CAST / CREW
Directed by
Andrew Niccol
Writing credits (WGA)
Andrew Niccol (written by)
Cast Al Pacino .... Viktor Taransky Benjamin Salisbury .... P.A. Winona Ryder .... Nicola Anders Darnell Williams .... Studio Executive Jim Rash .... Studio Executive Ron Perkins .... Studio Executive Jay Mohr .... Hal Sinclair Catherine Keener .... Elaine Christian Evan Rachel Wood .... Lainey Christian Jeffrey Pierce .... Kent Jeff Williams .... Man in Suit Rachel Roberts .... Simone (as Simone) Mitzi Martin .... Premiere Audience Member Carole Androsky .... Premiere Audience Member (as Carol Androsky) Christopher Neiman .... Premiere Audience Member (more)
You are Visitor No:
Al Pacino
photo © Newline Productions Inc.
ARTICLES
For Pacino, it's Al good (I don't know the original source)
(thanks Lisa Wollney for this article)
Al Pacino is on a roll. At 62, the age when most men are preparing for retirement, Pacino is up to his neck in work. He has five movies this year.
He's played a jaded cop to huge success in Insomnia. He's a failed director who makes a big come-back via a digitally created actress in the comedy Simone, which is in theatres this Friday. Later this year, he'll be seen as a CIA guy in The Farm and a flak in People I Know. Chinese Coffee, which played at the Toronto Film Festival, is said to be set for release this year.
Pacino was also involved in the filmed version of the Tony Award-winning play Angels in America, playing Roy Cohn in a cast that includes Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Jeffrey Wright and Mary Louise Parker.
On the home front, Pacino has not one, but two toddlers to call his own with his partner, Beverly D'Angelo. Twins Anton and Olivia are 18 months old. Then there's his daughter Julie, who is almost 13, whose mom is Jan Tarrant. Julie, armed with a camcorder, is making like a fledgling filmmaker. It's all good.
Simone is the movie responsible for the press conference and media bun fight being held here at a posh Upper East Side hotel. The movie is about a washed-up director (Pacino) who gets some kind of new software that lets him create an entirely believable -- and irresistible -- actress. So what if she's only a bunch of pixels? The actress makes his every movie a major success. She never throws tantrums. She always knows her lines. You get the picture.
So, a computer-generated image puts Pacino's character back on top of the heap in Hollywood. Trouble is, Pacino has to lie (and lie and lie and lie) about her origins so that nobody will find out she's not real. Simone is a sophisticated story about celebrity, and -- who knew? -- Pacino does comedy and he does it well.
"I started in comedy," he says, starting to laugh wildly. "That's how bad a comic I am. I crack myself up. But I started in comedy. That was my first instinct, to try to make a thing funny. I think it works in drama, too, if you can try to pull out, wherever you can, humour from the midst of serious stuff."He adds, "But I wasn't the kind of person who could be funny all the time. I was only funny when I wanted to be funny and, you know, that ain't gonna work. Comedy is about as difficult as it gets."
Given the theme of Simone, Pacino is asked about the pressure of celebrity in real life. He responds that he addressed that issue in his pet project, The Local Stigmatic.
"It's a complicated relationship, the cult of celebrity and the way it's used in the media," he says, hesitantly. He adds, "I'm not trying to avoid your question. I'm trying to avoid saying something dumb. You just say something, off the cuff, and it goes out there." He gestures with his hands to indicate the immediacy of the airwaves, the Internet. "It's never not been there in the history of the world," he says, finally, of the fame thing.
He has consciously ducked the celeb spotlight. "I was concerned that my personality, whatever that is, would get in there and take over, and that would come bbefore the role I'm playing in the movie. It's always been a concern. I've been careful to direct my personal appearances and life in a way that didn't overshadow the parts I played. But as you get older, you realize there've been a lot of roles and people come to relate to you as an actor, so when they come to see your pictures, they come to see you as an actor." Not that every piece of work is embraced by that same public, he adds.
