Has having children changed the way you take risks in your life?
Camera Yes, I was so wild in my youth that I missed it, and there are so many risks that I will not take now. I see some of this brutality in my children, and there are stories that are taboo until they reach a certain age. But it definitely colors your whole perspective on having children.
I also want to do the thing that other people do it’s not a job. When I look at these big, amazing movies – I’m looking at you, Marvel and DC – it doesn’t matter how old the characters are, they all act like they’re in college. They have relationships, but they really aren’t. They never close Spurs because of their children. The things that truly establish us and give us strength, love and purpose? These characters don’t experience it, and I guess that’s not how movies are made.
Wortington Jim wrote this family in a wonderful way where the stakes are not only life and death, but the conflicts are completely internal. You still have those arguments with the kids that you have every day, like, “Pick up your clothes, eat your food,” even though the world is at war. To be honest, I used a lot of what I learned from responding to teen boys in the movie and brought it back into my real life, because I have three boys – it’s a zoo in my house – and someone has to be the great Santini and keep them in line.
James, even before she had children, plenty of action films explored that paternal dynamic. I think of Sarah Connor and her son John inTerminator 2or “Ripley and Newt-in”Aliens. “
Camera I think it has to do with what interests one as a writer and director. The one thing I’ve learned is that you have to have something that the actors can have, something that they can draw from their life experience. I knew as I wrote it that Sam and Zoe were new parents and that these things would resonate, but if you’re talking to a small audience, let them feel validated by children on another planet, 200 years from now, going through the same crap they’re going through now .
Sigourney, how did you react when you learned that you were going to play a moody 14-year-old who was caught up in movement?
