Chris Pratt is willing to take a trip to outer space and get frozen in time, if it means he’ll go on the journey his character James Preston does in his upcoming movie Passengers.
Co-starring Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence, Passengers is a futuristic plot line that seeks to jump audiences to outer space with Morten Tyldum’s detailed direction.
Writer Jon Spaihts was excited to develop a story on the ideaΒ of having a storylineΒ surrounded in space. He’sΒ been fascinated with astronaut Michael Collins who has orbited the moon and described him as being someone “who has been furtherest from the nearest human being in human history.”
He developed James Preston using this theory and writes in forms of human intimacy throughout his scripts. He works on Preston overcoming loneliness in outer space.
Once Jennifer Lawrence read through it she immediately cameΒ on board on to play the character of Aurora Lane.
Both Lawrence and Pratt’s characters are sent on a mission to outer space to be frozen in a time capsule and to wake up in several years. However, the story lines progress when the both wake up earlier than planned.
Q: This is a very unique project in several ways. This is an original story and even though itβs set against a huge background in outer space and it has beautiful effects, this is a story about people. So Jon, letβs kick it off. Can you talk about your inspiration for starting this story?
Jon Spaihts: I was fascinated by the notion of the vastness of space. And the fact that it can produce a solitude, a solitary experience faster than anything that we can experience in our life. Just the metaphor and the value of that. How alone we are traveling between the stars caught my attention and so let me ask you once. Who is the most lonely person in the history of the human race. And itβs probably on of the moon astronauts. A person who has been furtherest from the nearest human being in human history was Michael Collins the astronaut in a command capsule orbiting the moon when the other two guys had gotten to land. Heβs the furtherest side of the moon from those guys. Heβs farther from the nearest human being than any other person has ever been. And I was like βalright what do you think of that distanceβ and magnify it by many orders of magnitude. So I just fell in love with that notion of a man scrambled in between the stories and where that story would take us.
Q: Did you listen to a lot of like lonely themed songs to write this?
Jon Spaihts: The beautiful thing is I listened to a lot of Thomas Newman scores to write this I donβt know why. He was my go-to mood music for writing the film and ended up scoring the film, which was a dream come true.
Q: How did this isolation with intimacy affect your direction of this?
Morten Tyldum:Β I mean what happens is that you try to find whatβs important for you and the story finds a core and to me this movie is actually about the fundamental needs to live a fulfilled life.Β What is that we as humans need? Thatβs the interesting thing to explore. If you take the loneliness. To me theyβre also trapped in time, we always live ahead. Weβre always planning on what weβre doing. What happens when two characters say theyβre the future, theyβre assuming now. What is it that they need now and to need these two characters, they need two things they need to love something. They need to love and they also need to fulfill something in them. They need to build something in them. He needs to prove somethingβ¦Heβs thinks itβs about something great outside, itβs actually a story about herself. And that is why I think all we need is people. We need to be able to feel love and we need to be able to complete something in us, and that was what was important for me throughout this story. I think thatβs why itβs a unique story. Itβs an important and intimate story, itβs intimate about these two characters. It also has his boss Arthur so, it was a juggling act, that was what was unique that you can take something that is so private and personal and intimate and at the same time give it this scope of space and this space ship in this world. This is a unique story that belongs to this film.
Q: Speaking of love, Jennifer, did you love being alone with those two knuckleheads?
Jennifer Lawrence: I did. I had a blast. Itβs really rare that you get to be so intimate with film making itβs normally an ensemble, Iβve never worked with so few actors before. And it is such a human story. Thereβs so much interesting conversation. Thereβs more from Jon. Itβs just an original story. We just keep diving in and Iβve always wanted to know what the focus is. So I was very excited to be stuck in space with them.
Q: Michael, can you talk about the physical requirements of being Arthur in a whole rig. Youβre character has no legs.
Michael Sheen: Thatβs right. I was so excited on my first day to walk onto the set to meet Jen and Chris. I thought I was going to look fairly spiffy when I put on my costume and then I was given tights, and I had to wear it all the time and I blew my chances with Jennifer.
