‘Bono: Stories Of Surrender': On Irish Fathers & Sons, Processing Family Tragedy & How A Need To Be Heard Propelled A Dublin Kid To Become One Of The World's Biggest Rock Stars
Bono laid bare his transformation from Dublin lad Paul Hewson into a global rock star and human rights crusader in his memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. Now, premiering at Cannes, comes the Andrew Dominik-directed documentary Bono: Stories of Surrender. Culled from the U2 frontman's 2023 one-man show at New York's Beacon Theater, Bono weaves performances of his best-known hit songs into a tale of a youngster suffering the shocking loss of his mother and trying in vain to get the needed acknowledgment from a grieving father who withdrew and never mentioned his dead wife in their Dublin home. The need to fill the void and to be seen and heard led to a miracle. In the span of a week, the 16-year-old Bono found the family that would sustain him. In short order, he fell in love with future wife Ali, and found his bandmates Dave Evans (The Edge), Larry Mullen Jr and Adam Clayton.
The band they formed, U2, would go on to become one of the biggest in history, selling 170 million albums worldwide and winning a record-breaking 22 Grammys.
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Bono's lifelong activism began early too. In 1983, U2 released the album War, and the polemically charged song 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' about the futility of violence with occupying British forces in Ireland. Then, in 1985, they answered pal Bob Geldof's call to perform at Live Aid, which raised hundreds of millions to feed starving refugees in Ethiopia. Told that the $250 million raised was comparable to the interest payments starving third world countries were paying to superpower debtor nations, Bono and friends pushed those nations to wipe the debts. The same passion toward wiping out HIV in Africa prompted governments around the world to provide billions of dollars toward the cause.
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Bono: Stories of Surrender begins with the singer recalling when a congenital heart condition very nearly killed him in 2016, then expands into an intimate and moving tale of father-son dynamics. Bono came to terms with his chilly relationship with his father through the performances at the Beacon, and the documentary's climax reveals a great gift Bono received from the prickly fellow he still calls The Da.
The film is the latest move in a long and innovative alliance between Bono and Apple, first with Steve Jobs and later his CEO successor Tim Cook. It began with Bono convincing Jobs to issue an iPod pre-loaded with U2's music. The relationship took a controversial turn — with an apology from Bono — when the singer crashed the catalogs of Apple Music iTunes customers with free copies of the U2 album Songs of Innocence, whether they wanted it or not. And now, the relationship continues as the documentary not only will screen on Apple TV+ after Cannes in 2D but a spectacularly immersive version will be available for owners of the Apple Vision Pro. Viewing the film through that device reveals a uniquely close and personal experience, complete with Bono's own drawings that sprout up in the wide frame. Apple pulled out all the stops here, and the technology places the viewer right up there onstage alongside Bono, close enough to see the faint scar in his chest where the heart surgeon saved his life.
Here, Bono discusses why he felt this was the right vehicle for telling his story and why, after U2 christened The Sphere in Las Vegas with sensory overload-level performances, it was important to him to help push the envelope on a more intimate technology that the Vision Pro promises. Mostly, though, this is a discussion about Irish families, and fathers and their sons.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Apart from the reward that they offer us in terms of good weather if you're Irish, what I love about the French is their love of cinema. It's the highest art, in the French public's mind. The Cannes Film Festival became this phenomenon, formed because the Venice Film Festival had been taken over by Mussolini and his German mate with the funny Charlie Chaplin mustache. They were getting to choose who won the big prize in Venice. So the French said in 1939, 'We're going to replace the film festival in Italy, which has been taken over by the fascists, and we are going to have a free film festival.' They didn't get to do it until after the war, but this was an amazing idea of freedom of expression.
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It's always a wonder to see this Oscars on the sea, the Palme d'Or. I remember Penelope Cruz winning the best actress. There was a whole bunch of people around in a busy restaurant. She walked in and as I was trying to get out of the table, she just stood up on the chair and stood up on the table and walked down it, sat down and said, 'So what are you drinking?' And the whole of France is at her feet. … I'm very excited about Europe, at the moment. In America, you're going through some difficult times.
