Spike Lee’s re-imaging of Oldboy, the 2003 cult favorite dark revenge thriller is now in theaters. Starring Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen and Sharlto Copley, this update follows the journey of a man suddenly who suddenly finds himself imprisoned in a hotel room for twenty years, and what lengths he will go to in order to solve the mystery of “why” when he’s released.
I had the opportunity to participate the in press junket for the film earlier this month, and was among the online reporters invited to this roundtable interview with director Spike Lee. Here are the highlights from the 20-minute Q&A session.
So is this the opportunity to direct some action for you? Is that something that really attracted you to Oldboy. I know that the choreography is it seems like it has your hands in it. And I don’t know if you did most of the fight choreography yourself.
LEE: No, I’m not a fight choreographer. But it was the story. It didn’t have nothing to do with the action. It was a part of it though. It was the story. That was the reason why I was interested in it, in doing a re-interpretation of this film.
What was it about the story that pulled you in?
LEE: Revenge. Revenge. And the fact that you had this individual who’s locked up. Why don’t you, yeah close it (door closing and locking). Individual who’s locked up for twenty years not knowing who did it or why that was done to him.
Do you expect that most people have seen the original when they see yours?
LEE: Most people have not seen the original.
Was it easier to adapt a foreign film?
LEE: I don’t think so. Mark Protosevich wrote the script, did a good job. But we, Josh Brolin and I, never ever sat down and said for any specific thing like that’s Korean it’s not going to work in America. We never thought like that.
When you decided to do it, did you have the cast in mind already?
LEE: No, I just knew that Josh and I had been talking about for years working together. So it was Josh and I went in together and with the help of my casting director, Kim Coleman we had to fill out the roster.
Can you talk about how you came to meet Josh and why you always wanted to work with him?
LEE: Well for a period of four or five years we always meet at a premiere or film he’s doing here in New York. American Gangster, No Country For Old Men, Wall Street. And we always see each other during the movie. We always end up together, having a drink at the after party (laughter). “Let’s work together.” “Okay.” Then we see each other next year for another film. So four or five years this went on and then finally Oldboyhappened.
Is there a story that he needed the blessing of Park Chan-wook? You needed it too?
LEE: Yes.
True? And has he already seen the movie?
LEE: He has not seen the film yet. But that story is true. Before Josh agreed to do it he met with Park. Asked for his blessing. Park gave it and told Josh don’t try and remake my film, do your own film.
Now this movie, you know it hinges on a twist. You guys, I think, put a put a sort of a different twist on this twist, sort of dangle in front of our face more than the other film does. And you make it a little bit more eye opening than that film did as far as I can tell having seen yours first. Is this something you felt like you had to do, because it was sort of an obstacle?
LEE: I had to do what?
I’m trying to say without saying it. But I mean the other film twists sort of never really gave you the ability to predict it. Whereas your film I feel like, having viewed it first, and not knowing the twist, I was like how did I not see that coming.
LEE: I don’t know how to answer that. I mean, I don’t want to give away the twist. But I do think that for a lot of people that see it they would not have heard of Oldboy. They’ve never seen a Korean film in their life. So it’s gonna be new to a majority of the audiences that sees this film.
What sort of thinking went into this to give it an American as opposed to an Asian sensibility?
LEE: Like I said before, Josh and I never sat down and said “This is Korean culture it can’t work in America.” That was never our thinking. We don’t think like that. Storytelling is global. Excuse me storytelling is global. It’s all about what’s gonna work for the story. So it never came down to nationality. Ever.
You purposely didn’t really define where this takes place?
LEE: Right.
I think people might’ve assumed “It’s a Spike Lee film. Maybe it’s New York.” You know you shot in New Orleans, maybe it’s going to be New Orleans. Talk about why that is. It’s such a dark film you really didn’t want to attach location to it?
LEE: Well we just wanted to be non-descript city. That’s a very hard thing to do in New Orleans. New Orleans is one of the most distinct cities in the United States of America. So it was a challenge to shoot there, but not make it look like New Orleans. The reason why people shoot in Louisiana, because the state of Louisiana has the best tax break now. Rebate. So you have hundreds of people who left LA and moved to New Orleans because that’s where films are being made; that’s where the work is.
