Whiteout was directed by Dominic Sena, no stranger to the action genre having directed Swordfish and Gone in Sixty Seconds, and is based on a graphic novel written by Greg Rucka and illustrated by Steve Lieber. Rucka joined Beckinsale, actor Gabriel Macht (a UN operative also investigating the homicide), and producer Joel Silver in LA for a press conference to promote the September 11, 2009 release of the Warner Bros Pictures film.
Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, Producer Joel Silver, and Greg Rucka Press Conference
This is a woman-in-distress thriller, but you’re in Antarctica. How does that change things for you? How is it different from fighting supernatural creatures, like in Underworld?Kate Beckinsale: "It was a lot colder and a lot more intense, actually. We were all worried we were going to die of hypothermia, every other second. It’s a woman in an extreme situation with extreme weather, being the only girl. I’ve done that a couple times now. But, it was much more intense, just because of the weather."
What was it like to work in the cold climate of Manitoba, Canada, while you were shooting?
Joel Silver: "It was harsh conditions. We were fortunate that we really only had to be in Manitoba for a few weeks, and then we went into the not quite so cold environs of a Montreal soundstage. But we did augment a lot of the climate and weather with visual effects, which makes it harsher than it really was. It was cold and we were shooting on a frozen lake bed. It wasn’t treacherous. The ice was many, many feet deep. But it really felt like where we were, and the stuff we did outside was rough. The movie shows it, and I think that it was important to shoot that up there, to give it the quality. Greg [Rucka] wrote a great graphic novel that really explained and showed what that life was like, and I think we captured it."
Kate Beckinsale: "When we arrived, they put a thick telephone directory under our hotel room doors the night before we started shooting that said, 'These are all the different ways it’s possible to die here, of being too cold or of being too hot, if you keep your clothes on too long, when you go inside, or if you’ve ever had an alcoholic drink, or if you breathe in a westerly direction.' And we all panicked. The most I remember was putting on and taking off 15 layers of clothes, about 70 times a day. When we first went out, all the men had beards full of ice that I thought was make-up department tests, but it wasn’t. It was real. And my hair froze into a point, just from breathing on it. I thought, 'Well, I’m from England, I’ll know how to handle the cold,' and it wasn’t anything like that."
Gabriel Macht: "My experience in Manitoba was that it was definitely freezing, and the environment was as close to the environment as I would think is possible. But we were in extreme weather and I wasn’t that cold. They stuff they got us to wear was very warm. I was fine, and I expected it to be a lot worse. The challenges that we came up against were when we shot in the studio. We were in 80 degree weather, in late spring/early summer, and we were having to wear extreme weather gear. It was probably the hottest set I’ve ever been on. I was sweating bullets and probably lost 35 pounds by the end of the movie."
Kate, what was the most challenging thing for you about working in the cold?
Kate Beckinsale: "I have to say, I try to make out like we shot in the cold for a lot longer than we did, just ‘cause it makes us sound a bit more tough. We were so lucky to have such a brilliant crew and fantastic cast. I’ve never been around such nice boys, ever. There’s something about the weather being so extreme. You meet up and you’re absolutely freezing, and then you’re having to tear off your snow pants and everybody looks terrible, and then you’re sweating. There’s something very bonding about that. We all had a really good giggle with each other, all the time. And the Canadian crew was excellent. If anything, the cold turned out to be a mutual point of contact that everybody complained about. Actors love complaining, and we didn’t have to complain about hardly anything else because the cold was a big deal. It was great."
"In terms of being challenging, coming out of the trailer, that very first day, I really was worried I wasn’t going to be able to speak at all or say a line ever. My whole throat closed, on that first breath. Luckily, Gabriel told me to keep my passages open. Aside from that, the cold was really great. It was probably worse in the studio with the heat. Trying to stop Columbus [Short] from sweating was the biggest challenge there."
Kate and Gabriel, if you were stationed in Antarctica for months, what are two things you could not go without?
Kate Beckinsale: "Could we share a curling iron? I would take my daughter and I would take a bunch of books. I would also want a sat phone."
Gabriel Macht: "I would take my wife and daughter. My wife is my other half, and my daughter is my other half, so that’s one thing. I would also probably bring my laptop so that I could get online and do some research."
Kate, this seems like it was an incredibly physical movie for you. Was it harder than anything else you’ve done?
Kate Beckinsale: "It’s hard to say. It may have been, in terms of practically. But nothing was harder for me than going from never having done it before to doing it. I’d had a background of ballet before I did Underworld, so the whole training and physical thing was a complete shock to me. It was much less like that. I’d never been dragged around on a homemade surfboard through snow, but once you’ve entered the realm of action movies, [it gets easier each time]. There’s nothing like the first time. It was definitely manageable. We had a great stunt team. Just having such strong winds, and all that, wasn’t something I had particularly encountered before, but it wasn’t too hard."
