She told me, 'It's just sex,' ... She flew to London to let me know how interested she was in the part. She knew so much more about Tessa than I did. I saw several other actresses, but she was the one who inspired me. It would be easy to play Tessa as a caricature, but there's a humanity in this character. |
Sometimes, you read a script, and you believe passionately that you must play this character. And I needed to show that passion to him, although I think I downplayed my passion a bit because I didn't want to scare him off. I didn't want him to think I was crazy enough to be a problem. |
That little village that's raided in the film, it's just lost in the desert. There's nothing there. We came in and turned it into a big operation, like an al-Qaida training camp in the middle of the desert. |
The actors feel very free. The actor, he doesn't need to think about where the camera is, he just has to focus on what he's doing and forget the camera. The camera is never in the perfect position, and I think this is what keeps this feeling of reality. The frame is not perfect. |
The film deals with pharmaceutical companies using Africans as guinea-pigs, |
This is the part that I like most, in the process, is to edit and try to find (the story). Sometimes you think you have a film, and then you change something and it becomes different. It's a wonderful job. Because it surprises you. |
This is the sequel. Geography makes them seem separate, but eventually the connections between them will become clear. |
This plot in this film is based on this particular case in Nigeria -- but it's very usual to test drugs in Africa because it's less expensive for big companies, ... City of God. |
We forgot this continent for a long time - and now, finally Africa is being rediscovered. |
We knew that we couldn't use lights and ask the boys to hit marks. Because they don't have the technique. They were not trained for that. |
We're supposed to capture what's in the air and give a form to it. The artist is like an antenna, always searching for new ideas and ways to express them. |
When I first read the script, the political side of the story really interested me. I was interested in talking about pharmaceutical companies, and how corporations and government work together, |
When we finished filming I had a political drama, a love story and a documentary. But the love story was so strong I decided to make it the axis of the film. |
When we first saw the locations we would be using, we decided to use a different visual approach to each part of the story, |