ooc: interview w/ mathieu amalric
Dominic Greene a villain? Not in the eyes of 'Quantum of Solace' actor
By Susan King
November 14, 2008
In the latest James Bond thriller, " Quantum of Solace," opening today, Agent 007 is pitted against a most unusual adversary.
Just don't tell French actor Mathieu Amalric ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") that his character is the bad guy.
"Dominic Greene is a great guy," enthused the 43-year-old Amalric, over the phone from London before the film's premiere. "He has a big concern for environmental issues. He wants to help poor people to find their land again. He doesn't understand why Bond is looking for him!"
It may have something to do with Greene's plan to seize control of vital water supplies. But even "Quantum" director Marc Forster acknowledges that Greene isn't the typical Bond heavy. "I think the villain should blend in," he said. "It's important. Bond is ultimately now an antihero. The bad guy and the good guy are overlapping. Bond is not just good and the villain is not just bad. It's what I think is happening in the world. We are not all good and we are not all bad."
Still, you wouldn't want to make Greene angry; he's as ruthless as they come, and the body count begins to pile up as his mysterious organization, Quantum, looks to destabilize South America, and ultimately the world.
"The Bond films always hint about something of the time in which they are done," said Amalric. "The thing today that is more frightening is that you don't know where the villains are. The thing that's really frightening in 'Quantum of Solace' is that it's true. It's not a big fantasy like in the Bond films of the 1980s, where a madman wants to kill humankind. In 'Quantum,' you have a secret organization. You don't know where they are. They just are everywhere."
To prepare for the role, Amalric created a back story: "Greene wasn't French. He was more Swiss, coming from a very, very rich family. His father is a banker, and he was never loved by his father. Sometimes that's enough to become a villain like in Shakespeare."
He discovered that working on a blockbuster is not much different from doing a small, independent French film.
"It depends on the director," he said. "It is the director who gives the spirit of a shooting. Sometimes when you are on a big-scale movie, you discover the director is like a child. He is completely passionate and having fun and inventing things on the moment. That's what I discovered on 'Munich.' Steven Spielberg has no storyboard, and we would invent something on the moment. And Marc Forster is also like that."
An award-winning actor and director in France, Amalric saw his stock rise in America quite literally in a blink of an eye last year in Julian Schnabel's acclaimed "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Amalric won a César -- France's equivalent of an Oscar -- for his haunting turn as Jean-Dominique Bauby, the high-flying editor-in-chief of Elle magazine who suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed, save for his left eye.
"It was just so fascinating to do it," said Amalric. "I could feel that it was so necessary for Julian to do this film. We shot without rehearsing because Julian doesn't work that way. We tried to avoid emotional scenes and to respect the sense of humor that Jean-Dominique Bauby had in his book, the way of having fun of himself even in that situation and not trying to make this man become a saint."
Amalric is best known in France for the films he's made with director Arnaud Desplechin, including "My Sex Life . . . or How I Got Into an Argument" (for which he won his first César), "Kings and Queen" (for which he earned his second César) and " A Christmas Tale," which also opens today.
In it, Amalric plays Henri, the black sheep of a dysfunctional family that reunites for Christmas when it is learned that the matriarch ( Catherine Deneuve) is dying of leukemia. Though Henri and his mother have never been close, he ends up supplying the bone marrow to save her life.
"Desplechin invented me as an actor," he said. "I never thought I would be an actor. I am more of a director, usually."
The filmmaker happened to see a short film that Amalric directed and appeared in and asked him to read for "My Sex Life . . .," about a man with three wives. "I saw this movie Mathieu had directed and he was overly good and charming," said Desplechin. "So we did the test with him and the three actresses. His way of giving the lines changed each time he was talking with an actress. He was not concerned with his acting; he let each woman influence his acting. That's exactly what I needed."
Despite having worked together on several movies, the two are not close friends. "I think he's obsessed by Ingmar Bergman and the relationships he had with the family of actors he created," Amalric said. "Arnaud likes to work with the same actors again and again. I almost tried to tell him it was maybe not a good idea to do a film again with me, maybe we couldn't invent something different. Then I understood he needed to have his own crew of actors."
Mathieu Amalric talks about how they have modernized the ‘Bond Villain’ with his character Dominic Greene. “What I like about this character - it was a good idea - there is a public Greene and a private Greene. The guy is shy in public, he doesn’t speak too loudly, not so good at public speaking, but in private he is totally different. He tries to kill Camille because he thinks she is using him for her own vendetta. To begin with I asked the director if I could shave my head, or have a scar, or an eye that bleeds or something to help me but he said ‘no, your eyes will be enough’. So I had to ask myself, why is a guy a villain? It can’t be only fantasy with crazy people that want to destroy the world, it’s not that. So the impulse must be psychological. If he is more a character trying to disappear, to be invisible, to be almost wallpaper, it makes sense because it is much more efficient that way. Unfortunately, today, it is quite difficult to guess who the villains are in our lives, and that is exactly what we are looking for.
