Despite production problems and rumors that the film was in trouble, Valkyrie really isn't that bad of a film. In fact, it's pretty good. During the press conference we had a chance to speak with Tom Cruise and Director Bryan Singer about such a project about a touchy subject, producing films, fatherhood and their working relationship.
Tom, do you see this as some kind of a comeback and what was it about Claus Von Stauffenberg that made it so irresistible to you?
Cruise: I don't really see it that way. I've just been making movies. I had my daughter. She was born and I've been making films. 'Tropic Thunder'.
A golden globe nomination.
Cruise: Yeah, that's fun. That was incredible. You know what, when I read the script I first thought about how incredibly suspenseful this was, really a great thriller. Bryan is someone that I've always wanted to work with since I saw his film 'The Usual Suspects'. We actually met at the premiere of 'Mission Impossible', the first one. I said, 'I want to work with you.' Then when I put the script down I thought, 'This can't be true, this story. How much of this actually true?' From sitting down with Bryan then and find out that it's a true story I just thought it was great. I'd never heard it before. I wanted to work with him and so off we went.
Do you think this is an important movie in terms of it coming out at the same time as other holocaust movies? It has a different angle than the others. Is it important in the sense that people should look at a country like Germany not in the but in it's parts?
Cruise: It's definitely an important story because, I mean, I didn't know about it, but I also want to entertain audiences. That was a bonus for the film, but it's something that Bryan and I, all of us, have spoken about it. It's important to know, of course, that it's not everyone. It's everybody who felt that way and fell into that Nazi ideology. Have you spoken with Peter Hoffman? That to me was surprising. I grew up wanting to kill Nazi's, wanting to kill Hitler. As a child you're looking at it and you think, 'Why didn't someone just shoot him?' To take this story, this massive and comprehensive story that we could've made a five hour, a ten hour mini-series out of it, Bryan was always very specific about what this film was going to be. This was a suspense thriller about killing Hitler.
Singer: It was not a holocaust movie. The movie happens to take place, the subject matter that's coming out around this time. That's a coincidence, but this is far from a holocaust movie. It's a conspiracy thriller about assassinating Hitler. As Tom was just saying, the bonus is that it happens to be true. It happens to be gripping. Even things that you might think are film conventions, Hollywood conventions that happen in the movie, some of those twists and turns, those actually really did happen.
Cruise: We spent months working on this. Bryan spent more time than that, but when Bryan wanted me to come onboard and we started working with Chris [McQuarrie], Bryan and Nathan [Alexander], every time we'd start talking about the Holocaust and the different characters and trying to put as much into that story as possible, Bryan always went back to, 'This is a piece of entertainment. This is a suspense thriller about killing Hitler.' So throughout the film the more you know about the history and you study it there are so many moments that we were able to put in there, with his children. The moment where his daughter is saluting him. Of course on that day, July 20th, when you know the story his son was indoctrinated into The Hitler Youth. Knowing Stauffenberg who despised the Nazi's, as a parent looking at this, these little moments like that Bryan wanted to seed in there, but never varying from the picture that he wanted to make. His daughter saluting him and him not being able to have that conversation with his children. Down in the bunker and looking at his family, the tension falls into both him thinking about Valkyrie, he has to come up with the idea, but little moments like that for people who understand the history are there. I think that most Germans who know the story intimately and thoroughly they understand that. It's also there for a broad audience. We wanted to bring this a movie to a much broader audience.
Can you talk about your idea of success? Being some of the biggest structures in Hollywood, is it financial or health?
Singer: Freedom to be able to do the work that you want to do. Sometimes that comes with money, a financial freedom. Sometimes it comes with trust, having the trust of the people in your community, your creative community. Either of these things can give you creative freedom. If you're at a point, as a director, I can't speak as an actor, but as a director, if you're at a point that you can do what you want to do creatively then you're successful, really successful and that's a blessing.
