Rendition Press Conference - Jake: 'Who wouldn't want to see a love scene between Meryl Streep and Reese Witherspoon?'

Over the last day we've been discussing, and revelling in, Jake's comic timing and sense of fun, largely as a result of the reaction of a journalist to watching a moment of comic genius between Jake and Gavin Hood at Friday's Rendition press conference. Like many of you, I'm sure, I was wondering what it was about. Well, now we know because the press conference was recorded. It is full of spoilers so many of you will not want to listen to it all, but here are some of the things Jake says and he exhibits moments of great reflection, humour and, as one would hope, the occasional moment of pure Gyllenspeak genius!


Jake and Peter's roles

Jake: 'I would much rather play the guy who makes the really good choice - I'd hate to be Peter's character, Peter sucks [laughter]... The irony is that most likely in reality we'd both make the opposite decision, I think. I would make the really bad choice and he would make the right one. I'm just trying to help you along, Peter.'

On being asked why anyone would want to see Rendition

Jake: 'Who wouldn't want to see a love scene between Meryl Streep and Reese Witherspoon?'


Did Jake meet with anyone who had been involved with rendition?

Jake: 'Not in person, no. Over the phone, and I never talked to anybody who I don't think would ever admit or say that they'd been involved in any type of extraordinary rendition situation. But I only talked to CIA officers for sort of... fact-checking. At least I found that when you talk to somebody with a job like that, it's usually very technical and the questions you want as an actor are a little bit more emotional but I think that that's a real key into a character anyway. And so a lot of it was actually watching movies of people who played CIA agents and officers and a couple of movies of people who've played alcoholics. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold - which is a merging of the alcoholic and the spy (literally and in the movie!) - and then also The Good Shepherd actually, which is think - just a little shout out to Matt Damon - that's a pretty incredible performance. More about less he does, the more he does. That's the kind of performance I look up to. So I just tried to copy it.' [laughter]


Douglas

Jake: 'and there's my story about the guy who's approaching 40 who's struggling with all the things somebody approaching 40 struggles with.'


Rendition's perspective

Jake: 'I would like to add that I think we're pretty near-sighted when I think about time - 5 years is not that long and most of the movies that are political that we're talking about in a period of time - any movie from the 70s or a movie about a war - was made 5 or 6 years after that war either ended or it began. I think it takes people, particularly artists and everyone, journalists, always, if someone said to you 'write it now! write it now!' You need perspective, you need time for opinions to come up, or a point of view. I think this is really very quick! I think that's really important. We just get very near-sighted of that.'

The joke!

Gavin: 'Whether this movie makes 50 cents or 50 million, it matters to keep my producers in business, but they had the courage to make a film based on a decision that this story needed to be told and I want to thank them and applaud them for letting us do it.'

Jake: 'That's why Gavin's doing Wolverine next!' [much laughter]

Gavin: 'And that's why I love him!'


Douglas' decision

Jake: 'I'll put it frankly: I think that hope is dangerous and I think that practicality gets things done. I think the character asks himself the question, not 'is this the right thing or the wrong thing?' but 'does this work? or does it not work?'. And it's very simple. And I think that if he weren't an analyst, I think the decision would be very different... This was a very practical move and if there can be more characters who make practical decisions, I think that's hopefully the way modern cinema can move.'

'The reason why I say hope is a dangerous thing is because I think it takes you out of the present. And I think that this character makes a decision very much in the present moment.'

'And also I don't think the white man is the one who makes the right decision... all of these people who were inolved in this situation are the ones who led this one person who ends up holding the key that he doesn't even know he's holding.'


Gyllenspeak

Jake: 'What do they say? That the elephant and the donkey and that Emily Dickinson says hope is a thing with feathers and neither an elephant or a donkey has feathers.'

Gavin: 'That's way deep.'

Jake: 'There you go - see you later... all right... goodbye!'


Thanks very much to a Wolverine fan!
Pictures from IHJ and Just Jared.