The Kingdom addresses a serious subject - terrorism - however director Peter Berg lightened things up a bit by casting Jason Bateman as one of the film's main characters. Bateman's used to throwing in his own lines, and Berg called upon the actor to do just that in order to add a little humor to the action-packed drama.
Jason Bateman Press Conference
What is Peter Berg like as a director?
“He is a director that is so comfortable on the set and has got such a specific technique with his cameras, with the way he deals with actors, that I'm – I like it a lot. Everyone's very much on their toes all the time. He's got three cameras going at all times, so you never really know when you're on camera. There's no marks on the floor. Lighting is sort of sparse. It's not dissimilar to Arrested Development, in that sense. He's sort of news-gathering, you know? As opposed to, ‘Okay, let's just shoot out this direction, and just light it perfectly, and then we'll turn around and get this direction.’
He's got two cameras going. And these guys are – they're handheld and they've got these big thousand-foot magazines of film on there and these big heavy things, that if one camera rolls out, the other two are still going. So he's reloading while we're still acting and you hear this reloading. You think, ‘Well, sound's got to be annoyed with this.’ But the sound department knows the way Pete's working so they've got you all on wireless mics so they can pop that stuff down. It's very, very active and a lot of fun to work.
I don't know if an acting purist would yell at him at one point for not letting them get to the end of the scene, before he starts saying, ‘No, no, wait, back up, say that line one more time.’ It's very much on your toes sort of acting, which is very exciting for me, and efficient. We had very short days, and he gets everything that he needs. I'm a big fan of it. And him, obviously, being an actor, is beneficial for us because he speaks our language.”
How much improv did you end up getting to do?
“Well, Peter Berg and I did a scene in – I did one scene, he did a few scenes, in Smokin’ Aces, a Joe Carnahan movie. And Joe wrote this great monologue. After doing it for a few hours, he basically said, ‘You know, I want you to start to get a little looser with the lines, and make up some stuff.’ I started to make Peter Berg laugh a lot that day and so I guess he saw that I could sort of talk on my feet, or improvise, or whatever. I guess he figured that that would be perfect for this part, and so he said to make up a lot of stuff.
There were a handful of lines written for the character in the movie, but none of them were particularly funny. I didn't think the character was supposed to be funny. But he figured that some – you know, a character that could bring some levity would be helpful in this. And so I did have to sort of, every day, kind of be on my toes and find moments to crack wise. But I had to be mindful of the fact that this is a drama.
You know, I've got Jamie [Foxx] on one side and Chris [Cooper] on the other side. You know, with a couple of Oscars. And Jennifer [Garner's] got her Golden Globe. There's this jeopardy that they're trying to maintain in the movie, this tone. And so, let's not be an idiot so I tried to pick and chose. But I couldn't phone in any days, you know? I couldn't come to the set and just say, ‘Oh, well, I've got this dialogue to memorize and I'll just say that dialogue when we get to my scene.’ It's like every scene I had to be ready to perhaps put something in. It was a little bit more work than one would think, with the limited amount of dialogue that was scripted for me.”
How did you prepare for the torture/kidnap scene?
“Well, obviously there wasn't a whole lot of prep. I kept asking my wife to tie me up and, ‘I just want to know how it feels.’ She wasn't game for that. But the fact that my character gets kidnapped just sort of dictated the way I played the character up until that point. You know, one wants the audience to really have a lot of empathy for this character once he gets kidnapped, because it's this final act of drama and jeopardy in the film. And so as much as I was being a smartass in the movie, I still tried to make him as likable as possible so people would care that he's bound and gagged.
That was fun. It was fun because, originally, my character didn't get kidnapped and so there was a little less of a purpose for him to be in the movie. And just the way that I work, I kind of work backwards from the ending. I look at whatever the finish line is for the character, and then kind of act backwards from that and play him in such a way so that that finish line is more rewarding. So if the guy almost gets killed, well then let's play him in such a way that people are going to like him, as opposed to the opposite. So it was fun.
It was easy. I mean, my mouth was taped for 30 pages of the script and that originally wasn't the plan. I mean, that was sort of a last-minute thing that I said to the director, and to, I think, a prop guy. I said, ‘You know, if I'm going to be tied up for 30 pages, every time you see my character, realistically I'd be screaming and yelling for somebody who could hear me in another room to let me out. And I don't want to do that.’ I mean, you know, that's just… How many times can you say, ‘Get me out of here?’ So I said, ‘Why don't we just tape my mouth?’ And then I kind of powered down for the movie. The other days, I was sort of having to be on my feet, to improvise. But then I was like, ‘Screw it. Could you just tape my mouth so I can just show up on the set every day?’"
Page 2: Mixing Politics and Entertainment, Staying Accident-Free, and Hancock