DEADLINE:
BONO: You're fighting with yourself, about the identity of America, and Europe feels somewhat abandoned. We have a land war on European territory, and it could spread. People are preparing for the thought that America might not be with us if this land war spreads, and Putin follows in the role of the Soviet Union and puts tanks in Czechoslovakia and just takes over. So this is a feeling for me, for Europe, that this is a time when Europe is going to draw together. At this festival, you're going to feel that. … I'm really proud this tiny little film about my little family and the early days of U2 is getting its outing in Europe. I want it to be embraced by America, and I think it will. I've had other incredibly encouraging words from friends and people like Sean Penn who were there giving advice. There's something poetic about it being in Cannes.
DEADLINE:
BONO: I will say, even I've gotten sick of the protagonist. It's that old line you fear most: 'Here's another great thing about me!' And no matter what you do, what you say about your flaws, your fault lines and all the blood and guts of the story, it can still come across as, 'Here's another great thing about me.'
DEADLINE:
BONO: I had to dig quite deep and just go for a family story. All families are little operas, some bigger than others. There's always the soap opera, and there's suds here. There are tenors; there's the figure of my father, which kind of dominates. And the band. People wouldn't be turning up to hear my story if it wasn't for them. Overall, as excruciating as it's been — and I'm glad it's over — this is a great close to it.
To come from The Sphere to the intimacy of the Beacon is quite a shift. And this Vision Pro brings it back to an immersive experience. But intimacy is at the heart, I would say, of all of those projects. I tell my friends, 'Intimacy is the new punk rock.' If I'm going to do one of these memoirs, I'd better really go there. It shouldn't be the same approach others have taken. We performed in The Sphere, and that is what got me to Vision Pro. The core of this is, 'Can we make this radical intimacy?' Does that sound pretentious? Probably.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Well, there we go. Insecurity is your best security. I make this joke about Italians and Irish, and actually Jimmy Iovine told me it was true. He said, 'I was [my father's] son. I couldn't put a foot wrong. Every idea I ever had was the greatest idea ever.' His father just loved him and convinced him everything's possible; in an Italian [household], these are clichés. In my home, and it sounds like yours too, that's not how it worked. I was competitive with my father. That must've been annoying for everyone around us, especially him. And that's the reason for my singing, at the end of the film, becoming him, me becoming the tenor. 'You're a baritone who thinks he's a tenor,' my dad would say. And he was exactly right, it was an accurate description. So, becoming him at the end of the film, it was a big moment of release for me, my way of saying, 'Thank you for the voice that you gave me.' When he passed, something freed up in me, for sure. And something changed in my voice. But the thing was that playing him night after night, just the turn of his head [depicting conversations with him in the one-man show] … I always loved my father, but I started to really like him. And I started to realize his put-downs were much funnier than I, the rebellious teenager, had credited him for. … Being him, I just started to really like him, and he started making me laugh. I wish I'd gotten the jokes when I was younger. Tell me about your father for a second.
DEADLINE: The Passion of the Christ Fruitvale Station
BONO: I've been writing about grief for a while. And we have a song on Songs of Innocence called 'California,' and it goes something like, 'There's no end to grief. That's how we know there's no end to love.' You know you will never get over it, by the way. I'm here to deliver you the good and the bad of that. What was an icy, chilling feeling eventually over time gets replaced by this warm ache that you would miss, were it not there. Now, when I think of my father, I have a really beautiful warm feeling, and the same with my mother. But the laughter is also important to find, because I bet you and your father had some funny. … He comes from that [Irish] point of view. There's some funny sh*t.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Laughing about it is really important. And being there, as you say, for your own kids but not turning to stone. We start out that way, and then we have to dissolve and allow them to see the strength that comes from owning up to your vulnerabilities. That's what my father never got to. And now I can use words like stoicism, I can use words like heroic, and now I can feel guilty for being such a pain in the ass. But I think it would've been OK for him to say: 'I'm terrified. I don't know what to do. I've got two kids. I have no mother for you. I can't replace her.' There are other complications, but I'm free and just so grateful for my origin story, and I hope it's of any use to anybody.
