The Buzz Jack Daniels Interview

Lost In Space

The latest summer space-fest to hit our screen is the big-screen remake of cult 60s TV show, "Lost in Space". However, the difference between this and other big screen blockbusters is that the stars of THIS show aren't a bunch of CGI monsters. Ladies and gentlemen, may we present, in the red corner, leading the good guys, everybody's favourite "Friend", Matt LeBlanc and in the blue corner, stifling his evil laugh, is quintessential uber-villain, Gary Oldman, together the two stars of what has got to be the hottest sci-fi flick of the year....

MATT LeBLANC

H
e may play dumb on television, but 'Friends'' much-loved 'failed actor', Matt LeBlanc isn't anything like his Joey Tribbiani character.
He is, indeed, an accomplished landscape photographer, who has travelled the world - all over the States, Canada and Europe - for subjects. And, having got his first motor-cycle at the age of eight, he might even have become a racing professional.

"I soon ran into a major roadblock," he recalls, "My mum forced me to find a different outlet for my talents!"
He trained for a career in carpentry before opting for acting, a career which got under way in New York in 1987 with parts in several award-winning TV commercials and hit series'. That slightly thicko performance in 'Friends' - he's the guy who never quite gets things right - sometimes gets him heated up, since people too often reckon it's what he's like in real life:
"When people first meet me," he says, "they have this idea that I'm not going to be smart. Because of what I do every week on 'Friends', people assume that my talents are limited. They figure I'm going to be a lunatic!"
"I wish people wouldn't write things about me, though," he sighs. "I think I'm good at my job and that's the only thing that should be of interest. I'm happy doing what I do and I like it. I'm fortunate that I can do what I like doing for a living."
However, there's no doubt that Matt feels that his personal life has suffered as a result of his fame: "I feel nobody really knows who I am," he admits, "but I am lucky to have friends who bring me down to earth. At the end of the day, I'm just a guy trying to make ends meet, to get by."

Scene from the Movie Well, he's a little more than that. He is an accomplished actor - he meets to perfection the challenge of making us believe he's dumb Joey - and he's one of a clutch of stars in the latest TV spin-off blockbuster, 'Lost In Space', in which he plays the ace pilot of the ill-fated Jupiter 2 spacecraft which is forced to crash-land on a distant planet.
Matt was, says 'Lost In Space' director, Stephen Hopkins, perfect as Don West: "He completely blew me away when he came in to audition," he enthused. "He's playing a character so different from his role in 'Friends', and he is terrific!"
Playing West, however, wasn't easy for LeBlanc - he had to go through a hectic travel schedule between Hollywood and London. He was making 'Friends' in the UK and 'Lost In Space' in California.

"Don West," he says, "is a guy who runs on instinct and adrenaline. Playing this action role was really fun; it totally serviced my inner child. I was a big fan of the TV series, and I liked the idea that the movie has a darker, edgier feel to it."
He continued: "The easy thing in sci-fi films is to make everything creepy and dark and gloomy. The hard thing in any piece of entertainment is to make people feel emotional and uplifted."
'Lost In Space' was a big hit Stateside in the 1960s. The story concerns the Space Family Robinson, who are chosen from millions of volunteers to be space pioneers... until disaster strikes and they find themselves stranded on a lonely planet.
"'Lost In Space' was a show with heart; that's why families loved it... and why we all wanted to be part of the movie. It's a clever and sophisticated adventure story that touches on family issues, making it different from other sci-fi films. The idea of an entire family in space is very interesting."
It's a major big-screen break for LeBlanc... a role he grabs with both hands and makes his own.
This guy certainly isn't dumb!

GARY OLDMAN

Scene from the Movie

If the old maxim that finish last is true, then Gary Oldman's career might be about to take a turn for the worse, as the London born actor has vowed that his latest screen villain will be his last for a while.
Of course were that really to be the case there is more than enough energy and scenery chewing villainy in Lost In Space bad guy Dr Zachary Smith to last us for a while, but this sounds more like an actor thinking out loud than a career statement on intent. Give him a quality script and, as he proved time and again, Gary Oldman ids the man to play characters who are mad, bad and dangerous to know - think of his scene stealing roles in Leon, JFK and The Fifth Element. It's a pedigree which might seem to contradict his decision to appear in this latest sci-fi romp.
"The overriding appeal with Lost In Space," he smiles, "was that it gave me the opportunity to be in a movie that my kids could go and see. I've played a lot of very strange, twisted characters and here is a strange, twisted character for them. That was the big attraction in his project, I could finally be in something that I could take my older son to see."

