Crave Online interviewed Andrew Niccol on the film's ending, among other things.
Stephenie Meyer is coming off of all these other adaptations of her books, and they’ve done so well. Was there more pressure or less pressure on you, do you think, because of that?
I’m so, probably, naïve that I didn’t think too much about it. Everyone would say that, but I’d go, I have a job, so I’m just going to make this as good as I can. But I’ve never really felt the expectation. The only thing, I have more ephemeral creative pressure to honor the book and the story of the book, rather than commercial pressure. It’ll do what it does.
I have not read the book, my apologies. Has there been a lot of major changes to make it filmable? Because a lot of it’s in the character’s head…
Right. Well, that was the big change. In the book you read conversations, and it’s two sets of thoughts, and as compelling as Saoirse Ronan’s face might be that’s not very cinematic. That’s radio, if I’m just going to photograph your face and hear two sets of thoughts. So I made the decision early on that I would hear the host’s voice – Melanie’s voice, the human voice – in her head, and see [Wanderer] speak, so that even if she had to hide the fact that she was having a tense conversation with herself you would have something visual to hold onto.
Did Saoirse record all of that in post, or did you record it earlier so she could react to it?
We recorded her whole performance before we shot. I added other things later, but I had this earpiece that I put in her ear, a hidden earpiece, so that she – and there’s one technician, whose job was to basically feed her her own lines, her own voice – so she could hear it. But none of the cast or crew could hear it in a scene, which was very odd. And I could hear it. But she would have these intense conversations with herself wandering through the desert, and her lines are being fed into her head! Like some babbling homeless person!
Did that give you a lot of freedom in the editing room, like you could you just change a lot of that dialogue later and change around a scene?
Yeah, it did.
Give me an example of a scene that got switched up a little bit.
The Seeker arrives and they’re getting on a little better, the two spirits within this body, and initially I didn’t record anything. But the Seeker says, “I’m just making sure you’re okay,” and my girlfriend said, “Oh, she’s so full of it.” And I went, “Yeah, that’s exactly what she should say.” [Laughs] And that’s what she does say!
You brought something back in this movie which I didn’t realize I missed, which is this stark sci-fi aesthetic.
Right.
Everything the aliens have is bright and silver. What was your thought on that, were you thinking about a certain movie?
No, I was thinking that the design philosophy should come out of the philosophy of the Souls, and that the Souls… Most of them are dressed modestly. There’s no signage, of course, because there’s no competition, and they would never want to be flashy unless they had to stand out, like the Seekers. The chrome from the Seekers comes from the chrome of the creature itself, so that’s why they have an affinity for chrome. It reminds them of their natural state.
The design of the creatures is very interesting. I was taking about it with Jake Abel, and we both had a slightly different idea of what it visually represented. He thought it was more of a fiber-optic cable…
Uh-huh. [Laughs]
And I thought it was more like energy sperm.
You’re closer. [Laughs] I wanted them to be ethereal. I didn’t want them to be a fearsome creature. I wanted them to be quite fragile, in fact. You could crush them. They emanated so much light in fact that you cannot tell their true shape, which I thought was interesting. It keeps a mystery to the creature. Even though you’re looking at it you can’t really see it, it’s like our ideas sometimes of God. You can’t really look at [God], it’s just a light.
Full interview HERE.
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