Interview : J.J. Abrams

Writer-director J.J. Abrams is a talent widely admired by audiences and critics alike. Hailed by The New York Times as "one of the most exhilarating storytellers in television," he recently won two Emmys – for best directing and best dramatic series – for his work on "Lost." He sold his first script, the 1990 comedy "Taking Care of Business" while attending Sarah Lawrence College. Soon afterwards, in 1991, he wrote another screenplay, "Regarding Henry," that became a dramatic vehicle for Harrison Ford. Later, in 1998, he wrote the blockbuster "Armageddon." Next, Abrams created three television shows for which he's best known: first "Felicity," then the landmark "Alias" and, more recently, "Lost."

It was "Alias" that caught producer-actor Tom Cruise's eye. After watching the first season of the spy series on DVD, Cruise was convinced Abrams was the guy to resuscitate the stalled "Mission Impossible 3" project which Cruise/Wagner Productions had struggled for five years to get onto the screen. At various times, directors David Fincher ("Fight Club") and Joe Carnahan ("Narc") had been attached to the project, and Frank Darabont ("The Shawshank Redemption") had written a script. But when Abrams came on board, he insisted on rewriting the screenplay to bring the story back closer to its inspired TV series origins.

While Abrams’ version of "Mission Impossible 3" features the latest adventures of super-spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) as he faces his most personal mission yet, it also features an ensemble cast of exceptional actors (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Crudup, Maggie Q, and Keri Russell), who are all given their moment to shine in the film. Indeed, their teamwork ethos harkens back to the original TV show and makes this third installment of the popular spy thriller franchise much more personal and engaging. Abrams explains, "The promise of a ‘Mission: Impossible’ movie is the ultimate opportunity for a writer and a director. You have the chance, especially with someone like Tom and the other actors we have in the cast, to get into some real emotional character portrayals."

Abrams brings his unique blend of action, character, comedy, and drama to the franchise, offering the audience an enthralling, intricate story with an unexpected and arresting payoff that satisfies on every level. What is especially captivating is the clever way in which he sets up the film’s structure by bookending it with a brutal, pivotal flashforward that, in the opening sequence, establishes the unrelenting central tension of the film and lets the audience know something vital is at stake. He then fills in the details via an engaging and involved flashback in a storytelling strategy that is reminiscent of his innovative approach to the backstory-loaded mystery "Lost." Says Abrams, "In this movie especially, I felt that audiences know the mechanics of the genre so well. To start the movie in a place where you think it's going to go, it dispels any preconceived notions. It engages you as a puzzle."

Abrams explains, "My dream was always to direct a movie and when Tom asked me if I wanted to do this, I couldn’t say yes fast enough. It was just inconceivable to me that he would entrust this project with a first time director. And yes, my experience on "Alias" gave me a certain facility with the genre, but it was still surreal to think that this project which was such a dream for me to get a chance to do was actually being offered to me." Indeed, with a budget of more than $150 million, "Mission Impossible 3" has been reported to be the most expensive directorial debut in Hollywood history.

"From the beginning, Tom and I talked about wanting to do a movie that had a surprisingly personal and intimate story," continues Abrams. "When you hear ‘Mission: Impossible,’ you know you are going to get extreme situations, great action, and incredible stunts. The idea was to take that opportunity, and combine it with an intimate story, a love story, and friendships that were real friendships with characters that you get to know and like." To achieve that, the director says, he asked a few questions that probed some parts of the Ethan Hunt character that have gone unexplored. "How do you reconcile being a man who does what Ethan Hunt does?" asks Abrams. "Our approach is not to make a movie about a spy, but to tell a story about a man who is a spy. It may sound like semantics, but when you truly let that guide you, the questions come and the answers that appear are actually relatable, emotional, and fascinating." Abrams elaborates, "The crucial thing about Mission 3 was that I wanted to get to know who Ethan Hunt was. And to me the thing that was most fun about this genre isn’t just the intrigue and the stunts and the special effects and all that. It was that place in the story where the personal and the every day meet the hyper-real world of intrigue and espionage. It’s that sort of meeting place that to me makes it interesting. The first two films didn’t really concern themselves with that as much."