Morten Tyldum: I just want to say the things that Michael is doing is just incredible. Heβs having to pour drinks by being smushed around in a machine and make it look like itβs the real natural thing. I mean theyβre trying to grab a glass without looking at it. I mean it all happened like this and I mean itβs incredible and then also performing and giving these beautiful levels of humanity and also being non-human at the same time, which is incredible. So I was just blown away every time we had Arthur on set because it just seemed so effortless, and itβs so hard and so complicated so kudos.
Michael Sheen: I make a mean Martini.
Interviewer: And youβre also really good at cleaning that Martini with your face.
Michael Sheen: Yes. Itβs a little twitch that I have that. Iβve been thrown out of a couple of bars [laughs].
Morten Tyldum:Β It was an improv wasnβt it?
Micheal Sheen: It was. I said lets just have fun with this one and I thought I know what Iβll do and I did it in the movie.
Q: Chris, Jim needs tangible things in his life and thatβs one of the things that I noticed thatβs kind of juxtapose world. There arenβt a lot of tangible things where your breakfast comes from a machine, things are done for you. Is that something you really related to personally.
Chris Pratt: Yeah, I guess so.Β Like thatβs a big part of who the character is. You know heβs leaving earth for a reason and men like him were no longer in this world of earth in the near distant future where everything is automated and you donβt fix things anymore you just replace them. So heβs leaving that world for a new world where he can be a pioneer and be someone crisp. Heβs finding a world that has his types of problems. And I guess thatβs bit of a throwback. Thereβs part of me that longs to you know simplify my life, especially now. You know weβre on this press tour and Iβve got like a team of babysitters around me. Iβve become from a increasingly useless. I almost seem to have no idea when my phone was turned on. If I turned around because I hear I buzz I would go Ahhhhβ¦ they will bring it to me. I donβt if thatβs sort of a tactic to keep them employed or something, but Iβve become more and more of a baby so I guess I kind of relate to that in a wayβ¦
Q: By design this is a huge film from the ones youβve done in the past. But did it feel like on of the more intimate projects that youβve done, almost like a stage production because of the small cast and the way it was shot?
Chris Pratt: There were certainly elements of that. You know it more intimate, it was different for me in several ways. Some days it would feel like a stage play. But unlike a stage play, this is a giant movie thatβs really told in snapshots so thereβs not a lot of scene, things are more than a couple of pages long. We have few scenes but itβs tiny little glimpses into the period of time that weβre watching these characters for that ends up being a long time. And so it did feel more intimate than anything Iβve every done, there wasnβt as much. You couldnβt distribute the responsibility of the acting to a large cast so I was in almost every scene along 99 % of the whole movieΒ I had to show up and be there all day but it didn’t necessarily feel that way like a play, where youβre just sitting and talking. There were moments it felt that way, but there were also moments that were very physically grooming where I was essentially a prop where I was just hung by wires flipping around where I don’t say sh*t but I did bounce into some things. So those days were physically grueling. Either they were tiring in one way, but werenβt mentally exhausting. I was just a prop, but there are other day said to be mentally exhausting. So thereβs certainly a great balance of those things and itβs certainly different from anything Iβve ever done before. And more intimate, not only in the story telling portion but just in the process of film making. It would be just Jen and I or Jen and I and Micheal and thatβs what we had. And weβre on this great big set. This beautiful set. They built this practical set, the grand concourse is four stories tall, 1000 ft long and itβs huge. Itβs a practical set and they had 8 miles of LED lights, and being up there really was lonely in that way. It was just us.
Q: My question is obviously going to be about diversity for Chris and Jennifer, because youβve obviously seen the pods. So the purpose of this Homestead program is to colonize some planets, so the ideal homesteader would be young, straight, and healthy. Do think the passenger list, the girl in the pods, do you think would be diverse adults and create LGBT people as well as older adults who may or may not be able to have offsprings and colonize the planet.
Jennifer Lawrence: Well hopefully weβre well into the future where none of these things are even a conversation anymore. Where theyβve gone from issues, to conversation, to hopefully forgotten and everybody is treated equally. So of course Iβd assume that thereβs diversity.
