John Moore Interview

In 2001, Irish born commercial director, John Moore, put his long held obsession with aviation to good use and revealed himself to be a talented director of action with the entertaining adventure film Behind Enemy Lines . His latest film Flight of the Phoenix is a remake of Robert Aldrich's 1965 survival epic of the same name.

So how did you come to be involved in the remaking of ‘Flight of the Phoenix '?

Well, the producer, John Davis - I had done ‘Behind Enemy Lines' with him - it was his gig really. He's a fellow airplane nut and while we were making ‘Behind Enemy Lines' he kept slipping this under the door saying “Are you sure you don't want to do this next?” (laughs) and I kind of resisted it for a while thinking ‘oh fuck! Don't tell me you want to do another fucking airplane crash movie' (laughs) but the story's just so damn good and I love all those Robinson Crusoe/Castaway/MacGyver ‘How are we going to wring the last drop of coconut juice out of this' kind of movies and I really do enjoy survival pictures. They're the kind of stories where an audience member has a kind of synaptic reflex response: ‘what would I do in that situation?' There's something primeval about that scenario that makes you wonder how you'd do. So it was John Davis that really pushed it to me and we started work on it in February 2002 – it took a long time to get this film made, it'll be three years this month that I've been working on it full time. It took a long time to develop it - it slipped a little bit for year and went into a ‘development wobbly'. All credit to Twentieth Century Fox - because some people were like ‘is this a drama or an action movie?' Hybrids don't go down very well in the studio system. They make the marketing department very fucking nervous. It's a bit like bringing an ugly girlfriend home (laughs) ‘Come on! She's got a great personality! Give her a chance!' It's a tough situation.

When you came aboard, was the script a done deal? Did you work on it with (screenwriter of ‘Out of Sight') Scott Frank?

I worked with Scott Frank. We brought Ed Burns on very late in the process, to do a dialogue polish because he's got a knack for writing what comes out of peoples mouths (and making it sound like) like it would come out of peoples mouths. I worked on it alone for a while - we had a fundamental flaw in the original script. Dennis Quaid's character was initially part of the original crew, so there was a major lack of conflict - they were all in it together and I flipped that around, so that he's actually picking them up and closing down their oil well. He's kind of the grim reaper. It's like firing a bunch of people then getting stuck in the elevator with them. So we inverted it and made Dennis an outsider…and I think that's what kind of got the script over the edge. That's when the studio said ‘ok that makes more sense'.

Have you seen the original film?

I haven't seen it from frame one to frame last – I've seen it patchily, on TV – I decided not to watch it. Quite simply there was no upside – and we had very honourable intentions going into it, I didn't want to, with malice or forethought, assail a cinematic classic. I mean we didn't want to set it on Jupiter and take the piss out of it. The story is the same story - and look - there'll be some fans out there with fucking telescopic rifles, with my fucking head in the cross hairs – and that's fine, but I think to be fair to us – the original is a great story but it's quite stage-y. At that time only ‘Lawrence of Arabia' had the sort of scope that this film needed and that film cost a zillion dollars – so that's what we could bring to it. Scope. We shot it in Namibia – it's a real desert, a big badass desert – there's no CG work in there at all. So there was no upside to see the original – I mean what would happen? I'd be on the set one morning and go (feigns horror) ‘Oh fuck! We're gonna fuck this up – I've seen this bit and we're gonna fuck this right up!' (laughs) You know what I mean? What would be the point of that?

In the original film, Giovanni Ribisi's character ‘Elliot' (played by Hardy Kruger) was German and everyone hates him because of that?

That's right. They (the filmmaker's) had that device at their disposal. I mean (feigns disgust) ‘don't tell me the fucking Nazi's gonna have the solution!' (laughs) They had that device available to them. That fucking little German motherfucker can't be right, he can't be better than the American!, and Jimmy Stewart, he's all American! Lacking that dynamic - instead of making Giovanni's character German – we just had the conflict between him and Dennis be on an intellectual level – y'know, he's just the arrogant little motherfucker you love to hate. (laughs) So – look - when you do a remake, you know what you sign up for, you open yourself up to a world of fucking comparisons – there's no point arguing with that. If it's a crap film, then it's a crap film - and I don't know what to say to Someone who says ‘it's not as good as the original' - fair enough mate, but did you like it anyway?

In the original they built a real life ‘ Phoenix ' and flew it – but the stuntman Was killed – did you think of attempting something as ambitious as that?

Yeah – Paul Mantz (legendary stunt pilot) was killed flying it, and believe me, there is a ghost of the ‘Phoenix' – there really is. We wanted to go a step further because in the original they did a spectacular cheat - they built a full size version of the ‘Phoenix' as a set piece and then used a Texan T-6 to double for it while in flight. (It's generally believed that the ‘Phoenix' was actually flown for the film) We wanted to go one step further, we wanted to build a real, functioning ‘Phoenix' - out of composite material, a full scale flying version - with stunt aviators on the wings…and we came that close! What stopped us? Fucking insurance! So we built a full scale one that we pushed with a dragster, and a 12-foot radio controlled model…only because CG looks crap - and until it doesn't, it will (laughs)

So how did you accomplish the crash sequence?