"Mission: Impossible III" also delivers all of the incredible action and breathtaking stunts that moviegoers expect from the franchise. The writing team – Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Abrams (who worked together previously on "Alias") – dreamed up new sequences for Hunt to survive… which, says Abrams, put the director in a delicate situation. "When we started writing the action sequences, we would say, ‘We shouldn’t even write this because Tom’s going to want to do the stunt himself.’ In the end, we realized, of course, we had to give the best we could. Though it’s a bit hair-raising, it’s inspiring to work with an actor and producer who’s so willing to give everything to make the best movie he can." Abrams says that his high-stakes story is the perfect match for Cruise’s on- and off-screen intensity. "Before we started shooting, Cameron Crowe mentioned to me that Tom was so focused, professional, and hard working, he was going to spoil me for the rest of my life," says Abrams. "Everything he said is absolutely true."

In writing "Mission: Impossible III," Abrams and his co-writers went back to the drawing board with the character of Ethan Hunt. "From the very beginning, Tom, Alex, Bob, and I wanted to do a movie about a character," says Abrams. "Not that there isn’t a lot of action – that goes without saying – but my favorite kind of spy movie is one where the commitment to the world, as extreme as it is, and as hyper-real as it is, is still emotionally true. You have these characters going through some of the most heartbreaking, most terrifying, most horrifying, most thrilling, most fun moments, and you believe all of them within the context of the genre. That’s what we wanted to bring to ‘MI 3.’" Abrams notes that the writing team took special care to create a villain worthy of Ethan Hunt – one that could match up to the hero. "This is the first time that Hunt has come up against an adversary that is as scary, clever, mysterious as the character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman," says Abrams.

In creating "Lost" and "Alias," Abrams has already invented his personal visual style. Because the action derives organically from Abrams’s very human characters, he chooses a natural, realistic, and gritty approach over stylized, slow-motion, and highly edited fighting sequences. In order to work out the complicated action shots and sequences, Abrams made full use of the pre-visualization capabilities at his disposal. (Pre-visualization is the director’s opportunity to describe an action sequence, as he envisions it, to a visual effects editor, who makes a CG representation of it.) For Abrams, achieving the effects in-camera (as opposed to with CGI) with Cruise performing as many of his own stunts as possible was a must. "All the latest CG technology is great – but if you can do something for real – actually have the actor perform the stunt and not rely on head replacement – well, nothing trumps that."

Abrams mentioned a dramatic stunt in which Cruise jumps off an eighty-foot building, "Tom drops, stopping eighteen inches above the concrete, and I found myself talking to someone else between takes," says Abrams. "I realized I had become complacent about having Tom Cruise – who was entirely my responsibility – dangling from a crane, dropping at breakneck speed, stopping just above the ground. I remember thinking: ‘I have to get back to being terrified.’"

Abrams describes another stunt involving an explosive sequence on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, "When you look at that shot, that is Tom running away from the truck that’s upside down. The explosion happens behind him. Tom is ratcheted into that truck. He slams into it. There was some padding on it, but there wasn’t enough padding on it. It wasn’t like there was enough padding to justify choosing to get slammed into that thing. But he did it. And when you look at how he’s running and at his entire performance -- his face, his body language, running into the car, at moment of impact, after the impact, it is such a performance of that moment. I’m not saying that another stunt person couldn’t have done a good job, but Tom is a great actor. He happens to do his own stunts, but he is a great actor. So he plays that moment. When you see what his face looks like when he’s running. When you see how he reacts getting hit into that thing and then afterwards. The thing that makes that shot memorable to me isn’t the explosion, or the helicopter in the background, or the missile coming in, or even the stunt. It’s all of it, and he’s the glue. He’s the thing that makes that moment matter because you feel like you are him because his performance is so good."

J.J. Abrams’ "Mission: Impossible III" lives up to the tradition of spy thrillers taking audiences to exotic international locations. However, the director is careful to note, the locations were chosen because they were specifically part of the story he tells. "I didn’t want the audience to get ‘travelogue syndrome,’" he says. "The places we chose are integral to the whole story." From the very beginning, Abrams envisioned a sequence taking place in the Far East. After scouting Japan, the filmmakers took a trip to China and found a location unlike any other in the world. "Shanghai is a futuristic, science-fiction city," says Abrams. "It’s also a city that reveals a real cost to its expansion: old neighborhoods are being razed in order to build these monolith office buildings. That was fascinating – the ancient as counterpoint to the brand new and what’s next." The production also found that a short distance from Shanghai, many fishing villages still live in much the same way that they have for centuries. With this in mind, the writers decided to showcase this part of the country. "Our locations managers and props designer identified a handful of cities outside of Shanghai. Xitang was the most unusual in terms of its look for an American film – I hadn’t seen this before," says Abrams. "Xitang is the setting that bookends the film," explains Abrams. "We wanted to use the ancient town as a backdrop for an emotional endpiece."

