The Making Of "SAFE HOUSE" Behind The Scenes

I was looking for something that had what you could call an archetypical journey. I've always wanted to do a movie about a safe house. You've heard it mentioned in so many movies but it's never been its own kind of starting off point for something. I came across the idea of let's do it like as a two-hander. Let's pair a green idealist housekeeper and a veteran cynic. For me it was all about the relationship between these two guys. I mean they're bound together one way or another and there's something really beautiful about that. Matt taps into his heart a little bit and his innocence and idealism pulls Tobin in. You sure you don't want to just walk away from this? I can't do that. Yes you can. You have the old warrior who knows that the world is corrupt and you have the young gunslinger who believes that somehow his romantic idea of the reality will prevail. That was kind of the great thing of the journey is can this kid go all the way through this, become a man and also keep who he is as a human being. I used to be innocent like you. Wrap myself in the American flag. The world just can't be reduced to the good guys and the bad guys. You know I think that humanity is a wonderful mix of both. I'm taking you in. I worked for Us Weekly for about 10 years and I've been writing specs for about 12. Every single time I think someone was going to sell, ultimately didn't and this is the first one that broke through it. Housekeeping. We have a last minute reservation. In Hollywood there's something called the blacklist which is the list of the best unproduced screenplays of that year. It's a bunch of studio executives and development executives who read for a living basically so they vote for what are their favorite scripts. I was honored enough to have enough people vote for this so we kind of got up on the list pretty high. All of a sudden here I am on the set of Safe House in like a year. Daniel breathes a whole new life into the script. He sees everything through the prism of what's the character, what's the character thinking, what's their motivation and he just brings it to life. So when you leave, you're standing here, you're taking that moment in and you leave like very hasty. Daniel's movie Snabba Cash, he made it in Sweden on the budget that he did and you were completely invested in it. It felt big, it felt cinematic and then when you meet him, he's an unbelievably infectious smart individual. He's well traveled, he speaks multiple languages. My background is more European art house. My strengths is basically acting and the inner story of a character. So when I got those opportunities, I believe that what I could do is that I could fill it with something like a soul. It was such a refreshing thing to come on set and find out that this is where his interest lies, trying to tease out who these people are. He's unlike anyone I've ever worked with or even met before. He's like this incredibly wise, intuitive, intellectual thug, which is sort of a weird combination for a person. So it gives him this incredible street sense and this feeling like he's a guy who could very easily be in a bar fight and at the same time, you can name any book and there's a good chance that he's read it before you. Frost was always like, God, can we get Denzel Washington? And he was doing the play Fences and we went to New York to see him and Daniel and I had lunch with him and at the end of the lunch, Denzel stood up and said, all right, we're going to do this. I called his agent and he said, yeah, I just got a phone with him. He's doing your movie. And it was just one of those great moments, one of those great moments of life where here's Daniel, his first Hollywood movie and Denzel Washington just said yes to it. When they came to me, I was doing a play on Broadway, Fences. And I really, it really kind of woke me up and made me really want to dig deeper as an actor. So I said, you know, when I do my next film, I really want to work hard on the character like I did on Fences. So I really got, you know, invested heavily in the character. Denzel spends about a half a year in his character before we even shoot. When he gets on set, no matter what the situation will be in front of him, he will always act as the character that he's playing at that time. And that creates a lot of opportunities as a director. Scott Stuber gave me some great books to read, one of which was The Sociopath Next Door, which sort of became my Bible that I would refer to. We think sociopath, we think violence. And the majority of sociopaths aren't violent. But Tobin Frost is a great liar or a great manipulator. You know, perfect for the CIA. So he needs to leave like on one or like two? Let's see. Three, two, one. You leave on two. Okay. Ready? Three, two. You leave on two. Robert, we'll go on two. Ready? Three, two, one. Denzel doesn't phone anything in, ever. So it's 100% there. I mean, the preparation is immense. The waterboarding scene, when I heard that Denzel was actually going to do it, I was trying to wrap my head around why, you know, why would you want to? But he was totally willing to do it and did it for like a five second count. I mean, five seconds of that is torture. Bring him up. How long was that? You only want to do as few takes as you have to. And then making sure you're doing the count right, so you're not really drowning him, you know. It was a pretty intense couple days doing that. I've never seen anyone waterboarded before. I think if you asked me five years ago that when I finally do see somebody waterboarding, it would be Denzel Washington. I probably would have told you you were insane. Let's go. Take him down. Denzel brings a full preparation and a full dedication to his character. So we had to know that there was an actor who would do the same opposite him. I've known Ryan a long time and knew that he would step up to that challenge and knew that he wanted to. I think Ryan is