Hogan's hero
18jan03
TO GET to Neverland, the
fairytale setting of J.M. Barrie's century-old children's classic
Peter Pan, you travel down the Pacific Highway from Brisbane.
Turn into Warner Roadshow Studios at Coomera, and there you'll discover
that the site's eight sound stages have been taken over by the
$200 million film.
Peter Pan, being directed by
Brisbane-born filmmaker P.J. Hogan – reared at Tweed Heads, and famous
for Muriel's Wedding and My Best Friend's Wedding – is the
biggest movie yet filmed in Queensland.
It's so big that the live-action adventure, the
first film starring a boy in the title role – 13-year-old American
Jeremy Sumpter – is being financed by three movie studios. Universal,
Columbia, and Revolution have joined forces for the project, which is
planned for release next Christmas.
Pre-production for the film, involving a crew
of 500 workers, started last June, the first scenes for the film were
shot on October 1, and there are still 10 more weeks before filming ends
at the Coomera site.
"Then we have hundreds of special-effects shots
to be integrated into the film by Industrial Light and Magic in Los
Angeles," says Jocelyn Moorhouse, Hogan's partner and fellow director (Proof,
How To Make An American Quilt) who is executive producer on this
film.
Hogan and Moorhouse, and their children aged 13
and seven, have made Los Angeles home for the seven years since
Muriel's Wedding and Proof made the husband and wife
internationally known filmmakers.
"Peter Pan was offered to P.J. about two
years ago, but he read the script and didn't think it would make a 'big'
enough movie. Then he read a biography of J.M. Barrie (the Scots
playwright and novelist who died in 1937) and saw a much deeper
resonance for the story," Moorhouse says.
"He wrote about eight drafts of the script,
written with Michael Goldenberg (previously credited for Jodie Foster's
Contact) and came up with a version that provides excitement and
adventure, as well as being faithful to Barrie.
"There are some adjustments, such as making
Wendy (played by 12-year-old English girl Rachel Hurd-Wood) more a
21st-century woman, something of a warrior.
"Barrie's Wendy was a little bit wimpy, and we
didn't think modern girls would like that."
Moorhouse is excited at the performance given
by Rachel, whom she describes as "like a young Kate Hepburn – very
tough, very witty".
Jason Isaacs, who starred alongside Mel Gibson
in The Patriot and was introduced into the Harry Potter
series this season as the evil Malfoy Sr, is playing dual roles: Captain
Hook and Mr Darling.
Other adults in the cast include Lynn Redgrave
as Aunt Millicent, Olivia Williams (from The Sixth Sense) as Mrs
Darling, Richard Briers as Smee, Geoffrey Palmer as Sir Edward Quiller
Couch and young French leading lady Ludivine Sagnier (8 Femmes)
as Tinkerbell.
Hogan searched Australia, England and most
parts of the English-speaking world before finding his Peter Pan in Los
Angeles. Sumpter, born in Kentucky, began acting at the age of 10, with
his film debut the 2001 psychological thriller Frailty, opening
in Australian cinemas on January 30.
"Someone like a 13-year-old Errol Flynn,
handsome, charismatic, good-humoured and possessing an outstanding
athletic ability" was the criteria set out during the search for this
21st-century Peter Pan, and Hogan initially thought Sumpter was not
quite tall enough for the part.
"But his agent reminded us he'd grown a lot
since we first saw him in Frailty, and when he was tested, he was
just perfect," Moorhouse says. "He's very smart, very athletic. I think
everyone will love him in the role."
The curly-haired, reed-slender Sumpter, who
turns 14 on February 5 – and who has continued his schooling while
filming, with social studies his favourite subject – is a normal
teenager who loves bouncing around.
His boundless energy caused some anxious
moments for the film production over Christmas, when the young star, his
parents, and his sisters – one of them his twin – were holidaying on an
island in the Whitsundays.
Leaping around in his holiday apartment, Jeremy
collided with a ceiling fan and suffered a gash to his forehead that
required medical attention in Mackay, including 100 micro stitches over
three layers of skin, and a visit to a plastic surgeon in Brisbane to
help disguise the damage.
But on this day, filming on the sprawling
jungle set created by award-winning production designer Roger Ford,
whose long list of credits include Babe, Rabbit-Proof Fence
and The Quiet American, Sumpter shows no after-effects from his
holiday injury as Hogan directs him in a scene with the
Cinematographer Donald McAlpine (Moulin
Rouge and practically every famous Australian film of the past 30
years) is filming the colourful footage which will be sent later via
satellite to Los Angeles.
