Camilla Belle, Djimon Hounsou Inteview, PUSH

MoviesOnline sat down with Camilla Belle (“When a Stranger Calls”) and Academy Award nominee Djimon Hounsou (“Blood Diamond”) to talk about their new film, “Push,” the riveting action-thriller directed by Paul McGuigan and filmed on location in Hong Kong. “Push” is set in the deadly world of psychic espionage where the ability to move objects using only the mind, see the future, create new realities and kill without ever touching the victim can turn a person into a lethal weapon – or a target. “Push” also stars Dakota Fanning and Chris Evans.

Camilla Belle, who plays Kira in “Push,” is already an internationally known actress at age 22. She recently starred in 10,000 BC, directed by Roland Emmerich, which opened at No. 1 on the domestic box office chart. Belle also starred in “When a Stranger Calls,” the 2006 hit remake of the 1979 thriller that also opened atop the weekend box office. In 2008, Belle played the lead in the Jonas Brothers’ music video for “Love Bug.” She recently completed filming a drama in her native language of Portuguese, “Adrift,” which will be released in Brazil in 2009.

In 2005, Belle garnered acclaim for her work opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” directed by Rebecca Miller. She then joined the ensemble cast of “The Chumscrubber” alongside Ralph Fiennes, Glenn Close, Jamie Bell, Allison Janney and Carrie-Anne Moss. She also starred with Elisha Cuthbert and Edie Falco in “The Quiet,” which premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival. Belle has also made a splash on the fashion scene, with a sophisticated style that has been lauded by some of the top fashion magazines in the world, including Vogue which named her among its Best Dressed of 2006.

Djimon Hounsou, who plays Henry Carver in “Push,” is a two-time Academy Award-nominated actor for his work in the films “In America” and “Blood Diamond.” Hounsou was honored with an NAACP Image Award, a National Board of Review citation and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for his role as Solomon Vandy in “Blood Diamond.” For his role as Mateo in “In America,” Hounsou won an Independent Spirit Award, was named the 2004 ShoWest Supporting Actor of the Year and shared in a SAG Award nomination for Outstanding Cast Performance. He is currently working on Julie Taymor’s screen adaptation of “The Tempest” with Helen Mirren, Russell Brand and Chris Cooper.

Born in Benin, West Africa, Hounsou moved to Paris at the age of 13 to get a better education. As an adult, he was discovered by fashion designer Thierry Mugler and then worked with legendary photographer Herb Ritts. Hounsou was subsequently spotted by director David Fincher, who cast him in several music videos. Small film roles followed before Hounsou’s breakthrough role came in 1997 as Cinque, the African who leads an uprising to regain his freedom in Steven Spielberg’s historical drama “Amistad.” The performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination and a NAACP Image Award. He later shared in a SAG Award nomination as a member of the cast of Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning Best Picture, “Gladiator.”

Camilla Belle and Djimon Hounsou are fabulous people and we really appreciated their time. Here’s what they had to tell us about their exciting new movie, “Push”:

MoviesOnline: Camilla, that's a pretty blouse you have on.

CAMILLA: Thank you.

MoviesOnline: Who is your shirt by?

CAMILLA: Gucci.

MoviesOnline: It's cute.

CAMILLA: Thank you.

MoviesOnline: So Djimon, was it fun to play the bad guy?

DJIMON: No, I never play bad guys usually but this was not nice.

MoviesOnline: Is that one of the reasons you chose to do this?

DJIMON: It’s one of the reasons, but the most important reason was the theme of the story, to tap into that occult world. Most of us are very doubtful about whether it actually exists and whether governments are utilizing that or not. But, yes, that was my attraction to the story.

MoviesOnline: According to the director, there’s a lot on the internet about it. Did you both do research into it to see if it really exists?

DJIMON: [mumbling] Yeah, it’s pretty scary.

MoviesOnline: Did you try to do anything like that yourself to see if you could move objects?

CAMILLA: We tried to push each other all the time. [laughs] Like, "Are you feeling the push?"

DJIMON: We were trying to exercise the idea. Yeah.

MoviesOnline: Which of these powers would you like to have?

CAMILLA: Ours. Pushers. We're in mutual agreement on that one. [laughs]

DJIMON: Given the choice, yes. That would definitely be the one we would prefer. Absolutely.

MoviesOnline: That could be scary.

DJIMON: It is scary, but imagine there are people like that.