DEADLINE:
BONO: That was [dad's] way of dealing with it. I've no resentment, but I don't think it's a good strategy. Because when you talk about somebody when they're gone, they stay alive. Otherwise, you actually lose memories. There were a few reasons for writing the book, but one was largely to explain myself to myself, but also to my family, and [create] a record of what was going on whilst they were alive.
We try to get things out in the open in our house. We actually have a feisty table, but it's also a lot of fun, a lot of laughs. But about the disappearing of Iris: I almost wrote the book to retrieve memories of her. We lost — my brother Norman and I — so much, just removing her name from the conversation. You've got to talk about these people. I mean, I think you can overdo it, too, but no, [silence] was not the right strategy. But I do not hold that against my father, Bob, the Da.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Well, look, it's psychology 101, but yes, I ran away with the circus. There wasn't a family anymore. And what a circus it turned out to be. I married what I thought was the tightrope walker, the girl on the pony. She turned out to be the ringmaster. That's Ali. I was probably the tightrope walker.
DEADLINE: Darkness on the Edge of Town
BONO: I mean, Bruce gets married every night to his audience, so in that sense he is the greatest wedding singer ever, and they're the greatest wedding band. U2 are definitely weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs. Yeah, the wailing, this thing of singing. … We've a song called 'The Showman.' The opening lyric is, 'Baby's crying 'cause it's born to sing/Singers cry about everything/Still in the playground falling off a swing.' When I started out with U2, I wouldn't have called it singing exactly, either. I would've called it shouting, but it is a kind of wail, and part of it is that primal thing that we've been talking about, but part of it is just not being ignored. But there's something about singing. I was learning about singing from my father. This is not scientific, but he, I feel, bequeaths me in his passing an extra tone to my voice, and as I let go of all that resentment and rage, I changed. I just loosened up, and the voice loosened up. Singing is not just for entertainment. The blues, that's another thing that came out of wailing, you know? The Irish word for grief, it's called keening. You'll hear it in Africa. It's bloodcurdling, [occurring during] the loss of life. In Ireland, in our history, we've all seen it in the present day in exceptional situations, but it was part of the ritual. There's something about, you sing yourself out of your situation. You breathe.
DEADLINE:
BONO: The opening of the film is about breathing, right, and the fear I felt when I was on the operating table, I was having heart surgery, and I hallucinated. It was this guy from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but it turned out to be a very nice man called David Adams, a surgeon with a Texas accent, who saved my life. I think that I had no fear of the surgery or anything like that, but I remember the loss of air and feeling like my lungs were flooding or filling up. I'm a singer, so those lungs are really necessary, and that was the closest thing I came to losing my faith, as you were talking about earlier. It was the closest thing I'd had to panic, since I was a child. It wasn't about the heart surgery. I thought I was suffocating.
DEADLINE:
BONO: I think that's right at the root of this story, for sure. But we end the film at the Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest opera house in the world. It sounds like the most mad idea, 'By the way, it's all set in the Beacon, but for one scene we just need to get to Naples, because this would blow my father's mind. I'm going to become him, and I'll be the opera singer that he had inside of him, but we have to do it here. The pub we met at all the time is called the Sorrento Lounge in Finnegan's, and we need to finish in the bay of Sorrento. It's all going to make sense.' Andrew Dominik, of course, gets it totally, but the people at Apple … you would expect a very serious, puzzled look on their faces. They said: 'Yes. If this is that important to you, then we're doing this. We're in with you all the way.' It's preposterous, but finishing in Italy in one of the most sacred places of music, and the most beautiful thing happens.
DEADLINE:
BONO: That happened in Texas where U2 was playing in the '90s and I'd set up the spotlight to shine on him. This is his first time in the United States, in Texas, which is a whole other thing, more American than the Americans themselves. He comes and it's like the sound of 10 747s, the roar of the crowd in Texas. And in the bright point in the show, I go: 'Listen, I've got a person here today that means a lot to me. It's his first time in America and it's his first time in the state of Texas, and it is my father. And he's right over there.' And everyone turns around, they see the spotlight and my da. He shakes his fist. But afterwards he comes back[stage], and I can see he's a bit shaken. He shakes my hand and he says, 'You're very professional.' Probably the only compliment a former punk rock singer wants to hear, or the only compliment you don't want to hear, rather. But of course it's a whole other language, and it was beautiful. And the more we talk about this, I can see it touches you as it touches me for our personal reasons. The book was a love story to my missus in a way. But the film is a love story, to my mother, but it's different because I never fell out with my mother. She was taken away from me before I got to know her, or she me, but I fell in love with my father. Is that Italian or Irish enough for you?
