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The Particulars of the Childbirth Scene: “There were a number of sequences in this where Alfonso was hugely ambitious," explained Clive Owen. "You know, we’ve talked about the long one-shot deals. Now when you’re rehearsing and setting one of those up all day long, and the light goes and you haven’t turned the camera over and you’ve got to come back and carry on tomorrow, you can imagine the phone calls that fly around that evening with the studio going, ‘What is he doing? We haven’t turned over?’ And he had that sort of a tack on certain sequences and the child birth was one of those. We get there and he says, ‘I want to do it in one [take] - the whole sequence, from the minute we come into that room to the baby being born.’
His objective about this movie is to keep trying to viscerally put you in the action. The best way of doing that is to keep it as much real time as possible, and to not cut away and not do this sort of manipulative, single, single, where you feel you know the sort of territory you’re in – the movie territory. He wanted to put you into the thick of it so that scene was about just trying to viscerally connect with the audience. That was the thing. Now I was present at the birth of both of my two children so I had those things to draw on. I was in the thick of it both times, and I remember feeling a bit like Theo does in the movie.
The strongest thing that I remember from that day was towards the end of the shoot, it was a very, very long day and we went well into the evening because it was only one take and we had to make sure we had it. And Alfonso goes, ‘We’ve got to just try one more.’ We would just keep going and keep going and we went, you know, the day turned into a night shoot as well.”
The actual baby in the scene was an animatronic stand-in. “Some CGI stuff was done afterwards,” explained Owen. “But, again, it was… You’ve got all the camera work to consider; you’ve got the pacing of the scene. It’s very special when a director gives actors the responsibility of a scene of that length, because we have to pace it in some way. We are dictating the pace. We have to keep the scene alive, and it puts a lot of responsibility on the actors. But also, technically, it was very demanding for the operator. The whole movement of the camera at the very end when the baby arrives, it’s incredibly specific where that camera has to settle and sit. So, again, it was one of those genuine collaborations where everybody was coming together and trying to achieve something pretty extraordinary.”
Working with Michael Caine: “You know, he’s just a legend. He’s been at the top as long as I’ve been around and there’s a reason. He’s just a fantastic and very special talent. We had a very strong connection because we’ve both done a couple films with Mike Hodges. He did the original Get Carter, which was an important film in Michael’s career, and Croupier was a very important film in my career, so we had that strong connection."
The tone of the film changes whenever Owen and Caine share the screen. “The most important thing in those scenes was that that’s the one place where Theo relaxes," said Owen. "The rest of the time he’s a defeated, very sad person. But then there’s a light, there’s a warmth, there’s a humanity about their relationship, so we just had to look like we were really comfortable and he’s my best friend. That’s what we had to nail in just those few scenes we had. He was a delight to work with.”
Shooting the Opening Bombing Scene: That scene was filmed shortly after the bombings in London. “The bombing scene, the scene at the beginning of the movie where the bomb goes off, was the worst day’s filming,” acknowledged Owen. “It was really upsetting for everybody because it was close after the bombings. I was amazed we actually got permission because it was a big explosion, and we were right in the center of London. It was just incredibly eerie and awful.
It’s very poignant. I think it’s a very incredibly poignant and profound opening to the movie, to have that happen and set the tone and say, ‘This is the world we live in. This is 30 years’ time and this is the world we live in.’ Because, you know, I’ve got two young girls and the fear and the trepidation about the future is that this feeling of fragility and fear of these things happening. You’re bringing kids into the world and this might just become part of their lives. That’s just what they deal with and that’s an awful and worrying idea, really.”
Possibly in the Future – Sin City 2: Asked if he’s looking forward to playing Dwight again, Owen answered, “I honestly don’t know what’s happening there because everybody’s talked about it. It’s been announced a few times that it’s happening, but I have no idea what’s happening there. I mean, I don’t know when they’re going to do it, who’s doing it. I have no idea.”
