Maybe it was living across the street from the 20th Century Fox studio
that made Paula Patton want to be an actress. Perhaps it was her fondness
for playing ‘pretend’ as a child, or her lifelong love of
movies. Or maybe, just maybe, she had the strange feeling she would
one day co-star with one of the world’s biggest stars, Oscar winner
Denzel Washington, in Tony Scott’s Deja Vu, which is that rare
thing: a gripping thriller with action and brains.
Whatever the reason, the petite and pretty twenty-something had only
managed a handful of small roles, in Hitch and Idlewild, when she beat
hundreds of better-known actresses to play Claire Kuchever, an ordinary
girl who gets caught up in extraordinary circumstances when she becomes
the first victim of a terrorist who subsequently blows up a packed passenger
ferry.
Enter homicide detective Denzel Washington, who is introduced to a top
secret government program in which he finds it’s not only possible
to spy on living people from satellites -- as in Scott’s earlier
thriller, Enemy of the State -- but to look back in time to peek into
the lives of people who, like Claire, are dead. What better way to solve
a crime than to witness it?
Q: Just when you think there are no new
ideas under the sun, along comes a film like Deja Vu with a totally
ingenious plot, that feels totally fresh.
Paula Patton: Yeah, the idea was really great, I was somebody who was
already into quantum physics and a person believes that anything is
possible, so to have a film come along that dealt with deja vu and parallel
universes, and put it into an interesting thriller/suspense movie --
I thought it was ingenious. And of course it’s fun, but it also
makes you think -- you leave it thinking ‘What’s possible?’.
It’s scary to think that the government could be watching you
at any time.
Q: Yeah, the technology in the film is
highly advanced...
PP: Exactly. You can’t go back in the past -- not yet. But you
never know…
Q:...but Tony Scott makes the science
fiction aspects of it totally plausible.
PP: Absolutely. That’s what’s great about working with Tony
Scott -- he wants to make science fact, not science fiction. He did
so much research with quantum physicists and technologu. Remember this
is the man who made Enemy of the State, which showed us technology where
you can look down on people from satellites -- and all of a sudden you
could do that. So in Deja Vu, when you do have to take that leap of
faith into believing we could look back in time, he’s already
convinced you that it’s possible.
Q: Maybe it’s not so far fetched
for you -- after all, you did say you dabble in quantum physics!
PP: (Laughs) No, I don’t dabble! I just watched a documentary
about it! I don’t want to seem smarter than I am…
Q: So if you can go back in time for
a second, tell me how you became involved with Deja Vu?
PP: I auditioned for it in the summer of 2005, and obviously I wanted
to be a part of it. I mean, Denzel Washington! Tony Scott! [Producer]
Jerry Bruckheimer! But quite frankly I didn’t know how much of
a shot I had. And then Hurricane Katrina happened and the film got put
on hold because it was going to shoot in New Orleans... and then it
came back again, and I read with Denzel for the role and I got it.
Q: Where were you when you were told
you’d got the part?
PP: Oh, I remember that day so vividly! It was 8 o’clock in the
morning on a Monday, and I woke my husband up screaming! And he knew
immediately what it was. I’ve been pinching myself ever since.
Q: When did you start to freak out?
PP: The moment they told me. I was like ‘Is it true, can they
take it away?’ I really didn’t believe that I had [the part]
until I was on set, and then I was just working not to get fired. And
half way through the movie I finally realised ‘Oh it’s too
expensive for me to get replaced!’ (Laughs)
Q: What was the most surprising thing
about working with Denzel?
PP: I don’t know… To be honest with you, Denzel is a very
mysterious person, so I can’t say that I know who he is outside
of Deja Vu. He’s got a great sense of humor -- he made me laugh
a lot. But what didn’t surprise me is that I learned so much from
him. He blows your mind. I became a better actress because of him. If
you go with him on the ride that he’s on, and you’re not
resistant to his technique, he can make anybody look better than they
are, because he believes it. Maybe that’s why he’s such
a great ‘guide’ in movies, because he believes it so much
while he’s doing it, that’s why we believe him. And that’s
why he can play so many different characters and we never go ‘Oh
that’s Denzel playing this’ -- we really believe that the
character is him, whether it be a bad cop in Training Day, or a good
guy, or anything.
Q: You’re right: he’s got
a very natural acting style, so you don’t see him acting the character
so much as being the character.
PP: He doesn’t have a plan for how he’s going to do something,
and that’s what I learned from him: as an actor you prepare, but
how you accomplish what you need to do in a scene shouldn’t be
something you planned out -- it should be organic. Denzel just free-falls,
so if you fall with him into whatever’s going to happen at that
moment, your acting seems so pure and real. Even the director doesn’t
know what he’s going to do, because he surprises you on every
take -- he does something different and unique and totally honest and
real to that character. That’s what’s so remarkable about
him.
