ERIC BANA interview on HANNA

COVERED BY: BRENDA MEYER

On his training for the role:
I didn't have - there wasn't a lot of lead time, actually. It was more a case of once I got there, just working really hard with Jeff Imada, who was our stunt coordinator - working on the style he wanted to use for the film. But he was also very good at working with both Saoirse and I on whatever strengths or physical backgrounds that we had to kind of play into that. So it wasn't a case of having months and months to prepare. Luckily I wasn't grazing in the fat paddock when I got the call. (laughs) I was in a holding pen, so I was sort of good to go.

On what new skills he had to learn:
Well, I hadn't done hand-to-hand stuff before. Troy was completely different in that it was all weapons fighting, but none of the movies I've done in the past had any sort of hand-to-hand stuff, so that was fun. I actually really enjoyed that because it's just a bit more sort of tactile, especially the way that Jeff choreographs the fights. There's actually a lot of contact between the parties. It's not the sort of fight where people are throwing haymakers and you kind of bob, there's a lot of sort of body on body and elbows and stuff, so you are constantly sort of making some kind of physical contact with the other person, which is nice.

On doing fights with someone as young and physically different as Saoirse, and if he was nervous at all about those fight scenes:
Absolutely. I mean, it's great when you do fights when you actually get to fight with stuntmen, because not only does it not matter if you hit them because they can just wheel another one out (laughs), but they're usually guys that you've trained with, so you know them really well and, like I say, if someone does get hurt, it's not a huge loss to the production in terms of their face being on camera/ Whereas, if I was to belt Saoirse in the jaw, she's in every frame of the movie, [so] we're in trouble, so initially, I was concerned. But, to be honest, after the second day of training with her, I wasn't concerned at all. I was more concerned with my own safety.

Did she inflict any damage on you:
No, no, no battle scars, but I made it clear to her that - 'cause she'd obviously done a lot less of this than I have - so I made it clear to her not to hold back and I'll always let you know you need to be more careful, and to, like, just go for it when the camera's rolling, especially when it comes to body shots. Body shots, [it] doesn't matter because, if you bruise, it doesn't matter, it's not like getting your face hit, so I just let her have free rein. There were a couple of knees that caused some shallow breathing, but besides that, it was okay.

On the popularity of Australian actors in Hollywood:
I dunno. I guess there's always been a lot of Australian actors here, I mean, for a long, long, long time. So I dunno, twenty years ago, that question might have had a more interesting answer, but now I mean, they're getting younger, which is different than when I started. When I started, most of the people who were getting their breaks here were older, but now they seem to be getting plucked much, much younger, so I guess the only danger is that they've done less. So hopefully it can continue and they don't pluck a couple too early that then don't go on to do something.

[Mel Gibson] was very important to me when I was a kid, because Mad Max 1 and 2 are like my favorite films of all time, so those movies were very influential in my career because I just related to it, and I thought he was just the most incredible thing ever. So when you're very, very young, there are always going to be actors who leave a mark, but in terms of Australian actors, yeah, Mel was definitely one that had a very strong influence.

What was the appeal of Erik [the character] to you?
Actually, I found the project appealing on its own. When I read the script, it was immediately apparent that here was something that was getting harder and harder to find, being original material, and not something that was recycled or had been adapted. That was extremely refreshing. So just, as a reader, straightaway, I was all 'ahhhhh, fantastic', and within the first ten pages, I was like, 'awesome, I can't wait to get going.'

I loved the way the information was slowly revealed - like, in the first five pages, I was like, what are these two people doing in the forest in the snow, what's going on? And then, the way it sort of played out, I felt was very cool. I felt it was very well written. And I loved that our lead character was a role that was normally played by, like, a thirty year old guy was a sixteen year-old girl, I thought that was really exciting.

And then, so the character of Erik was just a great mentor and role, but to be honest, it was the whole project I really loved. And then, when I spoke to Joe and he painted a really unique picture of how he was interpreting the material and that's when I got really excited, because, you know, it is the director's job to inform a tone and a style on a picture, and some people can do that better than others. But in this case, I'd say that the leap from what was on the page and the final product was really big in terms of him imposing his style, and his collaboration with The Chemical Brothers and all that sort of stuff, so my early conversations with him were really exciting for that reason.

On The Chemical Brothers score:
Yeah, I think Joe did [know early on that he was using them]. He told me early on whilst we were filming, so it must've been pretty early on. And they're friends, so I'm assuming there was a discussion in pre-production as well.