“Also, I like the fact that Greene is afraid of blood, the violence is abstract and that is to do with today as well, we live in a world where you can do everything by computers. Since CASINO ROYALE, they have changed something in the texture of the Bond films and they are looking for something else that is really connected to the times of today, to say something about the world we live in.”
On working with the director, Marc Forster, Amalric observes, “Marc is completely connected to his own make up of the film, there is something mixing around that you can really feel. For example, sometimes he likes to do two shots in a row without cutting the camera so the actors are in this abandoned state and not in control. I think he just grabs things on our faces or there is a moment of action, ultimately he is striving for something more realistic. It’s great working with Marc because he is somebody who just loves actors. For instance, I didn’t understand how it was possible for me to be a villain in a James Bond film but I think it is because Marc needs to be inspired by his actors. He likes the people he films, you can feel it in all his previous films, I’m sure it is because of Marc that I was cast.
“Being an actor is already a surprise for me because mostly my life is dedicated to directing films. It wasn’t my idea to be an actor but there is something challenging about using your body completely, I love the fact that it’s scary. Being cast as the Bond villain is a mixture of a big joke and a real joy. I didn’t know that my life would give me so many surprises.”
As Bond’s nemesis in the film, Amalric shares many scenes with Daniel Craig but is most excited about Greene’s fight with 007. “I’m very lucky because usually the villain never fights but in this film I have a great fight at the end with Daniel. Greene does not know how to fight so James Bond is surprised because it’s not the classical stuff of his training. It will be a fight of two animals.”
Amalric shares many scenes with his co-star Olga Kurylenko and they have developed their characters together. “I love working on this film because it’s a work in progress and we develop and rehearse. With Olga, there is something so obvious between us that, for me, it’s a pleasure. I don’t need to act, I just have to believe it is true and we are searching together. Like all the good actors, she cannot play alone. She is the same as me in that we are both so amazed to be here, to love the physical training, learning lots of skills; how to drive a car fast, how to punch, skills that can be very useful in life. The characters of Greene and Camille are constantly lying to each other and everyone around them. We have to think about how that would work in real life, to lie so convincingly you believe it yourself because your life depends upon it.”
By Susan King
November 14, 2008
In the latest James Bond thriller, " Quantum of Solace," opening today, Agent 007 is pitted against a most unusual adversary.
Just don't tell French actor Mathieu Amalric ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") that his character is the bad guy.
"Dominic Greene is a great guy," enthused the 43-year-old Amalric, over the phone from London before the film's premiere. "He has a big concern for environmental issues. He wants to help poor people to find their land again. He doesn't understand why Bond is looking for him!"
It may have something to do with Greene's plan to seize control of vital water supplies. But even "Quantum" director Marc Forster acknowledges that Greene isn't the typical Bond heavy. "I think the villain should blend in," he said. "It's important. Bond is ultimately now an antihero. The bad guy and the good guy are overlapping. Bond is not just good and the villain is not just bad. It's what I think is happening in the world. We are not all good and we are not all bad."
Still, you wouldn't want to make Greene angry; he's as ruthless as they come, and the body count begins to pile up as his mysterious organization, Quantum, looks to destabilize South America, and ultimately the world.
"The Bond films always hint about something of the time in which they are done," said Amalric. "The thing today that is more frightening is that you don't know where the villains are. The thing that's really frightening in 'Quantum of Solace' is that it's true. It's not a big fantasy like in the Bond films of the 1980s, where a madman wants to kill humankind. In 'Quantum,' you have a secret organization. You don't know where they are. They just are everywhere."
To prepare for the role, Amalric created a back story: "Greene wasn't French. He was more Swiss, coming from a very, very rich family. His father is a banker, and he was never loved by his father. Sometimes that's enough to become a villain like in Shakespeare."
He discovered that working on a blockbuster is not much different from doing a small, independent French film.
"It depends on the director," he said. "It is the director who gives the spirit of a shooting. Sometimes when you are on a big-scale movie, you discover the director is like a child. He is completely passionate and having fun and inventing things on the moment. That's what I discovered on 'Munich.' Steven Spielberg has no storyboard, and we would invent something on the moment. And Marc Forster is also like that."
An award-winning actor and director in France, Amalric saw his stock rise in America quite literally in a blink of an eye last year in Julian Schnabel's acclaimed "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Amalric won a César -- France's equivalent of an Oscar -- for his haunting turn as Jean-Dominique Bauby, the high-flying editor-in-chief of Elle magazine who suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed, save for his left eye.
