“Pan” hits theaters this Friday, Oct 9.
The Knockturnal attended a special press conference for the film. Read what the cast and creatives had to say below:
Inspiration
Joe Wright:
I just really tried to put my imagination back into my 11 year-old self and see the world through his eyes and it was quite an exciting process for me. My 11 year-old self was filled with excitement and magic and my teenage self came and stomped all over that because it wasn’t cool. It was kind of lovely to return to that and not worry about any of that and create a world full of color, joy, and fear. It was a wonderful process for me and weirdly in a personal way. In that way, it feels like a tender, small film.
On the characters
Hugh Jackman:
My kids loved it, 15 and 10. The ultimate compliment was when they asked to bring their friends to the next screening. I kind of always wanted to play a role like this in this kind of world with sword fighting and pirates. As soon as I knew Joe Wright was on board I was ready to jump in and I had actually already done a little research on Blackbeard, who is kind of amazing. I felt like over 80% of the work could be done by the costume, feathers, ruffles, and wigs, it brought out the hen in me which was not too far below the surface.
Rooney Mara:
A lot of this was done already for us. We had a great script and we had Joe and an amazing costume, hair, and makeup team. I really spent a lot of time with the stunt department trying to learn how to fight in order to stand up to Hugh, who’s at everything he does. It took a lot of really hard work to come off as somewhat good at fighting, also spending a lot of time together helped a lot.
On casting
Joe:
We saw over 4,000 video auditions, and we saw Levi’s face pop up. He was radiant and thrilling.
Bringing the character alive
Hugh:
For me massively, I think from the moment you see Blackbeard being dressed. This was a film where you needed an extra person, there were layers upon layers of beautiful handmade clothes, I felt kind of like a show pony pirate. It really helped a lot to get into character.
Rooney:
I think costumes are always one of the most helpful things to moving and feeling like the character. My costume was incredible and inspired by Joe’s son, who’s obsessed with belly buttons and it sounded like a really cute idea but two months in I was wondering why. It was really hard to fight in my costume because there were so many things dangling everywhere.
Music and the Soundtrack of Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” and The Ramones
Joe Wright:
We were in pirate boot camp and I wanted to find some music, we tried some sea shanties and they didn’t quite seem tough enough so we tried punk and the energy of the room changed, everyone started polar bearing around and we gave it a go.
The time in Neverland is nonspecific really (location or time). I like the idea that Neverland a place where all periods collided.
Jason Fuchs:
For me, I wanted to feel like Peter’s escaping from something so if we set it at the turn of the 20th century, WWII is going to heighten the sense of desperation to a different world.
On the fight sequences:
Rooney:
The most difficult part for me was fighting, we shot a fight sequence for four weeks and practiced it for way longer than that. It was my first time doing anything remotely like that. Hugh picked up the choreography so fast and just kept going and going and never complained. It was really fun but also very challenging.
Garrett:
I had a fight sequence that lasted four weeks on a trampoline as well and I’m still trying to make sure my brain is still positioned right in my skull.
It wasn’t in the script but Joe mentioned to me that his son really loved trampolines, and I grew up with one and I felt it was my responsibility and I said, “I’m really brave, I’m really good. I can do flips, multiple flips, backflips”. My opposer, Tae-joo, is actually the number one martial artist in South Korea and I had my work cut out for me. As difficult as it was at times, it was so fun because I kind of always wanted to be in one of those fight scenes being the guy getting the shit beat out of him in a comedic way. It was awesome.
Levi:
I think the most challenging was the first day of filming, I was underwater for two days straight. The first day, I didn’t really have the idea of the whole underwater part of it and I had my eyes open for the majority of the time and by the end of the day, they were bulging out, it was painful the next day. I had to learn that you have to close your eyes inbetween takes.