Shooting in China presented its own unique challenges, says Abrams. "The thought of bringing a mostly Western crew and the kind of technology that we had, especially with the camera equipment which was a very high tech camera rig, and to place it inside of this thousand year old fishing village. It was an amazing, kind of incongruous site to have this camera, like an alien, moving around wherever we wanted it to go amongst this ancient architecture. And to see Tom do this stunt. He did this amazing stunt, one of my favorite ones he did in the movie, where he comes out of this window and is jumping down these roof tops to this bridge. This is a stunt he did with no wires and just doing it himself."

To interpret the theme for MI 3, the filmmakers chose Grammy award winner Kanye West, an artist who makes it contemporary while keeping it familiar and classic. Abrams elaborates, "Kanye West I’m thrilled is composing a version of the Mission Impossible theme and a brand new track for the movie. He’s someone who when I first met him…obviously I was a fan of his when I first met him. It was interesting. He had a very specific point of view of what, of how he felt the music should be. That it would need to be tough. It would need to be edgy. It would need to have a sense of humor and all this kind of stuff. He literally was saying everything that Tom and I had been saying from the beginning about what we wanted this movie to be."

Indeed, Abrams is quite pleased with the results and hopes audiences will be too. "Mission Impossible III has all the things that I love about movies. It’s huge and there’s spectacle. And the stunts and the action sequences are thrilling and all that. But the thing that I love about it is it’s actually very intimate, and it’s funny and it’s emotional. And so I think you feel better when you leave than when you got there."

Here’s more of what J.J. Abrams had to say about his latest project at a Q&A made possible by Paramount Pictures:

Q. Tell us your initial reaction to getting this gig as director of MI3. What was it and how did you feel?

A. It was obviously disbelief that Tom would want a first time feature director to take this one on, but I was thrilled. It was a good shock because this movie…. I immediately wanted to do it, not just because it was a job but because I felt that I loved the "Mission Impossible" TV series, and I really enjoyed the first two movies. But I still felt that the films hadn’t really accomplished what could be done in this franchise, that there was an element of character and personality that I thought would be a wonderful addition … an emotional quality to a suspenseful movie with action, so I was very excited to try that.

Q How much freedom were you given stepping into this franchise? Obviously Tom and Paula have worked on I and II, and it’s very close to Tom, but in terms of script, in terms of cast, in terms of what you wanted to do and your particular imprint on this project, tell us how much you could bring to the M:i:III equation.

A. Well, when Tom asked if I wanted to do this movie, he said ‘I want this to be your "Mission Impossible." I want this to be JJ’s "Mission Impossible." I’m your actor. You’re the director.’ Then I thought, ‘Well, sounds fantastic,’ but I thought, ‘Well, let’s see how that is. It’s an intense thing. It’s a long shoot, a 100-day shoot, international locations. Let’s see how it goes.’ I knew Tom fairly well at that point and thought…. I didn’t think he was going to turn and suddenly be some kind of monster boss. But I thought it’s gonna be… I had friends who were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s going to be horrible.’ It was the greatest challenge. It was the most fun job any one has ever had doing this movie. He was every day the most supportive and collaborative and outrageously focused guy with just a work ethic that would shame anyone… like he just works his ass off. I mean this guy…it’s amazing to make it better every day. It’s how I like to work, but to have it in Tom Cruise. Everyone, of course, can look at Tom out on the set and say ‘Well, how’s Tom?’ He was so wonderful and deferential to me and respectful of not just me, but everyone that there was. Everyone just saw that that’s the way it should be. It was a happy place to go to work so I’m just beholden to him.

Q. Everyone whom we’ve spoken to has said that you’re equally giving, equally amicable to work with for a first time director. But was there one big challenge that you faced, that was perhaps the most difficult thing? Was there any one particular outstanding thing that you really had to sit down and get your head around, that you had to overcome in this picture?