MoviesOnline: You could make all the directors hire you?

CAMILLA: [laughs] Yes! That’d be great. Let me think about it.

MoviesOnline: If you’re really charismatic and you can tell a good story and you can even lie a little, then you’re sort of a real-life pusher in a way, aren’t you?

DJIMON: If you can put the right amount in my checking account, then….

CAMILLA: [laughs] That would be perfect.

MoviesOnline: Camilla, did you do a lot of martial arts training for this? There’s one scene where you’re really kicking butt.

CAMILLA: What I loved about that fight scene is that it wasn't like martial arts, it wasn't anything that had to do with formal training. And our stunt coordinator, Nick Powell, he had done films like
Braveheart and Last Samurai and Gladiator and all these films where you really remember the fight sequences, and I felt like I was in very good hands with him. We had about a week and a half of training. And it was more about choreography, because the fight scene is all about choreography. It's almost like a dance with your partner. So we would choreograph and we'd
practice for about a week and a half, and then when you get to the day, it's all about muscle memory just in your body, and you know what to do, and hopefully you don't hit the other person in the head too many times and it just works out smoothly. [laughs] But it was great.

DJIMON: She had a good time.

CAMILLA: It's so much fun. He's a really good trainer. He's about as good as it gets.

MoviesOnline: So how did that scene work out? Did you avoid hitting him in the head too many times?

CAMILLA: We had a couple little mistakes of hitting the wrong areas, [laughs] if you know what I mean.

DJIMON: Not just hitting you but hitting the wrong area.

CAMILLA: He screamed, but it was fine. And we continued on. We laughed about it.

DJIMON: [teasing] What did you say again?!

CAMILLA: It was really fun.

MoviesOnline: What about being in Hong Kong? Did everyone hang out together off set or go to cool restaurants or anything or was there time?

DJIMON: Oh sure. No, are you kidding me? When you’re there that long, of course you venture out a little bit. It’s a heavily populated city.

CAMILLA: We did.

DJIMON: We did kind of hang out together in a way because when you’re making a film, the crew is your immediate family.

CAMILLA: Right. And I think we came together quite a lot with the cast.

DJIMON: Sometimes you can have enough of them, too.

CAMILLA: Right. Seeing them all day long, we didn't want to see each other any more. [laughs]

DJIMON: [teasing Camilla] Don’t push me today!

MoviesOnline: Literally!

CAMILLA: [laughs] Exactly.

DJIMON: Yeah, right.

MoviesOnline: Did you do any rehearsal for this? Did you get there early to rehearse?

DJIMON: That was a difficult one to do.

CAMILLA: We didn't really rehearse.

DJIMON: We all kind of came when it was time to shoot and we all kind of jumped into it.

CAMILLA: [We came] at different times. Everyone was talking to Paul before we started shooting. I mean, I went out a little bit early and I really explored the city, like Djimon was saying, but then Dakota and Chris came out.

DJIMON: Yeah. She went ahead of time and did everything, so she was a great guide for us.

CAMILLA: I made them their checklist of what to do in Hong Kong. [laughs]

DJIMON: Yeah. “You can shop here. There are better prices here.”

CAMILLA: "Here's good food, don't go eat there." [laughs]

DJIMON: “There are more Westerners and Americans here.”

MoviesOnline: What was the most surprising thing you found in Hong Kong?

CAMILLA: I think just the variety of cultures and the variety of people. It is really overpopulated, but at the same time, there's so much to discover and so many differences between the mainland and the islands. We stayed in the mainland, in Kowloon, but then on the islands, there were so many different areas. There are beautiful beaches where people go, and then you go to the new territories where there are all the temples and it's very green. It's a very diverse city. It was just beautiful to see, and I really explored it.

DJIMON: What I do find shocking is all of their heritage from centuries ago has completely vanished. I mean, it’s a brand new city.

CAMILLA: It’s so modern.

DJIMON: All the historical sites sort of disappeared or were destroyed.

CAMILLA: You really had to drive outside the city in order to see the
ancient temples and whatnot.

MoviesOnline: Are you fans of this type of genre? Do you watch films like the X-Men?

DJIMON: It is nice to have a couple hours of entertainment, light-headed entertainment.

CAMILLA: Exactly.

DJIMON: It is good. I do like that genre a little bit sometimes.

MoviesOnline: How was the guerilla filmmaking style with the hidden camera and real people walking down the street? I understand you were grabbed on the street and stuffed in a car? How did people on the street react?

