SET VISIT: Immortals (Part 2: The Cast and the Director)

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

On November 11th, Relativity Media, the producers of 300, and visionary director Tarsem Singh (THE CELL, THE FALL) will present us with a remarkable glimpse into another world; where gods fight alongside men in a battle against a brutal king for the fate of the planet. This is IMMORTALS, which promises to stir the imagination with its beauty, while providing bone-rattling action and showcasing a fierce group of actors made up of veterans and up-and-comers. IMMORTALS has the potential to be something very special.

Last summer I spent a day on the set of the film, which was shooting on a massive soundstage in Montreal, Canada. (Read my set report HERE.) While difficult to get a clear sense of what IMMORTALS would look like at the time (after all, we were only privy to a handful of stills, a glance at some of the weapon and costume designs, and a peek at the greenscreen set), we were given given full access to the main actors and the wild captain at the helm.

The Director

Isabel Lucas calls him a genius. Stephen Dorff says he’s “on another level.” Henry Cavil claims he could have “handed him a script with feces smeared on every page”, and the actor still would have worked with him. To talk to any and every person on the set of IMMORTALS, it sounds like Tarsem Singh is not unlike one of the mighty gods that preside over the film’s colossal events. Taking into account his impressive resume as a director of commercials (multiple spots for Nike, MTV, Pepsi and others), music videos (REM’s unforgettable “Losing My Religion”) and films (the nightmarish thriller THE CELL), it’s not hard to see why he’s so revered. So it was a bit of a shock to learn firsthand that he’s hyper-charged, motor-mouthed and profane. He’s also unrelentingly honest, intelligent and funny as hell. (It should be noted that no one ever calls him by his full or last name. It’s just “Tarsem” all the way.)

When Tarsem first faces a gaggle of internet journalists in a crowded trailer a few yards outside of the studio where he’s directing his third feature film, he exclaims, “Holy shit!” (This is, in fact, in the middle of Cavill’s interview with the gang, though the actor doesn’t seem to mind the director’s barging in.) Referring to himself as a “brown guy”, the India-born helmer is as entertaining and self-deprecating as any artist you’re likely to meet. And honest – can’t stress that enough.

The first question posed to Tarsem is, “What was it about the project that appealed to you?”

“Ah, very little. I came in from the beginning and I saw just nothing interested me about it and usually for me, I’m not interested in it if it’s a serial killer film, or it’s got to do with, let’s say a space movie or if it’s a film like this. I just usually look at one thing that interests me and I just go with that.”

Acknowledging that it initially seemed like a remix of the 300 aesthetic, Tarsem says that the fact that he’s an atheist (“since I was nine-years-old”) was an unlikely factor in attracting him to this story of gods among men. “It’s got Gods, it’s got Greeks and none of that interested me. And my mom said something to me that I thought, hmmm, if I can put that in the movie that’s what I’ll make. And what it was was, I’ve been an atheist since I was nine-years-old – specifically I’ve been a blasphemer – and my mom is really religious. It is kind of a strange relationship and in particular, a time just recently, about three and a half years ago she said something that I thought was so interesting that I thought that can be a scene of a film, it was really interesting. I tried to put that in and when they let me do it, which is where we ended up, it was when she once turned to me when I was crapping on religious stuff, she said, ‘How do you think you are as successful as are if it wasn’t for praying?’ You know what, the worst thing that could happen is a guy like me dies and there is a god up there and he goes, ‘You fuck! I was dying to screw you up but because of this woman…’ [Laughing] and I just thought that would be really interesting. So I just put into a situation where the reasonable people lose.”

This all comes out flying out of Tarsem in under a minute, by the way.

Earlier in the day, Dorff made mention of the dedication Tarsem inspires on the set, particularly from the crew. “They worked really hard because Tarsem works really hard and we had to because normally you’d have about 80 days on a movie like this, we had about 60. Tarsem had his work cut out for him, but everybody really put their feet forward and really went for it, nobody complained.”

Cavill says the biggest benefit to working with this director is that “he knows what he wants. It’s not him having a vague idea of what he may want to put together as a film, he almost knows exactly. He doesn’t know it on that day; we start shooting, you see him walking around clicking his fingers, trying to work out exactly how he’s going to put stuff together. And he does not miss, and it’s easy, it’s so easy working with him, because he directs you, tells you what you should do – we as actors are his tools, and he uses us perfectly.”

It’s the appeal of putting his own stamp on a project – be it high-concept film or commercial for the most mundane of products – that makes Tarsem love the process of filmmaking. “I think I must be a hack because most people that I love usually hate the process of filmmaking. They love the editing, they love when they are in control, I don’t. I shoot three hundred days a year, I live on a set and I love it. So for me, I look for a thing that I think I can put my DNA on. If I can put my DNA on it I don’t care if it’s a tampon ad or whatever it is, I’ll get in there. So for me, this is just something that I thought, oh, that would be interesting.”