among the strongest talents that there is in his generation. He has many traits that reminds me of Robert Redford when he was at the same age that Ryan is now. He has the same kind of automatic charisma. I enjoyed getting under Ryan's skin. That was fun, you know, that wasn't a challenge. Get in the trunk. The trunk? Yeah, the trunk. Get in the trunk now! We're butting heads the whole time and it creates an interesting dynamic. We sort of hold that energy on the set as well when in between takes and create something different each time. We had good chemistry and he has an inherent innocence that I think was right for the part. We all got here a good three and a half weeks early and just worked together and workshopped the script and rehearsed. So to have that opportunity to go in and discover who these characters are is something I jumped at. You have to leave. I need you to leave. I love working with Ryan because everything is always new, you know. He works a lot for his parts and everything but when he's shooting he brings always new things so surprises are welcome and it's a very good way to work. You know what's most interesting about seeing all these great supporting actors come in and out of the movies? The first take or two they're really just listening more than they're performing because every movie has a language. You see that they sort of hear the language of this particular film and they understand it. If we're doing our job right you're kind of locked onto these people trying to read what's in their eyes, trying to read who's going to pull the guns out, all that sort of stuff which I find intriguing and wonderful to play. Can you do me a favour? Can you guys be in the car and just shoot one gunshot towards the window? We might see the frame. All our characters have an inner frustration. We work a lot with hiding feelings. That means charging up and having them within but not letting them out. Action without character is just kind of boring. When you actually get to know these people there's real depth to them and having the quality of actors that we have you will feel what these people are feeling. As actors I think none of us are particularly attracted to just shooting a movie that is an action film because they're hard. You get your ass kicked. This is Cape Town Rap for Ron Reynolds. We're attracted to the film because it's a character piece and when you get those two components right, when you have an action film that is also deeply rooted in character, you get something really incredible and rewarding out of it for both sides. When we shot the safe house attack, I was more thinking of a war movie than an action movie. I just like how he's approached the ambush. It's certainly intense to watch something like that. There's nothing polished about it. It's not gratuitous violence, it's violence attached with emotion. They're coming to get Frost and they don't mind who they kill in the process either. Daniel said don't just run around and play army, this is a real emotional thing and I want to see that in your faces. My name is Dan Hurst and I'm the tactical advisor in Safe House. So when you come in, stay behind this wall because you can start firing, keep these guys away. The tactical advisor is to assist the director in showing him what's tactically correct or as much as possible within the actions. Dan gave me a map of the set before we showed up, kind of gave me some ideas of what was going to happen and where we were going to be going and where the room was. That we were going to hear the explosion, how thick the walls were, what it would sound like. The grenades go off, everybody ducks for cover and out come the first mercs. There's a bit of gunfire and our man Kiefer comes out. The CIA guys, they have to look a little bit more sharp and regimented because they might have been recruited straight from a war zone. So they would be using all the corners, stacking up on the corners just to stay covered. You know, there's only certain things you can do on a corner. If someone's firing an automatic weapon down a corridor, you know, you're not going to stick your head out. They're here for me, but they want me alive, you they'll kill. The mercenaries have a mix of sharp and a bit rusty. They're recruited from different militaries around the world, even private security companies, police. So they've come from bush war, Africa. They weren't supposed to have high-tech equipment. They might not use cover as well. And that's why in the beginning of Safe House 1, the CIA seemed to be holding them off. For this specific sequence, we probably used about 1500 squibs. So we've got multiple panels so we can, after they've been blown up, we can literally pull the panel off and bang another panel on. But there is a lot of squibs in the safe chest, a lot. And these guys are on self-fire boxes, so they've got to trigger themselves. Our actor pushes the button and it detonates the different squibs. One down in his knee, number one. Number two up in his shirt. They get attacked by an extreme firepower. And when that happens, they go from being soldiers to being humans. Go, go, go, go! Let's go, move! When we have our second wave with Vargas coming through, that's when they're completely outgunned. And they're realizing the gravity of the situation. Vargas' method is to let some of his mercs do the first dirty job, then get shot, take the first line, then Vargas steps into the room and basically just clean everything afterwards. Once we realize we're being overrun in the safe house, it's about how do we get out of here? You better have an exit strategy. It's just a shitstorm that we can't deal with and we're overwhelmed. Now you're firing and maneuvering. Big, heavy gunfire as much as you can. Hope you can hit again, down you go. And even though you're a trained guy, there was a couple takes where my guy's freaked out and he's got to bring it all back together. But Daniel was really pushing me to do that. I