Gattaca etc's…
The Gattaca Filmmakers…
Producer Danny Devito with Andrew Niccol on the set of Gattaca
• Andrew Niccol, Director/Screenwriter
• Danny Devito, Producer
• Micheal Shamberg, Producer
• Stacey Sher, Producer
• Gail Lyon, Co-producer
• Slawomir Idziak, Director of Photography
• Jan Roelfs, Production Designer
• Colleen Atwood, Costume Designer
• Lisa Zeno Churgin, Editor
• Francine Maisler, C.S.A., Casting
• Michael Nyman, Composer
• Thomas Wazney, Best Boy
The Gattaca Players…
Ethan Hawke as Vincent impersonating Jerome in an Andrew Niccol film
• Ethan Hawke, Vincent Freeman/Jerome Morrow
• Uma Thurman, Irene
• Gore Vidal, Director Josef
• Jude Law, Jerome Eugene Morrow
• Alan Arkin, Detective Hugo
• Loren Dean, Anton Freeman
• Ernest Borgnine, Ceasar
• Elias Koteas, Antonio
• Mason Gamble, Middle Vincent
Gattaca Quotes…
• "We used to think our future was in the stars. Now we know it is in our genes." — James Watson, Nobel Prize Winner and developer of the Human Genome Project
Andrew Niccol…
• on Gattaca's theme: "I would hate for anyone to look at my film and think it is advocating that you never tamper with genes, because there have been and will be many positive things to come out of this kind of science in terms of curing diseases. But the problem is that blurred line between health and enhancement. How far do you go? Do you consider short-sightedness a disease? Premature balding? Crooked teeth? Where do you draw the line?"
• on Irene's character: "I think of Irene as somebody who would lie down and die at the alotted minute because she would feel guilty if she lived a minute longer than her profile proscribed. Uma had an excellent take on how to play her. Instead of being pitiful, she plays Irene as a woman who is very definite about her shortcomings, who is very film in her belief in her fatalites."
• on Law's foriegn tongue: "Jude had the right level of superiority in his voice for the role. And his being foreign also pointed out, as the character German says, that blood has no nationality."
Filmmakers and players on Niccol and Gattaca…
• Michael Shamberg of Jersey Films: "The story was mesmerizing. It's a world and vision that is all-encompassing, so you enter it not just for the good character story that it has but also for this picture that you1re anxious to see I call it ‘social science fiction1- alternative futures written in a believable way. But Niccol also combines this alternate reality with such great movie elements as a mystery, a love story and a thriller."
• Danny Devito, producer: "Any movie is a risk. It1s an art form and you just have to follow your hearts and your instincts. We all responded very strongly to Andrew's screenplay."
• Ethan Hawke: "It's very rare that you read a screenplay that has such an original voice to it. And this is a whole new take on the science fiction thriller. The script reads like a Charles Dickens novel, with all kinds of bizarre characters in the midst of a seemingly normal, but fantastic environment. The environment Andrew creates is fascinating- it goes along with the theory that as the technology increases, so does isolation."
• Uma Thurman: "the script's power was in the specificity of detail that entranced me into this new world. It was graceful, like a classic. It's simply about the conquering of the human gene and how in the end, this conquest can't really take away any of the problems of human nature."
• Jude Law: "I was fascinated not only with the world that Andrew created but also with the characters and their loneliness. The primary forces running this world are prejudice, judgment and a very subtle form of dictatorship. It plays on the simple paranoias tha humans have- that they are not as good or successful as the next person or that their child is not the most perfect child of all time. Andrew creates this very manicured world in which human feelings are trying to burst out, in which the quest to make a better society has destroyed individuality."
• Alan Arkin: "One of the reasons I wanted to be part of this film is that I think it has the potential to transcend the genre. Nobody talks about 320012 as science fiction, it's just a great myth. And this is the archetypal myth of our times- man thinking he has all of nature under control."
• Ernest Borgnine: "One of the things I like most about this story is that it is really about how we treat fellow man. God knows we've seen discrimination in our world and unfortunately we seem to have forgotten how to love one another. Will we learn to treat one another kindly no matter a person's skin or beliefs or genetics, or will we find new ways to discriminate?"
