The Peacemaker
Bratislava, Slovakia - 1996
I travelled back to Bratislava in Slovakia to cover scenes for this George Clooney movie, The Peacemaker, directed by Mimi Leder who had worked with Clooney on ER. It also starred Nicole Kidman who was at this time married to the Napoleonic Tom Cruise, owner of a set of teeth that seemed destined for another mouth. Cruise was no fan of 'behind the scenes', largely I suspect because he felt out of control of how he would sound and appear without the dusting of post-production. Although not appearing in the movie he was present on set, and I have a feeling he had some influence over Kidman's attitude to our presence.
Bratislava is the capital of the relatively newly formed Slovak Republic following its role in the anti-Communist Velvet Revolution in the late 80's. The City straddles the Danube River and has borders with Austria and Hungary and despite being bombed by Allies in the second WW it's historical buildings and squares remain intact. The scene I went to cover was to be shot in the main cobbled town square, closed off to allow a couple of Mercedes to 'bullfight' each other.
I was working for the Los Angeles based director Mike Meadows who was company partner with John Pattyson. These two business friends were the quintessential 'chalk & cheese' compliment of characters; John truly was the 'king of schmooze' with a breezy familiar personality, Mike wrestled with John's natural charm as this quality had managed to totally evade the very fabric of his soul and this weakness was reflected in his interview technique.
We set up an interview area in the town square and because of the strong sunlight I had arranged for some lights and reflectors to balance the shadows, and positioned a couple of directors chairs for the actors and Mike. Then we sat in the sun and waited. Nicole was brought over first during a break in filming, a tall, doll slim figure with porcelain skin wearing dark shades. She rested her well-tailored backside into the chair and Mike squeezed a carapace of sincerity into a smile that allowed Nicole a front row view of his Hollywood crafted dental work. Rightly, Mike asked her if she would do the interview without sunglasses, for two good reasons, first it looks impersonal hiding behind shades and second it just reflects all of us filming the interview. Reluctantly she peeled them off the porcelain and immediately complained it was far too bright, staring accusingly at me. I tried balefully to explain why the lights were there while shuffling them around to her peripheral vision.
So far so bad, Mike continued to work through his carefully crafted questions, all designed to allow the actor to promote their own film by teasing the audience into thinking it sounds interesting. Well, Nicole had either lost the plot or was just in a mood having been divested of her protective eyewear and gave Mike a hard time with her feeble attempt at giving answers, even responding to one question about explaining the storyline by suggesting, you should just go see the movie to find out the answer; not very helpful.
What Mike really needed was his high octane business partner John whose ebullience would have stood a better chance of turning round the situation, but he awkwardly furrowed his way through a handful of questions and she vacated the chair. I don't recall one of her answers of any use and I did wonder if the presence of Tom Cruise had influenced her attitude. He was riding high on the successful release of Mission Impossible, a film I had been invited to work on the previous year but had declined because of what I had heard about Tom and his dislike of people like me on set. I just could not face dancing in the dark with the twit. As Kidman was released George Clooney with perfect timing turned up and made himself effortlessly comfortable in the same chair. Nicole stood over my shoulder as he was now treated to Mike's charms.
George gave a textbook interview going along with the fairly facile questions purely designed to set out the stall to promote the film. He did also decide to have some fun at Nicole's expense by starting to tell a tale about how Nicole was a terrible kleptomaniac constantly stealing property from the crew, of course all done tongue in cheek, as she stood over my shoulder listening. Nicole charged in to say it was not true and I just widened the shot to include them both. Of course while this stuff is good material and shows how well they did get on it will probably never be used, as it was not in character with the film. I hope Nicole got a few tips from Clooney about how to roll with the EPK (Electronic Press Kit) interview and just cough up a few sound bites in the future.
Production Cost: $50 million
Worldwide box office: $110 million