want to see you scared shitless. And I want to see you pull it back together. Let us see what a struggle this is, that you're having to deal with your own nerves. This ain't a test, this is the real thing. You don't want to try me. Jake McLaughlin, who I'm particularly fond of, he's a real veteran. He actually fought in the Iraqi war and he was in infantry. And I learned a few little tricks from him. His pistol skills were great. He was certainly one to pick for information. Give me your arm. Hook my arm. Let's go. I got you. They realize that the situation is untenable and they'll fight to the death. Where's Frost? It's like a little one-act play within the movie. That last shot was great. It was good. Yeah, it was beautiful. But we got it. Nice. My hat's off to the team because they did a fabulous job. They really did. Right now we are in Lange, which is one of the oldest townships of Cape Town. It's an informal settlement, really. We find ourselves out here in the middle of an actual township here in Cape Town. But we've reconstructed a part of that with real found materials that are used to build the townships. We built our own mini Lange so we can pretty much tear it apart and jump through it and shoot it up and it's all good. You have these three characters, Vargas, Frost, and Matt, who are in this labyrinth chasing each other. And three, two, one, action. Our plan was always to shoot on real location. So when you looked over the horizon, you will see the reality around them. Beautiful. We are doing an enormous chase sequence that's going to begin far reaches of this block and run all the way down across what is a set. We have a young man in the art department. He came up with all the virtual 3D sketch up to show Daniel how it would work, how Frost would run over the roof. When you stand on the roof and you look out across what has been created here over more than a football field worth of recreation of a community, it's quite breathtaking. I was completely amazed. I couldn't tell the difference between our set and the location. It's beautiful. Frost escapes by jumping from here over onto this township roof, which we've built to a certain extent in amongst the other Lange township here. There's a lot of room for adding action within the foot chase across the roofs. The guys behind us are rigging safety lines for both characters and also a cable cam system. We come here and walk through as much of the stunt work as we can without real gunfire and real destruction because obviously we don't want to build it and then destroy it in a rehearsal. If you're going to have these roofs, you're going to have to have someone running across them and it's good that Denzel's doing it. We just dressed the roofs over there with the stunt team to give more cover for Frost as he's running along the rooftops. Oh, there you go. Now we're talking. Yeah, that might help you a little. Frost, as he runs along the rooftop, he's only got a pistol. So they've got the upper hand on him. So he's got to keep low, keep moving as fast as he can and clearing these rooftops to get out of the line of fire. Vargas doesn't want to take the jump unless he's got cover. He's not that foolish. He's got good experience. And at the same time, in this action, you've got Matt arriving. He dispatches Sonny Boy, one of our Joe Boog stunt guys. It is kind of weird. You go from a moment where you're just trying to snatch the life right out of somebody and then the next you're helping him up off the ground, wondering if he didn't break anything. And we've had a load of these roofs reinforced and strengthened so we can do a roof chase with Frost and Vargas. But there are two roofs that we'll give in because that's the purpose. You don't want to be doing stunts and jumping across rooftops if your adrenaline isn't flowing. The anticipation of something like this is great because this is one of those moments during the movie where you feel like it's a real effort of the entire team to pull it off. It's quite a big sequence, a nice sequence as well. I love seeing movies where you get a real palette of something. It's a postcard of a place. I think the movie will have a great palette because Cape Town has a great palette. From downtown to the townships to the ocean to the mountains, it's a very unique place. The landscape around it, the sea, the mountains, the clear, clear skies, the beautiful colors. It's another character in the movie, Cape Town is. And it's going to be seen on a grand scale. And what a great, a really cosmopolitan, a fantastic melting pot of cultures and it's an extraordinary place. We fell in love with Cape Town in the moment we got here. It's such a rich city, you know, it has so many beautiful aspects. The shooting location is always secondary, but as we got here, I realized that it was a key component to the movie. There've been a lot of projects shot in Cape Town, but not as Cape Town itself. So I think it's added a lot of depth and character to the film. There's everything here, crazy wild animals, and you can kind of find any location you'd need. That's one of the beautiful, great things about Cape Town, it's so diverse. It gave us a cityscape. There's a really beautiful downtown with freeways and looks and high-rises. You have really big urban parts of the city, that it almost feels like you're in New York at times. I like the sound of birds or cars, because then I know where reality is. On this project, we've had to film an enormous amount in the city streets more than ever before. So it's been very challenging in terms of the city authorities, for them to understand that actually we need huge city blocks. It can't just be like one block, we need five blocks or ten blocks. A city as dense as Cape Town is, you can't really lock it up the way you always intend to. It's always that moment of shocked onlookers, sort of staring, wondering what the hell is going on, while I've got a gun pointed at this guy, and I'm shoving