Gary, can you talk about the contributions of your creative team and what it was like working with composer Mark Isham?
Gary Fleder: I got to give huge credit to Greg Berry, our designer who’s not here, he’s in Vancouver, and Theo van de Sande who is so eclectic as a director of photography. Theo shot Wayne’s World, he shot Adam Sandler movies and I think people don’t realize that he can shoot pretty much anything. I had worked with Theo a few times doing TV pilots and he’s amazing, and he’s also very fast which is very important on any movie these days because you’ve got to shoot fast. So I think that the combination of Greg Berry’s design, Theo’s work and frankly even the costumers, everybody worked together to give it a level of authenticity.
By the way, Gator’s Barn, which is an amazing set, that was built from nothing. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t some location. In fact, when Jason walked in on the first day of shooting he said, “How long has this been here?” I said, “A week.” It’s an astonishing collaboration between a designer and the DP, and the film is beautiful.
As for Mark, I’ve worked with him since Kiss The Girls in 1997. The great thing about Mark, like most of my crew, is that we don’t talk that much. It’s a lot of trusting their taste and their point of view. With Mark, my thing was to bring some kind of indigenous sounds to the tale, like a sultry fiddle. Those ideas are part of the music landscape, so it’s kind of acknowledging the region without sounding like it’s a cartoon. Mark has done a lot of scores and he has an amazing range. He did my last movie, The Express, which is a very dynamic, bombastic sort of period film, and this is much more of an intimate thriller.
James, as well as being an actor you are also known as a great teacher. Do you carry that over onto the set and have your co-stars learned anything from you?
James Franco: Yeah, I taught Izabela a lot (laughs).
Izabela Vidovic: Yes he did.
James Franco: Thank you. Nah, these are all professionals. I’m not here to teach anybody. But I think what I have learned from teaching is how to communicate better. I was just with them this morning, my graduate students, and they’re trying to make movies. They have ideas, and I’m basically just helping them capture those ideas and articulate them, so I’m currently asking them, “What are you going for? What you trying to achieve here?” It helps my communication skills because then I can just go to Gary and say, “This is how I think it should be. How do you agree? If so, then how do we capture that? How do we achieve that?” I guess that’s the connection between teaching and acting.
Jason, you said that Sylvester Stallone put the fear of God into you. Is there anything else that puts the fear of God into you?
Jason Statham: No, it was only because I wanted to wear a brown wig and Sly wanted me in a blonde wig. We just had a bit of a disagreement there (laughs). A lot of things put the frighteners up me, but I won’t discuss what they are because you might be putting them through my letterbox later this evening.
James, what was going through your mind as you were preparing to do the scenes where you have to go toe to toe with Jason Statham? When you were done and had actually survived it, did you feel a little tougher?
James Franco: I think Jason does all of his own stunts. I’m pretty sure, at least most of them. I, on the other hand, don’t (laughs). My guy gets really beaten up.
I’ve done a lot of movies with fight scenes though and you know when you’re working with somebody that’s good. Fight scenes are really more like dances than they are fights, because you’re depending on your partner to do the right move at the right time. Yes, a tough person or somebody who knows what they’re doing will look better in a fight scene, but it also has a lot to do with the other person. We had one fight scene in the movie and I was like “Yeah. Okay. This is great. Actually ,I’m not scared here. I feel great here because Jason knows what he’s doing. I’m not going to get hurt.” Whereas, somebody that hasn’t done a lot of fight scenes will probably hit my hand with the sword or punch me in the face by accident.
James, you are always busy writing, acting, and teaching, how do you maintain a balance between your personal life and your professional life?
James Franco: I was acting for over a decade and then I went back to school. Nobody in my world thought that was a great idea. They would say, “But that means you can’t work as much and you’re going to get an English degree? What is that going to do? You already have a career. Why are you doing that?” Nobody was that excited about it, but it was very important to me. I had to fight for that. I had to fight to carve that out and make that part of my life. And now, it’s part of my life. I teach here in L.A. one day a week, and I’m doing a movie in Vancouver, and it’s just part of my life now.
I’m very fortunate that I can arrange things that way and that I get to do everything now. Sometimes things conflict, and I can’t do some projects at a certain time, but more or less I get to do both and it’s very satisfying. I don’t need tons of time to goof around, because when I make movies and when I do my own projects, it’s like all the people I love, all my friends, the closest people in my life are working on those projects. There’s no relationship that I find that’s closer than a creative relationship. I get to have the most intense kind of relationships with all my friends while we’re working because we get to do the best jobs in the world.
That concludes the press conference but we’d like to thank everyone very much for their time. Be sure to check out Homefront when it hits theaters tomorrow and for more coverage of the film, check out our video interview with James Franco below.