'Informant!' an honest day's work for Soderbergh, Damon
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Director Steven Soderbergh sets up his next shot on the set of the offbeat comedy "The Informant!"
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TORONTO -- Matt Damon's character in "The Informant!" may not have invented lying (like Ricky Gervais in another movie at the film festival), but he sure made an art of it.
Damon plays Mark Whitacre, a real-life executive at Archer Daniels Midland who became a whistleblower for the FBI and Justice Department but had a little problem with telling the truth.
"There's something funny about watching people lie on screen," director Steven Soderbergh told a press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival. Later, pressed about a whopper he may have told, the director suggested, "Society would fall apart if we didn't have lies. It would be impossible to have any kind of peace if people didn't lie. ... I don't want to be told the truth, especially at a film festival."
Truth is, Damon is a charming ambassador for "The Informant!" opening in theaters today. Reminded that actors who change their physical appearance tend to have a leg up at awards time, Damon cracked, "You saw my work in 'The Brothers Grimm.' Don't know how that performance got overlooked."
"The Informant!," based on Kurt Eichenwald's book of the same name, was filmed largely on location, including in Decatur, Ill., in a home once occupied by the Whitacres.
"In Decatur -- I don't know what this says about the Midwest, I think the people are extraordinarily polite -- every day people would come down and watch us shoot and we'd go up at the end of the day and say hi to everybody and invariably, somebody would say, 'Wow, you are so much better looking in person.' "
But this wasn't the Damon of the red carpet or even the press conference, this was the Damon who went on a pizza and beer diet to gain 30 pounds and donned dated eyeglasses. "Is it the wig, the mustache, the 30 pounds, the fake nose or maybe the [1990s] wardrobe?" Damon said with a ready laugh.
"I'm 38, but it's weird to make a period piece about a time that I remember really well. I remember walking into the first wardrobe fitting going, what are they going to do with the clothes? The clothes are just like they are now and then I walked in and went, oh my God, I forgot."
Actress Melanie Lynskey, who plays Mark's wife, was outfitted with three wigs and a wardrobe that included such throwbacks as "horrific, high-waisted pants." Scott Bakula, as the only FBI agent in Decatur, got a $60 suit and an unfortunate, unflattering haircut that he had to match later for reshoots, which meant another two months of growing it out.
The movie's sprightly music is composed by Marvin Hamlisch, who Soderbergh called "incredibly gifted."
"Watching him work was fantastic," said Soderbergh. He and producer Greg Jacobs had brought a copy of Woody Allen's "Bananas" with them to Spain as they prepared to shoot the movie "Che."
"I remembered how much I loved that score, that I thought it was one of the best comic scores that I've ever heard," Soderbergh said. Jacobs suggested getting Hamlisch to do the "Informant!" score, and Soderbergh met with the Oscar-winning conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Pops.
"We didn't have much money to offer him, but he really liked the screenplay," and bounced about ideas with Soderbergh months before shooting started. "He's not only a gifted musician, but he's so conscientious about the whole project and is very much involved in every aspect of the score and watching him conduct was really incredible. He's deeply, deeply talented."
Soderbergh is also deeply talented and an Oscar winner, for directing "Traffic." He is famous for working briskly in a business where seconds of film can take hours or days to shoot. He may stage a scene only once or a few times.
"In your life, you don't get retakes, you don't have a serious conversation with somebody and then say, 'Oh, can we back up? I want to take that paragraph again.' I like that feeling, I like that energy, it's gotta happen once spontaneously and even if there are flaws or the cadence is not ideal or it's not the way they want it, I'm looking for that."
And he gets it.
First Published September 18, 2009 12:00 am