The Cast

The cast that populates IMMORTALS is an enticing mixture of reliable screen vets and up-and-comers. Names that will be recognizable include Mickey Rourke (who plays the wicked King Hyperion), John Hurt (Old Zeus) and Stephen Dorff (the slave Stavros). Some of the newer kids on the block: Henry Cavill (our lead, Theseus), Isabel Lucas (the goddess Athena), Luke Evans (Younger Zeus), Kellan Lutz (Poseidon) and Freida Pinto (the visionary priestess Phaedra). While this latter group of actors have their share of fame (Kellan Lutz is known to millions of Twilight fanatics as Emmett Cullen; Pinto was in the Oscar-winning sensation SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE), IMMORTALS is, for many of them, the biggest stage they’ve yet set foot upon.

That’s certainly true for Henry Cavill. (At the time, at least. Yes, as I write this, Cavill is primarily known as the newest embodiment of Clark Kent/Superman – and that film hasn’t even been made yet.) Prior to IMMORTALS, Cavill was perhaps most associated with his role on Showtime’s “The Tudors”, but he was the first actor Tarsem brought on board this movie, because, as the director puts it, “wherever we take the script, he’ll go with it.” It also can’t hurt that he’s got the chiseled jaw and natural charm of a movie star.

“Theseus is man. He’s a man who can kick ass,” Cavill says about his character, a peasant who is chosen by the gods to combat the destructive army of King Hyperion.

Though Theseus doesn’t possess any god-like abilities, its his varying motivations throughout the story that make him such an imposing force. “Theseus’ reasons of existence change throughout; he goes from atheist to martyr, ultimately. At the beginning it’s merely to protect his mother and himself; that’s the only reason why he fights or exists. And then it adapts for revenge. And then beyond that for things that are greater than he is.”

In terms of being thrust to the forefront of a potential blockbuster for the first time, Cavill contends that the only pressure he feels is in regards to the amazing physical condition he’s currently in. “Very exciting, more exciting than it is terrifying, really. I felt the pressure at one point, when it came to – I had to be in a certain kind of shape, it was getting close to punch day, and I only had so long left to recondition the body. I suppose that I was a bit stressed over that, that’s been the most difficult thing, just maintaining that throughout. But otherwise, extraordinarily exciting, especially working with a director like Tarsem, who has, you know, boundless energy.”

Cavill goes on to address Tarsem’s skill as a director when asked if working with 3D cameras for the first time has been a different experience from what he’s accustomed to. “Not that I’ve noticed. Tarsem’s wonderful like that. It’s not my job, and he lets me focus on my job. And he does it all quietly, he’s not sitting there putting the weight of pressure on me, he says, “Cool, this is where you need to be, this is what you need to do, this is the emotion you need to give off, what do you think about that?” We have a conversation and then we do it, and we tweak as necessary.”

Going back to the physical aspect of IMMORTALS, getting buff wasn’t a concern for Isabel Lucas, whose Athena is a leaner, delicate character.

“I’m aware that the rest of the gods, and Henry and most of the cast had to do a lot of training, and I actually didn’t have to do any. (Laughs) Because Athena’s not necessarily all muscular; Tarsem didn’t want to go for that look, so I didn’t have to train.”

Isabel obviously feels honored to be a part of the production, thanks to her growing up with some awareness of the myths and legends the film’s brings to light. “Greek mythology I find really intriguing and interesting. My mom, growing up, is very knowledgeable about Greek mythology. So I actually knew a fair bit about the different gods and goddesses, and I feel like it’s kind of a gift to be offered the role of a goddess, because in some way it’s like an archetypal energy but it’s still somehow alive and relevant.”

What Lucas perhaps isn’t prepared for is the costume Athena has to wear; it’s clear that her armor is constricting her breathing, and the poor girl looks like she’s close to passing out. It’s maybe for the best that our time with her is brief.

The movie’s other female lead is Phaedra, played by Freida Pinto, currently one of Hollywood’s favorite “It Girls”, thanks to her memorable performance in SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. Producer Mark Canton told us she’s a movie star in the making, a message we relay to the humble actress. “Well, Mark’s very generous with his comments, I must say, but thank you so much. I don’t know in what aspect he said that, but I really take that as a compliment. What I try to do with my characters, the fourth one that I’ve done so far, is to try and bring something different to all of them and just sometime being yourself, it can bring out the uniqueness of whatever it is.”