Well, no -- but enough have been embraced for Pacino to have eight Academy Award nominations and a best-actor win for Scent of a Woman. The South Bronx-born Pacino made his film debut in The Panic in Needle Park in 1971, and the movies that followed -- The Godfather (I and II), Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Scarface, Sea of Love -- gave him a permanent place in moviegoers' consciousness. Pacino was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes in 2001, and that same year he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. He's like the Energizer Bunny of acting.
When a fire destroyed his country home in upstate New York last spring, Pacino returned, after 20 years, to the city where he grew up. Things change, says the actor, at home and at work."In the old days I needed to be immersed in the role all the time, so even in the waiting periods, I was immersed. And that's tough on you. Tough on your psyche, tough on your body. But eventually, thank God, I was freed of that. I can now not have to be engaged in the role when I'm sitting and waiting. I can turn it on five or 10 minutes before I have to go do it. That's something I've acquired over the years."
Pacino concedes that he now does far more movies than he did at the start. "Because I learned how to do that, basically. When I was a kid I did a movie every couple of years. When you make three or four a year, one of them is likely to do better. It gets easier to make a picture when you know you have a real feeling for being in it."
The actor uses the passage of time to measure the value of a film. He says, "Sometimes you see movies that are so hot, and everybody gets excited and rightly so. But you look at the same movie in five years, and it's literally unwatchable." Is a film still good in 10 years? In 20? Pacino says, soberly, "The movie 'twill out, 'twill out. Some of the movies I've made will be forgotten -- are forgotten -- the next day. Some aren't. That's how you do it."
As marketing ploys go, the one surrounding the new Al Pacino movie, Simone, is inspired. The film stars Pacino as a has-been director whose career is revived when he discovers a new female star: Simone.
Nobody must find out, however, that Simone does not exist. She's nothing more than a computer-animated fantasy, a collection of pixels created to perfectly combine the best features of many famous women.
Even her name -- Simone -- is just a contraction of the technical term: Simulation One.Simone, which also stars Catherine Keener, Jay Mohr and Evan Rachel Wood (and features Winona Ryder in a cameo) is an amusing look at the fakery of Hollywood.
But is Simone fakery within fakery within fakery?
Many shots in the film are of a woman who is obviously not a digital creation -- someone fully flesh and blood was part of the creation of the digital darling, but nobody will identify her. The strongest rumour of the moment is that Simone is based on Rachel Roberts, a Canadian model. The director of Simone, Andrew Niccol, says the look of the "synthespian" is a combination of elements based on an unidentified actress.
There's something Uma Thurman about this face. Maybe a touch of Charlize Theron? Come on you guys! 'Fess up!
On his side, Pacino says, "I have an 18-month-old son who's better on the computer than I am. That's how much I know about it. I don't know if I have the eye to distinguish between a picture that's digitized and one that isn't."
But I have a feeling I would feel it."
The actor says the technology is already heavily in use. "Who knows where we're going with all this? Guys like George Lucas could be a lot more articulate about it. I never even thought about it until I made this film. So -- do you think we should do a sequel? Simone goes into politics?"
Al Pacino
photo © Newline
Productions Inc.'Simone': In a Biz Built on Illusion, a Director's Dream, By Dave Kehr, New York Times, May 12th 2002
(thanks Doug for this info)
It takes a rare kind of newcomer to hold the screen opposite Al Pacino, but the star of "Simone" faces him down without breaking a sweat. A combination of Greta Garbo and Cameron Diaz, Simone is the most promising female performer to come along in years, equally fluent in playful eroticism and tragic intensity.
"She doesn't have an agent, manager, entourage or religious guru," says a press release from New Line, the studio distributing the film. "She won't demand a bigger trailer or a private jet. She does all her own stunts. She doesn't need a body double, because she has no problem with nudity — clothes are simply an option."
