December 2008 | blackfilm.com | VALKYRIE | An Interview with Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer

December 2008

VALKYRIE | An Interview with Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer

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VALKYRIE
An Interview with Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer
By Wilson Morales

December 22, 2008

which could then end up reversing what part of the room we're shooting in. So then in the morning you'd have to work these things out in relationship to one another. Or it was something as simple as like, 'Yeah, you put your hands on his shoulder.' 'What hand?' 'Okay, you put three fingers from the other hand –' and so it was quite a [challenge]. Even though all of that is removed and done digitally Tom's performance had to inform all of that long before we got into the visual FX and be cognizant of that.

Cruise: There are moments when you're making a film like this where you have to take the audience along and build that tension and build that tension. In every scene you have to move that story long, but in every scene you're also revealing more about the character and the characters. So there are certain things very early on that Bryan wanted to do. That scene with Tom Wilkinson where he says, 'I'll hear you say it, Colonel.' There are certain things that Bryan knew from a story sense how you want to build to those moments. I love movies like this where there are little pieces that build to a moment. There are rhythms and structure to a movie that I love as an audience. When I read a script and I'm seeing a movie I see it like an audience and not necessarily as a filmmaker, particularly when I get caught up in the picture. So that moment was something from director that he knew what he wanted in that moment. Even subtle things too, physically you don't necessarily see the hand or you see that it's missing, but the reveal of that is what it is, it's built towards. So you see it in the bed. There are certain moments and how he shot it where he was very specific with it. That stuff is a lot of fun, working towards building that moment.

What were the rewards and challenges of playing this character for you?

Cruise: Well, the rewards were that I thought it was a very exciting film to be a part of and I wanted to work with Bryan Singer. I loved Chris's script. Reading a script like this, rarely do you sit down and read something where you're just turning the pages like this and it was also a story that I'd never heard before and to be able to work with these actors. That's the reward, everyday going in and having that challenge. For me I want to entertain an audience, as I've said, and I thought that this was a very compelling story and would be a fascinating film. That's what I like. That's what I'm looking for in film. When I'm making movies it's about us. It's not about me. It's about the journey that we all take together, getting to have those kinds of conversations. To be there, we got to shoot in Berlin at locations where these people were.

And where they died.

Cruise: Yes, and where they died which was very powerful, being there and to see that and to see the world. I grew up wanting to travel the world. I wanted an adventurous life and sometimes I've gotten a little more adventure than I bargained for, but this was something that I didn't want to pass on. I grew up playing with the neighborhood kids in the yard wanting to kill Nazi's.

Singer: Chris and I used to make war films in my backyard.

Cruise: I saw the world at war. Also, the way that this film was told and directed, as I said, it's not like anything that I've seen. These films that I greatly admire like 'Schindler's List' and 'Paths of Glory', this is very different from those.
From the formations to the assassinations the choreography was really amazing and quite ominous. What was the physicality and movement in acting this and shooting like to do?

Singer: Well, it was just studying a lot of war photography. There was a huge amount of that. One thing that Hitler did was to film everything. So we have the benefit of a lot of motion picture film, both color and black and white of that era. So it was important in creating both dimensions of that which is why I shot a 185 aspect ratio. Also, we were in Germany and so we shot with Aeroflux Cameras and the Zeiss lenses. Also, with color – I know it's not part of the question – but I want to mention getting a sense of vibrancy in the color so that it would look like it did back then to people who lived back then as opposed to trying to approximate black and white or muddy the film or de-saturate it. But in terms of the pageantry and the military aspects of it we have those references thanks to all that recorded film material. So that's primarily the stuff that I looked at and then we worked with military advisors who knew the history and could help us with the movements and salutes and we could have an authenticity regarding the difference in the way a Colonel would salute to a Major or to a Field Marshal or to the Fuhrer.

Cruise: And specifically at that time period.

Singer: Yeah, which changed after the assassination attempt. Certain things were more mandatory, the Fascist salute and things like that. That's what made the scene where he throws up his hands so much fun. If you're missing a limb you wouldn't put it up and give the Hale Hitler salute which is why it's interesting when he shows the stump.

Cruise: You're right, his choreography, with this kind of movie…I just want to add a couple of things from a production standpoint about the choreography of this. Doing a lot of these films, the bomb sequence and such, this is a film that right from the beginning Bryan was saying since this is a suspense thriller that it needed that kind of dynamic choreography. You had to go in and be very specific because then going in and editing these pieces together they weren't just thrown together. That was all very well thought out. From top to bottom on the production we really had a lot of help and support from the Germans, the production stuff that they gave us. Even the wardrobe itself, the look of the film, a lot of attention and a lot of time went into thinking about how to do this. You talk about colors and the reds to make it what a Bryan Singer film is and make it feel authentic. The whole point is trying to give the audience that visceral feeling of being on the edge of their seat even down to the wardrobe. We went through and studied a lot of films and wondered why does it look sometimes like people are wearing wardrobe with these films. It looks like wardrobe. So in sitting down with Tom Sigel and talking about the kind of film that he used and the lighting that he used and also wardrobe with Joanna Johnson and the kinds of fabrics and studying the fact also how each guy would make their own uniform. The level of the detail in the film from top to bottom even down to Hitler's signature when he signed it was to the best of our knowledge exactly the signature that he timed at that time period and the same with Stauffenberg. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that we filmed geeked and history geeked out on.

Singer: People were taken blindfolded to people's homes who collected Hitler's furniture so that we could see it and know the furniture at the Berghof, his summer house. There's these strange people who collect this stuff secretly in Germany.

Are they neo-Nazi's?

Singer: I don't know. They just like furniture.

Cruise: I don't know. Look, there are certain things that you go, 'I don't know want to know.' [Laughs] But we're very happy to have the desk, his office. I wouldn't do that. For the director, it was good for him to have it. I didn't need that. I'll read about it. He can tell me.
Can you talk about the creative decision from an actor's standpoint and a director's standpoint of not going with accents?

Singer: We didn't want that to be what the movie was about. It's a thriller, an assassination thriller. It should be exciting. The audience should be taken on a ride through the film and the actor's speak wonderfully the way that they do with their current dialects and the characters are all supposed to be German anyway. So to have everyone putting on an affected German accent measuring that up, and we have an international cast as well, American actors, Dutch, German, British – to have everyone trying to approximate German accents when in reality they're supposed to be speaking German, I promise you after the first twenty minutes you'd be sick of it. Ultimately it would sound silly, like we were trying and it would distract from the drive of the plot. So the decision was made pretty quickly though they can do it. He's speaking German at the beginning of the movie, that's Tom, but it would ultimately not be as fun for the audience and that ride with the actors once it is established that they are Germans.

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