A. Well, there were two things. One was…I remember one day I was working with Laurence Fishburne. After a take he asked me how it was, and inside I felt myself yelling, ‘How was it? You’re Laurence Fishburne. You tell me how it was.’ I felt that kind of star struck reaction, but I realized I have to do the job that I’ve done on "Alias" and "Lost." I can’t reveal that I’m being an idiot so there was that thing of having to find that kind of confidence that the director needed to have. That wasn’t hard, but it was something I had to do. And the other thing was… The biggest challenge consistently was… not so much the action sequences which were really complicated but fun. It was always the interpersonal stuff. The two or three people in a room having that dialogue, that exchange. I mean ‘Do you believe that those people need each other? Do you believe those guys are really good friends? Do you believe they love each other? Does that make you laugh? Whatever the moment is… Did those moments resonate and feel real?’ That was always the first.

Q. Speaking of individuals and obviously someone who has many moments: Philip Seymour Hoffman. Describe his presence on screen as a bad guy. It’s a remarkable job that he pulls off in a fantastic way. Tell us what it’s like to work with him.

A. He’s an incredibly funny guy. He has an amazing sense of humor. He’s an actor who loves to try different approaches and takes direction brilliantly and cares enormously about what he does. He has a very strong opinion about what he does, but in a way that is a dream collaboration as a director, having someone who brings such a sense of inner life to what he does always and in everything I’ve seen him do. I knew that this villain couldn’t be arch, couldn’t be a caricature, couldn’t be laughable. He also wasn’t playing one of those sort of sophisticated Hannibal Lector/Hans Gruber types. He was playing a much more blunt, to the point, savage guy, but he needed to be a real person. So working with Phil was beyond a joy. He was just the greatest.

Q. Something that I once talked about and something that you just slightly touched upon previously, Tom is obviously known for doing his own stunts. Obviously you’ve written this script. You know what you wanted out of him. But how much does that help you that he’s willing to go so far. And how far is he willing to go? Is it nerve wracking from your perspective that he is willing to go so far? Is that something you want to push him to do?

A. I just knew that he was going to do his stunts because that was clear from the beginning, months before we started shooting. He wanted to do those things. And I thought, ‘Well, OK. Great.’ But then you’re there on the day and you think, ‘This is wrong. What the hell are we doing?’ There he is on a full wire where a truck is driving over him and you think, ‘This is so dumb. It’s Mission Impossible III. It’s not even Mission Impossible I. It’s III. Please don’t kill him on III. II even. But not III.’ So, he’s fine. He survives. It’s all good. But it’s terrifying. You’re doing these things. I wish he wouldn’t want to do this. He does make the scenes better though. He does these stunts, and it’s a performance in the scene so it’s not just a stunt. It’s a performance. He’s such a great actor, and so it actually makes the movie better.

Q. What do you think is the imprint that you’ve left on this franchise. Tell us a little bit about stylistically what you think you’ve brought to this in terms of camera angles, shots, the way the action is framed, the way the characters interplay. Tell us about what you’ve brought to this franchise that perhaps it lacked in I or II.

A. I think I brought to this franchise, which was very unique, is absolute inexperience which resulted in this movie. (laughs) I think what it was… I looked at what DePalma did and what John Wu did and I was like, ‘C’mon. You can’t outdo those guys. They’re as good as it gets.’ So I thought I needed to approach it very differently. I believed in our script and our story. And I thought, ‘Every scene… there’s only one way you can do every scene.’ Meaning instead of applying an aesthetic and a style to a sequence, I just looked at the sequences. I thought ‘you know what.’ I actually just felt very comfortable. I thought, ‘I know how these sequences have to be done.’ If there’s a style in the aggregate, that’s for someone else to say. But for me it’s not about style at all.

Q. J.J, again, thanks very much for your time this afternoon.

A. You’re welcome.

Writer-director J.J. Abrams’ next project is the recently announced "Star Trek XI," a prequel dealing in part with the Romulan Wars and set before the time of James T. Kirk. Rumors abound, however, that some of the established characters, including Kirk and Spock, may indeed make a reappearance in younger versions of their original selves, although obviously the filmmakers will have to recast the Shatner/Nimoy roles if that’s the case.

Abrams, a confirmed Original Series fan, is keeping his cards close to his vest about this project in development, and not surprisingly, is currently reluctant to discuss any specifics. Nevertheless, if anyone can resuscitate the "Star Trek" franchise, Abrams is definitely the guy to do it. Just look at what he’s done for "Mission Impossible" -- infusing a decade-old franchise based on a 40-year-old TV series with new life and fresh inspiration and filling it with his trademark fun and imagination. Abrams is indeed a creative force. No mission is impossible with him on board.