Using very unsophisticated methods! We used miniatures, which is pretty much a dying art now. I think ‘Independence Day' was the last big feature to use miniatures - Except for ‘The Lord of the Rings' – Yeah well that's in a class all its own really, isn't it? I mean there's ‘normal' films and then there's ‘ Lord of the Rings'! (laughs) But the C-119, the plane that crashes, is a miniature that we crashed and filmed using a spider-cam (developed for ‘Spiderman' – it's a floating camera, suspended on cables). For the interior shots of the crash, because there are no sets in the movie, everything you see is part of a real aircraft - so we took a fuselage and built a wheel around it; a ‘gimble' - it was 14 meters tall - we wrapped a steel cable around the ‘gimble' and attached it to a truck, the truck would then drive away, literally yanking it - like starting a lawnmower - and the fuselage would rotate, enabling us to get a cheap ‘vomit comet' - that ‘zero g' weightless effect. This was all practically done, out in the desert - we used an abandoned fish warehouse - (laughs) really pleasant place to work! In the heat! Nice touch! But we couldn't rehearse because the danger was that the actors would say ‘fuck that! I'm out of here' - after one take – so we put nine cameras in and we got three takes before two of the actors refused to do it again (laughs)

You worked with Owen Wilson on his own much of the time in ‘Behind Enemy Lines' – but you worked with an ensemble cast of 12 this time around – how was that?

Look – I was absolutely convinced that there would be a mutiny. I was absolutely convinced, I mean we're out there in the desert – I thought they would all get together and say ‘this cunt doesn't know what he's doing! Lets get him replaced!' (laughs) Honestly, I got quite paranoid - Owen Wilson's a really relaxed, funny guy. If there's a problem he takes you into a corner and has a quiet word, y'know? But this was throwing ten or twelve people together, what was likely to happen is that two or three of them wouldn't like each other and then the pin is out of the fucking grenade. But luckily enough, what happened was the opposite, everyone was like ‘let's not fight! Let's all get along!' - maybe it was a result of being so remote, so far from home – but I benefited from that – and Dennis was a big help – he's a real morale booster- sort of guy – but I was shooting seven days a week so they could bond all they fucking liked! They did go out a lot together – they got on very well, a lot of them went on safari on weekends and stuff like that. They stopped short of getting the ‘Lord of the Rings' tattoos! (laughs) - but they drank like bastards! (laughs) They fucking put it away, I mean they're meant to be starving and they had beer guts on them! (laughs)

Any dream projects involving aircraft that you'd like to do?

Yeah – I very nearly made the Chuck Yeager story, who was the first person to break the sound barrier– with the legendary producer Richard Zanuck…and that might yet happen. Dick, Mike Medavoy (former agent- turned Producer) and I went out to Edwards Air Force base (where Yeager first broke the sound barrier in 1947) about 2 years ago now, and we met with Yeager who jumped into his F –15, while we were standing in the desert and he went up and broke the sound barrier - again! He's 72! (continued) But it's a difficult project – as I realised after many drafts of the script, you know, there's nothing as boring as success – the problem with a script about Chuck is that there's no drama –– he broke the sound barrier, broke about 15 other records – but there's no failure and there's drama in failure. I mean they didn't make Titanic because it made it to New York ! Some think he failed in becoming an astronaut but that just wasn't who he was - Yeager was essential to the test program back then, you know, he was a ‘whack-job' - ‘Here's the keys, get in that - you see if it flies, we'll be over there!' (laughs) and if you've ever known an astronaut you'll know that they are not the most exciting people in the world – they're very fucking boring people – and you need them to be. They're like airline pilots, you don't want a jovial, joking sort of guy flying an airliner, you want the boring fucking tea- drinker - that's the guy you want. But it wasn't Yeager. The space program dumped Yeager because they didn't need rock and roller's anymore, they needed very straight, reliable people who could fit into the machine. They started eradicating personality from the space program. So Chuck had the rug pulled out from under him – which is why he still has issues with the space program but he's an amazing guy – and the movie may still happen yet, I hope it does. So, after three years working on ‘ Phoenix ' are you going to take a break? No, I'm definitely not taking a holiday – you know there's a statute of limitations on being a director. I don't know if you know this but after 53 days – if you haven't directed anything, you're just a bloke. (laughs) You know what I mean? So I'd like to get onto something as soon as possibly – I'll direct a fucking hemorrhoid commercial if I have to (laughs) – if you're not directing, you kind of lose yourself and you start to lose that definition thing (of being a ‘Director')

Ever think you might take a step back from action and do a different sort of story?

Yeah I'd like to do a love story – I fucking cry at the movies like a teenage girl - it's hard to make people emotionally invest – but I'd seriously like to do a love story - and just when the couple are about to kiss - then the set would blow up (laughs)


Any actors you'd like to want to direct?

Yeah – Gene Hackman – I had fun with Gene. We had only a short time together. His time on ‘Behind Enemy Lines' was only three weeks.

As a first time director on that film (Behind Enemy Lines), how easy was he to work with?

He's fantastic – you know, I've got this theory about celebrity, I think it's created by the people in inhabit the space between other peoples ideas. They create it as a third ‘force' to create their own industry – so you get warnings and shit like (whispers conspiratorially) ‘oh he can be very difficult' – and everyone falls for it. On the day, I get on the set and walk up to Gene and say ‘Hi Gene' and he says (impersonates Hackman) ‘Hey – how ya doing' and five minutes later he's hitting his mark and I say ‘action' and that's it. All the other crap is just that – crap – and I was almost had by some agent who's trying to pump up his part in the business.


So what are your favourite films?

Pretty much anything Tony Scott's touched – personally I don't think he's made a bad movie – in 30 years time someone's going to say ‘hey this guy was doing this stuff way before anyone else' – editorially he was the first guy to go ‘A to B to C to D – you know what, fuck B and C and go straight to D' – because he knows that audiences have a synaptic response to make that leap, to fill in the parts. Everybody rips him off, I rip him off – every cocksucking commercial director on the planet rips him off. I mean I saw ‘Spy Game' like five times! I fucking paid money, every time – gladly.