| Interview
#1 |
Uma
Thurman |
| Interview
#2 |
Lucy
Liu |
| Interview
#3 |
Lawrence
Bender |
| Interview
#4 |
Vivica
A. Fox |
| Interview
#5 |
Quentin
Tarantino |
Clad in a
tattered leather jacket and sporting a mop of long, wavy hair,
Lawrence Bender looked more like an East Village hipster than a
Hollywood producer as he sat down to talk about KILL
BILL, his
latest collaboration with director Quentin Tarantino. Bender,
a former dancer who studied civil engineering in college, has been
Tarantino’s producer since the days of RESERVOIR
DOGS, a little
indie flick that you might be familiar with.
It’s been a
long time since Dogs first made a splash at Sundance, and Bender is
now a big-time Hollywood mofo, having garnered boatloads of Academy
Award nominations with films like GOOD WILL HUNTING. Nevertheless,
KILL BILL represents, by far, his most
ambitious project to date. Though
it possesses Tarantino’s trademark quirkiness and indie
sensibility, the movie is still, at its heart, a $55 million
action movie.
Shot in four
different countries, KILL BILL presented enough logistical
challenges to make give even the most confident producer pause.
But Bender proved more than up to the task, as audiences will
learn when the movie opens on Friday. Here’s what he had to say about it:
LAWRENCE BENDER
How
did the idea of splitting the film into two volumes originate?
When we were
working on the movie, the idea of this Volume 1, Volume 2 thing came
up like about a month before we ended shooting. Quentin wrote the
script in chapters, so it kind of lends itself to that idea. Not
that we thought about it before. Quentin came up with a way to do
it, pretty quickly, actually, and then we just dropped it. Of
course, that created rumors. Everyone on the set talked about it,
the actors started talking about it, and then it hit the press. But
it wasn’t like we were going back and forth. It’s just, we
thought about it and we dropped it.
We finished the
movie and then we got into the editing stage and we were working
through it. At a certain point, we got to basically where it is now. We
called Harvey into the editing room and said “Let’s just watch
the movie now. You’re looking at the first half of one movie or
it’s going to be part one of two parts. Have an open mind and
let’s see.” We basically watched what you guys watched, only in
a much rougher form. And we felt like it totally worked. It felt
like you have a full meal. It’s not over because you haven’t
killed Bill. And it’s called KILL BILL so you know there’s more
to come. Yeah, I think you feel relatively satisfied but you’re
yearning more.
Did
you ever suggest to Quentin that he might trim the film to get it
under three hours?
It’s kind of
a boring, because it wasn’t very confrontational. Literally, we
were there with Harvey, me and Sally, our editor. We thought about
it a little bit. But until we watched it, we were kinda like,
“Let’s not talk about it until we see it. And then we’ll just
see how it works. We’re all open to it.” I actually brought up,
“Does it make any sense to cut this thing down?”
And the answer was, “No.” I was just saying it to say it.
I didn’t believe it. So, no.
Will
there eventually be a DVD with all of it put together?
Maybe. I
don’t really know. We haven’t really thought about that.
We really want each movie to be seen as a separate entity.
So, I mean, that’s primarily what we’re focused on.
At some point maybe we’ll do that.
How hard was
it to internationally cast people?
Oh, my God.
This was huge endeavor. We were in four countries, by the way. This
was an enormous, enormous logistics project. I mean, what we did was
we brought master Yuen Wu-Ping and his Hong Kong fight team to
Culver City where we set up a training center and we trained Lucy,
Daryl, Vivica, Uma and David Carradine nine to five for twelve
weeks. And that was really tough, because that’s like full-on
hard-core fight training. Stretching, punching kicking, wire work.
Uma had the hardest job because each person had to learn one
technique but she had to learn all the techniques because she had to
fight everybody with all these different weapons. She had to learn
Japanese.
