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The IllusionistProduction Notes Introduction THE ILLUSIONIST, writer-director Neil Burger’s (Interview with the Assassin) film based
on Steven Millhauser’s short story ‘Eisenheim the Illusionist’, completed
principal photography at the end of May 2005. THE ILLUSIONIST is a romantic mystery about a brilliant
stage magician in 1900 Vienna determined to win back the woman he loves from a
corrupt and dangerous Prince. When
they decide to escape together, a police inspector exposes their plans and the
woman is found murdered. As the police
work to stop him, Eisenheim must summon all his extraordinary power to prove the Prince guilty and bring down the
monarchy. Neil Burger wrote the screenplay and directs; the Costume Designer is
Oscar® winning Ngila Dickson (Lord of the Rings Trilogy);
the Director of Photography is Dick Pope
(Vera Drake); and the Production
Designer is Ondrej Nekvasil. Music by Philip Glass (The Hours, Koyanisquatsi) and the film
is edited by Naomi Geraghty (Hotel
Rwanda, In America). THE ILLUSIONIST is financed by The Yari Film Group and produced by Michael London Productions, , and Brian Koppelman, David Levien Productions and Bull’s Eye Entertainment.
International
sales on THE ILLUSIONIST are being handled by Syndicate Films International. Synopsis A romantic thriller set in 1900 Vienna,
The Illusionist is the story of
Eisenheim, a brilliant stage magician, pitted against the power-hungry Crown
Prince Leopold and the shrewd Chief Inspector Uhl. Between
Eisenheim and the Prince is the woman they both desire, the Duchess Sophie von
Teschen. When Sophie is discovered murdered, Eisenheim summons his
extraordinary powers in a desperate attempt to overcome Uhl, prove the Prince
guilty, and bring down the monarchy before it destroys him. Long
Synopsis The
Illusionist is a romantic thriller set in 1900
Vienna during a period of political unrest. Eisenheim is a brilliant stage
magician pitted against the power-hungry Crown Prince Leopold and the shrewd
Chief Inspector Uhl. Between Eisenheim and the Prince is the woman they
both desire, Duchess Sophie von Teschen. As children, Eisenheim and
Sophie begin an intense romance. But when they are forbidden to see each
other, the young magician is driven from the town. He disappears after
that, embarking on a journey in pursuit of secret powers. Years later he
appears in Vienna, now a successful stage magician, and there he meets Sophie
again. After so many years, she had given up hope of ever seeing him and
is now engaged to marry the Crown Prince. But Eisenheim and Sophie soon rekindle
their affair and decide to escape together. Inspector Uhl, who acts as a spy
for the Crown Prince, exposes the lovers and later Sophie is discovered
murdered. Eisenheim now must summon his extraordinary powers in a
desperate attempt to prove the Prince guilty. While Uhl tries to stop
him, Eisenheim foments a political uprising to bring down the monarchy before
it completely destroys him Background Magic has the power to
experience and fathom things which are inaccessible to human reason. For magic is a great secret wisdom; just as
reason is a great public folly. . -
Paracelsus (1493-1541) Stories, like conjuring
tricks, are invented because history is inadequate to our dreams. - Steven Millhauser Filming
began in Prague, Czech Republic on 4th April 2005 on The Illusionist, writer-director Neil
Burger’s film based on Pulitzer Prize-winner
Steven Millhauser’s short story ‘Eisenheim the Illusionist’. Starring
Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell and Eddie Marsan, The Illusionist is a romantic mystery
that tells the mystical story of Eisenheim, a stage illusionist performing in
the Austrian-Hungarian Empire around 1900. Two-time
Academy Award nominee Edward Norton
heads the stellar cast in the lead role of Eisenheim. Norton rose to prominence starring opposite
Richard Gere in Primal Fear, for
which he gained his first Academy Award nomination and he has gone on to star
in numerous Hollywood blockbusters such as The
People vs Larry Flynt, Fight Club and
Red Dragon. Golden
Globe nominee Paul Giamatti, stars
alongside Norton in the role of Inspector
Uhl. Giamatti’s illustrious career
includes starring roles in Man on the
Moon, Duets and Cinderella Man, and award winning
leading roles in American Splendor and
Sideways, for which he received a
Golden Globe nomination. Jessica Biel, fast becoming one of Hollywood’s most
sought after actresses following starring roles in Blade: Trinity; Stealth and
most recently Elizabethtown, stars
opposite Norton as Sophie, the
beautiful noblewoman with whom Eisenheim falls in love. The Illusionist also stars Rufus Sewell (A Knights Tale,
Dark City, and the upcoming Legend of
Zorro); Eddie Marsan (Vera Drake, 21 Grams, Gangs of New York);
Jake Wood (Vera Drake, Flesh & Blood); Tom Fisher (Van Helsing, The
Mummy Returns, Enigma); and fifteen year-old British actor Aaron Johnson playing young Eisenheim. Writer/director
Neil Burger first read the Steven Millhauser short story, ’Eisenheim the
Illusionist’ when it was published in the collection “The Barnum Museum.” “It’s a beautiful gem of a story, lyrical
and transcendant. The images and tone
of it are quite cinematic but the story itself is more of a fragment and
somehow not a film. I loved the story
but it wasn’t immediately clear how to solve the narrative puzzle and transform
it into a full blown movie.” While
Burger was editing his previous film, Interview
with the Assassin, he happened to be talking with the film’s producers
Brian Koppelman and David Levien about the difficulty of depicting magic on
screen. “I mentioned there was a short
story I had always wanted to make into a film, and they both finished my
sentence by asking ‘is it Eisenheim the Illusionist’? They knew the story well but admitted to being unsure about how
to make it into a film. Bluffing
somewhat, I assured them that I knew exactly how.” Koppelman
and Levien set out to acquire the rights to the short story. David Levien says: “We were delighted to
find the rights were available, but there was no time to lose. We called Neil and told him there was good
news and bad news. The good news was we
had the rights, the bad news: we had a short option period and the script had
to be written in six months.” For
Burger, the challenge was to preserve what was beautiful and mysterious about
the story but also create a dramatic context for it all. He invented new characters for the story –
Sophie and the Crown Prince – and greatly expanded the role of Inspector Uhl
who has just a few mentions in the short story. “The question was, how do you tell the story of Eisenheim, a man
who is an enigma, a mystery? How do
you get inside his head without giving away his secrets? I decided to tell his story from Inspector
Uhl’s point of view. Everything we see
is something Uhl has witnessed or one of his agents has told him. At other times, his story becomes
conjecture, what he imagines might have happened, and not necessarily true at
all – but still loosely from his point of view. He’s creating the legend even as he tries to figure it all
out. It’s a subtle but fairly rigorous
organizing principle for the storytelling.” Burger
did extensive research into magic as well as Vienna of that period. “I read everything I could about the
Hapsburgs, about the Secessionist movement, and about the magic from that time
– both the illusions themselves and the social world of the magicians. Most of the tricks are based on real
illusions and the characters I invented are also based on real people. I wanted it all to be as believable and
honest as possible, all the more so since the story examines the idea of how we
perceive truth and illusion – and blurs the boundary between those two
concepts. If you’re going to exaggerate
certain elements, to have it be dreamlike or surreal or uncanny, you have to
make sure that the rest of it has a rock solid foundation in the period.” Eisenheim’s
performances call into question everything we take for granted - his illusions
challenge the law of the land and also the very laws of nature. As Neil Burger explains, “I’m interested
in that moment when you come face to face with something unexplainable,
incomprehensible, and how that event changes your perceptions about everything. To that end, the magic in The Illusionist
is not about “how does he do it?” but
rather about the uncanny sense that nothing is what it seems. Burger
continues, “There’s a quote in the story that says, ‘Stories, like conjuring
tricks, are invented because history is inadequate to our dreams.’ That goes for Cinema in general and The
Illusionist in particular.” My
goal was to have the film completely inhabit that realm of dream and mystery.” With the
script in place, Koppelman and Levien approached producer Michael London. “Because of our filmmaking career and our
commitments, we realised we needed a producer who had a real artistic
sensibility,” explains Koppelman. “We
didn’t just want to be partnered with somebody who would merely treat this as
business, but somebody who was really in tune with how to make a film with
integrity. Because, as producers our
main mandate is to make sure the director gets to make the film he wants to
make, so it was very important that we partnered with someone who shared that
ethic, and we knew that Michael would bring that to the table.” “I was
already a fan of Neil Burger,” begins London, “I had seen his film (Interview with the Assassin) and I very
much liked The Illusionist script. I got involved in the middle of the
development process. We did a few more
drafts of the screenplay until we were all happy with what we had, and then we
began to approach financiers. We took
the project to Cathy Schulman at Bullseye Entertainment, who financed the
film. Cathy says: “I had wanted to do a
period piece for a long time, because, from a producer’s standpoint, I wanted
to delve into a time and a place that was far removed from where we are. I was looking for something that had a real
contemporary resonance; that had enough of the grand elements of a period
piece, but that also had enough punch to interest today’s audiences. It is important that period pieces be
historically correct, but also key is to know where you can take dramatic
licence. This piece was designed in a
way to allow that.” Producer
Michael London admits that he usually responds more to contemporary stories.
