Elizabeth Olsen who plays the female lead in Godzilla talks about the challenges faced in doing a movie in which key aspects are digitised and how working with a child requires patience. But over all, this was an experience she would love to repeat. Excerpts from an interview
What made you say yes to GodzillaIJ
When I was asked if I wanted to hear the script of the movie, the first thought that came was — GodzillaIJ But then I found that Gareth Edwards had been roped in as the director. He has directed some great movies, legends always do top quality projects. So, I agreed. Then I met with Gareth and he showed me the teaser that they made for Comic-Con the previous year of the movie. And when I was watching it, I was as excited as an audience member. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t wait to see that movie!’ I thought there was something so grounded and terrifying, and it made Godzilla something to be feared, not some silly cartoon.
When I saw it I told him, ‘That’s the best movie I’ve never seen, and I can’t believe you’re asking me to be a part of it.’ They had a script but they wanted it to be a project that we could all chip in and create together. So, it felt nice to work with Aaron (Taylor-Johnson) and Gareth in trying to root our characters’ family in something that we could really get behind, and still tell this larger monster story.
Tell me about your character, Elle BrodyIJ
One of the biggest draws was the idea of playing a mother whose husband is away most times because of his work. The struggle of this character is to try and figure out what to do and how to balance that in a high stake situation. The way Ellen had to approach everything was that it wasn’t a monster — it was a national disaster; it was something terrifying. As Americans, we don’t always see these things in real life, but read about it happening in other countries. Through my character and the movie, we wanted to tell that story of whatever images one has seen or read or watched in documentaries about people going through moments of terror.
What were the challenges faced in making Ellen and Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) realisticIJ
We didn’t want the characters to be generic. We wanted it to be something that was crafted together. Aaron is a father himself, so he has an understanding of going off to do a job, coming home, being with children and what it’s like when you have to be apart from them. So a lot of that understanding was incorporated. The language and the dialogue we chose was all based on improvisation.
The structure was there in the script, the words used were ones that we just drew from our real lives. I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I don’t know how much of it is in there, but it’s important, even if you get to see just a few scenes about their family, that we really know what’s going on between them so it can be rooted in something beyond just being a monster film.
Some aspects of the film are digitised. How did Gareth communicate what your character had to doIJ
He showed me an animated pre-visualisation. I’d never even seen it before. Though the entire experience was hilarious what he was doing was showing me how animation will be reacting to things. He would tell me what would be coming round the corner. For example, if I was looking at a sky-rise building, I was told to take seven steps, look back as if there was sniper aiming at me — a tangible fear that I could identify with and not monster which would have led to an amazed expression rather than being scared. That’s how we adjusted and communicated.
Can you recall a memorable sequencesIJ
It was a scene with Carson Bolde, who plays our son, Sam. It was so enjoyable to get a little boy to not understand what he’s improvising and yet try and get him to talk about school but hoping that he didn’t bring up his real parents into the picture. Working with a child is such an interesting challenge. It really exercises patience and it’s something that I really want to do again. It’s a technique just to work with a little boy.
What did you take away from working on this projectIJ
I understood that to make a movie like this, the entire unit including the producers cared about the storyline. They knew that the digital aspect would come later. The amount of detail and care that went into the story was really fantastic. You really didn’t feel like you were making this movie about monsters, but about people.