DEADLINE:
BONO: I could never be an actor. The reason I wanted to work with Andrew Dominik was not just that he was a great painter of scenes and of story, but he was a great director of actors, and non-actors. His first film Chopper, that was Eric Bana, a comedian who had been on TV a bit. He takes that role and becomes the Eric Bana that we now know of. That film Chopper is the most like Andrew Dominik, meaning it's as serious and funny as he is, and the humor of it is bewitching. Andrew drove me mad, though some people say I was there already. Asking me to say goodbye to my father, five times in one day we did that scene … and I was like, 'I couldn't do this.' I was in bits. 'I do this five times?' And he goes, 'Yeah, the lens is a lie detector, Bono.' And I'm saying, 'Andrew, didn't Marlon Brando say he lied for a living?' 'Not on this set.' He knows what you think, in the lens, and you'd better be all there. That's why I couldn't be an actor, though for certain scenes it is great fun.
My daughter Eve [Hewson] is an unbelievable actor, but in a funny way, when you're in U2, you've got all the bells and whistles, the big productions and fireworks going off in your head and in your heart when you're singing.
DEADLINE:
BONO: It's the operating theater, the table, but it's also the dining table in our house on Cedarwood Road in Dublin. Also, the chairs are the members of the band, and one of them's Ali. These are props. We've been on tour with 250 trucks, and now I'm down to four chairs. You could fit all the props in a station wagon.
When my father offers his last words to me, which indeed were an expletive … I don't think he was telling me to f*ck off. I'm not ruling it out, but [I think it was directed at] the monkey on his back. But it's that table. The table. Just no matter where you are, a nice little cottage or Cedarwood Road, there's something about that kitchen table. That's where it all comes out. The funny, funny sh*t, or those arguments. I mean, talking about faith, Christmas morning in our place, that's when it really went off and we'd be at each other's throats. So much for Prince of Peace, right? Even Santa Claus would've got a thump. Always politics and religion, the two things you're not supposed to talk about. That's all we were interested in talking about. And Irish people. There was one other thing we were really interested in talking about, except we don't, and that is sex.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Following her career is a kind of an adventure in itself because you just never know where she's going to go next. Single mother, comedian, femme fatale. She can be big, and then small. Even her family, honestly, we have no clue where she's going next. When she takes [on a role], boom! — she's gone in there. Our son [Elijah] who's out in public, he's a guitar player and singer [in the band Inhaler] and an inhaler of life. He's got the internal mental discipline to be a good songwriter. I'm certainly proud when I see [Eve on screen]. She does this thing where she puts the evolution of her character all over her apartment, the bathroom wall, to find the face she's thinking about. Maybe this is normal, I don't know. And I saw her at her table for one of her characters and there was a picture of my mother, and I said, 'Oh, it's Iris.' She said, 'Yeah, her look and her vibe. I need some of it. So I have her there when I'm getting my makeup on every day.' Isn't that wild?
DEADLINE:
BONO: Apple have this new sonic innovation commitment to fidelity of sound. Sounds are becoming really important in movies, in people's home cinemas. The Vision Pro, it's a commitment. You're getting into a world, and there are extraordinary things I've seen through the Vision Pro. … We had this idea of, well, the camera can be onstage and walking around you. We couldn't light it as easy as we thought, but we successfully got the viewer on stage. I took out my drawings from the stage show for the filming, and they're not in the 2D Apple TV+ version of Stories of Surrender, but they are in Vision Pro. Those childlike drawings — no one would like to be able to draw as badly as me — but it's like a signature, a fingerprint.
