Clive Owen

Interview By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

Clive Owen has become universally well-liked by males and females, young and old for a few remarkably simple reasons. He keeps his integrity by choosing diverse movies that appeal to him -- both big-budgeted Hollywood stuff (like Sin City) and offbeat smaller films (like the much-acclaimed Children of Men). He's very attractive but seemingly without vain, and stays out of the tabloids (a twelve-year-long marriage and two kids might help). He's genuinely talented, and everyone he's worked with has nothing but good things to say about him.

And he makes it all look easy. What a jerk.

We had the chance to talk with the star about his new flick Shoot 'Em Up, which co-stars Paul Giamatti and Monica Bellucci and is a straight-up action movie with some of the most inventive fight choreography seen in years. "The sequence of events were: I was pitched the movie. Didn't think it was going to be my thing," Owen says. "From the minute I read the first page, I was like, 'this guy's insane.' Literally. It starts with a shoot out, [the main character] delivers a baby during it, and it goes on from there. And I was like, if this guy can pull it off, it'll be the most freshest, most original, wild, entertaining film."

Owen stars as a guy whose name we don't really ever know but is called Mr. Smith. He's a man with no past - even when we find out about his past, we're not sure if it's the truth. All he's got are ridiculous skills at shooting bad guys, and a lot of carrots. Just 'cause he likes carrots. "The carrot came in handy. It was a stroke of genius, I think, starting the movie with me stabbing somebody to death with a carrot. 'Cause it says from the outset: don't take this film too seriously, guys." Has Clive Owen actually just made carrots...cool' "Having championed the vegetable, I've tried to make them cool, and I've got to see it through. It was the challenge of the movie, one of the Michael Davis quirks that I found a little bit strange, but I tried valiantly to make the character come across as cool."

He's talking about his director, a man completely unexperienced with big-budget action movies. Davis's previous credits include movies like Prehysteria! 2. "The concern was that Michael hadn't done a film of this scale," Owen says. "It's one thing writing, 'This is John Woo's wet dream.' I mean, John Woo is a master of the action genre. So I met him to see if he could pull it off. And first of all, I thought he looked like if he didn't make a movie, he was going to explode. And I felt a responsibility there. He'd been waiting so long for this opportunity. And the second thing was, he was ridiculously prepared. Storyboarded the entire movie. I asked him some very practical questions, you know: with the amount of time we've got, will you feel comfortable being able to achieve these big action scenes' He went through every sequence: 'we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, if we run out of light we're gonna go there, and if we've got a cut a corner, then we'll do this' -- he just bombarded me. And I thought, he is so prepared."

It wasn't too long ago that Owen himself was the ingenue trying to prove himself. He's all but a household name now, but his rise to stardom was a long time coming. Working his way through TV guest roles, forgettable movies, and stage work for a full decade, mostly in his homeland of England, he finally scored his breakout role: the lead in a British independent film called Croupier. His portrayal of writer-turned-casino-croupier Jack Manfred in the thriller helped the film become a runaway success (by independent film standards): not only did it make it to the USA, it made six million dollars here. His newfound recognition led to more American exposure with small roles in Gosford Park and The Bourne Identity, as well as the lead in The Hire, a series of eight short films done by famous directors and stars for bmwfilms.com.

His ascent to stardom became much more rapid after that; despite stumbling blocks like the box office dud King Arthur, he went onto films such as Closer (which earned him a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor) and the hit Inside Man. Does he regret any of his choices' "Yeah. Yes. I would never tell you in a million years which ones," he says, laughing. It's that darn integrity. "It would be wrong of me, you know, to be disrespectful of a film I've done, because everybody goes into a film hoping it's going to turn out great, and sometimes they don't, and sometimes you're in the middle of them and you're beginning to realize that, but it's wrong on everyone else involved if you start naming them." Well, since we're not him, allow us to make a few guesses: Derailed' The afformentioned King Arthur' Beyond Borders'

The conversation, inevitably, turns back to the remarkable fight sequences in Shoot 'Em Up. Many scenes from the film are memorable, but two in particular stand out. The first is the requisite sex scene...that turns into an action scene...while still being a sex scene. You kind of have to see it. "It had its challenges actually, that scene. I think it's one of the wittiest scenes in the film. It's gotta be the ultimate coming together of sex and violence, really. It was one of the scenes he had animated, and basically all the other scenes we had done shot by shot pretty much as he had envisioned it. But there were a couple of things in the sex scene animations that were literally impossible. It was fine for the stick figures to roll around and jump around like that, but Monica and I are human beings."

The other scene is a climactic gun battle that takes place mid-air...after Mr. Smith has willingly jumped out of a plane without a parachute. Naturally, it was done with wire work and green screen, the second of which is a technique that Owen is all too familiar with after the highly stylized Sin City. "That was all green screen," he says of that film. "I mean, there was nothing there at all. Even the car was taken out. You're just acting in limbo land with other actors. Robert [Rodriguez, the director] told me what he was intending: 'I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that.' Cut to nine months later, I'm in L.A. watching the film. I turn to Robert Rodriguez and say, 'I had no idea I was in that.' Like, I honestly didn't know I was in that film. It is always bizarre."

Speaking of which, is Sin City 2 progressing' "You know more than I do," Owen says. He explains he'd be up for it but hasn't been approached. "I haven't talked about it since Sin City 1. If they're doing it, if there's a start date, I'm not in it. They've always talked about doing one of the Dwight stories, but I've heard nothing, no one's got any concrete plans down."

Sin City 2 has been rumored to be in various stages of development since the release of the first one, and Owen not even being approached seems indicative of the truth about internet movie rumors in general. Take, for example, the wild amount of speculation that Owen was one of the top choices to be the next James Bond (which eventually went, of course, to Daniel Craig). He's asked what made him turn the role down. "Not getting offered it," he says simply. They didn't even offer it' But...all those tabloid reports, all those rumors! "That was the talk, but it was never a real thing. Nobody ever put it in front of me, it was never offered to me. And I signed on to do a whole variety of other things."

Up next for Owen is The International, which, quite appropriately, is an international thriller. "[It's] a really fantastic script with Naomi Watts that Tom Tykwer is going to direct," Owen says. "We're just prepping it now, I'm going to Berlin tonight to start prep." Other than that, his main priority is to spend time with his family. "It's all about spending time with them. It's tough, 'cause you know, The International is Istanbul, Berlin, New York, it's a big movie and I'm going to be away from home a lot. So my absolute priority when I've got any time off is to hang with them. That's the most important thing, because there are going to be times when we can't do that. They grow up fast." His daughters are ten and eight years old. "They do [know what I do], but they're very annoyed because they never get to see anything. Just look at my movies. God, you'd never let a kid watch that. Hey, Eve, my little eight year old, come and check out Closer, you'll love it! Come and watch this sex scene with Monica Bellucci I did!" He cracks up. "I'd traumatize them."

Despite that, he's quite happy with the way his career is working out, and seems uncommonly assured about his choices. "Some of the films I've [passed] on have gone on to become hugely successful, but I'm very comfortable with the reasons I do it. It's the whole experience, it's not just about whether they're going to be hugely successful. I don't make choices lightly, and I think about them seriously, and once I make the choice, whatever will be, will be." Luckily, more often that not for Owen, things pan out well. Last month he achieved the rare feat of pleasing picky comic book geeks by screening Shoot 'Em Up at the San Diego Comic-Con. "Right from the beginning, they just went wild," he says, looking simply content. "It was probably the ultimate moment, like, we'll probably never top that one, because they just -- there was so many people who had turned up for the screening that they ran another one straight afterwards because there was a crowd of people outside. Wild."