Q: How did you find Tony Scott as a director?
PP: He’s like Denzel -- he doesn’t always know how he’s
going to shoot a scene, but he gets up at like 3 in the morning to make
his storyboards, has the cameras -- at least five -- set up for every
shot, but then he sort of acts like a conductor behind the monitors,
having the cameras move in a particular way, to go hunting for a particular
shot. I think that’s why his films feel so alive. He likes things
to be as real and honest as possible whether it be the performances
or wardrobe or location. He liked me to wear my own clothes to be as
real as possible, and do as much work on location as possible, rather
than on a sound stage.
Q: The film was shot in New Orleans,
a few months after Hurricane Katrina. What was that like?
PP: It was intense, that’s all I can tell you. You go to the ninth
ward and then you realize you’re out of it, and the destruction
goes on for miles. Nothing prepares you for it. It’s such a ghost
town -- there’s so much destruction everywhere… so much
pain in the people. But it shows how human beings are survivors. When
you’re working on a movie you tend to take things so seriously,
but then you realise there are worse things than a ‘take’
not going right!
Q: It’s a testament to Tony Scott
that he decided to shoot there anyway, to bring the economic boost of
a big movie to such a damaged place.
PP: It was, and both Tony and Jerry Bruckheimer are not the kind of
people who could go into a city like New Orleans and not hire local
crew. There was a real sense of wanting to give back to the community
and that was part of the responsibility of going there to shoot as well.
Q: Watching the film, I thought it must
be particularly difficult to play the scenes where Denzel’s character
is watching you, because you don’t know you’re being watched
-- you can’t be self-conscious.
PP: Yeah, they’re challenging scenes because you have to remember
how you behave when you really are alone and no one’s watching
you. And there’s a natural tendency for an actor to act for the
camera a bit -- not that you should, but... you have to be careful.
I was trying to be as honest to how I’d be if I was alone in the
house as possible, short of picking my nose!
Q: You’re dead when Denzel meets
you, but then he gets to see you alive again, and kind of falls in love
with you. It’s vaguely necrophiliac when you think about it...
PP: (Laughs) I think that’s part of the deja vu of it, that when
he sees her [corpse] he has a strange feeling that he’s met her
already. He’s someone who’s character investigates crimes
after they happen, and is constantly dealing with death, and when he
sees this young innocent victim, and gets involved with this government
program, he actually sees this person alive. It’s the unique aspect
of the movie, and it makes sense for his character, because he’s
a bit of a loner, and he’s always dealing with death, and now
he has a chance to stop something before it happens.
Q: It’s such an ingenious story
that when I watched it in the theater I wished I had the DVD so I could
listen to the commentary and watch all the behind-the-scenes stuff.
Are you a DVD geek at all?
PP: I am a DVD geek. I was so late on my Blockbuster fees I only ever
buy DVDs now, so now everybody comes to my house to rent. I like to
watch deleted scenes, and go behind the scenes and learn all about the
making of the movie. Making a film is a long, collaborative process
and sometimes the things you think ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe
this is happening’ turns out to be where the magic happens.
Q: Has being in such a great movie helped
your career?
PP: Obviously a film like Deja Vu helps you get other work, and as an
actor you’re always wondering when your next job is going to be!
(Laughs) I’m going to start a movie with Kiefer Sutherland called
Call Me Yours. And at the beginning of next year I’m going to
be in a movie called This Wednesday which is partially based on a true
story of a female pimp in Atlanta, and I play that role. That’s
going to be challenging because it’s outside any reality that
I’ve known. It’s nothing glamorous, but I’m really
excited to get deep into that role. But I got to do so many fun things
with Deja Vu, like the international press tour, with Denzel and Tony
and Jerry Bruckheimer, I had the time of my life. Everybody treated
me like a princess -- and then I had to go home and take out my trash!
Q: And I’m sure you must have got
deja vu every time you were asked the same questions over and over again,
but in a different country!
PP: Yeah, but I don’t mind talking about myself! ‘You wanna
talk about me? I can do that a little longer!’
Q: What did your loved ones think of
the movie?
PP: They were so happy for me: my mom, my dad, my husband [singer Robin
Thicke], my friends… My mom was like ‘I can’t believe
you’re in a movie with Denzel Washington!’ It’s beyond
your wildest dreams because when you start, you just want to act --
in anything. I didn’t even dare dream I’d be working with
Denzel and Tony and Jerry Bruckheimer -- that triumverate. And to get
to work with them so early on in my career is such a blessing.
- Gone with the Twins
Read the Deja Vu Interview #2: Brian Greene
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