Given a rest break, Jeremy – who clomps around
in a favourite pair of Australian sheepskin ugh boots – grabs a paper
cup of Tiny Teddy chocolate biscuits and reflects on life as Peter Pan.
He may be unknown to most movie fans now, but
this time next year, at the tail of a massive worldwide publicity
campaign to launch the film's Christmas release, he will be as well
known as the young stars of the Harry Potter films and The
Lord of the Rings series.
"The flying and the fencing have been great
fun," says the cheerful young actor, who trained with specialist
instructors for three months to prepare for the demanding role which
involves flying sequences and swordfights.
A fan of the Harry Potter series,
Jeremy's only regret about his Peter Pan assignment in Queensland
is the fact it's taken him away from watching his favourite baseball
team, the San Francisco Giants, and footballers the San Francisco 49ers.
He's convinced, after four films in three
years, that he's found what he wants to do all his life, and says he's
had "great fun" working with the seasoned Isaacs as the menacing Captain
Hook.
"I call him Evil Man – only joking," Jeremy
says. "He's Jason to all the kids."
On another part of the sprawling lot, the
tanned Isaacs – who has been living on the Gold Coast with his partner
and nine-month-old daughter since August – is spending more time
practising fencing left-handed with his professional tutor, Gary
Worsfield.
"Captain Hook has the
hook on his right hand, and I'm naturally right-handed so I've had to
become proficient with my left hand, and it's not easy," he
says.
Isaacs, who has had featured roles in recent
films such as Black Hawk Down, The Tuxedo and
Windtalkers, says working on the Gold Coast has been more like a
holiday from a chilly England.
Surviving local challenges such as "spiders
large enough to eat a cat" and a snake that slithered over his Mermaid
Beach lawn one recent day, Isaacs says he would be happy if Peter Pan
were the film that never ended.
"If you could find me
another job immediately this is over, I could stay here, couldn't I?"
he pleads.
Peter Pan finally should be the film
that makes Isaacs a household name, and he admits that he's thoroughly
enjoying himself as Hook, after finishing his scenes as the gentle Mr
Darling.
But he says he won't be hanging out to read
reviews of his performance. "I do the best I
can, that's all I can do. I act as well as I can, and do the part.
"When you finish what you
have to do, the film is out of your hands. What happens then is not
something you can control.
"I just have to hope
that the phone will ring and there'll be an offer of work somewhere
decent that I can take my wife and baby, who's already babbling in an
Aussie accent," says the likeable actor, wearing a North
Carolina cap that he bought to remind him of working on The Patriot.
"You're not allowed to
keep your costumes, you know, so from the Gold Coast I have a Sea-FM
T-shirt and some Billabong clothing," he says.
Jeremy has been asked not to risk physical
injury surfboard riding during the extended shooting schedule, so has
been content to boogie-board at the beach whenever the opportunity
arises.
Production designer Ford didn't suffer physical
damage preparing some of the largest scaled sets ever constructed in
Queensland – but did lose a pair of new shoes during a 14km trek with
director Hogan into the Binna Burra rainforest on the Lamington Plateau.
"We had to look at a giant fig tree there
because it looked like the sort of trees that P.J. wanted to see in
Neverland's jungle, so we walked and walked, and I'm not someone who
walks very far at all," he says.
The fig became the key to the Never-Land set,
which is a colourful mix of rainforest trees, ferns and shrubs, and
notices to warn film crew "minimal crew on the clover pad".
"It would have been impossible to shoot in the
real rainforest, so we had to make our own," says Ford, who also has
created a moated castle around Barrie's skeleton-covered Marooner's
Rock, where Peter Pan and Hook duel.
Australian Oscar-winning special effects
consultant John Cox, based on the Gold Coast, is constructing a massive
head and jaws for the 12m man-eating crocodile that every child knows
from Peter Pan.
Ford – who found life as an architectural
student too boring, so joined the BBC on series such as Dr Who
before settling in Australia permanently in 1971, working on the ABC's
Aunty Jack series – says designing Peter Pan had been the
most rewarding assignment of his career.
"It was a job I didn't expect to get," he
admits. "When I had a meeting with P.J. in Los Angeles to discuss the
project, I was so jet-lagged that when the meeting ended and I left the
room, I mistook a cupboard for the door.
"But they still hired me. I've never worked
with a director who had such a detailed visual concept of what he was
trying to create on screen. This is magical, and I think it's going to
be great."
"Do you believe in fairies?" Barrie asks in
Peter Pan. "Say quick that you believe. If you believe, clap your
hands."
Ford believes children worldwide – and their
adult companions – will be clapping enthusiastically when his favorite
film project is released on screens everywhere.
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