"Can you?"

[fan_elune]

I've just watched I, Robot and man. I don't think I'd have made it through the whole movie if not for Alan. I do not enjoy action blockbuster types, it's become very apparent. Will Smith and I really aren't best mates, to start with. And the whole movie is just so... very... obvious. There's nothing subtle about it whatsoever. That said, I expected them to abuse Asimov more than that.

It was highly entertaining to listen to Sonny, though, and pick up more and more of Alan's voice as the movie went. And it was fascinating to watch him, and think, wow. That's all Alan. (Apart from some of the battle stuff, obviously. He's not that good that he can somersault all over the place. Though he did do some of the fight stuff, just FYI.) But mostly, I felt kinda bad that he'd have gone through that much trouble for a part that, sure, is potentially so very interesting, but that has a place in a movie that so doesn't exploit, or celebrate, said potential. I still see how fulfilling, as an actor, it must have been, to work on a role like this. Especially since they spent a month before filming began just working on the character, and doing all sorts of theatre stuff that Alan obviously loves doing. But I can't help wonder if it mustn't have been more frustrating than anything else, in the end. Seeing the finished product, and thinking "okay, they say the journey's more important than the destination, and the journey sure was exciting on top of fucking exhausting but I kinda would have liked the destination to be a bit more with the quality."

So what if I'm biased? The only reason why I wanted to see this movie at all was because of how Alan talked of Sonny in his interviews. Here are a few choice excerpts, you'll see what I mean. (Beware, the rest of this post is rambling on and on and on about Alan, the kind of rambling I usually reserve for shadesofbrixton. But today, everybody gets to read more than they ever wanted to know about my favourite pilot!)

"Because I went to Juilliard, they taught us to speak in this ridiculous way," he says. "When I first went there, people said, 'Don't go there. They take original actors and they make them all the same thing, and they teach you how to walk and talk, and they make you into a robot.' So I just kind of did that voice. Words. That. Every. One. Has. It's. Place. They all exist separately."

It's pretty interesting - as an Alan fanatic - to see that no matter how much he hated it at Juilliard, he still doesn't push it all away and deny everything he learned over there. ...while still taking the piss. "'They make you into a robot.' So I just kind of did that voice." Heh.

Also, for the record, because the end of the quote makes me think about him and his distinctive diction? Alan does a very good Shatner impersonation.

"Alex kept saying, 'We're getting you a choreographer,' and I said I didn't need one. Choreographer means dance to me, and I wasn't dancing. I wanted someone who was a movement specialist," Tudyk says, adding he was initially resistant. "I was going to meet him one day, and I brought some books along that I had been reading in preparation. So he sits down and he asked what I was thinking, and I pulled out a book on mime -- a book on the Alexander Technique...and he pulled out almost the exact same books. It was immediate. We had a great time. The first month, I was in the studio with him doing mask work and physical work and meditation. We watched tapes of Noh Theatre and studied expressions and hand movements. It was so much like theatre school or a play, but it was on this huge movie budget, and I was in heaven."

The guy was reading books about mime and just - he has incredible dedication. No matter what role he takes on. He'll be a robot and think about how to speak and read up on how to move, he'll be a guy thinks he's a pirate and make up a whole backstory as to the how and why of that particular delusion, and a whole inner journey for said guy to go through in the course of a Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller movie. Honestly. This is me not wondering whether he read up on secretary birds before doing the voice-overs for Ice Age 2. Heh.

Also, I love that he was obviously having so much fun working on it. That he loves theatre so badly. And that he doesn't mind at all admitting that he had the stupid "choreography = dancing" preconception. *fangirls*

"We ended up using a couple of things, but mainly the Alexander technique. This uses the skeleton as a frame, as we all do, but in the way that it's supposed to be. It's not just posture, but the balance of your skeleton. Using the most efficient movement possible - which a robot would do - to move from point A to point B."

See what I'm talking about? The guy thinks it all through. For such a laid-back, easy-going, funny guy, he thinks a lot about what he does. He's hella hard-working. And honestly, if I hadn't read those interviews before seeing the movie - well first off I would've thought he'd only done the voice, and not the motion capture and facial expressions and stuff, but also? I wouldn't have been paying all that much attention to the way Sonny moved, it wouldn't have really registered. So it's really sort of thankless work, I find.

"The suit itself wasn't uncomfortable, as far as like a 'These shoes are uncomfortable, they give me a blister kind of thing.' It was more, 'Oh my God, you can see my package.' It was all out there. I've seen that kind of unitard before on dancers, on gymnasts and superheroes. People who typically have great bodies. If you put one on, and you don't have a really good body, it looks terrible. So, I had to stay in shape... From the beginning, they had me working with a guy who got me into the best shape of my life... They had a Teamster come to my house at seven in the morning and pick me up, which made it impossible for me to skip the gym, which I can do now. But then, when you had a Teamster there going, 'It's time for you to go,' you can't hit him like a snooze button. They get pissed when you hit them. And then they take you to the gym and that guy would grab me and work me to the point of, at least twice on the way back from the gym, we had to pull over and get out of the car and just breathe. I thought I was going to throw up because he worked me that hard. It was mainly to get me in shape for the balance and be physically fit, because it was a really physical role."

Do I even need to comment on this? The guy couldn't breathe they worked him so hard. Every morning at seven. It boggles the mind a little.

(More shallowly. I've seen a picture of him in that green suit. ...not his best look.)

"It is a bad day for Sonny. His first day, and then he gets thrown out into the world and there's a lot of new coming at him at once. I guess I just imagine myself in that situation. There's a lot of fear... But he was also a very hopeful character. Even with everything going on, he was such a certain character. 'I know I was made for a purpose. I know my father made me for that.' That's such a beautiful thing to play, to be certain. I'm not so certain in life. Should I do this, should I do that? His track is, 'What am I here for? I know I have a purpose, what is it?' So I guess he was like me, a younger version of me..."

See what I'm talking about? He thinks about each role so much, he feels for each of his parts so much.

"If you watch a toddler, they have perfect posture because they have not begun to characterize insecurities. You know, people think too much, they're always down with their head. You take all of that away and just let the balance and spine happen naturally. So that's what I worked with, the movement."

That quote here's just because I think he's got a damn good point. You watch how people stand and move, you learn a lot about who they are, and about their insecurities. I don't think I ever mentioned it, but once Joey and I were walking down the street and this old guy stopped me with a comment on the hat I was wearing, and he seemed harmless and stuff so I didn't just walk on, but actually responded, and like, twenty seconds into the 'conversation' he managed to tell the two of us things about ourselves he couldn't possibly know. About what we were like, and just, personal stuff. And he nailed most of it, dead on. An example that doesn't reveal too much about me either? My need for independence. It was pretty freaky, and very "whoa am I on telly or something? Because that stuff happens in TV shows, not in my life." But unless the guy was a telepath or with the secret service - which, let's face it, is even less likely than the telepath thing, as why on earth would they care about the two of us - he got it all just by watching us be, and talk, and picking up on little things. And it's pretty amazing, 'cause it's not like after ten minutes of us talking he figured stuff out. It was almost instantaneous. And I'm babbling. The point is? Alan's got a point. And I wish I could read that kind of things from people. Hell of a handy trick.


And okay, I'm stopping the Alan quotespam of doom now. (Though if anybody actually read and enjoyed this one, it wouldn't be hard to convince me to do others. /end hint)


Right now is me being puzzled because I just realised I never actually ranted about Alan all that much before. On LJ, I mean, obviously. Or did I and then forgot about it, flist? *creates an Alan tag for the occasion*