Yes, I was lucky enough to score myself a great interview with someone whose career I've followed. Let's get right to it! 

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

John Moore

Q: Hi John, thanks so much for speaking with me today. I just wanted to start by saying I'm a big fan of yours, I saw Behind Enemy Lines the night of my final school exam and The Omen was my first professional review, so I've followed your career quite closely!

A: Oh wow, that's fantastic!

Q: This is great, you doing Max Payne. I have to admit, I haven't seen the film yet. One of my friends is a video game reviewer so we decided we'd wait and see the film together, we can compare notes and do a pretty solid review.

A: That's great thinking, good work.

Q: Now, I played the game back in the day and it is ripe for cinema, the story and settings are laid out very cinematically, it shows it's influences and wears them proudly on it's sleeve. Was the co-opted into the style of the film from the outset?

A: Well, I'm very glad you said this - for the past while, I've been answering questions about the challenges of turning a video game into a film and a couple of times I've lost my patience with the question because, as you say, the video game is so clearly created by people who love movies and have an excited respect for movie conventions. Although it mightn't have been easy to get the script right, per se, to me it was a startlingly obvious choice to make a movie of.

Q: Having played the game myself, it has quite a sprawling narrative, with betrayal early on but then there's a lot of subterfuge going on later in the game which, as you say, makes for a great movie. There's also the very interesting concept of bullet-time which was very topical when the game was released as The Matrix had just come out. Can we expect to see any of that sort of technology used in the film?

A: Short answer is no, man, because as you rightly pointed out, The Matrix did it and it shall never be done better! I had no desire to go near that, I've kind of been following this rule with the movie - If you take the controller out of the player's hand, you'd better be sure that you're giving them something back. I think what I've tried to give back is the experience of being Max Payne. What we did for the movie's bullet-time-like sequences was to go inside Max's head, so that you get a kind of thrill from his perception of the scene and of the moment, rather than it just being a visual device. I thought the only way this would have any sort of traction of a post-Matrix generation is to make the audience thinking "Holy &^%*, I'm the guy and I'm going through this right now. I can't climb up walls, I can't stop time, I can't move quicker or slower than anyone else, but I can experience exactly what it is like to be this guy and just get away with something by the skin of your teeth." We've done it very sparingly, only two or three times. I didn't want to devalue it by lacing it throughout the whole movie, that'd be a pointless visual exercise.

Q: Awesome! Well, you've just answered my next question, which was how he is different than everybody else, especially The Punisher, and you've nailed it on the head - a normal guy with nothing to fall back on. I have to ask though, in the trailer, there are some demons and angels and that sort of business... Are these somehow linked to the Valkyr drug from the game/movie?

A: Ahh... I'm nodding furiously, but I'm trying to not give anything away! It's funny; there have been some furious concerns that we're going to get all Constantine, which is certainly not the Max Payne, gritty noir world. What I can promise people is that everything you see is connected. There's no leap of realm, no dipping into the supernatural, it all has some horrible reasoning behind it...

Q: Cool. I was there at Comic-Con and the film got an amazing response from the crowd. That was the moment when everyone was sold on Mark Wahlberg, because we don't see him too much as the hard-nosed action guy. How did he come to be involved and take over the role of Max?

A: Man, you said it, he took the role over instantly and just disappeared into it. This started out as a much smaller film and I wasn't sure we'd be able to attract Mark, but something in it spoke to him and he was excited about playing a character that has a ton more depth to him than, say, a hitman or The Punisher. He's really quite a literary character; he's much more from a hard-boiled noir novel. I almost lament that these characters seem to be missing from modern movies, the great anti-heroes. People used to play cops as anti-establishment figures, like Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry or Steve McQueen. If we do our job right, we might nudge Max into that great pantheon of anti-heroes.

Q: Awesome! Now, I'm looking at the cast line-up and, apart from the fact the character names all seemed to have remained the same from the game which is pleasing, you've got a lot of people who are popping up all over the place and very hot at the moment - Mila Kunis, Ludacris, Olga Kurylenko and Amaury Nolasco. How did they all come to be involved and is it just serendipity that everyone is so hot?

A: A little bit yeah, a little bit.... To be quite frank, I think we were smart and took some risks. There were more obvious choices, and that just bored the hell out of me. I'd rather wake up scared than wake up knowing exactly what is going to happen today. Casting meant that if it went right, we had a sure-fire way to be fresh.

Q: The polar opposite of that though, you've got both Beau Bridges and Chris O’Donnell who... I've not thought of Chris O’Donnell in years! Very impressed to seem them both.

A: Those guys, man, they bring it. They're both playing roles that you haven't seen them play but yet they bring a sense of comfort and professionalism. They're proper actors, you know? They're gonna spin your head, you're gonna be like "Holy &%^#, did I just see Robin do that?!" (laughs)

Q: (Laughing) So we don't need to be concerned about Bat-nipples or anything like that?

A: No, no, no. (Still laughing)

Q: What can we expect from Beau Bridges character?

A: This is one moment where I'm going to have to clam up, he carries a few twists and turns...

Q: I can respect that. From the game I know Max is on a quest for serious revenge, can we expect him to get his full revenge by the end or are things left open for a potential sequel?

A: I would like there to be a sequel, and I've been very frank about that throughout the entire process. There's a big span of story that is difficult to fit into a two-hour movie, so I'm happy to say that there are indeed some pieces of unfinished business. It'll be a natural birth; if it happens, it happens. We haven't planned or written it, but if enough people love the film, we'll do it. I certainly have the feeling people are going to want to see more.

Q: I've spoken to plenty of people who are pumped for it, so I definitely hope so. Can I ask what your plans next are?

A: I've got a couple of things in development but, to be quite honest, I'm waiting to see if people do like Max enough that I could get to work on the second instalment. I'd quite happily dedicate myself to that as it'd be fun, figuring out his next moves... If it all works out for me, I'd love to jump right back into the sequel.

Q: Very cool! Finally, to wrap it up in just one sentence - why do people need to go and see Max Payne?

A: The world has gone to hell right now and it is really, really tough to get through a day. If you go see this movie, you'll get a couple of hours indulgence and you get to ride along with a figure I kind of wish existed. The world is a little bit short of guys who'll do the right thing at the moment and I can guarantee a few hours with Max will make your outlook on the world a little better.

Q: Brilliant. John, thanks so much for your time, it was a real pleasure.

A: No problem, I'll talk to you soon on the merry-go-round of life!

~T