"In Total Control"

Len Wiseman is best known as the director of the first two Underworld films, as well as Live Free Or Die Hard. Now the 39 year-old’s latest film is Total Recall, which is a remake of the 1990 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. He talks about whether he felt if there was any pressure in filming a remake.

“I didn’t really have, in terms of the pressure,” Wiseman believes, “Honestly, if it were something that came out two years ago, maybe, but it’s so different now. The movie’s 20 years old, so the visual effects and graphics are so much more advanced. It’s not even in the same process anymore, so it’s just because of the time difference, it’s in such different atmospheres, I think.”

While this Total Recall, like the original, tells the story of a working-class individual named Douglas Quaid, this time played by Colin Farrell, who learns he is really a spy named Hauser and is on the run from the authorities, it makes a major break from the original by having it all set on Earth rather than a trip to Mars. Wiseman believes it was this major departure that convinced him it was worthwhile to do the remake.

“I will say it was the thing that attracted me to the script,” he says, “As well, I was scratching my head when I was reading. Honestly, I read it with a bit of hesitation. I got a call from Neal Moritz, told me that they had a script, I had no idea they were even developing one and I had been wanting to work with Neal for a while. I read it because of him. And more so, I had just come off of Die Hard a while ago and I had the Hawaii Five-O pilot that I did and I didn’t want to do a known title. So, I more, honestly, went into it with some trepidation and reallty convincing myself why I shouldn’t

"In Total Control"

do it.”

“And I read it and it was one of those scripts that, as I’m not wanting to like it, I’m getting drawn it, like, ‘Oh, shit, this is actually pretty good,’” Len adds, “And when it reached the part where it didn’t go to Mars, I remember thinking, ‘That’s odd,’ but immediately I was then hooked, I have no idea where this is going, no idea what this adventure is, and that’s what kept me turning the pages, like what are they doing now, and that was exciting to me, and so that’s actually what got me invested in it, because I think if it went to Mars, it’s like it’s so much of the same film. Hopefully, there’s a lot of people that feel the same and we’ll find out.”

Len says it was important however for the remake to be somewhat different from the original, but retain some vague familiarity with the original for it to be ultimately successful.

“It’s a really delicate balance,” Wiseman says, “Then there’s also the ones I really feel let down that there’s nothing of any familiarity that’s there. It’s a weird thing because you want to have fun with what is familiar, to the point of, why are they even calling it Total Recall if it’s completely different. And I had a bit of this when I was on Die Hard, even though it wasn’t a reboot or anything, it was still, there’s moments and elements that people associate with the Die Hard franchise. If you don’t include them, they feel like it’s not a Die Hard film because they’re so attached to it. But if you include too much of them or if you include things that are too similar, then it’s too similar.”

“So, for me, it kind of came off based on the script was such a departure from the original,” he continues, “Our film doesn’t go to Mars and the last really the second half

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of the original movie takes place on Mars, so since it departed so much, I actually felt I wanted to bring in some things that were familiar and always put in a twist and a turn and something on them. If they didn’t work within the structure of our story, of course not, but if we had a situation if he was traveling to another territory and had travel towards a security check as a wanted man, and so, he had to have a disguise, so I thought I’d have a perfect opportunity to do a twist on that.”

Wiseman says part of what was key to making the remake good was making it more realistic than the original.

“I definitely wanted something that felt relatable and its very futuristic,” Len says, “It has a futuristic look to it, many, many years into the future, and that if you traveled down to the base of that world, you’d still find something that’s very relatable and that’s not too different from our world. It’s never made sense to me when you’re presented with a futuristic city that somehow is though they’ve taken everything about our world, bulldozed it, and put it into some world storage and started from scratch. We have buildings that are hundreds of years old that still stand and you’d build from that, so that was the start of the design of things.”

“I wanted that,” he adds, “I wanted it to be fun and kind of fantastical, but very relatable, so even the way that we designed the world with my production team, I didn’t want the actual buildings themselves and the world to look that different. It’s more of how it’s built out and the layers are literally plateaus of other layers of city, not necessarily what the buildings looked like. The buildings still look like the buildings of today, otherwise, you get into like a Jetsons sort of environment, same thing with the

"In Total Control"

wardrobe, to wear the wardrobe still. Again, it doesn’t make sense to me to go into the future, where everybody suddenly has horrendous taste, as like they start wearing these silver and gold lamay jackets, I never quite grasp. So I still wanted it to feel relatable.”

