me to play this character in hisâŠit was called âthe prequel to âAlienââ at that timeâŠbut then âPrometheusâ. And the magic kind of is that as soon as you step in and start to work, I donât feel nervous, I donât look at it from the outside, itâs almost like youâre stepping into another universe and then you donât really reflect, you donât judge it, you donât think about doing a lead with Ridley Scott, how other people see it around you. You melt into that world; itâs only when youâre done and you step out that you realise there was a lot of pressure and that you probably wouldnât be able to do it if you started to think about the fact that many people are going to judge it and see it and all that. So I donât really feel it when Iâm in there; when Iâm working and I donât reflect on it. Iâm probably just forcing it really so hard.
Q. And Charlize â do you feel much the same about this movie? Do you feel any pressure in any way? Are you clicking on the Internet, watching what people say about the trailer or do you let it all wash over you?
CT: I think Noomi articulated it really well. I think all you can do is try to stay on a path and I think if you think too much about what the outside world is gonna think, or what you people are gonna think, it stifles the creativity and I think itâs fear-based and I donât really know how to work from there. But I definitely have, the only thing different for me, I do have a sense of fear every day going to work, but I think itâs something that I like. I mean I do like the feeling of waking up on my own, having this moment of like, âOh, fuck, I hope I can do this todayâ because it makes you realise that youâre working with material or youâre working with a director or youâre working with a cast and theyâre keeping you on your toes. Nothingâs kinda like, âI can do this with my eyes closedâ and I think that is ultimately what every actor wants, something that challenges you to that point.
MF: Just a healthy dose of respect and disrespect.
Q. Itâs a question for Sir Ridley. With films like âThe Hunger Gamesâ and also âThe Woman In Blackâ getting ratings like 12A, I was just wondering, I was going through my Blu-Ray collection last night, and I saw that the âAlienâ collection still has 18 on it and I was actually kind of surprised by that. I was ten when I first saw the âAlienâ movie and, rightly or wrongly, I loved every minute of it and Iâm sure if you go around the audience there would be a show of hands of kids that saw it way before they got to ten. Do you think the original âAlienâ movie should be a lower certification? And what certification would you want for this film?
RS: I want certification for this film that allows me to make as large a box office as possible! And stop calling me Sir Ridley! Bloody embarrassing. No, Iâll tell you what, the studios wrestle constantly with these ridiculous adjustments to whether itâs PG13, PG15, you know, R, double R and it does, to a certain extent, affect the box office, which is arithmetic, which is not a cash register, itâs how they get their money back. And if studios donât get their money back we donât have any movies. And so it is important that films are successful and I am fully supportive of that because Iâm not just a director, Iâm also not stupid, Iâve been in this business long enough and, to a certain extent, Iâm a businessman, I know the importance of that; so when a big film fails itâs disastrous for all of us. When a big film wins itâs terrific for all of us, whether you like the film or not, itâs really cool. So the adjustment of the ratings thing are inconsistent and ridiculously inconsistent, so I can start talking about films that have got PG13 this year, which are absolutely fucking ridiculous! Or a film like, Iâm going to say it because heâs a friend of mineâŠno, I canât say it. But itâs fucking ludicrous. Is anyone in here from the MPA or whatever it is?
Chair: I donât think soâŠBBFC over here.
RS: Get your house in order!
Q. Charlize, did you feel you had anything to prove in terms of potentially being compared to Sigourney Weaver?
CT: No, no, I think that kind of role, I donât want to speak for Noomi but it was probably more Noomiâs character.
RS: Quite right.
CT: Yeah, itâs more her character.
RS: Yep.
Q: Noomi, did you feel like you had any pressure?
NR: No, we talked a lot and itâs not Ripley. The amazing thing with working with Ridley is, it feels like you are so much inside the characters and every character in the story and I never felt alone in there. We were doing quite disturbed things some days and it was quite tough and you came home and your mind and your soul and your body were a mess, but I always felt really happy. It never felt like I was carrying something really heavy on my shoulders, even though it was quite tough some days; it always felt like we were doing something together. And itâs definitely not Ripley but she feels like sheâs in the same family, in a way, sheâs a survivor and a fighter in the same kind of way, a little bit similar to Ripley.??RS: Ripley, not Ridley!
Michael, can we just talk a little bit more about David, and that layer in the movie of creators and the created, because David is created by Peter Weyland but the humans are also createdâŠ
CT: âŠor is he? I donât know is he!?
MF: Yeah. I donât think there is really a secret in that one!
Was there an attraction for you, playing that extra layer of a robot without a soul looking to become human, I guess?
