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Jon Voight talks Ghost
Rider and National Treasure
Jon
Voight won’t have to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to
connect to Nicolas Cage anymore, as he’s completed one project
with him and has another in the works. National
Treasure opens this November, and Voight is also
attached to play a villain in the Ghost
Rider movie, which will star Cage.
“I haven’t seen the final script yet,
but if I can find a way into it I will be delighted to do that,”
Voight said. “We just have to
see how the script turns out. Nic Cage is set.”
Voight said that rewrites may make the character he’s up
for too young for him, but nothing is certain yet. Voight could
only say that his would be a devil-like character, but would not
name names. “It’s a very mysterious substance,
that piece. It’s a devil force that has enlisted this young
man in his despair over losing his loved one. Then he finds that
he’s trapped in this aspect and then fights it. It’s
a very beautiful story really, beautiful love story as well.”
Yet, in the months since Mark Steven Johnson was confirmed as
director, Voight has not met with him. “I’ve
talked to Mark Steven Johnson but I haven’t met with him
about it yet. He and Nic have had many discussions.”
Voight
is not surprised that so much is still up in the air, as is the
nature with such properties. “In these projects,
the search for the proper charisma in a piece is quite an interesting
search. I’m rooting for the piece entire and I’m putting
it in the hands of Mark and Nic too. I’m kind of leaving
it to them mostly. We’ll just see how it comes out. I’m
not the major ingredient, the major factor at the moment, and
I have other things to do as well. We’ll just see how it
works out. If it turns my way, it’ll be fun. Then I’ll
be prepared. I’ll come into it as I do with full steam and
lots of ideas.”
It was actually while shooting National
Treasure that Voight saw the Ghost
Rider script develop. “We had
talked about Ghost
Rider. I talked to Nic about Ghost
Rider. We were building it around Nic and during the time
of National
Treasure, the script came out that he accepted.”
Voight’s role in Treasure sounds
a lot like his character from the original Tomb Raider.
“I play Nic’s dad. I play a dad who initially,
when he was a young boy, didn’t want him to pursue this
legacy of our family which was in search of this treasure that
supposedly was buried many, many years ago and in the hands of
the founding fathers. And I initially don’t want him to
be part of it and I want to break from the family tradition. And
he enlists me back into it actually, so in the end I come forth.”
You will see Voight in action in the film, though the main action
hero is Nic Cage as the fortune hunter. “It’s
a very interesting adventure story. It has a little bit of Raiders
of the Lost Ark in it. It’s full of fun, wit and real adventure.
It’s also quite intelligent, really fun mind twisters, puzzles
and stuff. So I think it’s going to be an audience pleaser.”
Comparison to The Da Vinci Code may
be appropriate as well. “It does have a little
of that because it’s continuous puzzles. It’s almost
like you’re drawn into it to see if you can solve it, and
you solve it with Nic and the team. It is, it’s interesting.
It’s quite an interesting piece.”
National
Treasure opens November 19. Ghost
Rider is still in development.
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