If Simone sounds too good to be real, she is. Her name is an abbreviation for Simulation One, and she is an artificial actor — a "synthespian" — created by a mad programmer (Elias Koteas) and turned over on a hard drive to a failing Hollywood filmmaker (Mr. Pacino) desperate for a hit — or so goes the premise of this new film directed and written by Andrew Niccol, the screenwriter of "The Truman Show" and the director of "Gattaca".
Is Simone a real fake or a fake fake? No one is saying, though the Internet movie chat rooms are full of unconfirmed reports that she's played by a
Canadian model whose initials are A. G. In the movie, set to open Aug. 16, Simone does have an intriguing half-real, half-hallucinatory quality. She's
there and not there, poised between dream and reality — just as, come to think of it, all the great stars are.
Where does Simone go from here? Perhaps a remake of "Metropolis," with Simone as a buxom, blond Robot Maria? Or perhaps a Barbie doll in "Toy Story 3"?
One thing we know for sure: those rumors that she's romantically linked with Jar Jar Binks are greatly exaggerated. They're just good friends.
Al Pacino and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
photo © Newline Productions Inc."Beautiful Dreamer" By David Handleman, Elle, Mar 2001
But she [Romijn-Stamos] didn't have to try too hard to be goofy, human, or humble when she took off from Rollerball to shoot a few scenes with Al Pacino for a movie called Simone. The plot involves a film director who secretly creates a computer-generated actress to replace a temperamental real one, and the simulation becomes a star. Romijn-Stamos plays the fake of the fake--a stand-in for the simulated woman, to fool paparazzi into thinking she really exists. (The implication of the casting, of course, is that Romijn-Stamos is the closest God has come to a computer-perfect female.)
The day Romijn-Stamos shot with Pacino, she had a horrible cold, and while rehearsing a scene, she was hovering over the actor when "a huge drop of snot fell out of my nose and onto his face, missing his eye by a millimeter," she says. "I was shouting for Kleenex--pleading, begging, and it took a long time to get something to wipe it away. I was mortified." Pacino "was very sweet about it," she says. She drops her voice into a gruff Pacino imitation: "`Don´t be silly. I loved it!´"
Al Pacino and Catherine Keener
photo © Newline Productions Inc.Director Pulls Plug on CGI Report, August 22, 2000, by Josh Grossberg
So maybe Al Pacino's next leading lady won't be computer-generated after all.
Apparently mixing up plot information with casting news, the Hollywood Reporter last week erroneously reported that writer-director Andrew Niccol was supposedly looking to cast a computer-generated actress opposite Pacino for the upcoming film Simone. As it turns out, however, the digital leading lady was part of the story, not the actual making of the movie.
Simone is a Hollywood satire which follows a desperate producer who--after having his female star walk off the set at the 11th hour--quickly dreams up the idea of replacing her with a digital actress who is so life-like everyone mistakes her for being real. The digital diva, of course, goes on to become an overnight sensation.
Given his penchant for making films that question reality (i.e. The Truman Show, which he wrote) and the nature of humanity (Gattaca), it was no surprise to hear that such an imaginative director would try to cross the digital divide--taking the CGI Jar Jar Binks to the next evolutionary level.
And while futurists applauded the move, the Screen Actors Guild immediately cried foul, angrily questioning why Niccol would choose a non-human, computerized character over a card-carrying day player.
But despite the hubbub, flesh and blood actors have nothing to worry about. Niccol has assured them he has ruled out creating a digital leading lady for his movie, citing the prohibitively high cost of doing so.
Instead, he will likely cast an unknown in the title role of the young computer-generated starlet.
Meanwhile, some other (living) actors have come aboard the project. Jason Schwartzman, the quirky actor who first gained fame in Rushmore, has signed onto the film, while Oscar nominee Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich) is in talks to play the role of Pacino's ex-wife.
QUOTES ABOUT THE FILM
AL PACINO
Al Pacino and Winona Ryder
photo © Newline Productions In"It's unlike anything I've done before, and I'm really anxious to see how people react to it. So I'll get that out, and then I have no obligations for a while. It's funny, but the world just seems to open up to you when you don't have every minute planned.
