WGTC: Moving on to Pompeii…
Anderson: Moving on from Arnold Schwarzenegger…
WGTC: (laughs) Moving on from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Pompeii. You’ve already stated quite clearly that you set out to make this disaster movie, and it’s very clear that we see lots of influence there from films like Towering Inferno, Earthquake, and Poseidon Adventure, which are all similar events that occurred in those last few hours, but it also seems like a tribute to Sword & Sandal films, like the classics Ben-Hur, Ten Commandments, or even more recent films like Gladiator and 300. How did previous films of these genres influence you while working on Pompeii?
Anderson: Ben-Hur I feel had a big influence on us because of the whole chariot aspect, and also, the incredible thing about Ben-Hur is, of course, when you look at the size of the sets they built, the behind-the-scenes topography, it was vast. It was a different kind of filmmaking. It was the kind of filmmaking where you could shoot for a year, you could employ 10,000 extras, you could build a set that was half a mile long. No one makes movies like that anymore.
One of the reasons Ben-Hur looks so good is because they used to make movies like that and everything you’re looking at on screen is real. That was a big inspiration for me. Obviously we’re making a modern movie with the help of visual effects. There’s no other way to make a volcano movie. Even with an unlimited budget, we can’t build a volcano and make it explode, but I wanted to make it look as real as possible.
Ben-Hur, more than anything, became our hallmark, looking at it, and trying to deliver massive scale, but trying to make it look completely photo-real, so that you couldn’t tell where the sets and extras stopped and the digital aspects of the movie began. That’s one of the things I’m happy about. I think the visual look of the movie… I think it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. That’s something we were striving very hard to do.
WGTC: Ben-Hur is certainly not a bad film to aspire to. If you’re going to go for something, I’d say go for something that big.
Anderson: It’s fascinating to look at it, and really Ben-Hur can only be so big as well, because they were limited. Apart from a few visual effects, they were limited to what they did build. That’s why Pompeii was always going to have a large visual effects element, because if you go to the city of Pompeii for real, one of the things that strikes you is how much Vesuvius dominates the city and how much it towers over the city. And this is Vesuvius now, as opposed to Vesuvius back then, which would have been even bigger, because in the disaster the top 2,000 feet of the mountain just blew off completely. I always knew that there was going to have to be a big visual effects component because you’re always going to have to see the mountain there in the background.
WGTC: The next couple of questions are about the cast. All Game of Thrones fans know who Kit Harington is, and we all know how amazing he is on the show, but, of course, you must have known going into this that there would be a huge portion of the audience who has no idea who Kit Harington is. Unfortunately, there are some people who have never watched Game of Thrones. Did that worry you at all when you were putting the bulk of the film on Kit’s shoulders as a relatively unknown actor to that large a group?
Anderson: I think there’s an advantage to having a younger actor who doesn’t bring in baggage with him. I think one of the joys of disaster movies is not knowing who’s going to live and who’s going to die. If you have a certain level of actor, like if you put a movie star in there, you know that guy’s going to live. There’s no danger for him. I think having someone who doesn’t bring baggage makes it more uncertain, and that’s scarier and more fun.
The other thing is, I think it’s fun that the leads are relatively young as well, and the fact is that if you’re looking for someone in their mid-20s or early 20s… you name me that actor who’s a big movie star. Most of the big movie stars tend to be older than that. Part of the nature of disaster movies as well is that they tend to be more ensemble casts. Yes, a lot of the movie’s on Kit’s shoulders, but it’s also a kind of ensemble disaster movie as well. Pompeii and Vesuvius and the actual disaster itself is a huge part of the movie, one of the biggest stars in the movie I would say.