DEADLINE:
BONO: It made it really playful. I know Apple are dying to make the Vision Pro more affordable and more democratic, but they're committed to innovation, they're committed to experimenting. They know not everyone can afford this, but they're still going for it, believing that some way down the line, it'll make financial sense for them. But the fact that they may have to wait a while is not putting them off.
DEADLINE:
BONO: I think my favorite film is Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. It just changed me, because it was this idea that angels would die to feel some of the ache and the pain of falling in love, because grief is the price we pay for love. The other one for me, growing up, was Peter Sellers and Being There, a genius meditation to me. Jim Sheridan is, to me, one of the great directors of all time. His first film was with Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot. That blew my mind. He'd come from theater. I said to him: 'How'd you do that? How did you know how to be on set with all these very technical things that were so very different than theater?' He said: 'Eh. I just walked up to the DP and when he said to me, 'How do I set this next shot up?' I said, 'You tell me. I'm here to learn.' I did the same with Daniel, the same with everybody.' He said, 'It's amazing, if you ask people what they think, they sometimes tell you.' Yeah, he's a psychological genius. His understanding of people, his understanding of great stories, deep structure in Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, he's a very big brain. He'd give you hope that you could come from one discipline into another. Sam Mendes is also incredible; he moved from theater into cinema.
Well, I thank you for taking the time out, but also for giving me a glimpse into your origin story. That made a big difference to me, I felt I could be sitting in a coffee shop or a bar, and we'd have had very close to the same conversation. But I'd like to think I'd have asked you more questions and listened more, and asked you more about your father.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Turn up the volume, I say. I promise you this, we're working on something quite extraordinary at the moment, Edge, Adam, Larry and myself, so we're not going to let you down.
DEADLINE:
BONO: Steven Spielberg just flashed into my mind. Because Eve is working with him now, and I'm fed up hearing about Steven this, Steven that, and that Steven Spielberg is now the adult in the room in our house. And I would have to say the morality of his films was and is a North Star, not just for Eve, but for our family. As I say, I'm annoyed, I'm a little hurt that I come second as a sort of male figure or authority figure. Not that I was ever an authority figure for Eve, but the only person she'd probably listen to now, is him.
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He pops up in there with a friend of mine [Brad Martin] that I grew up with; Brad was also working with that team as stunt coordinator. We shot that Baltimore sequence, and it was supposed to be the first action scene when Timothy Olyphant's character does an onslaught on McLane [Bruce Willis] and Farrell [Justin Long]. Chad and Brad are the two FBI guys that have a firefight with the helicopter gunman. So Chad's got a glorious death scene, and we've known each other for quite a long time just by coming up in the business together. You've made action films in the 2000s, 2010s and the 2020s, so you've seen trends come and go. Now that you've worked inside it, do you fully understand why the Wickian brand of action has set the bar the last 11 years? When you really can see that it's your actor doing the action, there's truly a different kind of feeling. A lot of people talk about the longer takes, and then there are longer takes that add stitches to make them even longer. Personally, that feels more like the director showing off his long take, as opposed to the longer takes in Wick that I'm a fan of. You don't give the audience a second to take a breath, and it becomes more of an investment, especially if it's actor-driven action. [Writer's Note: In two of our previous chats, Stahelski has also railed against stitched oners.] So there's many reasons why I think John Wick set the bar in terms of choreography, but its very specific tone of action is really important too. You never want to laugh in the face of the character action that's happening because then the stakes are gone. It could be a really fun sequence and tone, but if the action doesn't have stakes and danger to it — and the characters are cracking jokes within the danger — as an audience member, you go, 'If you're not going to be afraid, then I'm not going to be afraid for you.' So there's many levels, but if I had to really boil it down, it's actor-based action that's really had an impact. That's what Keanu and Chad together brought to it. There's something about staying in the shot with the actor. There's a difference between watching a cool action scene and watching a cool action scene and going, 'Holy shit, that's him,' or, 'That's her.' It gives you a different kind of reaction. Did essentially serve as Ana de Armas' audition for Eve Macarro? No, not at all, but