STACK #126 Apr 2016

DVD & BD

Q&A

visit www.stack.net.au

MAPS TO THE STARS

Matthew McConaughey's career renaissance blasts off beyond the stratosphere in Christopher Nolan's science fiction epic INTERSTELLAR .

wind was blowing that hard. The masks were fogging up. It was wet. It was cold. It was unknown. We felt like we were definitely walking on pieces of the Earth that I'm pretty sure nobody else has ever walked on. So you can behave and react to the elements naturally. Less acting. The other actors in this film are stellar. Can you talk about working with Michael Caine and Anne Hathaway? Well, what I've learned is that the people that are the best at what

What was your reaction when you first read the script? MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: “Wow. This is enormous – wait, how did that work again?” I really like this guy Cooper, a pilot, a father. I like how intimate this story is in the midst of this massive, epic scope and scale. When you met with Christopher Nolan, did he present anything to you, in terms of the movie?

Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and David Oyelowo

Well, I knew his previous work. I could tell this was a very personal story he was going to tell. In our first meeting, we didn't talk about the film at all. We just talked to each other. Talked about being fathers. Talked about being the same age. Talked about where we were from, how we grew up, who we were as men. That's really all our first meeting was about. And then I read the script. And then the combination and it was enough for

they do in our business, they don't really have a magic trick. They just do the simple things really, really well. Michael would just hit it. And he had a great sense of humor. And he would just hit the scene. Just do it, first take. It's fine with you. He got it. Anne could recalibrate. I was most impressed with her sensing courage to give variations because she could do the scene wonderfully, but never go back and repeat that. And not everyone does that, who will give you a variation. Sometimes we go, "Oh, I got that right. I'm going to try and do this one even more true, or I'm going to try and do that again." She never went back and tried to repeat anything. The film involves some serious subject matter; is the mood on set equally serious, or is it more fun to liven up the downtime? Nah. It matters what the scene is. And most of the time it was serious. And that's the fun of it. I don't really enjoy popping out and trying to make it all light. If there's a lighter scene, I'll be a lot more talkative off the set. But I usually somewhat act like the tone of where my character is on that day. I'm not acting exactly like Cooper while I'm having lunch, but tonally I'm near where I need to be that day.

me and it was enough for him obviously. Yeah. The story at the core is about family.What is it about that that speaks to you? I mean, you are a father, a husband. It's universal. Yeah. This is a father/daughter relationship that it's based on. And then that relationship is the emotional hook of the film that makes you care about the journey. Makes you care about this expansive place that we're going out and journeying into. This unknown. That journey, that adventure doesn’t mean there's much unless you're emotionally invested in it on an intimate level. And I think [Nolan] very successfully pulled that off. And he was inherent to it. It was the most important thing to him. And in the movie the stakes are really high for the journey. As high as they can get. Yes. In your travels through “space” you traveled to Iceland to film some of those scenes. What was it like to film on location like that? Yeah. Well as an actor you get to just behave. You don't have to use your imagination to conjure up, "Well, this is what I would be feeling." I just sit there, be present, look around, and it is as dangerous as it felt. The

• Interstellar is out on April 8

APRIL 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

034