“But there was something really timeless and universal about this one, that it
made it feel very contemporary,” says London.
Neil Burger says, “I wanted to be true to the time period but not a
slave to it. It’s not a story about the
moral or manners of the time. Instead
it seeks to explore larger themes about power, perception, truth and illusion. Filming
began in and around Prague in March 2005.
“Prague is a perfect stand- in for 1900 Vienna,” says Burger. “Most of the streets are still paved in
cobblestones and lined with gas lamps.
The locations in and around the city are incredible. For example, we were able to use Archduke
Ferdinand’s home for the Crown Prince’s hunting lodge. He was an obsessive
hunter, shooting something like 15,000 animals in his life, and the character I
had written was the same kind of killer.
The place is covered in trophy heads, dead animals everywhere. It’s an unbelievably strange and opulent
place – it couldn’t have been more perfect. “Prague is a wonderful location,”
says Schulman, “First of all, it is a great place to work. The people and the crews are wonderful, and
of course the architecture is superb. But
also the surrounding countryside, the farmland and the castles have all been
perfect for us. We were also lucky to
find our two theatres as practical locations, in the rural town of Tabor and in
Prague itself.” Cathy
Schulman talks about Neil Burger’s adaptation:
“It is interesting that the screenplay is quite different from the
original story. The characters of
Sophie and the Crown Prince didn’t exist originally, and even Inspector Uhl’s
role has been increased. Much of it is
Neil Burger’s invention.” Steven
Millhauser Steven Millhauser,
novelist and short story writer, won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for his most well
known novel, Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer (1996)
which chronicles the life of an entrepreneur whose career peaks when he builds
a fabulous hotel in turn-of-the-century Manhattan. Time Magazine
described Martin Dressler as "an urban fable about civilization and
its discontents," and praised Millhauser for "lowering the barrier
between realism and myth." Millhauser impressed
both critics and readers with his fresh approach to childhood and adolescence
in his first two novels, Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American
Writer, 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright (1972) which won the Prix Médicis
Étranger Award in France for the best foreign novel, and Portrait of a Romantic
(1977). In a Washington Post review of Portrait of a Romantic,
William Kennedy described the book as "written in immaculate prose. . .a
prodigious feat of memory, with an enormous density of felt and observed
life." In addition, Millhauser
has published a fourth novel, From the Realm of Morpheus (1986), and
three collections of short stories, The Barnum Museum (1990), In the
Penny Arcade (1986), and Little Kingdoms (1993). Millhauser received the
Lannan Literary Award for Fiction in 1994 and an Award in Literature from the
American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1987. He is a Professor
of English at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Millhauser
once wrote, referring to Eisenheim: “The official reason given for the arrest
of the Master, and the seizure at the theatre, was the disturbance of public
order… The phrase ‘crossing the boundaries’ occurs pejoratively more than once
in his notebooks; by it he appears to mean that certain distinctions must be
strictly maintained. Art and life
constituted one such distinction; illusion and reality, another. Eisenheim deliberately crossed boundaries
and therefore disturbed the essence of things. The
response to Eisenheim’s illusions reflects not only a discomfort with the realm
of art and potentially subversive artistic creation; it also reflects our own
discomfort with ventures into the realms of the unknown. The individual who transgresses and
transforms the boundaries of accepted knowledge and suitable human endeavour
must be controlled.” Casting “I don’t
tend to write with actors in mind for some reason,” says writer/director Neil
Burger. “But I knew I needed someone
who could embody the mystery as well as the romantic side of Eisenheim. Edward Norton, of course, is a powerful
presence, extremely intelligent and passionate about his craft as well as life
in general. Just like Eisenheim. And I hadn’t seen Edward in too many
romantic roles and certainly not in period.
I liked the idea of seeing him in a new role and I knew he’d bring a
fresh perspective to the part. In
general it was a pretty easy choice. I
knew he’d be great - he always is.” Koppelman and Levien, also writing partners,
have enjoyed a long relationship with Edward Norton, and wrote the film Rounders in which he starred alongside
Matt Damon and John Malkovitch. “We
showed Edward an early draft of the script,” explains David Levien, “and we
always felt that he would be the perfect choice to play Eisenheim.” “Edward’s
presence is always magical; on screen he always looks like he is holding
something back, that he knows something special. For us, helping to involve Edward in the casting, and developing
the story with Neil was our biggest involvement,” adds Brian Koppelman. Cathy
Schulman, together with producer Michael London, was involved from the very
beginning. She explains: “All the
producers agreed Edward Norton was the ideal choice to play the lead, although
this is a very different role for him.
One of the exciting things about Edward as an actor is his intensity,
and we wanted someone who could convey that he had in fact journeyed to the
dark side. We needed an actor who could
do that, but who could also bring brightness, light and passion to the love story,
and we felt Edward was the person who could accomplish all of that.” Michael
London explains, “When it really clicked for Edward that this was not going to
be just another period movie, he got really obsessed; Edward is great in that
way. The moment he commits you get this insane level of attention and focus,
and that is pretty extraordinary.” “He
completely inhabits the role,” says Burger. “He throws himself into learning
the magic, and conducts himself as those magicians did, in such a perfect
way. We’ve tried to do all the magic in
the movie as the tricks were really done at the time, so Edward is actually
performing the tricks that you see him do.
He’s so dedicated, he learned how to do them all.” Edward
Norton admits to not having been familiar with the story that The Illusionist was
based upon. “I became aware of the
story through this project, and I was attracted
to it because I thought it was a compelling, romantic story” he begins. “There were also a number of different
elements that appealed to me. The
period for one, is really interesting; I am also a fan of magic and what was
going on at that time – it was sort of the golden age of magic, and there were
certain threads and themes that I found fascinating.” “For the
role of Inspector Uhl,” says Burger, “I wanted someone a bit different,
unexpected. The investigating detective
is a pretty common role in movies and I though Paul Giamatti could put a
different spin on it. We haven’t seen
Paul in this kind of role before and yet he has a quiet power that was
perfect. Inspector Uhl is the eyes,
ears and heart of the story. He has a
good soul even if there’s not much left of it after years of decadence and
corruption. We feel for him in his
dilemma with the Crown Prince and Eisenheim.
