Matthew Fox
Interview By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com
To some people, Matthew Fox is simply another recognizable name, perhaps from his days on Party of Five or from recent films like We Are Marshall.
To fans of the TV series Lost, Matthew Fox is one of the biggest stars in the world.
Since 2004, Fox has been best known as Oceanic Flight 815 survivor Jack Shephard – and while Lost is an ensemble show at heart, if there was one main character, it would be him. Now in its fourth season of a planned six, Lost is still as strong as ever – but during the hiatuses, Fox is smartly using his newfound fame to transition to big-screen work.
It seems to be working – his action thriller Vantage Point, co-starring Dennis Quaid, opened at #1 last weekend. He’s even got a big summer blockbuster under his belt: Speed Racer, from The Matrix‘s Wachowski brothers, in which he plays the enigmatic Racer X. We had the chance to talk with Fox about the two movies, and of course his famous, perplexing, fantastic television show. (If you haven’t picked up on it, I’m a bit of a fan.)
“I didn’t get to do as much research as Dennis because I was shooting another film right before Vantage Point and I had less than 24 hours between those two films,” Fox says of his role as a C.I.A. agent. “It was kind of a mad schedule for me that summer working on Lost then doing these two films in the same hiatus. They had to compress my schedule because I was doing 6 days a week.”
Still, he was able to get something of a crash course on secret service agents. “I was talking to [director] Pete Travis and it was very important for me to get the logistics of these guys. The way they would choreograph this entrance. Where weapons were carried. The way communications were conducted,
The film tells the story of eight different people who each witness a terrorist attack – a presidential assassination attempt followed by two separate bombings – from different, uh, vantage points. The structure provided some tricky moments during filming. “I think we all knew going into the movie that telling these twenty minutes of time from eight different perspectives was going to require certain sequences to be done over and over again. That podium sequence [in which the president gets shot] we did so many times.”
Despite the tedium, however, the repetition gave Fox new respect for his co-stars. “I remember running over William Hurt as the President being shot and falling, and every single take, no matter where the perspective was coming from, no matter where the cameras were, no matter how deep in the background we were, he was in it and alive in it, and that kind of professionalism I respect a great deal.”
One of the film’s main action set pieces is a terrific car chase featuring Fox, Quaid, and some bad guys speeding through the narrow streets of Spain.
“My situation was really a total green screen,” Fox admits. “A couple guys rocking the car, Pete standing in front of the car telling me what I was reacting to. It was a very frustrating process. In fact, it was the only point where I got frustrated with Pete a bit. I was like, ‘This is definitely not going to work,’ and he said, ‘No, trust me, it’s going to work.’ I’ve been traveling for three and a half weeks now, all over the globe, promoting the movie – and everyone comments on how great the car chase is.” He smiles, chagrined. “The first time I saw
As previously mentioned, Fox’s next big-screen foray will be the anxiously awaited adaptation of the classic cartoon series Speed Racer. Judging from the trippy, kinetic trailers, we might be in for something special.
“They screened the movie, and I really wanted to be there very badly, screened it for friends and family in LA yesterday,” he says, getting markedly more excited. “Christina Ricci [who plays Trixie] just called me and…we’ve all been so excited about this project from the first day we got involved in it. It was something I was dying to do. I pursued it. I really pursued it. The experience in Berlin was just a fantastic summer. It’s going to be like nothing you’ve ever seen before – it’s a new way of making films. The way the film moves, traditional editing is pretty much gone.” He stops, laughing at himself for gushing so much. “It’s going to be amazing, I’m very, very excited about it.”
Of course, with all the CGI, that meant Fox was in for even more green screen, especially during the actual racing sequences.
“There was a lot of driving on a gimbal. The cars are built around you in CGI. There was a practical Shooting Star built, it’s beautiful, because there are a couple scenes in the film where Emile [Hirsch, who stars as Speed] and I have to get in and out of the car so you have to have a practical car to transition. Most of the time we’re in a gimbal that’s on a hydraulic system that’s taking you through the actual race sequences and then cameras are moving all around that as we’re in movement.”
In other words, it was like an amusement park ride – and proved to be a lot more fun than his Vantage Point chase. “It made it very
Finally – saving the best for last, I’m sure – Fox talked a bit about Lost. Eight episodes of the planned sixteen-episode fourth season had been written when the Writers Guild strike drove TV to a grinding halt, sparking fears that the season would have to conclude mid-stream. Now that the strike is over, though, they’re able to squeeze out a few more episodes in order to give the season a proper finale.
“Yeah, I wasn’t really certain,” Fox said on how things would shake out. “I thought it was very possible that we would have to sort of scrap the rest of the year, and the [season's final] eight episodes would be moved on to next season’s sixteen. So it was good news to hear that we were going to get back and get some of them done. I’m not sure exactly when I’m starting yet, I think it’s going to be around the middle of March, and probably shooting through the first week of May. I think we’ll get maybe five or six of the eight that we owe, and then the remaining ones will be pushed onto next year.”
It’s pointed out that both Vantage Point and Lost deal with many characters and lots of different perspectives. “I have been getting that one a bit: ‘You seem to be attracted to projects that flummox people.’” He laughs. “Personally, as an audience member, I like the types of things that challenge you to participate in them more than being a passive audience member. I think that’s
Despite enjoying the challenge, however, Fox is weary of diving too far into the world of Lost that exists on message boards and blogs. “I’m a fan of the show in a big way, but I don’t participate in the life outside it. I mean, people say that [they do] all the time, and I think it’s a real tribute to the show. It’s a show that makes people think, and hypothesize, and use their own imaginations to spin out the story the way they predict it’s going to go, and I think that’s a real tribute to really quality series television. But I’ve never personally looked at, like, any website – but I don’t do that with anything I’m connected with. I’d be afraid to.”
With only two more years of Lost, is Fox planning on moving back to the mainland from Hawaii, where the show is filmed? That’s an unqualified yes. “It’s been a beautiful stay so far, and I enjoy it, but I’m not really a tropical paradise kind of person. I grew up in Wyoming in the Rocky Mountains; I love four-seasonal weather. So we’re going to enjoy the next two years that we’re going to be there, but I think we’ll be excited to move on to a new thing, too.”