Cruise: I have to agree with Bryan, as far as making films. I'm going to do this for the rest of my life and to have the ability to make the kinds of films that I've been able to make and work with the kinds of people that I've been able to work with, I just love movies. It's something that I've told people before, when I was making 'Taps' or 'Risky Business', there were moments where you're there and you think, 'I just want to enjoy these moments because I don't know if it's going to end right here.' Then there was a certain moments when I had the opportunity to work with Paul Newman, to work with Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman and [Martin] Scorsese and Oliver Stone and [Steven] Spielberg, the people that I've been able to work with – Bryan Singer – and so that kind of creative freedom that I've been privileged to be able to have. On that level I'm really proud of that. Also, I know there have been a few things written about this film before people have seen it, just a couple [Laughs], and we're going through it –
Singer: We read them all and out loud to our folks.
Cruise: There have been so many times that I've been through this and certainly I think the internet has accelerated a lot of this kind of drama out there. So there's a perception out there versus what we're doing artistically. Even I think when people see the film, even our friends who have seen the film are like, 'Oh, this is a suspense thriller!'
Singer: I'm like, 'Yeah. What did you think we were making? Soup?'
Cruise: And I don't know what to say, but so many times in my career people have said, 'Well, why are you doing that?' That's even back as early as when I was going to do 'Top Gun' or 'Born on the Fourth of July', the things that Dustin and I went through on 'Rain Man'. On that film we went through four directors and it took two years to make. Of course 'Interview with a Vampire' was another one. I've always chosen things that I felt would be challenging, but I've always wanted to entertain an audience. That's what I feel very privileged to do. I feel that I've been fortunate in having that kind of success. I mean, personal success for me is raising my kids, my family. That, as much as I love movies, has always been the priority. I also feel happy that my family is healthy and happy and doing well. That is the most important thing and always has been.
This movie is so good. Tom cruise and bryan singer are involved. Why has this movie not come out to a greater december release and handled somewhat mysteriously?
Singer: Originally, it had to do with the schedule of completion. It had to do with that. It was going to come out a lot earlier, but then there was a sequence, the Tunisia sequence which took time. I ended up scouting Jordan for location and then Spain and those two locations just didn't work out, both aesthetically and economically and then we figured we'd just see what movie we had when we got home, cut it all together and then go to California where the location we found looks far more like Tunisia. We'd have the equipment and resources and we'd sort of drop and pick up. Then that moved our intentions of the release date. Then it was a crowded Christmas and we didn't know where we were at in finishing the movie. Is that as you remember it?
Cruise: Yeah, we were making a film not for a release date, to be honest. I know today that everything is about a release date.
Singer: On 'The Usual Suspects', we made it and a year and a half later it was released.
Cruise: Even February was never a firm date. This is a film that's made for a broader audience. We also never wanted to say, 'Hey, we want to put this into awards season.' That's not even why we moved to Christmas. Christmas is a great time for audiences. It's the biggest time of year for people to go and you want to put your film in a place that it can have that opportunity, being available to as broad an audience as possible. That's the nature of the film. As I said, we could've taken this film and made it two and a half, three and a half, four and a half [hours]. It could've been a very different kind of movie than, right from the beginning, a suspense thriller. Actually, yes, when you know the history, these events occurred. They really did occur. When I read the script I thought, 'That had to be a movie convention.' Stauffenberg going to Hitler the day after D-Day, I went, 'Well, that's cool.' Then you find out that it really happened. There's actual dialogue in the film that I discovered were from letters, were from journals that Chris and Nathan had studied. So always for me, and I get the opportunity to work with Bryan and we go through it, the most important thing is the film because that's something that I wanted to do. As I said I want to entertain an audience and when I'm making a film that's the most important thing. I've always felt that, that you want to get it right. With any amount of limited time and economics you want to do the best that you can for the audience, for the subject matter, for whatever it is.
Watching you and Bryan talk it seems like a partnership on the film, but was it also an actor/director relationship as well? Is there a difference? How do you work together?
Cruise: I have great respect for him as a filmmaker, as a storyteller and that's the way that it is when you're going into a film like this. On a scale of one to ten I think that this film about a twenty in terms of being a challenge to make.
Singer: We spent a lot of time together. We had that ability and the nice part about Tom's interest in the project as well as his position at the studios, we had the freedom to spend a lot of time working together, working with Chris and Nathan, talking about the project. We moved to Germany and learned even more information and we talked and had more and more meetings about it, discussing it as collaborators and then once we get on the set –
Cruise: I want to be directed. I enjoy that.