that sequence was absolutely fantastic. I would love to see that character show up again; it was just too brief. We had already gotten involved with Ana. I had Ana in mind for quite a while before that. I went and saw a private screening of No Time to Die, and that confirmed her casting even more. So I was excited when I saw that cool moment, but she was already involved in the whole process. takes place between the third and fourth films. You revisit the events of, using a Rashomon-type approach to show Eve's point of view on John's return to Ruska Roma. How challenging was it to expand and maintain continuity? It was definitely a challenge and an excitement. I love a challenge. It gives me fuel to be creative. So I had a really fun time taking a different perspective on certain elements of Chapter 3, and I was really into it. Early on, the moment that I thought would resonate and people would remember is when John comes to meet the Director [Anjelica Huston]. We're now looking at it from Eve's point of view before he mentions, 'It wasn't just a puppy.' It took a lot of time to recreate the sets exactly. I wanted to really recreate those moments from a different perspective so that we weren't just using footage from the existing film. I watched the scene again for the timing and spacing, and there's a little detail when John and the Director walk down the stairs. John looked [to his left] in that moment where they stop on the stairs, and so there was space to add a piece where he looks up slightly and sees Eve. And so we got to see that moment from her side. I love that stuff. I've done sequels and remakes, and Ballerina just doesn't feel that way. In fact, I actually think the word spinoff is misleading for this. John meets Eve before she goes on to complete her first contract, and then you jump ahead two months. Does that mean John returns to the movie Winston (Ian McShane) shot him off the roof at the end of ? Yes. So it's after he's recovered a little bit? I just want to get the timeline right. Yes. Did Keanu's days on set have the same electricity that his mythical boogeyman character has in the story? He really does have that effect. It's such a contradiction too because he's one of the nicest, most generous — forget actors — humans that we have. So there is a reverence when he walks on set in the suit. He is John Wick, even when he's just walking around on set. It's similar to when Harrison Ford puts on the hat and carries the whip. It's pretty awesome, and it gives you chills. Did Keanu have you trim his dialogue at all? He tends to have a 'less is more' mindset with Wick. He did! He's very collaborative. I had a really great experience getting into his head about the character. We got together at the hotel before shooting, and we essentially did that. He absolutely is the guy who is like, 'I don't need to say that. What if I don't say this, and I just do it with a look?' So, yeah, there was a culling of dialogue. Daniel Bernhardt plays a 'Scarred Eye Assassin,' and I bring this up because he played a notable character who John Wick killed in the first movie. Is the scar meant to imply that his original character survived? Or is the scar supposed to signal that he's an entirely new character? [Note: Bernhardt also did stunt work on the second and third films. Fans spotted someone in that resembles him, but it's still uncredited and unconfirmed.] We had a lot of talks about how much we should cover Bernhardt's face. It's an ambiguous, fun gag as to what people make of him. But in the scope of my story, I'm treating him as a different character. At the same time, I wanted people to recognize him. Rooney (Unity Phelan) was the first ballerina we met at Ruska Roma in . Was there ever a discussion about bringing her back? Or would that have been too confusing in the middle of Eve's own introduction? [Note: Rooney is the name of the main character in Shay Hatten's original script, before it was retrofitted for the Wick franchise.] There absolutely was very early on, but you're exactly right. I thought it would cause confusion. She's the one highlighted ballerina character that we see in Chapter 3, and it just would have caused a hiccup of clarity. It was bittersweet to see Lance Reddick's Charon one final time. Knowing that this was the last of Lance's footage, did you repurpose or recontextualize anything just so you could use it all? Honestly, no. Everything that we did is very important to the film. Everything that we shot is in there, and it's in there for the story and the movie. I'm so happy that I got the chance to actually work with him and have him in this film. Lance would say this, but there aren't really any good guys in the Wick universe. It's a universe of all bad guys in a sense, but I do believe that Lance's character, Charon, is the heart and soul of the series. I love that you perpetuated the running gag involving the Continental. Every movie introduces a new room or wing that we didn't know was there previously, and the dimensions never align with the exterior of the building. (Laughs.) I remember talking to Chad about it. He showed me the production designer's side view of all the Continental's levels and what could be underground. But they decided to just