Chris Pratt: You know the point of colonization of these planets is to not necessarily to branch out because weβre seeking to survive. The work is still a cradle of civilization. Itβs not a post apocalyptic movie so I donβt think thereβs aΒ scenario where you have a ship full of people where theyβre like completing like send our most viable humans off. It was like can you afford the ticket? Then you can go. I bet you that far into the featureΒ thereβs probably people who are several hundreds years old. They have a bunch of money, thereβs great technology in medicine. They keep replacing charts. Maybe like 300-400 years and they got a ton of money and they’re like so oligarch form Russia or something, theyβre probably on there and theyβre all kinds of people. Now Jim finds himself in whatβs called a desirable trade, so his ticket is purchased by the Homestead company so in that regard I think anyone who is valuable to the homestead company, and would be worth money to the homestead company would go up. So that would include all people from the whole spectrum, anyone who can eventually provide a service. If youβre a member of the LGBTQ community and youβre really good at plumbing, you can get a plumbing job and give your money back to the homestead.
Q: For Jen and Chris, just a simple question. Why are you the cutest things on the planet and why did it take Hollywood so long to bring you two together?
Chris Pratt: Awww, how long do I have to answer.
Jennifer Lawrence: First of all, youβre adorable. Iβve tried to work with Chris before and it just didnβt work out so β¦
Chris: I was like βNahhhhβ [Laughs]
Jennifer Lawrence: That basically sums it up.
Chris: We were waiting for the perfect project and then we found it.
Q: When you think of working for the perfect project, what exactly in this script made you want to play your parts?
Jennifer Lawrence:Β I was the most originally story I can remember even experience in a very long time, not just reading or filming myself. I was the most fun Iβve ever had reading a script. It was just a total page turner. I loved the story. And you know when youβre reading the script, you donβt have all the special effects. You donβt have this amazing ship, all the other elements that came together to make this movie so impressive. All you had was this very human story between these two people. So I fell in love immediately with it and then Chris was already attached so I couldnβt have said Yes fast enough.
Chris Pratt: For me it was the scripts look. John just painted an amazing picture with this story. Iβve done some press for the last couple movieS I did and I know thatΒ a lot of times when the press probably hear these questions like βwhy donβt we see original movies anymore?β because IΒ would be like promoting a remake or promoting something that fell under the umbrella of a larger franchise or something like that, and I heard that question and I didnβt necessarily have a great answer to why that happened so when I heard or when I read the script and realized that it was just so original, that it is a piece of intellectual property thatβs not based on a previous title … It was like wow thatβs really refreshing. I know that people are really hungry for this kind of thing. They want something original, so the script was just so fabulous and I was told when I read it to imagine Jen Lawrence in the lead role, I was like damn okay. I pictured Jennifer. Then I read the whole thing and then I called my manager and was like this is amazing but how possible is it that it could be Jen? If it wasnβt Jen, who could it possibly be. And there was no else that was exciting and so when she agreed agreed to do I was like βoh my god I canβt believe it.β Itβs goingΒ to happen. And then Morten, being the director he is and I was huge fan of his, withΒ Michael jumping on board we just kept getting dealt these amazing cards and I think itβs rare, just really rare to have projects like this, that just come together and are apart of the project.
Q: I was considering an extra cast member to the Avalon itself. Itβs so vivid and so stunning and you said how many LED lights were used on set, how many miles?
Jennifer Lawrence: 8 miles.
Interviewer: Thatβs amazing.
Jon Spaihts: I wanted them to feel, I wanted to be able to act and itβs hard when you cut into a green screenβ¦.so we wanted to build as much as possible so we had this huge, huge set, you know it scared the studio. I have to give a shout out to our production designer who came up with the ideas, who is absolutely brilliant and we also wanted to make a space ship that is highly difficult. It has all these roading parts hat move to create gravity. But at the same time itβs also inspired by art-deco or or old artistry. You want to create something that will exist throughout time, thatβs futuristic but also based on art history. Itβs nothing that alienates you and that why I think itβs kind of unique. That is whole idea.
Q: Would you go [On the ship] and what would be the easiest part of the journey and whatΒ would be the hardest part of the journey?
Michael Sheen: When I was kid in school in the summer holidays my mom and dad used to go to work. I would sleep later every day until I would hear the car door slamming outside withΒ them coming back from work, and I would get out of bed and go βIβve been doing stuff all day.β And one time they went away for the weekend, I missed an entire day. I slept through an entire day. I was so shocked by it that I think if it was like 90 years of sleeping, I would freaked out. So just by missing one day it scared me, so I donβt think I would want to do that.
Passengers hits theaters December 21.