"In the old days, sometimes I'd go two years between a picture, and I wouldn't know what to do with myself. And when you're making films, you're really being paid all that money for waiting, and it took me a long time to be able to use that downtime productively, to use it for other parts of your life."
"It's taken a long time, but I've just about learned how to quit flapping my arms and float. It's good to float." "Insomnia Just an Act for Pacino"(on why he was attracted to the part of Taransky) [His] "eccentricity, his approach to dealing with life and his work and mainly because he looked like someone who had to fight for everything he got." Simone presskit
While Taransky finds success with his creation, Pacino notes that when all is said and done, "Viktor doesn’t want to be alone. He wants to feel the comfort and support and encouragement of family and love with other humans." To Pacino, the "big unanswered question in the movie is how his secret is perpetuated and that’s what’s interesting. It allows for a certain ambivalence, which is always fun for an audience to think about." Simone presskit
[Taransky] "needs to be recognized for having devoted his life in the pursuit of something that he feels is valuable." But where he ultimately succeeds, "is through his natural intuitive gifts as an actor himself," mimicked through S1MONE. This prompts the public to "relate to her and feel humanized by the relationship, to feel as though they are represented in this so- called idealized world of show business and glory and fame. Simone presskit
(about the character of Simone) "Fascinating. She is rich with ideals and is consumed by her work and her need to excel at what she does. Therefore she devotes all of her time to her pursuit, to making herself appealing to people and allowing them to relate to her hoping that she serves the story and the play and I think that is a real unusual approach. She is ego-less and yet at the same time she employs all the aspects of performance and keeps it simple." Simone presskit
(about the script) "Its relationship to success was at once interesting and ironic. It was also amusing and had a light touch and in having that light touch it expressed a deeper, more profound idea." Simone presskit
ANDREW NICCOL (writer / director)
"Reality is grossly overrated." Simone presskit
"What does it matter if celebrities are real? Our celebrity-obsessed culture can’t tell the difference anyway. Our ability to manufacture fraud exceeds our ability to detect it." Simone presskit
"What if you have an artificial human and neglect to mention that she’s artificial? How can you keep up the deceit? And what if you are so successful in the hoax that when you finally tell the truth, you are not believed? The lie is more believable to the world than the truth." Simone presskit
Al brings something subversive to the role of a man who is the advocate of artificial humans. When such a respected actor says, `Who needs actors?’ you take notice. If a more comedic actor made that statement, it wouldn’t have the same gravity." Simone presskit
"In trying to convince the world that S1MONE exists, Viktor is actually trying to convince the world that he exists." Simone presskit
[Her look is] "a mix of Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and others. She had to be contemporary but not so trendy that she would be quickly dated.
"You have to realize digital work is done to real actors now. I’ve done it to actors in my films - such as erasing unsightly blemishes, making limbs smaller or an actor’s girth narrower, even face replacement if needed. Many stunt doubles are fakes now. Plus, you have scenes that are being digitally altered. Say you have a shot of two actors and maybe the performance of just one is great in one scene. You just take a different performance (of the same scene) with the other actor and splice them together. There’s a lot more digital tricks being used today than audiences realize." Simone presskit
"We all know synthespians are coming," Niccol notes. "Very soon we will reach a point when we switch on a television or a computer, see an actor or newscaster, and not know if they are flesh and blood and what’s more…not care." Simone presskit
CATHERINE KEENER (Elaine, the studio head and Victor's ex-wife)
(about her character) "She’s not the brightest bulb despite the fact that she is running a studio. She’s well-dressed, shallow, your basic sycophant… but in a good way. I think her shining moments are with her daughter Lainey (played by Evan Rachel Wood). Elaine is immature but it is her daughter who has it together." Simone presskit
RACHEL ROBERTS (Simone)
During the filming of Simone (2002) she signed a confidentiality agreement in which she could not talk to anyone about the movie to give away the fact that she plays Simone. When she went to the movie set each day she gave an alias name, Anna Green, which is an abbreviation for the process that made her Simone, called anamorphic green screen.