In the movie, there’s not a lot of expository scenes about Uhl’s
character and yet you understand all of his inner conflict and turmoil just by
looking in Paul’s eyes. He gets it all
across with just a look. - he’s an
amazing actor. We were lucky to have him for the part.” “Paul
Giamatti has been on fire the last couple of years, especially with movies like
American Splendor and Sideways. He is a genius actor, and he was our first choice to play
Inspector Uhl,” comments Schulman. “He
has absolutely the right look, he is self-effacing and he brings a little
humility to everything that he does Edward
Norton, who was a year behind Giamatti at Yale, offers, “He has been one of my
favourite actors for a long time, and even back in those college days Paul was
tackling roles way beyond his years. He
is intellectually intense, and he has a really volcanic energy. I remember seeing him perform in ‘One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ a long time ago, and he was just staggering. I think this role has more of that edge, and
it is really cool to see him exercise it a little.” Paul
Giamatti was cast in The Illisonist just
as Sideways was heading into the
Awards circuit. Michael London, who
produced the sensational hit movie, says: “It was a great thing, because when I
first started working on ‘Illusionist’, Paul Giamatti didn’t mean enough to
financiers to get him cast. By the time
we were ready to cast the role of Inspector
Uhl, there was this huge excitement in America about his work on Sideways. The moment Paul read the script he was in. It is an unusual role because it is not a
very glamorous one and in typical Paul fashion, those are the things that he
looks for. He looks for parts that
other people would not be attracted to where he can give a lot of humanity to
someone who seems an unlikely character.
The combination of Edward and Paul is something that you wait around
for, and maybe do once in your life: actors of that calibre who know each
other, who challenge each other; they are very intense guys and their working
together was a great thing.” When
Neil Burger met British actor Rufus Sewell he immediately knew he was the one
to play Crown Prince Leopold. “The
movie is really a battle of wills between the three male characters, with
Eisenheim and the Crown Prince each trying to leverage Uhl for their own
ends. The actor playing the Crown
Prince had to be a formidable foe for Edward Norton’s Eisenheim. The Crown
Prince is a strict rationalist and has no patience for superstition or talk of
“magic”. It was vitally important that
he be played as fiercely intelligent and truly powerful even as he is flawed or
ruthless. Rufus has an amazing
intensity, a fierce cerebral quality, and he certainly doesn’t suffer fools –
just like the character. As Schulman
remarks, “we did not want our Crown Prince to come across as stereotypical or
arch. It was very important that he
could inject traits into the character that would make you empathise with his
perspective. He is a modern man living
in a society where he wants to make changes for the good, and he doesn’t know
how; as far as he is concerned, Eisenheim is either a fraud or a heretic, and
Rufus brought a lot of light to that idea.”
Jessica
Biel was the last member of the cast to join and admits the role of Sophie is
“so very different from anything I have done before or anything I have ever had
the opportunity of doing or being a part of.”
Director Neil Burger was looking for someone with a classic beauty who
would be believable for the time period.
He also wanted a relative newcomer, someone with whom the audience
wouldn’t have clearly formed associations.
“Jessie has a timeless beauty, but more importantly she has a fearless
sense of adventure. I saw Sophie as
someone who had been raised in a very strict and refined
world but who also had the boldness to break out of it if given the
opportunity. Cathy
Schulman explains: “Not only were we looking for one of the most beautiful
women in the world, but also someone who had a combination of youthfulness and
elegance, which is very tricky to find today. Producer
Michael London says: “I remember we did a reading with her and Edward, and it was
late on a Saturday night in Los Angeles.
Everyone was exhausted and we were concerned that she might not be able
to hold her own with Edward, just based on our preconceptions. When she walked in the door, she had on this
amazing, cream coloured period gown.
Now, it was Saturday night in the middle of Los Angeles, and she just
looked like she had stepped off the streets of Vienna a hundred years ago. I remember thinking ‘what a lot of nerve she
has to come in transformed like that’, and we never really thought of her as
Jessica Biel for the rest of the evening.
It was apparent, when she started to work with Edward that she could
indeed pull it off. She was passionate
and persistent, and eventually we decided she was the best actress for the
role.” Jessica’s
co-star Edward Norton remarks, “She came into the process really late, and
stepped up to that challenge admirably. She is an incredibly hard worker and
really put in the hours with the dialect coaches. Jessica also looks very much of that period; you can see her as a
country girl or as a Slavic princess.
When I first saw her dressed as Sophie, she looked like she had stepped
out of an old painting. She didn’t look
like a modern girl at all.” Concluding,
Cathy Schulman says: “Neil Burger is an interesting guy. He has an extensive background in
commercials work, he is also a painter as well as a filmmaker, and he has
brought a number of skills to the table.
He has an incredibly meticulous way of working and a very specific idea
as to how the pieces come together. He
and Dick Pope (cinematographer) have designed the look of the film, which has
become integral with the way the acting was managed. He has skills in so many areas; it was really a pleasure to
watch. I think his previous work has allowed
him to experiment with a lot of different ideas. The character work he did on
his previous film, Interview with the
Assassin was very confidence-inspiring for us as a group of producers, and
you can see here how intimately he works with the actors. Together with his great visual sense, he is
making what we believe is a truly beautiful, stunning film.” The Look and Feel Director
Neil Burger had a very specific look in mind for the film. “I wanted it to have an almost
‘hand-cranked’ feel to it, not that we were actually going to use a
hand-cranked camera - although for a time I did consider it,” he says
laughing. “I wanted that look, not to
make it seem old but rather to take it out of time, beyond the world of
rationality and into the realm of mystery and dream. Everything you see is real, recognizable, but somehow
heightened. I wanted it to have a kind
of sinister beauty – lovely on the surface but with a disturbing, unnerving
undertone “My
other main reference for the look of the film is an early colour photography
process called ‘autochrome’. It was
invented by the Lumiere Brothers, who in the late 19th century were
instrumental in creating all sorts of early cinematic effects. And they were also magicians! Autochromes have a very different kind of
color and contrast palette. Some people
think they’re hand tinted but they’re not.
They are indeed photographic colour, but what I like is that they have
the emotional impact of black and white. Award-winning
cinematographer Dick Pope (Topsy Turvy,
Nicholas Nickleby, Vera Drake) tells of the book that Neil showed him
containing colour photography from the early 1900’s. “He had obviously been carrying this book around with him for
some time that explained the Autochrome Process, which very simply consisted of
glass negative slides with a primitive kind of emulsion. The book contained really wonderful images
and he had a very strong desire to make The Illusionist look like that,”
comments Pope. The look
Burger was trying to achieve was also reflected in the costumes and make
up. “Often, the photography can only be
as beautiful as what you’re pointing the camera at. In this case, the look we were after depended on a very strict
color palette, primarily golds and greens that would interact with our
particular camera filtration. The
production and costume design would follow that look.” Academy-Award winning Costume Designer
Ngila Dickson explains: “I have to admit that when Neil and Dick started
talking about ‘autochrome’ it put the fear of God in me,” she says
laughing. “I was nervous because I was
aware that whenever you start a film without knowing what the end result is
going to be, you can find that the palette you set as a designer can go
horribly wrong. However, Dick Pope and
I had long discussions about it, and so we have ranged from very light colours
to the very rich mid tone colours which will undoubtedly be lifted in the final
process.” Neil
Burger comments, “Ngila is incredible Head
Make-Up Artist Julie Pearce also played a large part in creating the right look
for the film, and admits to becoming rather obsessed with facial hair! She says: “I read the script at least three
times trying to get a feel for the make-up and the look. I did a lot of
research into the period and also looked at research that Neil and Ngila had
put together – the main thing about 1900 in Vienna is there was so much facial
hair, and I ended up coming over from the States with probably three hundred
pieces of moustaches and beards. It was insane! “We kept
the ladies’ make up very light, because in fact, in that period there was no
make up as such,” continues Julie “For a lot of it we wanted Sophie to look
like a porcelain doll, and because the film is going to look a little bleached
out, I wanted to intensify her eyes a little and I used a little rouge on her
lips. She has an amazing face and great
skin, and needs very little. She
doesn’t wear mascara, and she has beautiful eyelashes which I tinted a little
but they hardly needed any enhancement.