CAMILLA: It was actually really comical.

DJIMON: And they all kind of just moved on.

MoviesOnline: How did it work?

CAMILLA: [laughs] We were trying to film...They had the cameras out at one point, but then people kept on looking at the camera, or they would get in front of us. And Paul said, "This is not going to work. We're not going to find our actors, ever." [laughs] So they had to hide them. They put four cameras hidden inside buildings and windows, and hidden behind trucks and stuff. And we did that one scene where I get grabbed by his two agents, and just seeing the reactions...I wished I wasn't in the scene so I could have seen it, but supposedly some people stopped and freaked out, others kept on going, they couldn't care less. Quite a diverse amount of reactions going on. It was really funny. [laughs]

DJIMON: That city, it’s pretty funny. I was in shock actually at the way they pass each other in the city because it’s so crowded. People bump into you hard and don’t even turn around to say sorry or whatever.

CAMILLA: No, they just keep on going.

DJIMON: Exactly. You’d better keep on going because nobody has the time to fight you.

MoviesOnline: Would you want to drive in that city?

CAMILLA: No. [laughs]

DJIMON: No, you don’t.

CAMILLA: Definitely not.

DJIMON: You barely want to walk. You don’t want to drive. I mean, the traffic is so overwhelming.

[SPOILER ALERT]

MoviesOnline: Camilla, are you really an agent? [to Djimon] We don’t know if you pushed that into her mind or she really was an agent.

DJIMON: No, she really was an agent. My partner really was an agent and just didn’t like the direction she was taking nowadays. [Laughs]

MoviesOnline: What was your reaction when you first saw the special effects with your eyes, when they gloss over with inky blackness? What do you think that adds to the character?

CAMILLA: I think it was...We didn't know...

DJIMON: I was like, "Thank God for that."

CAMILLA: [laughs] We didn't have to do anything, it was just the eye...!

DJIMON: [demonstrates the Push stare to Camilla] I’m pushing you now.

CAMILLA: [laughs] It adds something.

DJIMON: It is nice to see that.

CAMILLA: There's a physical effect to what we're doing.

DJIMON: That's funny. [laughs]

MoviesOnline: Was the director receptive to your own ideas about your character?

CAMILLA: Definitely.

MoviesOnline: What ideas did you have or what did you add to it?

CAMILLA: I can't think of anything specific, but Paul as a director and as a person himself, he's very receptive to any ideas, any problems, any issues you had with character development in our scenes. We'd go up and talk to him, and he was very welcome to ideas, and we discussed things. I think what was great about Paul was that we would discuss a scene before we shot it and kind of lay out what we thought, he said what he thought, and kind of figured everything out before we shot the scene like that.

DJIMON: And it still was very difficult to figure it out.

CAMILLA: Because the plot itself is very confusing. [laughs] You know, we still don't really understand exactly what happened, you know? [laughs]

MoviesOnline: Did shooting out of sequence add to the confusion? Did you have problems keeping track of everything? Did you script it out with diagrams of what’s happening?

CAMILLA: I remember a couple moments where we all sat down and said, "What happened? Where are we supposed to be going now?"

DJIMON: We do have to kind of surrender to [the story]. I mean, at that point, it’s all hell for the director. You know, “I can’t keep up with where you are at all times.” Also, the other danger as an actor is that you become too analytical about the story.

CAMILLA: Right. And you’re not living it.

DJIMON: Yeah.

MoviesOnline: How were you a big sister to Dakota? Did you give her any words of advice?

CAMILLA: Well, she definitely knows what she's doing, and it's quite apparent. She's extremely talented and has picked one incredible project after another, and continues to do so. I think what was great about working with her is that we’ve both grown up in the business. And me being
older than her, I think...Just the only thing--and I say that to everyone--is to really have a strong personal life, and to have your friends outside of work, live your life fully outside of work, so that you have something to go back to. And to me, this is a job. It is a job. It's fun and everything, but it is your job. And to look at it that way. So I think that's the most important thing, to have a good balance. But she knows what she's doing. She doesn't need any guidance, really. [laughs]

MoviesOnline: Have you seen the final cut?

CAMILLA: Not the final, final, final one.

MoviesOnline: Was there anything you shot that was cut out?

CAMILLA: I have no idea. [laughs]

MoviesOnline: Did you have any favorite dramatic moments in the movie?