On filming the one-shot Steadycam tracking/fight sequence in the subway and the rehearsal/training involved:
It's no different physically, because, even when you're doing a scene like that and you're getting lots of coverage, for the actor, it's the same. You're doing it pretty much start to finish, and you're doing it all, but it gets cut up. So physically, it's no different. But in terms of pressure, there's a huge difference because he told, like, me a week before, 'you know that fight you've been rehearsing, we're going to shoot it in one [take].' And I was like, 'oookay.' (laughs)

But, to be honest, it's an honor. It's so rare that you get that opportunity. Most of our hard work in choreography ends up on the floor because it's cut to pieces, and in the end, you could have turned up on the day and said, now throw a right and cut, and now react [mimes actions]. So many of those fights are cut together so quickly that you needn't bother having learned the whole thing in the first place, but I like to. I like to learn them from start to finish, so if you do get called out and someone wants to pull back and shoot wide, you're able to do that. So it's really exciting, and it's exciting for everyone because it's not just you and the stuntmen, it's the Steadycam operator who has to be perfect, the guy who's holding his back and walking backwards has to be perfect, the guy making sure no one runs over a cable, the focus puller, so there is this moment for the whole production where it becomes live performance.

We shot that at magic hour, so we only had a very slim window to get it. I think we had time for maybe six or seven takes, and I think it's the second take that's in the film, but we just rehearsed it all day - the whole day was devoted to just getting that, y'know, with the extras and the buses and rehearse and rehearse and just kept banging it out until we lost the light.

On how being a father has informed him in this role:
I think that's the interesting thing about Erik because he's basically made this decision to stay with Hanna for the whole time, and I think that father-daughter dynamic is something very rare in film, and also in society, we're used to the mother being the dominant force in the parenting relationship, so that was really cool, too. When I read this, I was like, this is something we don't see a lot that's like the perfect father-daughter date movie, you know what I mean. That was really, really different.

On how he'd feel if his kids wanted to act:
Not as children, no, but as adults, whatever they want to do, I'd support, no problem.

On working with Saoirse:
She was awesome. I mean, I'd seen her previous films, and knew that she had a good relationship with Joe, which I knew was going to be really important for her, because this is a monster for her to shoot in terms of schedule and physicality. But she was just awesome. I mean, her being Irish and me being Australian, the on-set dynamic became very quickly one of more of brother-sister than father-daughter. I mean, she's got a very wicked sense of humor and we teased each other mercilessly. So, she was a lot of fun to work with.

On shooting in Finland:
Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, I'd never been there before. I didn't know what to expect, and it was funny, 'cause the first day we got there, for some reason, I expected it to be more mountainous, but it was completely flat, and we got out onto this ice shelf and we're standing there, and I look at Joe and I said, 'Please tell me that the audience is going to believe this is real, because this looks like we're on a sound stage in L.A.' It's like a very basic grey backdrop here, as beautiful as it is. So the only concern I had was that you would be able to tell that we're really there, otherwise what was the point of flying all that way.

We were in a little village called Ruka, which is I think sort of in the middle or a bit north. But it was just spectacular. And I'm sure you could kind of cheat it, but I think we had too much stuff there to bother trying to green screen, and that was the other great thing about the production, we didn't have one day in the studio the whole film. We were on the streets of Berlin or we were in Bavaria or in Finland. They went on to Morocco, which obviously my character didn't, but there is something a lot nicer about shooting a film outdoors.

On if he was surprised by this change of pace from director Joe Wright:
I think it's always interesting when a director chooses to do that. I think the thing that surprised me was the film looks a lot bigger than it was. It's a very modest-budgeted film, but it looks so much bigger than it was to make, and that's a testament to him and how much his style and photography and especially the music especially elevates the production.

On how much harder it was to learn the different languages than the fight scenes:
(laughs) Let's just say it was one week of training for the fights and six weeks of training for one line of Spanish.

On still living in Australia:
I still live in Australia. I've never lived anywhere else, I've never thought about living anywhere else. Like I said, like, now I'm shooting in Montreal, [Hanna] gets filmed in Europe, so there's no point for anyone to live but where they live because you're never going to film anywhere near where you live.

On working with Cate Blanchett:
It was great, I just wish I'd had more scenes with her. It was too short and sweet.

On his latest film, Blackbird:
It's what I'm shooting now in Montreal with Olivia Wilde and Sissy Spacek and Charlie Hunnam from Sons of Anarchy. It's very cool, it's very low-budget thriller drama and we're about halfway through.