Singer: He becomes an actor and I become a director and it's literally, from my experience, never any difference. I knew that no matter how many takes I asked him to do it would never be as many as Stanley Kubrick did on 'Eyes Wide Shut'. We tried things and experimented and it was phenomenal because anything that you'd ask it was like, 'Lets do it –' and there was never a lack of wanting to try and never a lack of trust. Then afterwards the full support of an actor like Tom, it's that rare opportunity with Tom where as a director you always feel that no one cares about the movie as much as you do and the partnership, what you probably see here, is a relationship with someone who probably cares about the movie as much I do. That's unique and that's what you're seeing here.
Cruise: Yeah, and he loves cinema. So there's stuff where Bryan and I, McQuarrie – movies, history.
Singer: We had a lot of fun talking about history and had meetings that last twelve hours long. We'd throw on some movies, we order some drinks and things.
Cruise: Friends would come by and we'd screen films and get into history. It was great.
Singer: And tangents. We had some good experiences. We camped out in the desert when we were shooting the desert sequence and everyone's families were there. So it's been a little bit of that too, a great journey.
Cruise: It has been a great journey.
Singer: And one that comes from caring about the project.
Cruise: And as an actor I do like to be directed. I don't stand outside of myself and direct myself.
Singer: He doesn't come to the monitor. There's none of that. Some actors do that, but there's none of that.
Cruise: We've already done the research and I just like to go onto the scene and his direction was, as an actor getting direction from he gave great notes on behavior. We were just tracking. I like that in a movie, where as an actor I'm tracking with the director. I think that you see the performances that Bryan gets, they're always very interesting and I had a lot of fun doing it.
Do you find that Tom Cruise the artist and actor has to conflict ever with Tom Cruise the businessman, worrying about the cost of the film and shooting in Tunisia and ending up in California -
Singer: Cougar Buttes. I think that's where we shot. Cougar Buttes near Victorville.
Whether this runs over on it's cost and if that'll effect other films you want to make. Can you talk about that?
Cruise: I've produced a lot of films. 'Mission Impossible' was the first film I produced and then I went on and produced all the 'Mission' films, 'The Last Samurai'. I've just produced a lot of movies beforehand and so there's always the balance of art and commerce and the challenges of that. I like to look at those as opportunities as opposed to restrictions. So that aspect of it has always been there and as a director Bryan faces that. It's not just having talent in making a film, but it's also important to know that you surround yourself with great people. I own a piece of United Artists and we're starting it up and we had the writer's strike. We've got the pending actor's strike.
And a tough economy.
Cruise: Yeah, and you know what, it just comes down to having very good people that I work with. I always try to surround myself with people that I respect, that I enjoy working with. That's what we have, we have great people that we work with. I'm very happy to have these guys onboard with MGM and the gang that we have. At the studio it's actually a very exciting time with Mary Parent at MGM. It's interesting. But I am an actor first and foremost. Even though we've set it up I've never had an exclusive deal as an actor with anyone ever. Even in producing films. I produced 'The Last Samurai' at Warner Brothers. I produced 'The Others' with Miramax and I've always been very careful to not say, 'I'm just going to be with one.' I'm actor. That is my love, acting. So that's first and foremost with me.
I understand that the eye-patch at first gave you unexpected balance problems. Can you talk about that?
Cruise: I was surprised. When we started working on it, it did and especially when it was dark. I lost depth perception and balance and also in terms of visual, cinematic storytelling it was a challenge I think for Bryan too. I really respect Bryan's staging and his composition and his storytelling. If you look at his films, when I look at his movies there's something very cinematic and classic storytelling, but it's cool. I think he understands cinema storytelling. With the eye-patch he also understood that it's a different story depending on where that camera is on my face. So different profiles, shooting with the patch and the hand. Part of the research we did, all the research we did on the 19th century and 20th century stuff, but also his injuries, what Stauffenberg did and how he lived with that. The eye-patch itself and the hand, it was a challenge always going into the room and the way he shot.