My feeling was that when she was around the prince she would be really
porcelain-looking, but when she was with Eisenheim she would have more colour,
so when it came to the love scenes we tried to make her look more flushed, with
an earthiness about her.” “The way
that Neil described the look of this movie,” adds Producer Cathy Schulman, “and
how he was going to achieve it, was to enhance the notion that what Eisenheim
was doing was very mysterious. Everyone
worked with that in mind.” Schulman
admits that the production was extremely fortunate to engage Ngila Dickson as
Costume Designer. “She has done so many
varied pieces of work. She is the best
there is,” she begins. “She anchors you in a time and place, and she has a
magical touch herself, and always a touch of whimsy in her designs. I think the wardrobe she put together is
wonderful.” “It is a
dark, complicated little story,” continues Ngila. “I am a huge fan of Edward Norton as an actor, and Paul Giamatti
was also signed at that point. So I
already had the visual images needed for the characters and with that in mind
you could read the script and get right into the story. I like the time, 1900 was a very complicated
time in history, particularly in this part of the world, where you had a very
militaristic society, and at the same time this very modern bohemian thinking
going on. So there was a bit of a clash
of ideas.” Ngila
immersed herself in the research and “the first thing I did was to read a lot
about the family, about the Emperor Franz Joseph, and Leopold, to get a sense
of that very rigid society,” she says.
“Leopold (Rufus Sewell) is a classic, and I made him militaristic even
though he was quite a modern thinker.
That was one of the things that fascinated me with this time; people
were caught up in this very rigid world even though they were trying to change
things. In a way I feel that Leopold
and Sophie are the same. Both want to
change something: she wants a different kind of life; he wants a different
version of their society. I always
related Sophie to Lady Diana, in that here was a woman who would much rather be
hanging out with the pop stars of the modern world, and Sophie would rather
have been out with the interesting thinkers, the artists, the writers of her
time. I always felt that about her, she
was resisting the world that was part of her family, her tradition, her
history, and Eisenheim was the key
for her to be able to break out of that world.” “I spoke
to Edward when he was still in New York,” continues Ngila. “That was really a great conversation for me
because we were immediately both on the same page. Neither of us wanted the stereotypical ‘magician’ costume, with a
top hat or a swishy satin cloak. I thought of him as an inventor and an artist
more than a magician, and we both knew the character was going to work best if
we could make him quite cerebral, as if he wasn’t actually interested in
clothes. Which, God damn it, plays
completely against the nature of a costume designer,” she laughs. “But I love that subtlety and I think it
plays out really well in this film.” Julie
Pearce, Head Make-Up Artist, has worked with Edward Norton since they first
worked together on Fight Club, and
together they worked out the look for Eisenheim. “Edward had a very specific idea which we developed more in the
make up test so that it would look more period,”
says Julie. “He knew he wanted his hair
darker, with a dark goatee beard, but we didn’t want it to look contemporary,
so we gave it added hair and I filled the beard up to his lips. At the beginning of the film he looks very
healthy, and as we move through the story he starts to look more intense, so we
accentuated around his eyes to make them look a bit sunken, and intensified the
vein in his forehead which made him look more tortured.” Edward
has the ability,” Julie continues, “to change his face, especially when he is
on stage doing the deep concentration.
I am convinced he has a ‘trained’ vein in the middle of his forehead
which he could control at will,” she laughs.
Producer
Cathy Schulman remarks “All the women on the film are wearing corsets and all
the men are wearing entirely structured suits with waistcoats, so everyone had
the backache during filming! Of course,
in life, we all slouch, and these clothes were made to stand up straight, which
has helped with the whole movement of the characters.” Fabrics
were kept natural and there was a lot of lace.
“I have an aversion to polyester,” says Ngila unashamedly, “and I am
interested in texture and layers. With
Jessica, we started to break down the rigidity of the costumes once her
character meets Eisenheim. She starts to do things which are very
anarchic to her upbringing; so we started to make her clothes much looser, like
an unbuttoned collar, which then of course, was not proper at all,” she says
laughing. “Also I always thought of Eisenheim as an inventor and an artist
more than a magician; and that he would be disinterested in the trappings that
a normal Vaudevillian magician would be wearing. In fact, he is more interested
in the science of illusion, and therefore we kept his wardrobe very
simple. So there is no flamboyance to
it, which I think makes the tricks so much more evident and interesting. There is certainly no swish of the red cloak
to this piece!” The
Autochrome Process Autochrome
photography flourished from 1903 to the 1930’s. Each autochrome is a unique transparency image; there is no
negative. Autochrome plates were
created by coating a sheet of glass with microscopic starch grains dyed red, green
and blue. These formed a screen of colour particles. Carbon black was applied over the plate, filling in the spaces
around the starch grains. Then a silver gelatine emulsion was applied over the
colour screen. When the plate was
exposed, the base side was turned towards the subject being photographed, and
the colour screen acted as a filter over the emulsion. The developed plated rendered a positive
colour image with delicate colour qualities.
Often, etched or ‘frosted’ glass plates were used as covers. The frosted glass increases the soft focus
quality of the colour starch grains which forms the autochrome image. The
Magic
But what
if a magician could actually do real magic, could really return us to the dark
and troubled heart of magic? “The
question throughout the movie is, does Eisenheim truly possess supernatural
powers or is it all a trick?” continues Burger. “We never really know for sure.
That was a challenge in creating the magic for the movie, to walk the
fine line of that question.” Burger
wanted the illusions to appear to be the result of a supernatural phenomenon
but at the same time to seem to have a practical method behind them. “You should be able to read them either
way. All the performances are based on
real stage illusions of the time - then I pushed them to a slightly more
fantastic level.” “Ricky
has these incredible skills, but he also knows the time period, and the strange
idiosyncrasies of the way people behaved on stage then. He’s familiar with all the old illusions we
were trying to recreate but also understood absolutely that we were trying to
push the illusions forward a little to make them bigger and more powerful for
film. I worked with him closely for
several weeks, during which time we worked everything out and fine-tuned things
that were in the script; he was an invaluable resource.” Lead
actor Edward Norton worked closely with Ricky Jay, immersing himself in the
technique and performing style of magicians of that time. “He learned all the sleight of hand tricks -
he became an expert. Everything you see
Edward did himself. As in all his
roles, his ability to completely transform himself, to fully inhabit the character
is impressive. In this case, you
absolutely believe that he has these sleight of hand skills, but more
importantly that he could possess supernatural powers or that he could bring
down an empire. He’s completely
convincing,” says Burger. Once on
the set in Prague, a British magician, James Freedman -a member of the
exclusive Magic Circle and a stage ‘pickpocket’ by profession – acted as Magic
Consultant to continue coaching Edward and Aaron Johnson, who plays young
Eisenheim, in mastering the art of sleight of hand for their roles.
“We did a lot of research to make sure the methods and the effects to the magic
that we use in the film are authentic to the period,” explains James
Freedman. “Actually, when you have been
involved with magic for nearly a lifetime as I have, you tend to know a lot of
the secrets and methods already. One
of the tricks we perform in the film is based on an established trick by a man
called Jean Paul Robert-Houdin. He has
been called the ‘Father of Modern Magic’, and he did an illusion where he
borrowed a handkerchief from a lady in the audience. He made it disappear and then an orange tree blossomed and two
butterflies rose from the tree carrying the handkerchief. It was an amazing trick, but we have taken
it a stage further in the film so that what you see on screen is just bordering
on the impossible. That is what good magic should be.” Edward
Norton was delighted to work with the remarkable magicians and also drew
knowledge and research from several sources of literature. “One of my favourite things I read was the
memoirs of Robert Houdin. He was a
French magician who performed more in the middle of the 19th
century, but he was peerless in that period.