"It was just so fascinating to do it," said Amalric. "I could feel that it was so necessary for Julian to do this film. We shot without rehearsing because Julian doesn't work that way. We tried to avoid emotional scenes and to respect the sense of humor that Jean-Dominique Bauby had in his book, the way of having fun of himself even in that situation and not trying to make this man become a saint."
Amalric is best known in France for the films he's made with director Arnaud Desplechin, including "My Sex Life . . . or How I Got Into an Argument" (for which he won his first César), "Kings and Queen" (for which he earned his second César) and " A Christmas Tale," which also opens today.
In it, Amalric plays Henri, the black sheep of a dysfunctional family that reunites for Christmas when it is learned that the matriarch ( Catherine Deneuve) is dying of leukemia. Though Henri and his mother have never been close, he ends up supplying the bone marrow to save her life.
"Desplechin invented me as an actor," he said. "I never thought I would be an actor. I am more of a director, usually."
The filmmaker happened to see a short film that Amalric directed and appeared in and asked him to read for "My Sex Life . . .," about a man with three wives. "I saw this movie Mathieu had directed and he was overly good and charming," said Desplechin. "So we did the test with him and the three actresses. His way of giving the lines changed each time he was talking with an actress. He was not concerned with his acting; he let each woman influence his acting. That's exactly what I needed."
Despite having worked together on several movies, the two are not close friends. "I think he's obsessed by Ingmar Bergman and the relationships he had with the family of actors he created," Amalric said. "Arnaud likes to work with the same actors again and again. I almost tried to tell him it was maybe not a good idea to do a film again with me, maybe we couldn't invent something different. Then I understood he needed to have his own crew of actors."
Mathieu Amalric talks about how they have modernized the ‘Bond Villain’ with his character Dominic Greene. “What I like about this character - it was a good idea - there is a public Greene and a private Greene. The guy is shy in public, he doesn’t speak too loudly, not so good at public speaking, but in private he is totally different. He tries to kill Camille because he thinks she is using him for her own vendetta. To begin with I asked the director if I could shave my head, or have a scar, or an eye that bleeds or something to help me but he said ‘no, your eyes will be enough’. So I had to ask myself, why is a guy a villain? It can’t be only fantasy with crazy people that want to destroy the world, it’s not that. So the impulse must be psychological. If he is more a character trying to disappear, to be invisible, to be almost wallpaper, it makes sense because it is much more efficient that way. Unfortunately, today, it is quite difficult to guess who the villains are in our lives, and that is exactly what we are looking for.
“Also, I like the fact that Greene is afraid of blood, the violence is abstract and that is to do with today as well, we live in a world where you can do everything by computers. Since CASINO ROYALE, they have changed something in the texture of the Bond films and they are looking for something else that is really connected to the times of today, to say something about the world we live in.”
On working with the director, Marc Forster, Amalric observes, “Marc is completely connected to his own make up of the film, there is something mixing around that you can really feel. For example, sometimes he likes to do two shots in a row without cutting the camera so the actors are in this abandoned state and not in control. I think he just grabs things on our faces or there is a moment of action, ultimately he is striving for something more realistic. It’s great working with Marc because he is somebody who just loves actors. For instance, I didn’t understand how it was possible for me to be a villain in a James Bond film but I think it is because Marc needs to be inspired by his actors. He likes the people he films, you can feel it in all his previous films, I’m sure it is because of Marc that I was cast.
“Being an actor is already a surprise for me because mostly my life is dedicated to directing films. It wasn’t my idea to be an actor but there is something challenging about using your body completely, I love the fact that it’s scary. Being cast as the Bond villain is a mixture of a big joke and a real joy. I didn’t know that my life would give me so many surprises.”
As Bond’s nemesis in the film, Amalric shares many scenes with Daniel Craig but is most excited about Greene’s fight with 007. “I’m very lucky because usually the villain never fights but in this film I have a great fight at the end with Daniel. Greene does not know how to fight so James Bond is surprised because it’s not the classical stuff of his training. It will be a fight of two animals.”
Amalric shares many scenes with his co-star Olga Kurylenko and they have developed their characters together. “I love working on this film because it’s a work in progress and we develop and rehearse. With Olga, there is something so obvious between us that, for me, it’s a pleasure. I don’t need to act, I just have to believe it is true and we are searching together. Like all the good actors, she cannot play alone. She is the same as me in that we are both so amazed to be here, to love the physical training, learning lots of skills; how to drive a car fast, how to punch, skills that can be very useful in life. The characters of Greene and Camille are constantly lying to each other and everyone around them. We have to think about how that would work in real life, to lie so convincingly you believe it yourself because your life depends upon it.”