CAMILLA: I loved our scene, when Kira is extremely sick towards the end in the hotel room.

DJIMON: Yeah, I liked that scene.

CAMILLA: We're like pushing each other? I really enjoyed doing that scene. This is kind of a power struggle, I think, between the two. I had fun doing that scene. Did you like it?

[SPOILER ALERT]

DJIMON: I did and it only just occurred to me that I never tried to push you. I’m having a revelation. I’m just thinking. I have the ability to control one’s thought process so why wouldn’t I change her thought process to believe what I was saying to her. Then again….

MoviesOnline: You can’t analyze this.

DJIMON: Again, it’s great that he didn’t do that because he was really trying to let her come to herself and have the drug really exercise itself. Otherwise, we’ll never know if she’s really…..

MoviesOnline: Did you guys get hurt while filming?

CAMILLA: No one got hurt. Everyone gets bruises. He was totally...He was untouched! [laughs] But of course you get bruises from running around, but it's nothing serious.

MoviesOnline: This is old hat for you, Djimon. You’ve done action films before.

DJIMON: Yeah. It’s just such a luxury when you’ve done action roles and you know what it takes and sometimes it’s a luxury not having much to do in a film. So, that was a relief.

MoviesOnline: Camilla, are you splitting your time between college and work now?

CAMILLA: You know, I think life throws some interesting twists at you. I mean, I was supposed to start Columbia, and I didn't end up being able to go because a film went over schedule at one point. So, my life has gone in a different direction right now. I've just been focusing on work. But
it's there.

MoviesOnline: I just remember you talking about it at the press day for “When a Stranger Calls.”

CAMILLA: Right! No, I know, I was supposed to be going soon after that, but I didn't. I wasn't able to start. So, we'll see.

MoviesOnline: If you went, what would you like to study? What would be your major?

CAMILLA: I'm really passionate about languages. I think I would continue to do that. And art history as well, I love, too. That's what I learned in high school, so I’ll continue on that path.

MoviesOnline: What have you guys got coming up?

DJIMON: I just finished The Tempest with Julie Taymor, Helen Mirren, and Alfred Molina.

MoviesOnline: Who did you play?

DJIMON: In The Tempest I played Caliban.

MoviesOnline: How extensive was the make-up?

DJIMON: Oh ho ho, excuse me the word. Hell.

MoviesOnline: Sometimes people play him without any make-up.

DJIMON: Yeah, we got 4 hours make-up. Prosthetics, make-up and all that stuff. It took 4 hours. You might not even recognize me in that. You will, but 4 hours.

MoviesOnline: Helen Mirren is Prospero?

DJIMON: She’s Prospera now. There’s never, never been [a woman]. It’s always been a man. Prospero. It was actually a character designed for a man, but it was quite interesting to see her interpretation of it into a female. It’s quite beautiful.

MoviesOnline: Are you doing it in a different period?

DJIMON: No. It’s still the same period.

MoviesOnline: Are you excited about it?

DJIMON: Yeah, I am. I am. I’m frightened as to how it will all come together in terms of the role I’m playing, as human and half creature. It takes such an extensive make-up. You don’t want it to turn out too cartoonish. They’re all very pleased with how it came out so we’ll see.

MoviesOnline: Camilla, what are you doing next?

CAMILLA: I did a film in Brazil last year in Portuguese called Adrift. We just finished wrapping.

DJIMON: That's always nice to speak in your language.

CAMILLA: It's in Portuguese.

MoviesOnline: Who's your character?

CAMILLA: Well, I mean, it's a supporting role. It's about a 14-year-old girl, kind of her coming of age story. It takes place in the '80s in Brazil, and kind of the first generation of divorced parents in Brazil, because it wasn't happening until later on, and her discovering love for the first time amongst her family falling apart. Vincent Cassel is the father, he's the lead, and so I play his mistress in the film.

MoviesOnline: How does speaking in another language impact your performance?

CAMILLA: I've always wanted to work in Brazil and always wanted to work in Portuguese, so it really was a dream come true for me. I never studied Portuguese, so my grammar's not perfect. Sometimes I'd want to say different things, and I'd have to check and make sure that I was saying it correctly. But other than that, it was just such a fulfilling experience. It was really, really incredible.

MoviesOnline: Do you think in English before speaking in Portuguese?

CAMILLA: No. When I speak in Portuguese, I think in Portuguese.

“Push” opens in theaters on February 6th.