Singer: If you're staging a scene on the set you really want to shoot out the set and make it look pretty and position the actors in relation to one another, but this side decides one thing and this side is the other thing and he can't see the other actor with this. So that reverses where they are and that could end up reversing where the camera is in the room which could then end up reversing what part of the room we're shooting in. So then in the morning you'd have to work these things out in relationship to one another. Or it was something as simple as like, 'Yeah, you put your hands on his shoulder.' 'What hand?' 'Okay, you put three fingers from the other hand –' and so it was quite a [challenge]. Even though all of that is removed and done digitally Tom's performance had to inform all of that long before we got into the visual FX and be cognizant of that.
Cruise: There are moments when you're making a film like this where you have to take the audience along and build that tension and build that tension. In every scene you have to move that story long, but in every scene you're also revealing more about the character and the characters. So there are certain things very early on that Bryan wanted to do. That scene with Tom Wilkinson where he says, 'I'll hear you say it, Colonel.' There are certain things that Bryan knew from a story sense how you want to build to those moments. I love movies like this where there are little pieces that build to a moment. There are rhythms and structure to a movie that I love as an audience. When I read a script and I'm seeing a movie I see it like an audience and not necessarily as a filmmaker, particularly when I get caught up in the picture. So that moment was something from director that he knew what he wanted in that moment. Even subtle things too, physically you don't necessarily see the hand or you see that it's missing, but the reveal of that is what it is, it's built towards. So you see it in the bed. There are certain moments and how he shot it where he was very specific with it. That stuff is a lot of fun, working towards building that moment.
What were the rewards and challenges of playing this character for you?
Cruise: Well, the rewards were that I thought it was a very exciting film to be a part of and I wanted to work with Bryan Singer. I loved Chris's script. Reading a script like this, rarely do you sit down and read something where you're just turning the pages like this and it was also a story that I'd never heard before and to be able to work with these actors. That's the reward, everyday going in and having that challenge. For me I want to entertain an audience, as I've said, and I thought that this was a very compelling story and would be a fascinating film. That's what I like. That's what I'm looking for in film. When I'm making movies it's about us. It's not about me. It's about the journey that we all take together, getting to have those kinds of conversations. To be there, we got to shoot in Berlin at locations where these people were.
And where they died.
Cruise: Yes, and where they died which was very powerful, being there and to see that and to see the world. I grew up wanting to travel the world. I wanted an adventurous life and sometimes I've gotten a little more adventure than I bargained for, but this was something that I didn't want to pass on. I grew up playing with the neighborhood kids in the yard wanting to kill Nazi's.
Singer: Chris and I used to make war films in my backyard.
Cruise: I saw the world at war. Also, the way that this film was told and directed, as I said, it's not like anything that I've seen. These films that I greatly admire like 'Schindler's List' and 'Paths of Glory', this is very different from those.
From the formations to the assassinations the choreography was really amazing and quite ominous. What was the physicality and movement in acting this and shooting like to do?
Singer: Well, it was just studying a lot of war photography. There was a huge amount of that. One thing that Hitler did was to film everything. So we have the benefit of a lot of motion picture film, both color and black and white of that era. So it was important in creating both dimensions of that which is why I shot a 185 aspect ratio. Also, we were in Germany and so we shot with Aeroflux Cameras and the Zeiss lenses. Also, with color – I know it's not part of the question – but I want to mention getting a sense of vibrancy in the color so that it would look like it did back then to people who lived back then as opposed to trying to approximate black and white or muddy the film or de-saturate it. But in terms of the pageantry and the military aspects of it we have those references thanks to all that recorded film material. So that's primarily the stuff that I looked at and then we worked with military advisors who knew the history and could help us with the movements and salutes and we could have an authenticity regarding the difference in the way a Colonel would salute to a Major or to a Field Marshal or to the Fuhrer.
Cruise: And specifically at that time period.
Singer: Yeah, which changed after the assassination attempt. Certain things were more mandatory, the Fascist salute and things like that. That's what made the scene where he throws up his hands so much fun. If you're missing a limb you wouldn't put it up and give the Hale Hitler salute which is why it's interesting when he shows the stump.