Unlike the cult following it has in America, the kitschy tv series upon which the film is based may find Europe less receptive to its retro appeal. "I knew the series from when I was a kid in the '70s," Oldman adds. "It wasn't something that I rushed home to see, but if it happened to be on tv then I would watch it. It has quite a cult following in the states, as tends to exist with "The X Files" and "Star Trek". My only hope is that for those hardened fans I hope we didn't take too many liberties and offend them."
They will recognise above all that the film ,makers have beefed up the various bells and whistles - the effects, the technology, the feeling of peril - while retaining the basic story of a futuristic family, an ace space pilot and an evil stowaway cruising through the darkest reaches of unmapped space.
It is a film calculated to have a broad appeal , even if the maths don't always add up. For the dads out there there is sexy mum Mimi Rogers to enjoy, for the girls there is "friends" star Matt LeBlanc, for other dads there is "Boogie Nights" starlet Heather Graham, and for younger boys there is much gunplay, superb special effects and a big friendly robot.
"The robot in this film was the most temperamental co-star I have ever encountered," the actor chuckles, "and I've worked with Sean Penn! It was constantly breaking down and refusing to work. It's strange, because you have to have a lot of faith in the director, and it's still weird because he doesn't even know for sure what it will look like.
"There was something like 8,000 special effects shots in this, more than any other movie in history. There's something like 700 more than Titanic. So we had a situation where the director was saying: 'here come the spiders, look worried!', adding that although there's nothing there at the moment on the day they will look really scary.
It's a process that you surrender to, you have to know the movie you're making. It's very time consuming and very tedious, you come in and rehearse for half an hour in the morning, but you might not step in the front of the camera until five that afternoon. You just have to come in, have patience and just sit it out. That's the name of the game." It makes a refreshing change to hear Oldman talk without pretence about his craft, where so many other actors mystify and complicate it.
"In a movie like this you can definitely ask too many questions, you just have to run through the door and the spaceship is going to blow up, and all you have to do is look panicked. Just do it and make it convincing. You can put too much into something like this, but you just have to understand the genre and the movie that you're making.
"My preparation for this one was to read the script, that's all I tend to do. It's a hard one with something like this, because it's set in the future, it's in outer space, but I think it was John Gieland who said many years ago that style was knowing what play you were in."
There is a calm About Gary Oldman these days that is at odds with the nervy, intense actor he used to be. Maybe this comes from the huge critical support garnered by his directorial debut on Nil By Mouth last year, a low budget film subsidised by the big pay-days he received for Lost In Space and Air Force One.
Perhaps it is that he has put his well publicised demons behind him, that he lives in a settled family life with wife Donya Fiorentino and is a father again at the age of forty. Whatever the case, Oldman recognises that he has reached a career crossroads, and is assessing his options as never before.
"I have no idea what kind of roles I'll do in the future," he shakes his head. "More grown up ones maybe. I don't miss acting, and I haven't done it for over a year, but I don't miss it in the slightest. At the moment I'm writing something that I want to direct late next year, but I can't say anymore because these things have a life and an idea can start as one thing but end up as another."
The contentment in his voice is clear, but as ever one imagines Gary Oldman would return to acting in a shot if the role was right. Another big screen remake of a sci-fi tv favourite - how about the BBC's mooted big screen Dr Who?
"Dr Who eh?" he wonders. "Hey, let's read the script. I'd be up for it. How much?"

ANWAR BRETT

Go back for more - from this issue's Contents!