keep it as a running gag, like you said. If you look at that building, it's the tallest, skinniest structure. This is a weird reference, but it's like The Man with Two Brains. Steve Martin walks into that small condo door only to see a castle interior, and he's like, 'From the outside, it does not look this roomy.' (Laughs.) So it's almost like you enter a door, and you cross over into this slightly heightened world with all these rooms. So I think it'll continue to grow now that it's been destroyed. You'll find more of the underground sections of it. I spoke to Chad for the 10th anniversary of , and we eventually discussed 's additional photography. He quickly expressed a bit of frustration that the 'couple of weeks' of extra shooting that you guys did was so blown out of proportion. Ultimately, are you just glad that the studio backed the movie to such a degree that you could add more firepower to it? A hundred percent. We were both frustrated about it. It's a really frustrating thing [to hear such claims], and it happens more today than it did back in the day. There was additional shooting because the studio loved the movie. We had to take out some scenes from the script originally because we just didn't have the resources or the schedule. [Lionsgate] then really believed in the [early cut of the] movie after we put it together, so it was an exciting opportunity to go back and add more to the film. But when the press hears about that and the reports become whatever they are, it always has a negative connotation. But I'm just so glad that we were able to go back. For instance, it was really important to me that we showed Ana's character as a little girl, and we didn't have that opening before [additional photography]. It was in the script, but we just didn't have the time and the schedule and everything needed to do that. So that was one of the scenes that we went back to do, and I was absolutely thrilled that the studio was so supportive of us going back to get what we wanted. [Note: Wiseman has noted elsewhere that Reeves was not involved in additional photography.] To name a few, the grenade fight, the car crash in the alleyway and the flamethrower sequences are so impressive. Thank you. What are your individual highlights from each? I love all their different stories. The grenade sequence means a lot because it was the first action sequence that I wrote up a while ago. (Laughs.) When we were developing the script from stage one, I asked, 'What if there was a snowball fight with grenades? What would that be like?' The process of shooting it was a fun one to design. There were a lot of trap doors for our stunt players to go through before the pyrotechnics went off, and that allowed us to stay in the one shot with Ana. So it was just something that I had not seen before. There's only so many weapons available to create an action sequence, and having an actual gunfight with flamethrowers has never been seen on-screen. If you're pitching an action sequence to a studio and you want to put together a rip reel or an example for them to watch, it's a good thing when you can't find examples or references. That's when you know you're onto something unique. I know there's some VFX involved, but I just don't understand how you can execute the flamethrower fight without burning the set down and inflicting third-degree burns on the entire cast and crew. We worked with the best stunt team around in 87eleven, so it was a really safe set. And there were very limited visual effects. It's essentially a practical sequence despite some enhancements. So it was controlled, but it absolutely was dangerous, especially being inside with both of those flamethrowers going off at the same time. I've done action sequences with helicopters, and helicopters at close range are terrifying on set. They sound terrifying. If you get on a helicopter, it feels dangerous, especially when it's doing stunts that are coming in low to your cameras and everything. The flamethrowers have that same effect, and I've never utilized a weapon that had that much of a dangerous vibe about it. But it's unlike anything that I've seen, and that's the goal of every sequence. [Note: The following section contains very mild spoilers, primarily who did not appear and what did not happen in .] The movie ends with the audience wanting to know what's next for Eve. Do you know what's next for her? In fantasy-type thinking, yes, but I really just concentrated on this film. I wanted this film to be the best that it could possibly be, but it's hard not to wonder. Often, when I am asked that, I'll say, 'No, I want to wait and see what happens.' And that's true to a point, but when you're developing something and you get so immersed in a character, you have to build out what their story is before and after the movie you're making. That's how you really understand the character, so that's always on my mind. The movie ends a bit ambiguously on purpose. Who's putting the contract out on her? I'd like to hear theories about where it goes. I definitely have my theory. I would love it if it were to continue, and I think it would surprise people where we would go with it. So we're just waiting for what the reaction is to this one, but yes, I totally have