Gaynor Flynn
He’s made some of the highest grossing action films of all time; ”Die Hard 2”, ”Cliffhanger”, ”Deep Blue Sea” to name a few. But Finnish director Renny Harlin has also experienced the other side of the fickle Hollywood coin with box-office failures like ”The Adventures of Ford Fairlane” and ”Cutthroat Island”. Despite the odd misadventure in the screen trade, Harlin is still ranked one of the top grossing directors of all time. His latest film, ”12 Rounds”, might be another action film, but it marks something of a departure for the 50-year-old. He tells Gaynor Flynn why it’s reinvigorated him.
What was it about this story that intrigued you?
Well I thought it was a great return to almost old fashion action movies instead of a typical glossy over the top Hollywood superhero story of today’s world. To me it was kind of closer to the movies I made in the early 90’s which were more traditional action movies and in this one particularly the whole idea of 12 rounds or 12 tests the villain is putting our main character through, offers a great way to do an movie, with 12 action sequences which are all different in nature so its not a car chase movie, its not a shoot em up, it has a bit of everything in it.
Why did you cast John Cena? He’s a huge star in the world of wrestling but he only has one film behind him (The Marine).
My philosophy in this film is that we didn’t want to tip our hand and say okay the main villain is so and so and so obviously its going to go this way. Or the hero is this Hollywood star and so obviously he can’t get hurt. I really thought that the story and the characters would speak for themselves and it would be really interesting to just have good actors in these parts who could create memorable characters. I’ve done that before in my career where I’ve cast unknowns or lesser-known actors that some other people might not think of for a movie like this. But I find it really interesting to put together those kinds of actors.
I understand that he did a lot of his own stunts?
It’s a little bit of a cliché with Hollywood leading men that oh yes he did all his own stunts. But trust me you have somebody who’s making $20 million a movie, they’re not doing their own stunts. Because if they break a finger the movie’s in big trouble so it’s a thing you always read about but I guarantee that’s often not the case. But with John the fact is that he comes from the world of wrestling, where they do absolutely crazy stuff every day.
Well he gets beaten up for a living right?
Exactly. It’s horrifying when you look at some of the things they do so it just felt like a natural fit. There is no stunt man who can do those stunts better than him. Of course there were some scenes involving cars and things like that where you’re not absolutely sure your actor is going to be in good health the next day that you have to use stunt men. But as anybody can see in the movie he did most of his driving and he did all of his running and jumping and fighting and falling and things like that. and he was really just great because I think that although the wrestlers are obviously big stars, I think behind the scenes they’re a little more like athletes. If you think about a hockey team or a football team, no one is tying a shoe lace or catering to your whims. So I think for him working on a movie is almost like a holiday because there were nice people trying to take care of you all of the time and not trying to beat your head in with a chair.
Most of this film was shot guerrilla style. Why?
In this movie the story takes place in four to five hours, so its almost like real time. So I really wanted to almost like experiment with something I haven’t done before which was try to give the movie almost a documentary like feel in a sense that I told the crew lets imagine this story is really taking place and we are a documentary crew that happened to come across it and we’re shooting it and we’re trying to capture it on film and its not perfect. It has this kind of raw feelings, almost if you took a TV show like Cops and just gave it bigger movie production values.
Did you rehearse the shots?
I had three camera operators working all the time. And I would basically set up the scene but I wouldn’t even rehearse it with the actors and I felt this would serve John well. Because I do think that he has absolute natural ability but when you don’t have experience as an actor you have to think all the time of hitting your marks and walking perfectly into the place where the light hits you and saying the line and getting the right moment. And then it takes away from your performance. So I said to John and the other actors I said here’s the scene and this is what’s going to happen there and here are our sets and our locations and lets just go for it.
What did you tell your camera operators?
Just imagine this is a documentary event and point the camera where the most interesting stuff is happening and don’t worry about it if you have to zoom in or if your pan to the scene is not perfect. And I really think it served the style of the film and it served the actors and it gave the movie a certain intensity and a sense of reality that it needed because it is a story that is unfolding in a very short amount of time.
It sounds like you wanted to have a real change with this film? Were you tired of how you were making movies?
I definitely was. I was looking for something that would get me excited in a different way and this was just a very happy experience. We shot the movie very quickly. A lot of Hollywood action movies take 90 days to shoot plus a second unit shooting a second 90 days. We shot the whole movie in 51 days. So we moved very quickly and instead of this huge juggernaut of an operation where you have huge 40 foot trucks that lumber somewhere and park themselves and then the whole operation sits there like this huge factory and you’re not able to act on impulses and dance the way you want to dance, we went around New Orleans in these little vans and just go commando style and go to some street corner and shoot.
What about the rumours that you will make a sequel to ”The Long Kiss Goodnight”?
You know I would love to and I’ve talked about it but it’s definitely a rumour. Right now there’s nothing really cooking on it. But I do have a story line for it, that I worked out and I know exactly what would happen and I think it would be fantastic and I can reveal as much as saying it would be Sam Jackson to his misfortunate crossing paths with Gina Davis and his daughter from the first movie who in the first movie was about six years old and who would now be about 19 or 20. And poor Sam Jackson getting involved with something he completely doesn’t want to get involved in.
Out of all the films you’ve made, that one is one of your favourites right?
It is definitely. For me it’s just very simple. It’s a movie that had a really good screenplay which meant that I was able to get really good actors and it’s always challenging to make a movie but it sure makes it easier when you have a good screenplay like in that one. When you have characters that are complex and you have good drama, and have some humour, and some good action, you kind of have all the ingredients. When you have that you don’t even need some crazy special effects you just need to let the characters do their thing. It was a great experience.
12 Rounds opens 19th March.