Playing the role of Lori Quaid, a double agent passing off as Douglas’s wife, is Kate Beckinsale. Len talks about why he believes Beckinsale was right for the role.

“Well, immediately, we know her for the Underworld films in terms of the action persona,” he believes, “She’s still completely in awe that she’s considered an action person, but what people I don’t think know that much is how sharp and witty and funny she is and I wanted Laurie to have this lethal, cunning sense of humor and really be able to taunt and tease and really be able to have fun with it.”

“And I really know Kate’s ability for that,” Wiseman adds, “So the combination of the two was perfect, in terms of just that attitude that I really wanted Lori to have, with also the believability of someone that you believe is chasing down somebody that Colin that if she catched him, it would be at least a decent fight to watch and that’s a hard thing to get. Sometimes, just pairing up people, you simply don’t buy it. So there was those two elements and just this wicked sense of humor that I wanted her to have that crazy, fun spark that I knew Kate would bring.”

However, the twist in casting Beckinsale is she’s been married to Wiseman since 2004. We asked him if it was easier or harder directing his own spouse.

“Both,” Len replies, “The easy part is just the shorthand. When you know somebody that intimately, you can get right into a conversation in the details obviously that’s very easy and there’s other things that’s because of the same reason, because you know that person

"In Total Control"

so well, that are the harder things is that I find it much harder to push further with if I know that she’s done a stunt or done something that’s banged her elbow a little bit and whatever, she’s like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, it’s fine, it’s fine,’ because she’ll be like, ‘It’s good. It’s alright,’ you can’t help it. You’re like, ‘Are you sure? Are you OK? How do you feel?’ Like Colin, Jessica [Biel], Bryan [Cranston], it’s like, ‘You guys will be alright.’”

Len, however, did find it weird directing his wife in the film’s love scenes.

“It’s weird,” Wiseman admits, “It’s just weird. And it really helps, thank God, that I’ve gone through that experience twice and both Scott Speedman in the Underworld series and Colin are so fun, and if you can make it more of a joke, and really especially the scenes in Total Recall, it’s in-between the cuts, it’s more trying to get them to stop laughing and get everybody, that helps. And it’s amazing honestly how much your blood boils when you call, ‘Cut!’ and it doesn’t stop right away.”

“That’s something that nobody can explain to you, that if you don’t hear…” he adds, “I made that mistake on Underworld where I was very quiet. Where it’s any kind of love scene or anybody’s taking their clothes off in any fashion, it’s a very quiet set. They clear it, they know how that is, so on Underworld, I was being very polite and I would say, ‘OK and cut,’ and they didn’t hear me. And I was like, ‘You’ve got to stop when I call, “Cut!”‘ So now I make a point of having a megaphone during a love scene.”

Wiseman talks about directing Beckinsale and co-star Jessica Biel, who plays a member of the Resistance named Melina, in a fight scene between the two of them.

“That I was looking forward to,” he says, “Jessica was bugging me a little

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bit. I’m like, OK, no. They seem so paired for that. It seems like they are just. I don’t know. You pair a bunch of people together, but Jessica and Kate seemed like a perfect match to kind of tear at it. And this is with all my actors, I explain upfront that it’s part of what I think is enjoyable action these days. We’ve seen everything.”

“We’ve seen so much that really to push the limits,” Len adds, “The more the actors could do, the better the experience is, and so, that was part of the fight with them too of we have the stunt players who are fantastic and 90% of the fight is with Jessica and Kate. I thought it wasn’t fair to say, ‘Here’s Jessica Biel, here’s Kate Beckinsale, and watch their stunt doubles go at it.”

Len was asked if he kept a chart in order to connecti the dots between what is real and what is not in the plot twists in Total Recall.

“Oh, man, it’s funny that you say ‘chart’,” Wiseman replies, “Because I literally had a white board in my office that I tracked, that I wanted every single scene to be able to be analyzed. I wanted it to add up on both sides of the argument. That’s what fascinates me about the concept. It’s what when people say, like about how different is and that they don’t go to Mars. Really, the core thing, that the real fun of the movie is that question, is it fantasy? Is it reality? And I wanted to make sure in every scene, you could watch it from both perspectives and see, does it really add up if this is all real? And so, that’s something that I actually charted out about where timelines were for.”