				Hanna Interviews Eric Bana *COVERED BY: BRENDA MEYER* On his training for the role: I didn't have - there wasn't a lot of lead time, actually. It was more a case of once I got there, just working really hard with Jeff Imada, who was our stunt coordinator - working on the style he wanted to use for the film. But he was also very good at working with both Saoirse and I on whatever strengths or physical backgrounds that we had to kind of play into that. So it wasn't a case of having months and months to prepare. Luckily I wasn't grazing in the fat paddock when I got the call. (laughs) I was in a holding pen, so I was sort of good to go. On what new skills he had to learn: Well, I hadn't done hand-to-hand stuff before. Troy was completely different in that it was all weapons fighting, but none of the movies I've done in the past had any sort of hand-to-hand stuff, so that was fun. I actually really enjoyed that because it's just a bit more sort of tactile, especially the way that Jeff choreographs the fights. There's actually a lot of contact between the parties. It's not the sort of fight where people are throwing haymakers and you kind of bob, there's a lot of sort of body on body and elbows and stuff, so you are constantly sort of making some kind of physical contact with the other person, which is nice. On doing fights with someone as young and physically different as Saoirse, and if he was nervous at all about those fight scenes: Absolutely. I mean, it's great when you do fights when you actually get to fight with stuntmen, because not only does it not matter if you hit them because they can just wheel another one out (laughs), but they're usually guys that you've trained with, so you know them really well and, like I say, if someone does get hurt, it's not a huge loss to the production in terms of their face being on camera/ Whereas, if I was to belt Saoirse in the jaw, she's in every frame of the movie, [so] we're in trouble, so initially, I was concerned. But, to be honest, after the second day of training with her, I wasn't concerned at all. I was more concerned with my own safety. Did she inflict any damage on you: No, no, no battle scars, but I made it clear to her that - 'cause she'd obviously done a lot less of this than I have - so I made it clear to her not to hold back and I'll always let you know you need to be more careful, and to, like, just go for it when the camera's rolling, especially when it comes to body shots. Body shots, [it] doesn't matter because, if you bruise, it doesn't matter, it's not like getting your face hit, so I just let her have free rein. There were a couple of knees that caused some shallow breathing, but besides that, it was okay. On the popularity of Australian actors in Hollywood: I dunno. I guess there's always been a lot of Australian actors here, I mean, for a long, long, long time. So I dunno, twenty years ago, that question might have had a more interesting answer, but now I mean, they're getting younger, which is different than when I started. When I started, most of the people who were getting their breaks here were older, but now they seem to be getting plucked much, much younger, so I guess the only danger is that they've done less. So hopefully it can continue and they don't pluck a couple too early that then don't go on to do something. [Mel Gibson] was very important to me when I was a kid, because Mad Max 1 and 2 are like my favorite films of all time, so those movies were very influential in my career because I just related to it, and I thought he was just the most incredible thing ever. So when you're very, very young, there are always going to be actors who leave a mark, but in terms of Australian actors, yeah, Mel was definitely one that had a very strong influence. What was the appeal of Erik [the character] to you? Actually, I found the project appealing on its own. When I read the script, it was immediately apparent that here was something that was getting harder and harder to find, being original material, and not something that was recycled or had been adapted. That was extremely refreshing. So just, as a reader, straightaway, I was all 'ahhhhh, fantastic', and within the first ten pages, I was like, 'awesome, I can't wait to get going.' I loved the way the information was slowly revealed - like, in the first five pages, I was like, what are these two people doing in the forest in the snow, what's going on? And then, the way it sort of played out, I felt was very cool. I felt it was very well written. And I loved that our lead character was a role that was normally played by, like, a thirty year old guy was a sixteen year-old girl, I thought that was really exciting. And then, so the character of Erik was just a great mentor and role, but to be honest, it was the whole project I really loved. And then, when I spoke to Joe and he painted a really unique picture of how he was interpreting the material and that's when I got really excited, because, you know, it is the director's job to inform a tone and a style on a picture, and some people can do that better than others. But in this case, I'd say that the leap from what was on the page and the final product was really big in terms of him imposing his style, and his collaboration with The Chemical Brothers and all that sort of stuff, so my early conversations with him were really exciting for that reason. On The Chemical Brothers score: Yeah, I think Joe did [know early on that he was using them]. He told me early on whilst we were filming, so it must've been pretty early on. And they're friends, so I'm assuming there was a discussion in pre-production as well. On filming the one-shot Steadycam tracking/fight