him in the trunk of a 1980s BMW, peeling off at top speed. It's got to be pretty bizarre. I suspect that the idea of Cape Town popped into everyone's minds during the World Cup. It's really been incredible in trying to utilize as much of the city as possible. We got to actually use the World Cup Stadium. Beautiful piece of architecture, and I think a great choice of location for this film. I went to a bunch of soccer games, did a lot of research. I even went to some of the fan clubs. What does this mean? It's the bones. That's the bones. That's the bones, Krasue? The bones, they don't die. The bones, they stay all the time, as you can see. What I noticed about South Africa and all the fans here is that you see a lot of men walking on the streets here, wearing jumpsuits of different colors, and sometimes in quite bright colors. There were times where I, as a designer, would tend to shy away from certain colors, like black or white or red or blue, and I tend to edit those out because I don't want the focus to be taken away from the lead actors. But Daniel, our director, specifically said to me, don't be scared of pops of color. I'm not scared of colors. It's a part of our medium, you know? It's like you say that you're afraid of music. I think color gives a passion, you know? It gives heat to the moment. So I did the exact opposite of what I would normally do, and especially in the crowd scenes and to make it feel more African. I added in a lot more color so that it added authenticity. And so we put skeletons hanging from the hats and did the work overalls, but with a skeleton template of the front and the back. And it was absolute magic to see these real things that I'd never seen before actually come to life and in our film and add, you know, real flavor. We start in a very urban environment and we end the film in a very rural environment, which is where we are right now. When we started off thinking of a safe house to how far away can it be, it was so fortunate when I saw this and I saw that there's really nothing in 360 degrees with one color around it and this house sitting in the middle of virtually nowhere. I had scouted quite a bit. When I saw this one, I knew this is it. Cape Town is a cosmopolitan city. All butted up against this amazing Table Mountain. The first few times I looked out of my apartment, you look up at Table Mountain, you expect to see a Tyrannosaurus Rex coming out of the top of it. I love Table Mountain. I took the tram up. It's one of the most unique, beautiful places that I've ever seen. And you've got Lion's Head Mountain, which is this great mountain that has a unique look to it. It's ridiculously spectacular. So that kind of urban surrounding with these mountaintops around it combined with the ocean, and as you drive around, you see a real discrepancy in wealth. And I thought that one interesting thing for the characters would be to go through those social layers in their emotional journey. It kind of creates this really interesting juxtaposition in the film. I mean, you have these moments where you see the first world is alive and well here in South Africa, and then you have other moments where you see the third world is doing its best to struggle through the day as well. Right now we are in Lange, which is one of the oldest townships. I'm sure you understand what this township is. It's an informal settlement, really, close to the city. When you see places where the obvious physical consequences of racism and disenfranchisement have created, it's shocking. I'm glad that Daniel loved, you know, to get the real texture, the real feeling, you know, to shoot in the townships. I really, really, really enjoyed doing that. You can't expect to show up in one of these neighborhoods and not expect distrust, especially people coming to do movies and whatnot. The first reaction, I think, is one of, what are you coming here for? Here, really, we had to start engaging with the community probably about three to four months ago, introducing them to the concept of what we were going to do and getting them really involved right from the start, and it's been very rewarding. Once they understand what the scenarios are, what the conditions are, if people are integrated into the film, giving jobs and the whole thing is explained to them that it's not about profiting out of someone else's difficulties, then people, their attitudes change. What we've experienced here in Lange is an incredible support and cooperation from the community who really want this film to happen here, and it really affects their lives because there's job creation, we're using the local people to be part of the filming. One of the unique things about working in a township like this is that there is so much warmth and care and humanity around one, and yet these people have nothing. They seem to have a greater wealth of happiness than we do, and there's a lot of lessons in that, I think. Just looking at my nephew and the other guys that work for me, they were all just blown away, and in fact, they got involved with some of the orphanages and working with the kids there. In fact, my security guy, Sal, he went out and bought a bunch of toys and ice cream for hundreds of kids. He was really moved by what he saw there. The great thing about movies, they immerse you into a world, and that's something we were really determined to do, which is move you around Cape Town, be within real environments, be within real places that you feel like you're touching and being in there. I think it's represented beautifully for its dark moments and its light. It's like nowhere else in the world, man. It's given us so much. I mean, it's just been such an experience, not only as an actor, but as just a person. I think what we've achieved on this film is to actually find the inside of Cape Town and to bring it onto the screen. All those places were great and really brought dimension to that landscape and really made it beautiful and unique.