MF: I donât really know exactly whatâs going on with David to be honest! There are a lot of things there. Because heâs the one android amongst humans, and the humans donât really like having a robot around that looks like them, who can figure everything out quicker than them and is physically stronger than them. Thereâs something a little bit off-putting about that. Is that the future? Itâs like the idea of engineering people for example. Heâs asking his own questions. Heâs curious like the gods in old Greek mythology being jealous of human beings for their mortality and for what that must be like to experience. Also, he has been programmed like a human being, so will his programming start to form its own personality outside of the system that was programmed? Or the idea of human beings â are we all programmed anyway as well? Is someone creating us? Are we programmed to go into a certain job, to make a certain decision at thirty two that will lead to something that happens at thirty fiveâŠis everything pre-programmed for us in life? Thatâs kind of interesting as well. Or do we have free choice in fact? So we just sort of played around with all those things. I just tried to keep it ambiguous. It was something that Ridley said to me at the beginning, when weâre watching him itâs like, âIs he taking the piss?â
RS: And actually you should mention the fact that itâs categorically not a secret, what he is. From the beginning, there is no point hiding it doing a science fiction movie today. To me itâs a nod to Ash as well. You canât say itâs going to be a big deal to review somebody aboard the ship who is actually an android or a replicant or a robot, or whatever the hell you want to call him. Itâs daft, itâs so normal. So what you delved into was another layer of a great deal of humour and wit, getting inside this character that you knew what he was from the very beginning, you think he is a housekeeper or a butler. Then what is he doing? He picks up dirt from the floor like a housemaid, but then he walks around very strangely. I thought you walked like that!
MF: There you go! The thing is, humour was what I wanted to start off with.
RS: I think heâs a very humorous character. Youâre allowed to laugh in this.
MF: There is a lot of fun to be had with the character and that was something at the forefront of my mind. And the jealousy of seeing human beings and of being left out. Plus there is something quite childlike about him. He has two and a half years while everyone is asleep, heâs got to occupy himself and keep his imagination going.
What does he do?
CT: Does he have an imagination?
MF: Well, thatâs what Iâm saying, Charlize. We donât know! He doesnât know!
So there could be a prequel, âDavidâ â just simply watching you for two and a half years walking round the spaceship.
MF: Well, I wanted him to have a little disco dance at the end, while the credits are rolling, in his little private disco.
Ridley, can we see that?
RS: Yeah, sure.
MF: Maybe on the DVD extras!
Q: Question for the actors. Given what Ridley did to his poor actors on the original âAlienâ film. Iâm thinking of a particular scene that was in 3D shall we say; were you constantly living in fear everyday on set? Did you make any special preparations to join Ridleyâs crew?
MF and CT: What was the fear?
Q: The scene in the original âAlienâ where the actors were surprised by something bursting out of the actorâs chest. Was there an extra level of anxiety that that brought to you?
MF: I never knew that! So, no I was living in bliss, ignorance and bliss.
RS: There is a scene that could be called the equivalent of that in this film. But that was private, no one witnessed that. Itâs your scene [points to Noomi]. But we canât say what it is.
MF: Which one was that?
NR: But I did! I dreamt nightmares for two weeks. I had these weird fucked up images in my head, so yes it did affect us.
??Q: Ridley, there must be a learning curve for you with 3D here. The first real footage Iâve seen in 3D of the film, I was wondering could you talk about how you chose some of the 3D images for the film?
RS: Well, Iâll footnote by saying itâs not science, itâs not brain surgery. Itâs actually pretty straightforward. And yet it is science, because itâs science to actually make 3D occur and to be shootable and capturable on a daily basis, but Iâm sitting in a studio with four huge screens which are all 3D in a little black tent and Iâm looking at them. If thereâs four monitors there are four cameras, if there are six monitors then thereâs six cameras, and because Iâm a visual person anyway, it was dead simple and very straight forward. You could easily allow things to turn into major conferences where you ask anyone, including the tea lady what she thinks, but I donât do that. I had a wonderful camera man called Dariusz Wolski. He is a wonderful cameraman full stop, and had one shot at 3D doing the last âPiratesâ and I was going to go for him anyway because heâs one guy who I wanted to work with but hadnât worked with yet. So I talked to him and said, âWeâre going to do 3Dâ and he said, âYeah, thatâs fineâ. So we went with using the RED camera, as opposed to the other one, and the RED was superb. The quality was fantastic, whether itâs 2D or 3D itâs amazing and it wasnât a problem. So anyone who says, âOh, youâve got to add sixteen weeksâ means they donât know what the bloody hell theyâre doing! âThereâs a lot to itâ. No, itâs dead simple, straight forward. If you know what you want, you know what you want. That [holds up finger] could be hanging in the foreground, and you can have a forty five minute discussion about something hanging in the foreground. Say âI hate it; get rid of itâ or âI love it; fuck off!â Itâs that simple!