sequence in the subway and the rehearsal/training involved: It's no different physically, because, even when you're doing a scene like that and you're getting lots of coverage, for the actor, it's the same. You're doing it pretty much start to finish, and you're doing it all, but it gets cut up. So physically, it's no different. But in terms of pressure, there's a huge difference because he told, like, me a week before, 'you know that fight you've been rehearsing, we're going to shoot it in one [take].' And I was like, 'oookay.' (laughs) But, to be honest, it's an honor. It's so rare that you get that opportunity. Most of our hard work in choreography ends up on the floor because it's cut to pieces, and in the end, you could have turned up on the day and said, now throw a right and cut, and now react [mimes actions]. So many of those fights are cut together so quickly that you needn't bother having learned the whole thing in the first place, but I like to. I like to learn them from start to finish, so if you do get called out and someone wants to pull back and shoot wide, you're able to do that. So it's really exciting, and it's exciting for everyone because it's not just you and the stuntmen, it's the Steadycam operator who has to be perfect, the guy who's holding his back and walking backwards has to be perfect, the guy making sure no one runs over a cable, the focus puller, so there is this moment for the whole production where it becomes live performance. We shot that at magic hour, so we only had a very slim window to get it. I think we had time for maybe six or seven takes, and I think it's the second take that's in the film, but we just rehearsed it all day - the whole day was devoted to just getting that, y'know, with the extras and the buses and rehearse and rehearse and just kept banging it out until we lost the light. On how being a father has informed him in this role: I think that's the interesting thing about Erik because he's basically made this decision to stay with Hanna for the whole time, and I think that father-daughter dynamic is something very rare in film, and also in society, we're used to the mother being the dominant force in the parenting relationship, so that was really cool, too. When I read this, I was like, this is something we don't see a lot that's like the perfect father-daughter date movie, you know what I mean. That was really, really different. On how he'd feel if his kids wanted to act: Not as children, no, but as adults, whatever they want to do, I'd support, no problem. On working with Saoirse: She was awesome. I mean, I'd seen her previous films, and knew that she had a good relationship with Joe, which I knew was going to be really important for her, because this is a monster for her to shoot in terms of schedule and physicality. But she was just awesome. I mean, her being Irish and me being Australian, the on-set dynamic became very quickly one of more of brother-sister than father-daughter. I mean, she's got a very wicked sense of humor and we teased each other mercilessly. So, she was a lot of fun to work with. On shooting in Finland: Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, I'd never been there before. I didn't know what to expect, and it was funny, 'cause the first day we got there, for some reason, I expected it to be more mountainous, but it was completely flat, and we got out onto this ice shelf and we're standing there, and I look at Joe and I said, 'Please tell me that the audience is going to believe this is real, because this looks like we're on a sound stage in L.A.' It's like a very basic grey backdrop here, as beautiful as it is. So the only concern I had was that you would be able to tell that we're really there, otherwise what was the point of flying all that way. We were in a little village called Ruka, which is I think sort of in the middle or a bit north. But it was just spectacular. And I'm sure you could kind of cheat it, but I think we had too much stuff there to bother trying to green screen, and that was the other great thing about the production, we didn't have one day in the studio the whole film. We were on the streets of Berlin or we were in Bavaria or in Finland. They went on to Morocco, which obviously my character didn't, but there is something a lot nicer about shooting a film outdoors. On if he was surprised by this change of pace from director Joe Wright: I think it's always interesting when a director chooses to do that. I think the thing that surprised me was the film looks a lot bigger than it was. It's a very modest-budgeted film, but it looks so much bigger than it was to make, and that's a testament to him and how much his style and photography and especially the music especially elevates the production. On how much harder it was to learn the different languages than the fight scenes: (laughs) Let's just say it was one week of training for the fights and six weeks of training for one line of Spanish. On still living in Australia: I still live in Australia. I've never lived anywhere else, I've never thought about living anywhere else. Like I said, like, now I'm shooting in Montreal, [Hanna] gets filmed in Europe, so there's no point for anyone to live but where they live because you're never going to film anywhere near where you live. On working with Cate Blanchett: It was great, I just wish I'd had more scenes with her. It was too short and sweet. *On his latest film, Blackbird:* It's what I'm shooting now in Montreal with Olivia Wilde and Sissy Spacek and Charlie Hunnam from Sons of Anarchy. It's very cool, it's very low-budget thriller drama and we're about halfway through.


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