By Christina Radish
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Hugh Jackman at the premiere of "The Prestige" held at the El Capitan in Hollywood, Calif. on October 17, 2006 |
From acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Memento) comes the new Touchstone Pictures film The Prestige, an innovative thriller about two Victorian-era magicians who spark a powerful rivalry that quickly builds into an escalating battle of tricks. At a time when magicians are idols and celebrities of the highest order, two young magicians set out to carve their own paths to fame.
The flashy, sophisticated Robert Angier (Tony Award winner Hugh Jackman) is a consummate entertainer, while the rough-edged purist Alfred Borden (Batman Begins star Christian Bale) is a creative genius who lacks the panache to showcase his magical ideas. Starting out as admiring friends and partners, they become enemies for life, each intent on outdoing the other.
In The Prestige, mysteries abound, illusions permeate every action, and nothing is quite what it seems, much like with any good magic trick. To make such an intricately woven film work, Nolan knew that X-Men star Hugh Jackman had the unique mix of innate cool along with sophisticated showmanship necessary to take on the intensity and absolute dedication that Christian Bale possessed.
“I think the roles were tailor made for Christian and I,” says Jackman, the 38-year-old Sydney, Australia native, best known for playing Wolverine. “My character is a very good magician, but Christian’s is a great magician. My character elevates himself as a magician by his natural ability on stage, and I’ve had a lot of experience on stage, so that’s something that comes easily to me. The character, at the beginning of the film, is fairly optimistic. He enjoys life and is excited by the possibilities. There’s a tragedy that happens in his personal life, and then, he becomes fueled by this ambition and the anger over what happened, and it turns him into a much darker, more intense and, ultimately, very dangerous person. That transformation was a lot of fun for me to play.”
{quote_top}“I don’t know if Chris Nolan knew it ahead of time, but just in terms of our various approaches, it was really interesting because both of us absolutely sided with our characters,” adds Bale. “Hugh is a fantastic showman. He’s a great singer and dancer. He’s used to the stage, and he’s comfortable on the stage. I’ve only done one thing on stage in my life. It is just not what drives me. I’m not as intrigued by theater as I am with film. So, in Hugh and I, you had one very good, natural performer, and another who really didn’t know what he was doing up there. I didn’t really know how to handle that. It was ideal for the different roles we were playing.”
Initially interested in the project because of the chance to work with a visionary like Nolan, Jackman became even more passionate about his involvement once he read the script. “Chris Nolan was certainly on my radar of the top 5-10 directors to work with. I was shocked at how amazingly close the original script I read was to the film that ended up being made. I spent a long time working on it and the film is just phenomenal.”
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Christian Bale at the premiere of "The Prestige" held at the El Capitan in Hollywood, Calif. on October 17, 2006 |
The 32-year-old Welsh born Bale, best known for being the Caped Crusader, admits to being unsure of whether or not Nolan would see him as anything other than Batman. “If you work well with someone, you want to try to strike gold again, but Chris didn’t actually come to me with this. I read the script and called him up and said, ‘I want in. I like Borden. I can really nail this character.’ It’s nice to work with someone a number of times because you get a nice little short-hand between you, and you can really hit the ground running much quicker.”
Coincidentally, Jackman says he was reading about Houdini, perhaps the most famous illusionist, when he got the script for The Prestige. His personal interest in the era meant that he was very prepared when it came time to play Angier. “It was a fascinating time, where magic was believed. In America, at that time, spiritualism was a greater religion than Christianity, so magicians who could do seances were beyond just tricksters. They were mediators with the other world. Magicians then were the movie stars, or rock stars, of the day. The pressure on them to be at the top was so intense that they would do almost anything to stay there.”
Although he worked with magicians Ricky Jay and Michael Weber, in order to make sure that his tricks looked believable on screen, Bale admits that, even then, he still didn’t learn their secrets. “If we needed to know for the shot, then they would show us. But, that was very seldom because this is not a movie about showing magic tricks. The film is centered on the one particular trick that my character develops, that just infuriates the hell out of my rival, who cannot understand how it’s done. As for the rest of it, we needed to show some of their performances, but it was more about finishing up tricks, or starting tricks. At that time, there was a great fascination, and so much mystery, about science itself. Nowadays, everybody understands it. That’s an era that can never be regained. We’ve gotten beyond it now. You can’t strip that knowledge away.”
{quote_bottom}Even though he had a grandfather who was a magician, Bale admits that it was not a talent that was passed down to him. “I’m bloody awful. I know the beginning of tricks, and I know the end, but our advisors would never teach me the entire trick. But, I respect very much that they recognize, as my character says in the movie, ‘The value of magic is in the mystery.’ You tell people how it’s done and, not only is it not interesting anymore, it’s bloody annoying. These guys really devote a lifetime of commitment to it.”
Unlike the rivalry they share on screen, both Jackman and Bale say that they were quite friendly on the set, and really enjoyed working with each other. “Christian is fairly low-key, as is Chris Nolan,” says Jackman. “They’re just very relaxed. Christian’s got a very cheeky, quite naughty, sense of humor. He’s got a baby, and I’ve got a baby, so we had play dates together and hung out. I admire Christian because he feels no compulsion to be anything other than who he is. Ever since Batman, he’s become a big star, but he’s exactly the same kind of actor he always was, which is incredibly truthful, very dedicated and unbelievably fearless. If you look at what he tackles as an actor, it’s extraordinary.”
After the animated features Flushed Away (November 3 from DreamWorks Pictures) and Happy Feet (November 17 from Warner Bros. Pictures), the Darren Aronofsky sci-fi/fantasy drama The Fountain (November 22 from Warner Bros. Pictures), the suspense thriller The Tourist (2007), opposite Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams, and a Buz Luhrmann romantic adventure epic, opposite Nicole Kidman, that is going into production in late March 2007, Jackman will be preparing for the Wolverine film.
“We’ve signed off on the script,” says Jackman, of the prequel. “If you know about the history of the X-Men movies, that’s a revolution for us. We’re a year away from shooting the film and we already have the script. And, it is unbelievable. David Benioff (Troy), who’s probably the hottest writer going, wrote the script, and he was beating down out door to write this movie.”
Next up for Bale, who has Harsh Times coming out November 10 from MGM, is The Dark Knight, the 2008 sequel to Batman Begins, in which he will be revisiting Bruce Wayne. “I haven’t read the script yet, but I trust Chris Nolan completely,” says Bale. “We also have the knowledge that everyone has confidence in what we’re trying to do now because the first one worked. People embraced it. Beyond that, you don’t worry too much about whether or not Chris is going to come up with the goods. He is. He’s one of the best around. I’ve got total trust in him and I have no problem reading the script a week before we start. I enjoy this air of secrecy about it and I don’t mind not being in the inner circle until Chris decides I need to be there.”