He was the person who took magic from a kind of travelling minstrel show
to the high stage, and the high society of Paris; and in a way a lot of what we
do with Eisenheim is based on some of Robert Houdin’s particular
illusions. For me, there was a certain
amount of historical research, and then the practical work with Ricky, and I
felt relatively well prepared. Having
James around was incredible and really helpful. It was the best part of the job, working with these men, people
who are the ultimate all-stars in their field today.” Edward
Norton recounts the story of meeting Ricky Jay when he was a student. “I had just left college and was doing some
theatre ushering. Ricky had designed a
stage show of his own that he did in New York, and I started ushering those
shows which I must have seen around twenty times! Once or twice Ricky would invite me to the stage to help with a
trick, and many years later when I met him, he said he was a fan of mine, and I
said ‘well actually I used to come up on your stage and help you with your
illusions’, and he couldn’t believe
it. So it was funny the way the circle
came back round. But he was one of my
heroes in that world. I thought he was
the greatest ever, and it was really fun to trade insights with him, because
there are a lot of things about magic that have to do with acting, and vice
versa,” he offers. “What I
loved about the magic,” offers Rufus Sewell, “is that it has been great fun
sitting at the back of the auditorium, because of course a lot of the magic is
being done in real time. I know that a
lot of cinema audiences will assume that the tricks we do are somehow digitally
enhanced, but they are actually being performed on stage, and that is why it is
so much easier to do an ‘astonished’ reaction! Things appear, then they
disappear; swords just stand where they are put, and from what I can see they
are all happening in front of you. That
is what is so special about this film; it’s not the special effects, it is
actual magic taking place in front of your eyes.” Fifteen-year-old
English actor Aaron Johnson, who plays young Eisenheim, also had to learn to
perfect the art of visual magic, and he was a willing student. “James [Freedman] has been teaching me all
kinds of tricks; one of them is with an egg and a stick, and I have spent hours
learning to roll a little ball through my fingers. It looks so easy when you see him do it, but it takes ages to
learn how to do it, but I am getting a little faster,” smiles Aaron. James
Freedman takes up the story, “I started magic lessons with Aaron in London,
before we came out to Prague. I taught
him some sleight of hand, and also the psychology behind the tricks he will be
performing, which actually are all classic tricks: the rising card, the ball
vase, which is something I had when I was a boy. He loves magic and sits up all night practising – I can relate to
that at that age. I started at about 4
years of age like most boys, I was given a magic set for my birthday,” he
laughs. James
Freedman, known as ‘The Man of Steal’, has built an international reputation as
a stage pickpocket and magician. He has
appeared before royalty, Heads-of State and celebrities throughout the world. “There
have been a couple of lovely moments for me so far on the film,” continues
James. “The first week of filming we
were in a theatre with about 350 extras in period dress for the stage
performance scenes, and Edward performed a trick we had taught him and he
fooled everyone in the theatre, even the crew!
And it wasn’t a fluke, because another time we were filming a different
scene where he produces something out of thin air, and we got genuine
reactions. Even Jessica and Rufus came
up to him afterwards and said ‘how did you do that’? Enough said!” laughs James. Edward Norton talks about
Eisenheim Edward
Norton, whose memorable films include Primal
Fear, The People vs Larry Flynt, and
Fight Club, plays Eisenheim, and describes the film as a ‘romantic
mystery’. He talks about what attracted
him to the character and why it is so different from his previous cinematic
roles. “Eisenheim
is darkly romantic,” begins Edward. “He
is mysterious and withholding, but at the same time he is an incredible
showman. As a person he is highly
impenetrable, but on stage he really comes to life and has this amazing
presence. That is an interesting
dynamic, and also the magic was really great.
I really am a big fan of magic and it was fun to contemplate the idea of
learning all that. Also, he is a very
romantic character, and the story is a love story, and I hadn’t done anything
that was directly a romance before.
Also I liked the idea of this man who has been away looking for things,
looking for answers that really he has to come all way back home to find. I thought that was a nice theme.” The Illusionist has four main characters. all inter-related
and in possession of their own version of power. As the
story unfolds, Eisenheim becomes anathema to Crown Prince Leopold. Not only does Eisenheim seek to destroy his
relationship with Sophie, but he also has powers that Leopold cannot
obtain. “I think what is interesting
about this period, the turn of the century in that part of the world, is there
were so many opposing forces working within it. You had the last gasps of aristocracy, the imperial class with a
growing movement: what would become socialism and what would become
Republicanism. You also had rationality
and modern scientific thought competing with this whole resurgence of
spiritualism and stuff like that, so there are many big forces competing with
each other. I think that Leopold, who
is sort of a stand-in in some ways for the Crown Prince Rudolph, who was the
real character in the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, is frustrated that his father
never dies. Leopold is not getting his
chance to rule, and yet he has all these progressive ideas and wants to make
the empire more modern. And then along
comes this guy who in some ways is captivating people’s sense of wonder, and
the idea that maybe he has supernatural powers, or spiritual powers, or that he
is a mystic, causes this unbelievable tension between them. One of the questions the movie raises
actually, is does Eisenheim really possess these powers or is he just really
very clever?” Edward
Norton has starred in the films Primal
Fear, Everyone Says I Love You; The People vs Larry Flynt; American History X;
Rounders; Fight Club; Keeping the Faith; The Score; Death to Smoochy; Frida;
Red Dragon and The 25th
Hour. He has
been nominated for two Academy Awards (Primal
Fear and American History X), and
won a Golden Globe along with numerous other awards for his performances. The film Frida,
for which he wrote an uncredited screenplay, was nominated for six Academy
Awards and won two. He recently won the Obie Award for his performance
off-Broadway in Burn This by Lanford
Wilson. He
produced and directed the film Keeping
the Faith and is currently producing five other films including adaptations
of Mark Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War; Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil (currently filming in
China), and Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless
Brooklyn, for which he is currently writing the screenplay. Down
in the Valley, which he produced, edited and performs in, will be released
later this year. Norton
also recently created Class 5 Films in partnership with his brother Jim Norton,
writer Stuart Blumberg and producer Bill Migliore. Class 5’s feature division will produce films through a first
look deal with Universal Pictures and the documentary division will produce
nature and science films. Ss 5’s first
documentary production is a film for the Outdoor Life Network, The Great Rivers Expedition, about an
historic whitewater adventure that took place in China last winter. Class 5 is also collaborating with the Sea
Studios Foundation on their multi-million dollar series about earth system
sciences for National Geographic, Strange Days on the Planet Earth, which
Norton hosts and narrates. Norton
is also a committed social and environmental activist. Paul Giamatti talks about
Chief Inspector Uhl Talented
actor, and star of Sideways and Cinderella Man, Paul Giamatti plays Chief Inspector Uhl, who works for Crown
Prince Leopold functioning as a secret policeman. Giamatti
describes him: “There is an interesting dynamic between Uhl and Leopold. In a way, Uhl has gotten ahead by doing the
dirty work of the Crown Prince, and yet if there is a certain corruption to
him, he does have a good heart, and he is astonished and amazed at what
Eisenheim does, and is actually quite taken with Eisenheim. In a way Uhl loves what he represents. So really, Uhl is between a rock and a hard
place when Eisenheim and the Prince come into conflict. His duty is to the Crown Prince and yet his
true allegiance, his heart and soul if you will, are with Eisenheim.” Paul
Giamatti had worked with Michael London, who had produced Sideways, for which Paul was nominated for an Academy Award. “It is true that I had worked with Michael,
but the script came to me in the normal way through my agent, and then I met
Neil Burger. I thought the script was
great,” he says enthusiastically, “it is an interesting period, a very cool
period and the setting is fascinating.