"I think it gets more press for me in the long run. Introducing a new actress is pretty commonly seen in the press, but you don't often see such mystery behind who the character really is. I think it will only help my career, all this mystery." (On being kept a secret in her movie 'Simone.'
RACHEL WOOD (Lainey, Victor's and Elaine's daughter)
(about the character of Elaine, her mother) "She really summarizes the business pretty well. Lainey, my character, is really kind of the parent. She keeps everybody grounded. Throughout the whole movie she really wants her parents to get back together. She loves her dad because he’s honest and true to what he believes. Then he does this movie to try to get everything back and he has to keep lying. It was just better not to mess with it in the first place, but then it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did. There’s just no easy answer."
But there is a deeper, personal message Wood hopes audiences will carry with them -- "Stay true to yourself, follow your dreams and don’t give up." Simone presskit
JAY MOHR (leading man "Hal")
"Hal’s an actor who is dimly lit and self-absorbed; but hey, I would have taken any role to be in a film with Al Pacino. I loved the script and I would say that no greater satire has been made about Hollywood. Andrew couldn’t have picked a better actor than Pacino to portray Viktor, a guy who desperately wants to get back in the game and be taken seriously as a player again." Simone presskit
PRUITT TAYLOR VINCE (Max Sayer, reporter)
[I] "tried to combine that National Enquirer sense of journalism but with a guy who really wanted to be Woodward and Bernstein in All the President’s Men, just a dog with a bone who grabbed on and wasn’t letting go." In short, Max exemplifies "this blurring of lines" between legitimate reporting and muckraking "as celebrity journalism has sort of taken over the tone of real reporting. There’s all this self-involvement and projection in telling a story now that’s not news but this hybrid between sensation and something else. The truth has become this concept – an option. In another time I think Max would have been a good journalist, but in this world he is what his world makes him – the essence of celebrity journalism and what it creates." Simone presskit
EDWARD LACHMAN (Director of Photography)
"It is a contemporary story shot in a classic style reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Although we shot it in a way that harkens back to an earlier time, we tried to give it that sense of timelessness, a quality that’s the best of European film but brought back to Hollywood… that on-the-edge-of-mainstream approach." Simone presskit
VALERIE DELAHAYE (BUF, Inc., the French effects house that helped create the digital S1mone)
"She’s pretty much 3D computer generated. It was important to Andrew to show the inside of her body and head as hollow so that you look inside and see the reverse of her, just this bended image. He wanted the simplicity of her to follow the story, the concept of an actor as just this head to fill."
CRYSTAL DOWD (Visual Effects Producer)
The scenes in which S1MONE’s bended image is given birth "are actually shot with two motion control rigs that were aligned perfectly to create the unusual effect you see."
KENT DEMAINE (co-owner of Blackbox Digital who did many of the effect shots)
(Created the "Simonizing" effect in which Taransky enhances his star with the voice, body, smile and carriage of legendary actresses.) "The concept is kind of endearing but also speaks to the whole superficiality of how we characterize actresses today like someone saying, `Oh she has that Lauren Bacall voice’. It’s about familiarity that we claim as new. Our job was primarily to make this look perfect and very smooth."
QUOTES FROM THE FILM
VICTOR TARANSKY (Al Pacino)
"I can’t work with a fake."
TRIVIA
Catch Simone ending after credits: In case some of you missed it after the credits at the end of Simone there was a little scene. Al was shopping down the aisle of a supermarket, tossing frozen foods into the cart and snapping pictures. Then the chubby reporter (who stole the black nightie) was watching on his VCR a tape of this, which Al had superimposed Simone into, so it looked like her shopping. He sighs, "I love TV dinners too." Then it ended. (thanks Jessie for this info)
DVD INFO
LINKS