What’s New Orleans like these days? Has it is it bounced back at all?
b>LEE: There’s been some progress, but the main thing is still a large number of African-American population which is not returned yet and probably won’t. They’ve been forced to migrate to Atlanta, Houston, San Antonio. Have found better paying jobs, better schools, a better way of living. So that’s still been the thing that that the city is missing.
Revenge aside and character development, in the back of my mind I’m thinking about the prison system. Do you think that would work maybe there wouldn’t be so many people returning back to prison if they’d went through some sort of system like that.
LEE: No (laughter).
I read that Josh Brolin seems to think that the longer director’s cut, as they say, that you know three-hour version of this film, he sort of prefers.
LEE: He never. Let’s clear this up right now. There never was a three-hour cut. What Josh was shown was like two hours and I would say twenty-five minutes. But there never was a three-hour cut.
My question was going to be what caused this length seemed to perfectly mirror the length of the original film and it also seemed like, I don’t know, what could’ve been on the cutting room floor. Can you start to talk about what might have been, you know, if it wasn’t a two hour, twenty minute version, what would’ve been in there?
LEE: Man, all I’m gonna say is it’s a tough business. That’s how I’ll answer that question.
Is there anything you took away from this film in a sense of whether it be the long one take action sequences that you can see yourself enjoying and doing more of in future films.
LEE: Hmm. We’ve done a lot of one takes over three decades of my film-making. But it was fun trying doing the fight sequence. We worked on that long and hard. Josh worked really hard with the stunt coordinator, the stunt guys. Sean Bobbitt worked very hard. The great DP because we had to not only to have to choreograph the fighting, we had to choreograph the camera too. We shot that, if you know that the original film that was really shot in one plane actually was left to right. Ours was on three different levels. So that’s something that we had fun doing.
Since Josh was in here, was he a little chunkier in the beginning of the movie? And then lost weight.
LEE: Oh yeah, he gained 50 pounds.
Can you discuss that?
LEE: Well he met with a bunch of doctors and dietitians, and they came with state diet, the state plan, the state program for him to gain weight and lose weight over a relatively short amount of time. So through, the way it was explained to me most of the weight he gained was water. So he had to lose it, lose like twenty thirty pounds over a weekend. We made that transition from shooting in a cell to going back outside. Josh will do whatever it takes.
How did that affect his personality would you say?
LEE: Well, he said that, I mean it has to, I mean, DeNiro I mean is famous here. DeNiro talked about the month depression he had after doing the Raging Bull and the weight he had to gain for that. Right now it’s much more advanced and doesn’t take months to lose the weight, but it does affect your psychology though. I mean you can’t be happy about, uh, you become another person with that weight gain.
And to you what was, I mean Josh Brolin first and foremost out of this too but, sort of the second most important casting decision. Was it Sharlto? Who did you feel that needed to be the exact right decision to make this your movie as far as the characters in the film the original?
LEE: All the leads. I wouldn’t put them uh numerical order but they’re all crucial. Uh, Sharlto, uh Sam’s role, Liz Olsen. Those are all crucial so they all were high priority, that to surround Josh with the best actors we could get.
Can you can you talk about the casting process was it was it did these, once you kind of honed in on these performers, did the character kind of get catered to them, or were you casting sort of Sharlto types for the villain?
LEE: No, don’t we didn’t cast anybody else. That’s what we wanted. And I remember the first time I saw him I knew who he was and that was District 9. So when I see a performance like that, I make a mental note that’s somebody I wanna work with in the future. And this is an industry where everything is timing. So you might have a role but they’re on to do another movie whatever happens, so you have to wait until it happens. That’s the case it was with Josh and I working, cause I said before we’d talk for four or five years working together, but that’s never been presenting itself until Oldboy.
Is there a shorthand now working with Sam? And does he give any input or is he allowed?
LEE: Sam is allowed. Samuel L. Jackson is allowed to do whatever he wants to do (laughter). But it was great working with him again. The last time we worked together was in Jungle Fever, which was 1991. And it’s like we never missed a step. He called me up and said “I wanna be in this film.”
Was that his idea the mohawk?