It is one that you don’t see often in movies, all these guys in uniform
and the crazy whiskers! I was very
excited about doing this and although I have played Americans on the stage
during this period, I have never done anything as European as this before.” Chief
Inspector Uhl is put on Eisenheim’s trail to expose him as a fraud, but the
more he discovers about him, the more interested he becomes. “At a certain point in the movie, “begins
Paul, “he does become fascinated by Eisenheim, and as an amateur conjurer
himself, he is also fascinated by the magic.
Throughout the movie there is a lot of stuff about class, and my
character and Edward’s character are the same sort of working class guys. Eisenheim has to sort of debase himself to
the Royals and the aristocrats quite a bit, and Uhl has sympathy with that, not
only because he is in love with a pretty girl, but there is also something
about what he does that Uhl thinks is kind of great. Uhl lives in this incredibly secretive, bound up world, and Eisenheim
is free.” Inspector
Uhl likes to think he is an amateur conjurer, and in preparation for the role,
Paul Giamatti also had magic training.
“The emphasis is definitely on amateur,” he says laughing. “I have done a little magic in my time, and
Uhl is definitely a novice and who doesn’t have to do much in the film – and
what he does, he does badly, so I didn’t have much to learn. I didn’t think I should be too good at it,
so appropriately I am not!” Giamatti
is quick to praise director Neil Burger: “Working with Neil is great, and I
think he is making the film look beautiful.
He has a really great visual command, he is really good with assembling
and he has that pithy way of giving you something really simple to work
with. He just actually lets you have a
great time, which is the best way a director can work, allowing us to enjoy
ourselves while getting what he wants in beautiful pictures.” With a
diverse roster of finely etched, critically acclaimed performances, Paul
Giamatti has established himself as one of the most versatile actors of his
generation. Giamatti’s
critically lauded Sideways garnered
him several accolades for his performance including Best Actor from the
Independent Spirit Awards and New York Film Critics Circle, and a Golden Globe
nomination. Giamatti
also starred in Ron Howard’s Cinderella
Man and recently completed work on the independent feature The Hawk is Dying, as well as lending
his voice talents to the upcoming animated features Robots and Ant Bully. Giamatti
won outstanding reviews and commendations for his portrayal of Harvey Pekar in American Splendor, and he first captured
the eyes of America in Betty Thomas’ hit comedy Private Parts. His extensive list of film credits also include Man on the Moon; The Cradle Will Rock; The
Negotiator; Saving Private Ryan; The Truman Show; Donnie Brasco; Storytelling;
Planet of the Apes; Big Momma’s House; Confidence and John Woo’s Paycheck. Jessica Biel talks about
Sophie Jessica
Biel is fast becoming one of the most sought-after young actresses in
Hollywood. Jessica explains: “The Illusionist was just the kind of
film I wanted to do, simply because it is very different from anything I have
ever had the opportunity of doing or being a part of. It is definitely a departure for me, and I did definitely seek it
out” Jessica
was one of the last people to be cast, although she had read the script some
time earlier. “One day, out of the blue
I was asked to audition, and soon I found myself reading with Edward and it was
a bit a whirlwind actually! Suddenly I found myself in Prague; it was
all last minute and very, very exciting,” she says happily. Jessica
describes her role: “Playing someone
like Sophie is completely new for me.
She is very different, very fresh and I felt like every day I was
discovering a little bit more about her.
Essentially, Sophie and Eisenheim were childhood friends, but they were
never supposed to play together because they were from different classes. She belonged to an aristocratic family and he
came from a working class background.
So they had a secret friendship, and when they started to really care
for each other, they were separated.
When Sophie and Eisenheim meet again some ten years later, she is
‘stepping out’ with the Crown Prince and there is talk of an engagement. That is the beginning of the triangle that
threatens to tear them all apart. She
is fond of the Crown Prince, but soon she is torn between the person in her
present who offers her a steady lifestyle, a place to possibly have a voice, to
make an opinion, to make change, and this person from her past who is modern
and free thinking, and has a wild side.” Like the
other actors, Jessica researched her role thoroughly and was grateful to
director Neil Burger for urging her to read Alma Mahler’s diaries. “She was a composer herself, a young woman
in her twenties in 1900 in Vienna. I
read her diaries to really get a sense of what it was like to exist at that
time; what you would do every day; what women thought about and what in
particular did this woman think about.
She was very modern – almost a femme fatale in a way – and very
different from most of the women from that time. That is how I think of Sophie in a way. She is a modern woman stuck in the past,” offers Jessica. So
determined was Jessica to inhabit her challenging new role, she also immersed
herself in books such as The Unbearable
Lightness of Being; she watched films like Amadeus, and Age of Innocence. “I watched a lot of period pieces to hear
the dialogue, hear the dialect and talk about it to the rest of the cast. I know it sounds a little weird,” she says
laughing, “but I have been writing a journal, as my character. Just trying to get my head around what she
was going through: the restraint, how reserved everything is, and there is
always this calm, still layer in the foreground and a bubbling brook of emotion
underneath. That is what it felt like
for me for those women who lived in this period of history.” Being
the only female member of a stellar cast was not remotely daunting for
Jessica. “The boys are great,” she
laughs, “they are like three big kids who all went to school together and
haven’t seen each other for years. They
are so much fun and so talented. It is
really wonderful to be surrounded by so many talented people who are good
people as well. I love being in this
‘boy’s club’ and being accepted.” Jessica’s
beautiful costumes were hand-picked by costume designer Ngila Dickson to
reflect the time. “My costumes are so incredible,” says Jessica. “They are
stunning, all of them, and it makes you feel like a princess when you walk in
to one of the gorgeous sets in a big ball gown and your puffy sleeves. The only down side is that I have to wear a
corset every day – having said that, although it is tight and horrible
actually, for some strange reason it makes you feel really sexy and
feminine. You can’t breathe or eat
lunch, but it’s a small price to pay!” Like
many of the cast members, Jessica fell in love with Prague. “It is one of my new favorite cities; I
could live here and never look back. It
is so beautiful, full of culture and history; and when I get into costume and
the horses and carriages are there, I really feel as if you have jumped into a
time machine and gone back a hundred years.” Jessica Biel, with her striking
good looks and wide range of talent, has become a notable emerging actress to
watch. Her television series-acting debut on the WB’s number one rated show “7th
Heaven,” helped her emerge as a breakout star. Biel can now be seen in Cameron
Crowe’s Elizabethtown, starring opposite Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst,
and Susan Sarandon. Biel portrays
‘Ellen,’ the girlfriend of Drew Baylor (Bloom), in the film that takes place
during an outrageous memorial for a Southern patriarch, where an unexpected
romance blooms. Jessica will soon be seen in the film London, co-starring
Jason Statham, Chris Evans and Kelli Garner. London is a drama that
follows the warped relationship of two young adults. Jessica Biel starred in Sony
Pictures’ Stealth alongside Josh Lucas and Jamie Foxx. This drama is about three pilots in a top-secret
military program struggle to bring an artificial intelligence program under
control before it initiates the next world war. Jessica was also seen in
New Line Cinema’s Blade: Trinity in which she costars with Wesley
Snipes, Kris Kristofferson and Ryan Reynolds. Biel’s other film credits include
New Line Cinema’s Blockbuster hit remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, New Line Cinema’s Cellular co-starring
Kim Basinger and Chris Evans, Lions Gate Films’ The Rules of Attraction for director Roger Avary, the Warner
Brothers romantic comedy Summer
Catch co-starring Freddie Prinze Jr., and the Disney holiday film, I’ll Be Home For Christmas with
Jonathan Taylor Thomas. In an
impressive display of versatility, Jessica garnered rave notices for her
portrayal as the rebellious daughter in Victor Nunez’s critically acclaimed
film, Ulee’s Gold, with
Peter Fonda. Selected as the Centerpiece Premiere for the ’97 Sundance Film Festival
and presented at Cannes, the movie opened to glowing reviews. Rufus Sewell
talks about Crown Prince Leopold British
actor Rufus Sewell plays Crown Prince Leopold, pretender to the throne, who
becomes captivated by Sophie, and frustrated by the presence of Eisenheim. He
describes the character: “I think Eisenheim represents to Leopold, everything
he thinks the world must leave behind in order to move forward. The world is changing, and if the royal
family doesn’t move with it, they are in danger of becoming the dinosaurs of
their age, and will soon be extinct.
