Based on Richard Matheson’s 1954 horror novel, I Am Legend follows scientist Robert Neville (Will Smith) as he hunts for other survivors of a manmade virus. Neville, the last human survivor in New York City, is somehow immune to the killer plague. However Neville isn’t actually all alone in the Big Apple. He’s surrounded by victims of the virus – referred to as ‘the infected’ – who’ve transformed into carnivorous creatures.
I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence, writer/producer Akiva Goldsman and actress Alice Braga took part in a press conference in Los Angeles in support of the dramatic thriller.
I Am Legend Press Conference
Akiva, we understand that you were a big fan of the original story. At what point did you start writing the screenplay for this?
Akiva Goldsman: “I came onto this screenplay - wow, I'm totally ambivalent about talking as a writer. I think I might have to mostly talk as a producer. So I hired the writer, me, about two years ago? Two and a half years ago? Warner Brothers had yet again decided that the movie was in the broken toy pile, which Warners has a tendency to do with this screenplay. It had had about a zillion incarnations. So, as is their wont, they sort of said, ‘Anybody want it?’ And I raised my hand. And that was probably mark 719th draft or some such number.”
Can you talk about the changes you made to the book? This movie is being billed as one of the more accurate adaptations of Richard Matheson’s book, but clearly you made some changes.
Akiva Goldsman: “Well, if you look at the source credit, you'll see that it really is adapted both from Matheson’s novel and from Omega Man, which is really an intact work of its own. It's a little bit of a hybrid. I don't want to sort of say specifically what we did and didn't change. We tried to stay true to the spirit. Obviously, one of the most contentious issues always in the development of this property has been the ending. So I leave it to others to determine to what degree they find it faithful.”
How did Alice Braga get involved and what you can say about this part?
Francis Lawrence: “Alice we cast, she was actually the first and only person we had read with Will [Smith]. The reason we cast her is we found something very warm and authentic about her, and there's something very believable about her. She had really strong qualities of a survivor that I think impressed all of us. The other thing is being from a different country instantly made our story more global as soon as she showed up in New York City. It felt like our issue wasn't just in Manhattan, that, you know, [it was] all across the globe.”
Was it written as a woman from Brazil originally?
Francis Lawrence: “No.”
Alice Braga: “Thank you. That's the first time I heard it. No, I read for the casting director here when I was in L.A., as lots of actresses get materials. Then I read the sides, because you don't get the script, and I remember the sides, I was really curious about it. I did the reading and I loved the reading. But then I flew back to Brazil and then they called me and said, ‘Well, Francis would like to meet you and would like to put you to read with Will.’
When I came in the room it was really magical because you're like, ‘It's not Will Smith, it's not Will Smith…’ How can you read with that, with passion. So it was pretty interesting because they made me so comfortable in the room. They really wanted to pull it out, the most that they could, you know?
I did the reading; I got the part. It was wonderful, the creation of the character and all of those things. Francis was really with me all the time, trying to build that and trying to inspire me to understand that we're all [alike]. I read the book. I didn't want to just take notes with the book, I preferred to be talking with Akiva and Francis all the time. It was a great challenge. I think it's the type of character that when you're trying to portray someone and it's an extreme situation, it gives you a lot of work and a lot of room to play around. And they completely opened the door for us.”
And how would you describe her?
Alice Braga: “She's a really strong character in a way that she… We talked a lot about having hope, and having hope not just in life, but in love and everything else. So I think it's wonderful to be able to portray that, not just stick her with one particular thing, like believing in one thing or the other. But just believe in yourself and life and in love.”
For Francis and Akiva, there are a few hints that this is a New York of the future, like the Superman/Batman poster and the gas prices, but otherwise it is the New York of the present that we're all familiar with. Can you talk about the decision to keep it in that setting instead of a really post-apocalyptic distant future?
Francis Lawrence: “Sure. You know, we did a lot of conceptual work on this world before we got started, while Akiva was working on the script. What we didn't want to do is exactly what you're talking about. We didn't want to do the same grim world we see in movie after movie after a situation like this. And so we started to do research and we talked to scientists and ecologists and people, and really started looking into what would happen to a city once the population disappeared. The truth was nature would start to reclaim the city. And there have been since our film, not because of our film but since our film, there have been scientific studies, and we're sort of in line with the types of animals that would start to repopulate, the types of plant life that would start to repopulate. How, you know, the air would start to get cleaner. The water would start to get cleaner. It actually would probably start to become a slightly more beautiful place.”
Page 2: Closing Down New York and Working with the Dog