LEE: No, that was my idea. When you cast Samuel in film you’re always thinking about what’s the hair gonna be like. So I asked if he ever wore a Mohawk before? He said “no.” I said you can wear one in this film if you want to. And he said “Let’s do it.”
LEE: We had two different colors, so there’s one when Joe’s locked up and then the change when he gets out. But passes the time.
Some of some of the visual choices in the film. One that jumps out to me, and is sort of because you guys gave out the umbrellas to the press. So that in particular was the big change between the two films. Who came up with that? There’s just the look of the umbrellas, the colors, the vibrancy that type of thing.
LEE: Well that color is one of Nike’s most popular colors now (laughter). It’s called Bolt. And I we wanted something that, again story, he’s been locked up. We had to have something visual that would grab his attention. So I mean a black umbrella? He’s not looking for a black umbrella. I mean he’s gonna look at something that blares out “look at me.” Cause we had to think like Sharlto’s character. This is a plan. He spent years putting this plan into place. He’s thought about every single thing. The color of the umbrella, where we’re gonna drop him off, who’s the person handing the umbrella, who I’m gonna cast for all these people we’re showing on television. All that stuff, all that plan was thought out. We had to think like, think like him.
Was that sort of then your nod to Nike? To have the Bolt color?
LEE: Imma do more than that (laughter).
Are you going to do another commercial for them anytime soon?
LEE: Well you gotta ask Michael Jordan (laughter).
Anything specific you like to do on all your films techniques that you were still able to bring to Oldboy just to make it more your own?
LEE: Just do what I do. Do what I’ve been doing since 1986. To be honest there was really no extra. I never came to a situation where “Oh God, I’ve never done a film like this before. What am I gonna do?” It was never that thinking. It’s another film, it’s a different story. It’s still storytelling.
Do you have a preference for shooting, uh, film versus digital? Or any opinion about that at all.
LEE: It depends. When you have money you can afford to shoot on the film. We shot some 35. We don’t have money. My new Kickstarter film, which is called Da Blood of Jesus, we shot this on this new Sony Camera called F55 which was wonderful. We can afford to shoot on 35mm with the amount of money we raised on Kickstarter.
You must really love Kickstarter, because I know when you started you had credit cards paying for your movies.
>LEE: That was Robert Townsend, that wasn’t me. I aint even have a credit card (laughter). But what the point I was trying to make a lot of times with these criticisms I was getting was the principles of Kickstarter I’ve been doing since before there was Internet, before there was Twitter. Social Media was me calling people up, writing postcards, pens to paper, writing letters, so the principles have not changed it’s the technology.
You yourself invested in other people’s Kickstarters? Or you sort of just using it for your own purposes.
LEE: Oh no, no, no. I’ve invested in at least eight or nine projects since I got on Kickstarter.
And can people I mean do you sort of tweet it out there, I mean fans of yours that sort of trust your you know your work can they see what you’ve invested in and be like this may be something I wanna look into as well?
LEE; Oh yes. If you go, if you go to Kickstarter and look under “Spike Lee,” you’ll see a listing of film and the names of the films and filmmakers that and I think the amount of money too that I’ve contributed you can check it out.
What’s been like the coolest giveaway you’ve done through Kickstarter?
LEE: Well that’s really the most expensive one, where you get to sit with me courtside at a Knick game. And go to dinner.
How much is that?
LEE: That was $10,000.
Wow.
LEE: And we sold 36 games. But I gotta pay for tickets too so it’s not really. Tickets are $3400.
Can you talk a little bit about Da Blood of Jesus?
<LEE: Da Blood of Jesus?
Yes.
LEE: This, Da Blood of Jesus title of my new film. Uh, it’s about people addicted to blood but they’re not vampires. It’s a temporary film. We shot it in New York City in Martha’s Vineyard and we’re editing the film now. It’s starring two relatively unknown actors but great talents. Stephen Tyrone Williams, who was in Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy with Tom Hanks. And a young British actress, her name is Zaraah Abrahams. So they did a phenomenal job.
And is that a comedy?
LEE: There’s humor in it, but a lot of blood and sex too.
Cool (laughter). Thank you.
LEE: Thank you.
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