Matt Damon muses on his relationship with co-star Emily Blunt in their new movie, The Adjustment Bureau. Michele Manelis reports.
Free will versus destiny is at the core of The Adjustment Bureau, a sci-fi-fantasy-romance starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. In this against-the-odds love story, Damon stars as a politician on the rise, while Blunt is a dancer he meets by chance. The Adjustment Bureau staff serve as puppet masters of the universe, controlling our fate. In this case, their job, as dictated by "the chairman", the highest ranking in the bureau, is to keep the fated couple apart.
Taking a page or two from previous mind-benders such as Inception, and The Matrix, the movie is based on a short story by Phillip K. Dick (Adjustment Team), and directed by first-time director George Nolfi, who also wrote the script.
Talking in New York, where the movie is set, Damon says he disagrees with the comparisons. "Inception or The Matrix films go much deeper into the complexity of their worlds. Our movie is really a love story to which the Adjustment Bureau serves as an obstacle. It's about fated people. There's no conflict between us, and everything is great. Whereas, those other two movies delve into the mythology of their worlds, what they mean, and how they work."
The best aspect of the movie is the chemistry between Damon and Blunt. As a couple, they're completely believable and the romance makes sense. But this is a difficult genre to get right - as the likes of The Time Traveller's Wife showed.
Nolfi, whose other writing credits include: The Bourne Ultimatum, The Sentinel, and Ocean's Twelve, took several years in honing this script. "The biggest challenge for me wasn't merely just extending a short story into a feature film, it wasn't a clear genre. I didn't have the rules to help me solve the problems," he says. "The themes in the story interest me. The idea that whatever the world puts in your way, something we call fate, if you roll over and give up, you're not living a fully human choosing life."
Damon has his own views on fate and the story appealed to his softer side. "In my own life, I was trying to decide between whether to do a Farrelly brothers movie, Stuck On You, a comedy set in Hawaii, or a movie where I'd have to lose 40 pounds and eat a live snake [Rescue Dawn, a role Christian Bale would star in]. I was talking to my mother about it and she said, 'why don't you ever have fun when you go to work? It doesn't always have to be this rigorous grind you put yourself under'. So then I met the Farrellys, got along with them, and agreed to do it. Due to unforeseen circumstances, they ended up shooting in Miami instead of Hawaii. I went into a bar one night with one of the crew, saw my future wife, and now I'm married with four kids," he laughs. "It seems like that was a real twist of fate to me, or maybe just incredible luck that we found each other."
Damon jokes about having a hand in his own fate in regards to future children. "Actually, four kids are plenty. That's it for us. If you have a number for a good doctor, please let me know."
The ominous men of the "Bureau," include acting veteran Terence Stamp, John Slattery (Mad Men), and Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker), all clad in dark suits and fedoras. In this role, Slattery looks like he stepped right out the 50s-themed Mad Men set. He says, "I almost didn't do it for that reason - the suits and the hats. But of course this is a very different story, but I have to say, and it might not look like it, but I'm not a fan of those clothes. I'm a little more low-key than a suit and hat guy."
But was Slattery a fan of the famed sci-fi author, Phillip K. Dick? "Well, I liked Blade Runner, of course. Actually, Dick's family was on the set and they gave their sign of approval. He had some very evocative ideas which film-makers have obviously picked up on, like Minority Report, or Paycheck."
Emily Blunt's role as a dancer meant more than simply learning lines. "Oh my God," she says, dramatically. "It was a real endurance test. I had to be a convincing dancer. It was every day two hours in the gym, two hours in a dance studio, dieting for about eight weeks. On top of that, I did more whenever I could off-set and before work, after work, days off. It was a different way of life," she says.
"But you have no choice. When you take on a role like this, you have to take on every facet of that role and what it requires." She laughs. "I promised the director I'd do it. When we first met, he said to me, very seriously, 'you can't dance'. And I said, 'you're right'. And he said, 'you'll have to learn'. And I said, 'I won't let you down'."
On the philosophical and unanswerable question of fate, or the idea that we are being controlled by a higher power, Damon says, "I think Phillip K. Dick wrote this book at a time when he felt that Big Brother paranoia and he had those questions. I feel like we are certainly living in a free country."
But for Damon, like all entertainers who choose a career fraught with uncertainty, for the most part, leaving it up to the gods, he says, "Well, yes, actors take a road that's very unstable and promises a lot of insecurity down the line. I think to George [Nolfi], this movie is a celebration of making that kind of choice, of taking the road less travelled and embracing your freedom to choose a life that isn't the one that's laid out for you. I suppose in that way, this kind of unsteady life might be a little tougher."
LOWDOWN
What: The Adjustment Bureau, sci-fi romance from the writings of Phillip K. Dick starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt
When and where: Opens at cinemas today
- TimeOut