We went to
Beijing and the process was: we were going to have them train in
Beijing for a few weeks to get acclimated to the sets, to being in
Beijing, to that environment. I tell you, that was one of the most
incredible experiences I’ve ever had. Those
first three weeks were very difficult because the communication was
difficult, the Chinese would be upset because they weren’t quite
able to do what we wanted and the Americans were upset because they
couldn’t quite communicate. The equipment was different. It was
just three weeks of “How do we figure this out?” Literally,
halfway through the fourth week, three and a half, four weeks in, it
just started clicking. After a few weeks we were just working like
clockwork. It was amazing. The first days shoot we had 21 set-ups,
which for a big movie is really wonderful amount of work to
accomplish. It just really worked well.
You
said there is a different version that will be shown in Japan. That
it’s colorized in the restaurant. Is there anything else that’s
changed?
I don’t like
to talk about the differences. You’re going to have to figure it
out. You’re going to have to see it somehow. I don’t want to
give it away.
Is
Quentin working on that World War II project?
Because he’s
been working on this for three years, he hasn’t, I don’t think,
thought that much about that movie. You could ask him, of course,
but honestly, whatever he does next, he’s not gonna really know
until he finished Volume 2 and emotionally goes through… I
remember working on THE MEXICAN. At one point, David Fincher was
going to direct The Mexican and he was on post-production on FIGHT
CLUB. He finally said, “Lawrence, you know, I can’t date another
girl.” As a director,
you’re so emotionally involved with the movie until you’re
through it and you’ve promoted it and released it. It’s hard to
know what you’re going to do next.
How
do you manage to keep fresh when you have increasing budgets?
It’s true.
It’s funny, JACKIE BROWN, PULP FICTION and RESERVOIR DOGS, it’s
people go to a place and they talk. Or they go some place else and
they shoot somebody. Do a bit of action, then they go someplace else
and they talk. In this movie, there’s very little talking. Half of
its in Japanese, and it’s in four different countries to boot. You
know, I think it comes out of Quentin ultimately. He really thinks
outside the box. He really doesn’t accept “Well, that’s just
the way it’s done” kind of an answer. ‘No. Why? Cause it
doesn’t work that way. What do you mean? Why can’t we…’ So
he’s challenging that way. He challenges me. So he keeps me on my
game. And ultimately, it’s cool, because he pushes boundaries.
And, we also find ways to work on lower budgets. This movie is a 155
day shoot, but because we were able to shoot so much in China, we
were able to keep the cost down.
Did
Uma’s pregnancy have an effect on the start of production?
The answer is
yes and no, honestly. When Uma got pregnant, Quentin wasn’t really
finished with the script. You never know how these things go. If she
didn’t get pregnant, would he have gotten it done quicker? Maybe.
But, it was kind of a blessing in disguise, because I don’t know
if he would have. So, that gave him a little more time to finish. We
had a massive pre-production schedule. When he handed me that script
I had no down time. You have to crew up in four different countries.
It’s just a massive amount to pull of, so it ended up helping us.
If she didn’t get pregnant, could we have pushed back a couple of
months? Maybe. But, I sort of don’t know how we would have done it
in that short amount of time.
Are
you really working on a soccer trilogy for David Beckham?
I am working on
a soccer movie. Whether Beckham’s in it, I don’t know.
Would
you like him to be?
Sure. It’s
not about David Beckham. I am working on a soccer movie; I hate to
talk about it because we’re not even in pre-production yet. But
it’s about a young Latino kid from East LA who ends up on an
English soccer team. We’re still working on the script.
Was
the Japanese music in the closing credits composed for the film?
No. That music
has actually been around for a long time. Quentin has always been
known for using music in his movies. I feel like, in this movie,
he’s just taken a jump. I mean, from Quincy Jones to Bernard
Herman to Nancy Sinatra singing, “Bang bang.” It all works. I
remember watching for the first time in the editing room the scene
with Daryl Hannah. “Where did you come up with that idea? What an
amazing idea to put that Bernard Herman music.
It’s extraordinary.” And the same with the end title
music. That’s old music. It’s been around for a long time. Let
me tell, clearing that stuff is not easy too. You’re tracking down
people all over the world.
MORE
KILL BILL INTERVIEWS COMING SOON...
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