GARY OLDMAN

If the old maxim that finish last is true, then Gary Oldman's career might be about to take a turn for the worse, as the London born actor has vowed that his latest screen villain will be his last for a while. Of course were that really to be the case there is more than enough energy and scenery chewing villainy in Lost In Space bad guy Dr Zachary Smith to last us for a while, but this sounds more like an actor thinking out loud than a career statement on intent. Give him a quality script and, as he proved time and again, Gary Oldman ids the man to play characters who are mad, bad and dangerous to know - think of his scene stealing roles in Leon, JFK and The Fifth Element. It's a pedigree which might seem to contradict his decision to appear in this latest sci-fi romp. "The overriding appeal with Lost In Space," he smiles, "was that it gave me the opportunity to be in a movie that my kids could go and see. I've played a lot of very strange, twisted characters and here is a strange, twisted character for them. That was the big attraction in his project, I could finally be in something that I could take my older son to see."
Unlike the cult following it has in America, the kitschy tv series upon which the film is based may find Europe less receptive to its retro appeal. "I knew the series from when I was a kid in the '70s," Oldman adds. "It wasn't something that I rushed home to see, but if it happened to be on tv then I would watch it. It has quite a cult following in the states, as tends to exist with "The X Files" and "Star Trek". My only hope is that for those hardened fans I hope we didn't take too many liberties and offend them." They will recognise above all that the film ,makers have beefed up the various bells and whistles - the effects, the technology, the feeling of peril - while retaining the basic story of a futuristic family, an ace space pilot and an evil stowaway cruising through the darkest reaches of unmapped space. It is a film calculated to have a broad appeal , even if the maths don't always add up. For the dads out there there is sexy mum Mimi Rogers to enjoy, for the girls there is "friends" star Matt LeBlanc, for other dads there is "Boogie Nights" starlet Heather Graham, and for younger boys there is much gunplay, superb special effects and a big friendly robot. "The robot in this film was the most temperamental co-star I have ever encountered," the actor chuckles, "and I've worked with Sean Penn! It was constantly breaking down and refusing to work. It's strange, because you have to have a lot of faith in the director, and it's still weird because he doesn't even know for sure what it will look like. "There was something like 8,000 special effects shots in this, more than any other movie in history. There's something like 700 more than Titanic. So we had a situation where the director was saying: 'here come the spiders, look worried!', adding that although there's nothing there at the moment on the day they will look really scary. It's a process that you surrender to, you have to know the movie you're making. It's very time consuming and very tedious, you come in and rehearse for half an hour in the morning, but you might not step in the front of the camera until five that afternoon. You just have to come in, have patience and just sit it out. That's the name of the game." It makes a refreshing change to hear Oldman talk without pretence about his craft, where so many other actors mystify and complicate it. "In a movie like this you can definitely ask too many questions, you just have to run through the door and the spaceship is going to blow up, and all you have to do is look panicked. Just do it and make it convincing. You can put too much into something like this, but you just have to understand the genre and the movie that you're making. "My preparation for this one was to read the script, that's all I tend to do. It's a hard one with something like this, because it's set in the future, it's in outer space, but I think it was John Gieland who said many years ago that style was knowing what play you were in." There is a calm About Gary Oldman these days that is at odds with the nervy, intense actor he used to be. Maybe this comes from the huge critical support garnered by his directorial debut on Nil By Mouth last year, a low budget film subsidised by the big pay-days he received for Lost In Space and Air Force One. Perhaps it is that he has put his well publicised demons behind him, that he lives in a settled family life with wife Donya Fiorentino and is a father again at the age of forty. Whatever the case, Oldman recognises that he has reached a career crossroads, and is assessing his options as never before. "I have no idea what kind of roles I'll do in the future," he shakes his head. "More grown up ones maybe. I don't miss acting, and I haven't done it for over a year, but I don't miss it in the slightest. At the moment I'm writing something that I want to direct late next year, but I can't say anymore because these things have a life and an idea can start as one thing but end up as another." The contentment in his voice is clear, but as ever one imagines Gary Oldman would return to acting in a shot if the role was right. Another big screen remake of a sci-fi tv favourite - how about the BBC's mooted big screen Dr Who? "Dr Who eh?" he wonders. "Hey, let's read the script. I'd be up for it. How much?"
ANWAR BRETT