fantasy plans about where Eve would go. So no one ever said, 'Hey, tee this ending up for to pick up where you left off'? No, not at all. There's a cool scene at a table where Eve has to assemble and fire a weapon before someone else does. Was there ever a draft that had her on the other side of that table? Oh, interesting. No. That's where I thought the movie was heading. She'd be forced to come back to Ruska Roma and sit on the other side. When the other character says to Eve, 'I'm you in ten fucking years,' let's see what happens in ten fucking years. (Laughs.) Eve is still going on her path, and it's a brutal world. We see a darker side to the Director's character in this one, and the rules are in place for a good reason. They abide by their code and their rules, and even if you're a surrogate mother role like the Director, you have to protect your tribe. I remember talking to Anjelica about putting a darker slant on her character, and her eyes lit up. Did you consider any other franchise cameos? Laurence Fishburne's Bowery King was discussed early on as we were fine tuning the timeline, and then there was a discussion about Caine [Donnie Yen] at one point. It's really finding what fits the story best. Ruska Roma was our base, so it allowed us different windows of crossing over into the parallel timeline. But there weren't just characters considered. As a fan, there were potential moments that I was really excited to work into the movie. In the scene where Eve first arrives at the Continental, you'd see a bunch of motorcycles speeding in the background of the city on the bridge. You always have to make the timeline work, but that would've been cool for anyone who's really paying attention to detail. 'There's the samurai and John on motorcycles [from Chapter 3].' That would've been cool. Yeah, at one point, before the timeline became exactly what it is, there was another idea that I liked at the end. Right after Eve talks to Winston and checks into the Continental, she'd go up to her room, and we'd see a view of the hotel to where we think the movie is ending. Then we'd hear a screech, and the camera pans down just in time to catch two motorcycles [John and Mark Dacascos' Zero] crashing at the base of the Continental. Fucking cool, right? You should add those details to your special edition of in ten years. I know! I love stuff like that. Some people might go, 'What's going on?' But for the people who are in on it, they'd be like, 'That's just cool.'***Ballerina is now playing in movie theaters nationwide. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now
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Tom Cruise Sets Guinness World Record For Death-Defying 'Mission: Impossible' Stunt
Tom Cruise's quest to become America's most death-defying stuntman continues to pay off. The Oscar-nominated actor has spent the last couple of decades primarily focused on his action-packed 'Mission: Impossible' films — and just set a Guinness World Record for one of the most daring stunts in the series. The British institution announced Thursday that Cruise now holds the title for 'most burning parachute jumps by an individual' for leaping out of a helicopter 16 times before lighting his chute on fire in the latest franchise installment, 'The Final Reckoning.' 'Tom doesn't just play action heroes — he is an action hero!' wrote Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief at Guinness World Records. 'A large part of his success can be chalked up to his absolute focus on authenticity and pushing the boundaries of what a leading man can do.' Cruise and Paramount Pictures both posted behind-the-scenes footage of the stunt on social media. Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie can be seen plotting out logistics with the stunt coordinators and acknowledging the danger before Cruise attempts his jump. The stunt was filmed in the Drakensberg, South Africa. 'What I'm going to do is, I'm going to be deploying,' says Cruise in the footage, shot during a production meeting on location. 'If this is twisted while it's burning, I'm going to be spinning and burning. I have to kick out of the twist and then ignite within 10 seconds.' The result onscreen shows Cruise's character, Ethan Hunt, forced to cut the burning nylon tatters free to deploy a reserve chute at the last second. The stunt was shot with a chute that was soaked in fuel to light on fire. Over the course of his films, Cruise has run along the exterior of the 163-floor Burj Khalifa in Dubai ('Ghost Protocol'), harnessed himself to an airplane during takeoff ('Rogue Nation') and base-jumped into a canyon after riding off of a cliff ('Dead Reckoning'). 'Tom is no stranger to record breaking,' Glenday wrote Thursday. Cruise does indeed hold another Guinness title for 'most consecutive $100-million-grossing movies' for an actor, for the 11 films between 'Jack Reacher' (2012) and 'Final Reckoning.' The latter hit theaters in late May and has grossed nearly $400 million worldwide. Amy Poehler Credits Tom Cruise For Helping Her Discover 1 Of Her Biggest Turnoffs This 1 Moment Saves The New 'Mission: Impossible' From Being A Total Letdown Angelina Jolie And Brad Pitt's Daughter Shiloh Reintroduces Herself Under A New Name
