Back for more: A Conversation with Olivier Megaton
French director Olivier Megaton made his feature debut with the sci-fi thriller Exit (2000), a Luc Besson production. Megaton and Besson have enjoyed a close working relationship, collaborating on explosive action films such as Transporter 3 (2008), Columbiana (2011) and Taken 2 (2012).
Taken 3 (2015) sees Megaton return to the franchise, as he guides Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills through a new set of intense action set-pieces and dramatic challenges…
How did you feel when you first read the script?
When I first read the script I was surprised because Luc and Liam told me that nobody was going to be taken in this one. My favorites surprise was the cop character, and all the things I could bring into it, like the emotion. This was my first thought, I was thinking ‘wow’ I can take this movie somewhere else.
Why do you think people respond so well to Bryan Mills?
People respond to Bryan Mills because he is a very simple character in terms of movie storytelling. He’s just focused on his family, and that’s something that’s very unique and particular to the Taken franchise. People like this franchise because it tells them this very simple thing that they can relate to in their own life. It’s why they love it so much, I think. And it’s why the second one worked so much, and I hope this one will be the same. We respect their fear and so on, and we try to give them solutions of what could be done in the worst case.
What was the toughest element of the shoot for you?
In terms of technique, the toughest thing was when we shot the freeway sequence. The freeway was a nightmare, we shot in LA on the 710 and we didn’t have much time and so on. But I had a good team, so we managed to get it. As a human being, the worst and toughest thing was when we shot the morgue scene, because we were shooting in a real morgue. It was very strange, and really weird because when we were scouting the location we were in the real morgue with its activities. We saw a corpse that they’d just brought back from a forest, and it was weird to see this corpse in the middle of the day and it brought us back to reality. So when we shot the scene, it was very strange because the whole team had this moment in mind.
What was the most fun element of the shoot for you?
Wow, I’ve got many, many things that were fun to do. When you’re shooting two days and two nights getting helicopter shots around LA, not a lot of people get to do that in their lives. But just in terms of personal fun, we had many funny moments when we were shooting. The highway sequence was full of little things that were incredible. But each time I was shooting the helicopter shots, I was thinking I am very lucky to be here. I am seeing a town, a country, from a very particular point of view, it’s very unique. I liked it very much.
TAKEN 3 IS OUT ON DIGITAL HD ON JUNE 1ST AND ON BLU-RAY AND DVD ON JUNE 15TH FROM TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT
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