The Making of Pelham 1 2 3

Tony Scott talks The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

While his older brother Ridley continues to win more critical acclaim (and Oscar nomination) Tony Scott remains firmly ensconed on Hollywood’s A-list for directors of big-budget blockbusters. Coming off the success of his 2006 hit Deja Vu, the 64-year-old British filmmaker reunited with that movie’s star Denzel Washington for The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, which is based on the 1974 film of the same name and also stars John Travolta and James Gandolfini. The day before the movie’s release, Scott sat down with a group of New York press and discussed the film as well as his plans to remake another ’70s New York classic, The Warriors.

On remaking the original Pelham
I don’t really regard my movie as a remake or a reinvention. The original and my memory of the original was Walter Matthau with his laconic New York sense of humor. It was a very simplistic story—a million dollars for hostages in a subway. What we did in our story is motivated by John Travolta’s character who is based on a real guy that got out of jail before I started prepping the movie. He wanted to take revenge and humiliate the city of New York like he was humiliated—that’s a very different motivation. Revenge and humiliation is the motivation of this plot, which is different from the original.

On his unique pre-production process
Once I have a script, I give it to my “extended family” of colleagues and have them go into the real world and find people who can be role models for my actors and writers. I use one guy in particular; his name is Don and he used to work for the DEA. On Man on Fire, he spent six months in Mexico City and found a real bodyguard, a real mother and a real child. Then I take all of that and reverse-engineer it, I don’t change the structure of the script, and I take my research and work it in. That’s what gets me excited. I get to educate and entertain myself about worlds I wouldn’t normally touch.

On working with Denzel Washington
I’ve made four movies with him and I hope to make a fifth soon. I respect his process and he respects mine. We’re both insecure in that we’re always reaching to make what we do better. You look at the movies I’ve done with him—from Crimson Tide to Pelham—and I’ve always taken a different aspect of his personality. He’s always given me a different Denzel. He’s one of the few actors who can do nothing and communicate everything.

On working with John Travolta
Denzel wanted to play the bad guy at first. He told me, “I’ve had enough of playing cops and good guys!” But John made a full commitment to the character; I gave him a stack of tapes for research and he met the model for the character, but the personality was all him. What’s great about John is that he has the biggest heart in real life and here he plays the other side.

On his hyperkinetic editing style
The look and feel of my movies is a product of my research. You look at Domino—I hung out with bounty hunters who were on speed all the time. I was riding with them and they’re doing their thing. [Mimes snorting cocaine.] I never got away from that and the movie is a product of that freniticism. But I think I was wrong—I didn’t let the movie breath enough. The script was great and I got overcome of the insanity of the world I was touching. I think I fucked up on that one.

On his planned remake of The Warriors
I’m hoping to shooting it in LA and it’s set in the present day. It’ll be about gang culture in LA, which is quickly disappearing. I’ve met with real gang members and they’ve all said, if you get this movie going, we’ll sign a treaty and be there. It’s a simple story, but I can’t get the script right. And it’s a movie I’ve been wanting to make this movie for 10 years now.

On shooting in New York’s subway system
They gave me the opportunity to use real trains in the subway. The scenes we shot in the motorman’s booth was on stage, but everything else was real. All other movies have to build sets. It’s hard to capture the real feel—you always get the sense that something is not quite right. For instance, Money Train was all done on stage in LA. They gave me full cooperation probably due to the fact that the original Pelham is one of New York’s favorite movies.

Journalists got the chance to explore the New York subway themselves courtesy of Sony Pictures and the MTA, which organized a tour to areas of the system rarely seen by the public. First stop was the abandoned City Hall station, most famous for its cameo appearance in Ghostbusters II. (Remember the scene where Winston falls into that river of pink goo? It was shot here.) Originally constructed in 1904, the station was retired in 1945, but its turn of the century architecture remains largely intact.

The next stop was a cavernous space deep within the Brooklyn Bridge station that is often referred to as the Wine Cellar. Among the sights in this series of underground caverns were derelict subway tracks from an abandoned line, old advertisements and lots and lots of dust. All in all, it seemed like the perfect setting for a horror movie–maybe that could be Scott’s next flick?