Cruise: You're right, his choreography, with this kind of movie…I just want to add a couple of things from a production standpoint about the choreography of this. Doing a lot of these films, the bomb sequence and such, this is a film that right from the beginning Bryan was saying since this is a suspense thriller that it needed that kind of dynamic choreography. You had to go in and be very specific because then going in and editing these pieces together they weren't just thrown together. That was all very well thought out. From top to bottom on the production we really had a lot of help and support from the Germans, the production stuff that they gave us. Even the wardrobe itself, the look of the film, a lot of attention and a lot of time went into thinking about how to do this. You talk about colors and the reds to make it what a Bryan Singer film is and make it feel authentic. The whole point is trying to give the audience that visceral feeling of being on the edge of their seat even down to the wardrobe. We went through and studied a lot of films and wondered why does it look sometimes like people are wearing wardrobe with these films. It looks like wardrobe. So in sitting down with Tom Sigel and talking about the kind of film that he used and the lighting that he used and also wardrobe with Joanna Johnson and the kinds of fabrics and studying the fact also how each guy would make their own uniform. The level of the detail in the film from top to bottom even down to Hitler's signature when he signed it was to the best of our knowledge exactly the signature that he timed at that time period and the same with Stauffenberg. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that we filmed geeked and history geeked out on.
Singer: People were taken blindfolded to people's homes who collected Hitler's furniture so that we could see it and know the furniture at the Berghof, his summer house. There's these strange people who collect this stuff secretly in Germany.
Are they neo-Nazi's?
Singer: I don't know. They just like furniture.
Cruise: I don't know. Look, there are certain things that you go, 'I don't know want to know.' [Laughs] But we're very happy to have the desk, his office. I wouldn't do that. For the director, it was good for him to have it. I didn't need that. I'll read about it. He can tell me.
Can you talk about the creative decision from an actor's standpoint and a director's standpoint of not going with accents?
Singer: We didn't want that to be what the movie was about. It's a thriller, an assassination thriller. It should be exciting. The audience should be taken on a ride through the film and the actor's speak wonderfully the way that they do with their current dialects and the characters are all supposed to be German anyway. So to have everyone putting on an affected German accent measuring that up, and we have an international cast as well, American actors, Dutch, German, British – to have everyone trying to approximate German accents when in reality they're supposed to be speaking German, I promise you after the first twenty minutes you'd be sick of it. Ultimately it would sound silly, like we were trying and it would distract from the drive of the plot. So the decision was made pretty quickly though they can do it. He's speaking German at the beginning of the movie, that's Tom, but it would ultimately not be as fun for the audience and that ride with the actors once it is established that they are Germans.
Can you talk about the joys of being the dad of the most adorable two year old around and are you Santa this year?
Cruise: I'm going to be Santa. I'm always Santa.
And what's it like being the dad of a toddler?
Cruise: I love it. I love being a father. I always wanted to. As a kid, a couple of things, I couldn't wait to grow up. I remember being four and five years old that I always wanted to work and grow up. I just always had that. I remember I always wanted to be a father. All three of my kids, I've enjoyed every part of it. I feel lucky to have teenagers and to have the toddler also, to have the journey of both happening at the same time. All my kids, I love them. I'll be Santa.
In the research did you find anything new out about Hitler and his followers?
Cruise: I did. I thought that I knew. I know a little bit about history. I enjoy it. I fly War Birds. I fly the P-51's myself and by the way, all the airplanes are real. There are no computer generated airplanes. All of those planes are real.
Singer: And we're really in them too.
Cruise: We're in them.
Singer: In the Wolf's Lair we actually shot in the room and there wasn't enough room. There was only enough room for the actor's and myself and the pilots and the cameraman. So they gave me a quick lesson on how to do makeup.
Cruise: About thirty seconds before we got on the airplane because we were losing light.
Singer: It's a hundred degrees in there and he's sweating and I'm swatting his face with this little pad.
Cruise: As he's directing. 'Look out the window. Look out the window!'
Singer: But it was exciting. Tom took me, I digress, formation flying with a group of pilots in the P-51 Mustangs and the Sea Fury over the deserts in California doing aerobatics in these incredible aircraft. It was enthralling and a real good ramp up in heading to Germany and doing this.