What Leopold is trying to do is to move away from superstition, and as
far as he is concerned, Eisenheim represents everything that is old fashioned
and outdated. As the Illusionist becomes more popular, he sees that Eisenheim
is striking a chord in his country, and
the more that happens, the further Leopold gets from actually gaining power.” “Leopold
is very ambitious,” continues Rufus.
“If he doesn’t take an active role, he is in danger of his father living
on and on until his moment has passed.
So he decides he has to make himself the leader, and as Sophie
represents the Hungarian Empire, if he marries her, it will make the tie very
strong. So when Eisenheim comes along and seems to have a connection with her
which Leopold doesn’t quite understand, it becomes a very big problem for him.” Once
Rufus had read the script he loved it immediately. “I wanted to be in it,” he says earnestly, “but my first thought
was that I didn’t want Leopold to be bad.
I didn’t want him to be anything that could be described in one word; I
just wanted to play the character. But
because Neil wrote the script, he also wrote very detailed character notes
which were fantastic. In fact one of
the things that brought the character round to me when I first thought of him
as just a villain, was thinking about the kind of child he was. And as Leopold
is based on a real person, I read up on him and realised he was a man who had
great dreams for the good as far as he was concerned.” Rufus
greatly enjoyed working with the ensemble of actors, and says: “Edward is an
actor I have always admired very much indeed, and I found him very easy to work
with; very concentrated as I believe his character to be. Jessica is fantastic, a real natural, a good
actress and a very nice person. Paul
Giamatti is also a fabulous actor as everyone knows, but he is also a very
nice, very funny guy, and I am really enjoying myself.” The
relationship between Leopold and Uhl is an interesting one as Uhl is a man he
has found who will do whatever is necessary.
“Leopold doesn’t have the power he needs, and that is what makes him so
close to the edge. He dresses and lives
like he should have power, but it is not yet his; it still belongs to his
father. In order to get things done, he
needs to play the game politically, and he is sneaky, so he needs someone to do
his dirty work for him, and that is where Chief Inspector Uhl comes in. Uhl is a survivor, and he spies for Leopold
with the promise that when he comes to power, he will make Uhl an aristocrat,
or Chief of Police, or Mayor! So there
is a strange dynamic between them, where Leopold has power over him but needs
him desperately, and ultimately Uhl is the only man he can trust,” explains
Rufus. As the
story unfolds, Uhl becomes fascinated by Eisenheim, much to the irritation of
Prince Leopold. “Leopold wants to shake
the policeman and say ‘of course he impresses you, but let me tell you how he
pulls the strings,” offers Rufus. “Leopold
is a very sharp man, and he thinks that everyone has been taken in and
manipulated by this very clever magician; and everyone is dazzled by the smoke
and mirrors, but underneath it all Leopold thinks he is just another little
cheesy showman. As more and more people
seem to be falling under Eisenheim’s spell, it starts to drive Leopold
crazy. The more the country believes in
him, the less they believe in the Prince.
I think Leopold has grown up with the ehaviour of someone who owns the
world, but he doesn’t. I think that
sums him up,” adds Rufus. Sewell’s
extensive film credits include Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet; Dangerous Beauty; Dark City; Illuminata; In a Savage Land;
Bless the Child; A Knight’s Tale; Extreme Ops; Tristan and Isolde and more
recently The Legend of Zorro alongside
Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. His
stage performances include Pride and
Prejudice; The Seagull; As You Like It; Making It Better; Arcadia;
Translations; Rat in the Skull, Macbeth and Luther. Eddie Marsan talks
aboutJosef Fischer British
actor, well known for his recent roles in Vera
Drake and 21 Grams, Eddie Marsan
plays Fisher, Eisenheim’s manager. Eddie
describes his character: “He is very business minded, and very money oriented,”
he begins. “He has a very close relationship with Eisenheim,who trusts
him. He is a lovable rogue, you know
that money is important to him, but you still find him quite funny, and he has
a lot of integrity.” During
the course of the story, Eisenheim fires Fisher, but he doesn’t understand
why. Eddie takes up the story, “Fisher
goes to see Eisenheim and he sees that now Eisenheim has a whole new act based
on conjuring up ghostly figures, which Fisher has never seen before. He is still unaware as to why he has been
fired, although in the story it is clear that Eisenheim is trying to win back
Sophie, and he is going to be attempting dangerous things. But of course Fisher doesn’t know that at
the time. He just sees it as betrayal.” Eddie
admits to having a fairly unusual way of going about the research for a
project. “I always do a certain amount of research to get the historical
context, and I use photographs; but I always listen to a lot of music of the
time. For this film I listened to
Strauss waltzes and Mahler. We have a
magic consultant who has given me some books – different touring acts of the
Victorian period – which have also been very interesting. Fortunately I don’t have to do any magic, I
would be terrible: all fingers and thumbs,” he laughs. Director
Neil Burger had seen Eddie in a couple of earlier movies, and since Eddie’s
recent, highly acclaimed film Vera Drake shared
the same casting director, that was how he came to read the script. “I loved the script, and met with Neil who I
liked very much. I didn’t need any
persuasion to take the role.” Eddie had
also worked with Cinematographer Dick Pope on the Mike Leigh film. “Working on a Mike Leigh film is almost a
nine-month project, and it is very intense with so much preparation. So working with Dick in such a relaxed
atmosphere is great,” says Eddie. “The
advice Neil gave me,” continues Eddie, “is that Fisher is a bit of a
rogue. He likes the ladies, and he
likes the good life. But he advised me
not to make him too comical since there is something hard-edged about him,
which I have tried to bring to the character.” Talking
about his co-stars, he says: “Edward is a lovely actor. He is very present and you feel like he is
listening to you all the time you are working, so it makes you relax and it helps
you to be more communicative as an actor.
Working with Rufus is funny; he is always playing royalty and I am
always terrified of him, but in real life we have had a real laugh together. I have only two scenes with Chief Inspector
Uhl, but I am a big fan of Paul Giamatti and meeting him here was great. We had a few days in Prague together. It is great because he is a character actor
like me, and I have looked up to him for several years, and tried to emulate
him in some ways.” “It has
been a fantastic experience; we have had interaction with the producers who are
always very supportive, very complimentary and they looked after us all
brilliantly,” he muses. Eddie
Marsan’s extensive film credits include Gangster
No.1; Gangs of New York; 21 Grams; Untitled Woody Allen; The New World; Vera
Drake, which garnered a Best Supporting Actor Award at the British
Independent film Awards 2004; Beowulf
& Grendel; The Secret Life of Swords; Miami Vice; V For Vendetta. Eddie
has also appeared in numerous television dramas, including EastEnders; Kavanagh QC; You Are Here; Plastic Man; Second Sight;
Celeb; Gang Show; The Baadar Meinhoff; Quite Ugly One Morning; Friends and
Crocodiles; Pierrepoint. His
theatre credits include Out In the Cold;
Taking Liberties; Serving It Up; The Homecoming; Chips with Everything; A Place
at the Table; Antartica. About
The Filmmakers Writer/Director Neil Burger NEIL BURGER Neil Burger is the writer and director of THE ILLUSIONIST starring
Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti. His screenplay is based on “Eisenheim
the Illusionist” by Pulitzer Prize winning author Steven
Millhauser. Burger also wrote and directed INTERVIEW WITH THE
ASSASSIN (2002), winner of Best Feature Film at both the Woodstock Film
Festival and the Avignon Film Festival and nominated for 3 Independent Spirit
Awards including Best First Film and Best First Screenplay. Before that
he directed commercials for the likes of Mastercard, IBM, and ESPN.