Unfortunately for Pinto, not to mention people who would like to see such things, the actress doesn’t get to kick much butt. Asked if she had to train as much as the men, the actress says, “I did not have to do any of that because when I spoke to [director] Tarsem [Singh] last year, I met him in November last year, and he said that you’d have to probably go through a little bit of training, not as much as the men because they’re a completely different diet and exercise regime and I was pretty excited about it so I came into Montreal with all my gyming gear and shoes and everything and then Tarsem says, ‘We have a change in plan here. I envision you as the exotic Virgin Mary.’ And I was like, ‘What does that mean? She doesn’t kick ass anymore?’ And then he was like, ‘Nope. She doesn’t do any of that.’”

An “exotic Virgin Mary” who has visions of a potential future. The frustrating thing for the character is that there’s no telling what each vision actually portends, which Pinto finds especially fascinating – and surprisingly relatable. “Well, while she does have the ability to look into the future, she really does not know exactly whether what she’s seeing – there is no real true interpretation for that, it can have many. So it’s entirely up to her to decide or decipher what that actually means, the vision that she’s seen. In that sense I feel that the character’s given, why she does have this ability, which is almost supernatural, she does have the quality of being human because many a times we are confused and we really do not know what that dream really meant or you suddenly get ideas and what that really means, so I feel in that sense having that power, but really not having the entire all of it to me was really natural.”

A more pragmatic character in the film is Stavros, who is brought to life by Stephen Dorff. Described by Dorff as “a bit of a loner,” Stavros takes up with Henry Cavill’s Theseus in the war against Hyperion. “He pretty much decides to join the group because he doesn’t really have any other choice. I could either hang with these kids or I can die, so what else do I have better to do? He says, ‘All right, I’ll go with you.’ So I think that’s his attitude until he realizes that the gods do exist and then I think he realizes he’s in it for a much bigger purpose and at that point him and Henry’s character Theseus connect and go to battle.”

To hear Dorff tell it, Stavros is the very embodiment of humanity in IMMORTALS. “It’s not just about revenge or anger or I’ve got to kill this person or I want this person dead, he’s got a sense of humor which I thought was refreshing for a movie like this. He’s almost a character out of a different time that was transported right into this Greek time so I kind of like the fact that Tarsem let me just play it like it was written and be loose with it and at the same time get intense when it needs to get intense and the fighting stuff needs to be there, but for the most part my guy wants to have fun, he wants to have sex and he wants to live, so he’s pretty much more of a Han Solo type of character if you look at the Star Wars layout.”

Not possessing much of a sense of humor, not in this situation anyway, is Zeus, played by Welsh actor Luke Evans, as well as John Hurt (when Zeus briefly takes the form of a “human” to offer counsel to Theseus). Playing god is not new to Evans, who had a brief appearance in CLASH OF THE TITANS as Apollo. That’s not to say that his roles – or the films – are similar.

“It’s very, very different,” Evans says. “The size of this is on comparison, comparisons could be made there, but the story and the feel of the film is incredibly different. It feels very very different. I know I’m playing another god, but it doesn’t feel the same as what I did in Clash, which is good, which is very good. And Tarsem’s take on this Greek mythology is quite unique and we’ve watched the dailies and they look incredible.”

Asked if IMMORTALS is a more emotional experience than CLASH, it’s clear Evans believes so. “This won’t be an easy film to watch. There is a lot of serious stuff going on in this film and the fight sequences and the action stuff doesn’t veer away from reality. It’s incredibly serious, which I think brings a huge amount of soul and emotion to the subject matter…”

Also watching over the humans is Zeus’ brother, Poseidon, portrayed by Kellan Lutz. “Poseidon’s just there to have fun,” Lutz says. Commenting about the relationship between the two gods, Lutz explains, “I’m the only one who really pushes his buttons because I’m his brother, I’m his equal in a way.”

According to the young actor, who up until this point is known almost exclusively for his work in the TWILIGHT series, the roles of Ares and Zeus were the ones he focused on nabbing, but neither were available. Still, he was determined to be in IMMORTALS. “I wanted to play someone in this movie. I love mythology, grew up loving it,” Lutz says, still quite enthusiastic about being a participant in the movie, especially since his character apparently wasn’t originally in the script. “I never saw the role of Poseidon in here. So then they called back saying that I couldn’t do young Zeus and then they offered me Poseidon and I’m like, ‘What? Where’s Poseidon? Yeah! For sure!’”

Lutz comes across like a kid in a candy store when describing the film’s potential. “This movie is different than any movie you guys will ever see because it’s not based on a book, it’s based on a really original idea, concept, mixing mythology, creating a story out of its own. It doesn’t have to follow any guidelines. That’s the beauty of it.”

Relativity Media is counting on Lutz’s claims, surely hoping that IMMORTALS can give moviegoers that “something you’ve never seen before” quality that’s so elusive in the marketplace nowadays. Will the comparisons to 300 and CLASH OF THE TITANS be too much to overcome, even though IMMORTALS is playing on a different level? Will the waning interest in 3D overpower the mighty conviction of this imposing cast and crew? Only the movie gods know for sure.