Cruise: Getting back to learning, the scene where Stauffenberg goes to Hitler's summer house, up there in Berghof, it's challenging. I was thinking for Bryan how he was going to direct that and the focus on Hitler. I've grown up with the footage of Hitler at the rallies and to see him particularly during that time period where he wasn't out so obviously…I mean, obviously he was insane, they all were utterly insane. But to create that eerie and bizarre and terrifying feeling, that sequence, all the detail where Goebbels is looking at [Marshal Hermann] Goring, all these little looks, that's really setup when look at the rise and fall of the Third Reich. He talks about what it was like during that time period. Bryan was totally accurate to the behavior and what was happening during that time period.
Singer: That meeting actually took place, between Stuaffenberg and Hitler. It was his first time meeting Hitler and the big six. It was the day after D-Day and the thing that Stauffenberg noticed and went home and told his wife, it's not in the film, but we keyed off this testimony, that Goring had on makeup. There was distrust between them clearly. The allies were at their door. Hitler was detached from what was going on and the only one that seemed to have a clue was [Albert] Speer, but he was just the architect along for the ride. All of those characters, it was like this, and what he did was walked over and held Stauffenberg's hand and acknowledged his injuries and his heroism as a way of mocking his own people. He would do that. He was always playing one against the other. It was how Hitler rose in politics, through flattery, promises and backstabbing. He did it with Stalin. He did it with the German people and eventually that's how the war ended. So it was nice to be able to put hints of that kind of detached laconic Hitler that the public didn't get to see in the Berghof scene and in a scene that genuinely happened and all the specifics of that leading up to it. The reason that we have such, particularly in the third act of the film, detail is because the Gestapo did such a stunning investigation into this assassination attempt and trials were held and filmed. So we had the benefit of all those facts and all of that information to inform our story as well as the research we'd done and talking to a lot of people who were with Hitler.
Cruise: I was surprised at how Stauffenberg at the beginning might seem like a movie convention, him interrogating Generals. He did that. He had those conversations with Generals exactly in that way and would have those kinds of conversations.
Which is why he ended up in Africa?
Cruise: Which is why he ended up in Africa. He had actually court martialed friends of his for war crimes. His uncle was concerned for him and arranged for him to go to Africa. He was that outspoken with Generals. He was a supply officer. He wasn't necessarily on the front lines, but he was behind them saying, 'What's happening? How can this happen? Why is this happening? This guy is a liar. This is not the country that we want, that I wanted.' The amount of desperation and pain for him, because he loved his country and wanted a moral country, but one that was a part of and participated in the world, not annihilating it. Not the Holocaust. Not world domination. He was a man that was able to really think for himself within all of that propaganda and recognized very early on that insanity. At first he was thinking, 'Someone has to stop him. Lets overthrow him.' Then it was, 'Someone has to shoot that bastard.' That's a quote of his as early as 1938. Then suddenly being moved into the place after Africa, his uncle sent him away, and it's ironic that those injuries actually put him in the position of high command where he got on the inside and realized that the only way to stop this was from the inside. He really recognized that it wasn't just enough to kill Hitler. You had to have something that was going to put people in a position where they're going to follow you because you have that oath. As an American, to open a film like that, it just struck me as being so creepy, getting people to not be able to think for themselves.
Singer: The army was compelled to make an oath. An army of ten million people in Germany were compelled to give an oath to Hitler personally.
Did you think of 'Day Of The Jackal' in making this?
Singer: Not so much. I hadn't seen it in a while so no. But movies like that were discussed.
In the sense that people know going in what the ending is?
Singer: Yeah, we did talk about that.
Cruise: If you look at 'Apollo 13' and 'Titanic' or any film that's made out of a book, people know how it's going to end. I had an idea when I read it and of course I've heard of the briefcase and the table, but there's no way that…when I read it I thought it was so surprising to me, the story and the details. I was surprised in reading it that I was that caught up in it. I was ripping through the pages.
Singer: To say that we know how it ends, you might if you know history, but I don't think audiences know the full degree of how this particular story ends. That's an important thing.
Cruise: And that didn't matter when I read the script.
Can you talk about using the P-51?
Cruise: I love it. We didn't use the P-51 in the film, but of course I did have to do a straffing run in the Panzer Division in my P-51 in California. So I was very happy that we shot it there.
Do you know what you're doing next?
Cruise: I'm waiting for things to come in. I've been working with writers and filmmakers and am going to wait to see what comes in.
Valkyrie opens in theaters December 25th