He was also chosen to create a series of television spots for Amnesty
International and their campaign for 'prisoners of conscience.” He began
his film career by creating and directing the award winning “Books: Feed Your
Head” campaign for MTV promoting language and literature. The
Producers MICHAEL LONDON Michael London is the producer
of The Family Stone, which was
written and directed by Thomas Bezucha. The film was released by Fox 2000 in
December and stars Diane Keaton, Sarah Jessica Parker, Dermot Mulroney, Luke
Wilson, Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams and Craig T. Nelson. Last year, Michael London
produced the Alexander Payne film Sideways,
which was one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2004 and the winner of
a Golden Globe for Best Picture (comedy or musical), an Independent Spirit
Awards, and a Critics’ Choice Awards. Sideways was a Best Picture nominee at
the 2005 Academy Awards, where it won the Oscar for Best Adapted
Screenplay. It was named best picture
of 2005 by the New York Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics, the London
Film Critics and the Chicago Film Critics among many others. London
just started pre-production on his next film, King of California, which
he is producing with Alexander Payne. The picture will star Michael Douglas and
was written and will be directed by Michael Cahill. Production begins
in February 2006. In 2003 London produced House of Sand and Fog starring Jennifer
Connelly and Ben Kingsley for Dreamworks and Thirteen starring Holly Hunter and Evan Rachel Wood. Both received Academy Award nominations and
2004 Independent Spirit awards. Thirteen also won Best Director honors
at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival where Fox Searchlight acquired worldwide
distribution rights to the independently-financed production. Prior to that,
London produced Michael Lehmann’s comedy 40
Days and 40 Nights, which starred Josh Hartnett and Shannyn Sossamon, and The Guru, Universal’s Bollywood-themed
comedy starring Heather Graham, Jimi Mistry and Marisa Tomei. London currently has a
three-year first-look deal with Paramount.
Previously, he held a first-look deal with Universal Focus after
spending five years as a production executive at Fox, which he departed as
executive vice president of production.
Films under his supervision included Alien
3, Die Hard 2, Sleeping with the Enemy, Hoffa, and the Sandlot. London began his film career as senior vice
president for Simpson-Bruckheimer Productions where he worked on Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun and other projects.
He started his career as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times after
receiving his undergraduate degree from Stanford University. BRIAN KOPPELMAN AND DAVID LEVIEN The
writing/producing/directing partnership of Brian Koppelman and David Levien has
been quite a productive one. Since 1997
the duo has written the films ROUNDERS,
RUNAWAY JURY, WALKING TALL and KNOCKAROUND GUYS, which they also
directed. Last year the duo created the
critically acclaimed television series TILT
for ESPN, writing and directing the pilot episode. The Illusionist marks a continuation
of their producing career. Koppelman
and Levien also produced Neil Burger’s first feature film, INTERVIEW WITH THE ASSASSIN. Separately each has distinguished himself,
Levien as a novelist whose Wormwood and Swagbelly, A Novel for
Today’s Gentleman, garnered strong critical response, Koppelman in his
previous career as an Artist & Repertoire man for various record labels,
and as an essayist. BOB YARI One of the most prolific film producers of the past half decade, Bob Yari is President and
founder of the Yari Film Group (YFG), dedicated to film financing and
production. With over 18 films produced over the last 2 years and over 22
projects currently in development, YFG has emerged as one of the most
successful independent film companies in Hollywood, with a creative output that
varies in both genre and budget, but always attains mass commercial appeal. BYP’s most recent films include CRASH, the acclaimed ensemble drama
directed by Paul Haggis and slated to be released by Lions Gate Films this
April; HOUSE OF D, David Duchovny’s recent directorial debut, also released by
Lions Gate; last year’s A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG starring John Travolta and
Scarlett Johannson; and this spring’s Miramax action thriller HOSTAGE starring
Bruce Willis. Other films currently slated for release include THE MATADOR
starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear, which was acquired by Miramax upon
premiering at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival; Sony Pictures Classics’
THUMBSUCKER starring Lou Pucci, Tilda Swinton, Vince Vaughn and Keanu Reeves; and
Focus Features’ WINTER PASSING starring Ed Harris, Will Ferrell and Zooey
Deschanel. In addition, BYP has a number of films that have wrapped production in
recent months including PRIME starring Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman; FIND ME
GUILTY, a dramatic comedy starring Vin Diesel and directed by Sidney Lumet;
JUMP SHOT, starring Danny DeVito and Kim Basinger, and directed by Mark Rydell;
and FIRST SNOW starring Guy Pearce. The company is currently in production on
THE ILLUSIONIST starring Edward Norton. Yari began his career with Edgar J. Scherick Associates in Hollywood
after receiving a degree in cinematography, and has served in a variety of
positions including as director of MIND GAMES; as executive producer of AGENT
CODY BANKS, starring Frankie Muniz and Hilary Duff; and of LAWS OF ATTRACTION,
starring Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore. Yari is also a well-versed real estate exec, with projects spanning
syndication, construction, development and redevelopment of commercial and
residential assets throughout the United States. CATHY SCHULMAN Schulman, in partnership with Tom Nunan and Bob
Yari, formed Bull’s Eye Entertainment in October 2002. The company’s
feature film CRASH, directed by Paul Haggis and starring Sandra Bullock, Don
Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, William Fichtner, Brendan Fraser,
Terrence Howard, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Thandie Newton, Ryan
Phillippe and Larenz Tate, was released in May 2005 by Lions Gate Films. CRASH, still in release,
premiered to critical acclaim at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival
and continues to collect awards and nominations, including the Grand Prize at
the 2005 Deauville International Film Festival and Best Feature at the 2005
Black Movie Awards. CRASH is also 2005’s most successful financial box hit in
the independent arena. The company's feature film
THUMBSUCKER, starring Lou Pucci, Tilda Swinton, Vincent
D'Onofrio, Keanu Reeves, Kelli Garner, Benjamin Bratt and Vince Vaughn, premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and
took home the best actor award for Lou Pucci's performance.
Pucci garnered a second best actor award at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival.
Director and world-famous graphic designer Mike Mills also won the Guardian
Award (Best Director) at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. THUMBSUCKER, released by Sony Classics in September
2005, continues to receive stellar notices and awards recognition. THE ILLUSIONIST, written and
directed by Neil Burger and starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel
and Rufus Sewell, is Bull’s Eye’s upcoming release, receiving it’s world
premiere at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Ms. Schulman has numerous feature film projects in
development, including THE LIONS OF AL RASSON, which will be directed by Ed
Zwick for Warner Bros., THE PIANO TUNER, based on the bestseller by Daniel
Mason for Focus Films and KIMBERLY AKIMBO, to be directed by Jake Scott for
DreamWorks. Ms. Schulman and Bull’s Eye partner Tom Nunan are
also dedicated to television production. Among many network and cable shows in
the works, Bull’s Eye is currently producing CRASH, the TV show, in partnership
with Lions Gate Television, for FX. Bull’s Eye has a first-look television deal
with Sony Pictures TV. Ms. Schulman has held various acquisition,
development and production positions throughout her career. As a
producer, she recently produced the feature films GODSEND and EMPLOYEE OF THE
MONTH. Schulman has also produced Edward Burns’ SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK, associate
produced TEARS OF THE SUN and ISN’T SHE GREAT? She was also the executive
producer on YOU STUPID MAN and A GENTLEMAN’S GAME. December
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