“Like, for instance, Harry is the friend upfront,” he adds, “But if it falls in the line if this is all real, Harry has always been

"In Total Control"

the plant and the secret agent there to watch him. And so, all of it down to just the little nuances of performance, the conversations that I have with the actors, which is the weird conversations of them asking me, ‘How well do you want me to act in this instance? How good of an actor am I for the part where I am the double agent who is actually faking being the friend or being the wife? Am I completely convincing, do you see through the cracks a little bit, or am I just so good of an actor that I pull off the friend?’ So those things were just so much fun. It also take up a lot of the time of the discussion. It was really like making two movies at the same time.”

Wiseman was also asked whether there was more action to be expected in this version of the film.

“It’s a big action film, but it’s also a bit of a mystery as well,” Len says, “There’s some of the longest dramatic scenes I’ve ever seen in an action film in this film, just because of that chess game of fantasy vs. reality, that mystery. But in terms of making it more of an action film, I actually didn’t.”

One of the hallmarks of Total Recall is the possibilities of what could exist in the future, such as phones implanted into your hand and floating advertising. Len talks about his criteria for the future world he created for the film.

“I always like if it’s something that could possibly evolve,” he says, “And so, like the phone, it’s really something that I don’t see why it wouldn’t happen. That was based off some early prototype stuff that I had seen in Japan, where they were doing LCD tattoos, which was one of the ideas that I was putting into the red light district. And so, that’s part of what I’m fascinated about science

"In Total Control"

fiction itself. I’m more of a science fiction fan than I’m a fantasy fan, just that science fiction, by nature, that science fiction is really the progression of science, the ‘what if’.”

“And so, that ‘what if’, I do like if it’s grounded, right from the hover cars to the implant phones to a lot of things I don’t think are too farfetched,” Wiseman continues, “And those are gadgets I would want, so I kind of go there, too, like what would I want to have, what would I like my wife to have, when she says, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve lost my phone! I’ve lost my phone.’ But I do really try to pay attention to a reality of what could possibly happen.”

Wiseman was asked whether there was any consideration to make this Total Recall in 3D.

“Oh, yes, not by my part, but everybody else’s, but yes, there was, at one point,” Len says, “I was the only one who was against going 3D with it, partly because I’m not crazy against 3D in a general blanket rule, but I’m also not a huge fan of it. But I thought for this, I wanted it to be a grounded future. I thought that if this is such a futuristic world that you put 3D on top of that, it almost because overtly futuristic, that it starts to feel like a video game.”

“I wanted it to be grittier than that, but, yes, for the longest time, there was a lot of conversation about it,” he adds, “And I let the studio know right up front that I have no intention, no interest whatsoever to do 3D. And if I think if you throw your hands up and say, ‘I have no idea how to shoot 3D. I’m going to go way over schedule. I can try it, but I can’t promise that I’ll ever stay on schedule.’ Here’s the thing, I have not met that many

"In Total Control"

people who love 3D, so I’ve never come across yet where I’ve announced that we’re not 3D and everybody goes, ‘Shit!’”

While a landmark TV series like Star Trek was known for its fairly utopian and optimistic vision of the future, Total Recall follows what has long since become very common in science fiction of a dark vision of the future. Len had a theory of why that has become the norm with the science fiction

“I honestly feel that it’s more interesting and intriguing to have a “what if” scenario that seems dangerous,” he says, “Because if you don’t have a dangerous “what if”, you don’t have element of tension within a story. So I think a lot of it has to do with, it’s harder to structure a movie about a future world that’s happy. Star Trek is kind of a different thing.”

“With Star Trek, it’s its own universe,” Wiseman adds, “Where I do think you find that if it’s an Earth-based science-fiction film, there’s something that’s not right about our world that needs to be corrected, therefore, here comes your antagonist and your protagonist to deal with this new status of the world is. So I think it’s driven from that and not so much. I don’t know if it necessarily says something about our world in general. I think it says something about sci-fi enthusiasts and fantasy and the wish fulfillment of what these worlds will be like and how we are going to solve them. So from a storytelling point of view, I just find it a bit more interesting.”

We pointed out to Wiseman that there are scenes in this Total Recall that can be interpreted as echoes of Occupy protest movement, but the director says such echoes in the film were not deliberate.

“It was not something that was driven from a point-of-view of creating a script from scratch,” Len says, “It was something that was inherent in the script and

"In Total Control"

it’s also part of the structure of that world when I came onboard onto it. Do I think it echoes and mirrors and has relevance? Absolutely. Was it by design? I’d be lying to say it was because it was inherent in that script when I showed up.”