We Got This Covered: Is it harder or easier to direct your wife?
Len Wiseman: Both. (laughs) The easy part is the shorthand that when you know someone that intimately, you can get right to a conversation and the details very easily. On the other hand, I always find it harder for me to push further if I know that she has done a stunt and banged her elbow or something and she’s saying “Oh, it’s fine.” She’s always like “I’ll be alright.” You can’t help it. You’re like “Are you sure? Are you ok?” If it’s Colin, Jessica or Bryan, you’re like “Oh, you’ll be alright.” (laughs)
We Got This Covered: Taking it a step further, how weird is it to direct her in a kissing scene in her underwear?
Len Wiseman: It’s weird and it helps, thank god, that I’ve gone through that experience twice and both Scott Speedman in the Underworld series and Colin are so fun. If you could make it more of a joke then those scenes, in between the cuts, are really more about trying to get them to stop laughing. That helps, but it’s amazing how much your blood boils immediately if you call “Cut” and it doesn’t stop right away. (laughs) That’s something that nobody can explain to you though.
I made that mistake on Underworld where I was very quiet. Whenever you have a love scene or someone’s taking their clothes off in any fashion, it’s a very quiet set. On “Underworld”, I was being very polite and saying “Cut” and they didn’t hear me. Now, I make a point of having a megaphone during a love scene (laughs).
We Got This Covered: Part of the fun of Total Recall is where you guess at what’s real and what may not be. Did you need a chart to stay on track?
Len Wiseman: It’s funny you say chart, because I literally had a white board in my office. I wanted every single scene to be able to be analyzed and add up on both sides of the argument. That’s what fascinates me about the concept. People talk about how different it is and how we don’t go to mars, but the core thing is, the most important part of the movie is “Is it fantasy or is it reality?” I wanted to make sure that the movie, in every scene, that you can watch it from both perspectives and ask “Does it really add up if this is all real?”
We Got This Covered: Was there any thought of making this in 3D?
Len Wiseman: Oh yes, but not on my part. Just everybody else’s. (laughs) At one point, I was the only one who was against going 3D with it. I’m not crazy against 3D as a general blanket rule, but I’m also not a huge fan of it, but I thought for this, I wanted it to be a grounded future. I thought that it’s such a futuristic world that if you put 3D on top of that, it almost becomes overtly futuristic and just starts to feel like a video game.
I wanted it to be grittier than that. For the longest time, there was a lot of conversation about it. I let the studio know up front that I had no intention and no interest whatsoever to do 3D. I think you throw your hands up and go “I have no idea on how to shoot 3D. I’m going to go way over schedule. I can try it, but I can’t promise that I’ll stay on schedule.” Here’s the thing: I haven’t met that many people that love 3D. I’ve never come across a situation where I’ve announced we’re not doing 3D and people go “Oh s-it!”
We Got This Covered: Did you get a break from Underworld to do Total Recall?
Len Wiseman: I had to produce Underworld while I was prepping Total Recall which I will never, ever do again. It was so exhausting. I would literally go from a production meeting and then we’d do a lunch break. I’d run in my office, close the door, lock it, get on my laptop and do Skype sessions with Vancouver with the director and producers there. I’d be watching the dailies. Plenty of times where I would sneak away and be on my laptop in a meeting and go as if I’m doing something with Recall and I’m having to watch wardrobe selects to do something. It was a lot of overlapping.
That concludes our interview but we’d like to thank Len very much for talking with us. Be sure to check out Total Recall, now in theatres.