To celebrate the release of Neill Blomkamp‘s Chappie today on Blu-ray and DVD, we’ve got an exclusive interview with the director and stars Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver!
In the near future, crime is patrolled by an oppressive mechanized police force. But now, the people are fighting back. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself. As powerful, destructive forces start to see Chappie as a danger to mankind and order, they will stop at nothing to ensure that Chappie is the last of his kind…
Q: How did you come up with the original concept for this movie?
NB: I came up with the original concept when I was writing Elysium. That movie had a lot of robots in it and…I came up with an idea: what if [you] were to raise an artificially intelligent robot that was like a clean slate and what would that entail.
Tell us about the casting of Hugh Jackman as Vincent Moore?
NB: I had originally written Vincent as an American and then, when Hugh’s name came up, I fell in love with the idea of him playing him. And, if [the character’s] Australian, I wanted to kind of push [him] right to the edge, like some sort of Crocodile Dundee, over-the-top character.
Can you talk about the process of using CGI to create Chappie?
NB: There was no other way to do it except getting a real robot, which would probably [cost] our entire budget. So, in the realm of computer graphics, the only option we had was to have Sharlto [Copley] perform and then digitally remove him but keep his motion with a digital character.
Sigourney, what can you tell us about your character?
SW: I play Michelle Bradley, who [runs] Tetra Vaal, a weapons corporation. My job is to wrangle these geniuses I have under my command who are coming up with the designs for the Scout, which is Deon’s [robot], and the Moose, which is Vincent’s. The Moose is a highly impractical venture but I don’t like to alienate any of my geniuses, so I have to keep him on a simmer while trying to get Dev on a boil. So, she’s like a harassed schoolteacher, in a way. And I’m hoping, as the CEO, that if [the robots] work in Johannesburg, they’ll work everywhere and it’s just a question of time until we can start exporting them all over the world.
Q: What can you tell us about Dev Patel and Hugh Jackman’s characters?
SW: Dev Patel plays Deon, who’s a sensitive soul and a brilliant man who’s trying to create a robot with consciousness. He comes to me with this hope that I will make his project legitimate. Of course, I shoot him down right away because a robot that writes poetry and makes paintings is not something [my character] is going to okay; whereas Hugh plays Vincent Moore, who is obsessed with this big monstrosity of a machine that’s very destructive – I’ve never seen something as destructive as this; they’ll probably start making it tomorrow! – and it’s controlled by his brain with a little helmet. So it’s wonderful that we have such diverse geniuses in this story. And the thing that’s particularly touching about Deon is that…[he] puts in [Chappie] a consciousness that he has coded and, because he is so sensitive, Chappie is particularly so and has a kind of DNA in him that will look for the good and hope for the good.
Hugh, how would you describe your character?
HJ: Vincent Moore is an ex-soldier and an engineer and a very brilliant scientist who has created this robot that can go into any war zone anywhere or any dangerous situation and pretty much extinguish everything in sight. It’s over-armed, it’s over-expensive and it’s over-engineered; but it is his life’s work and it is a game changer when he creates it. Unfortunately, for him, the next evolution of that [technology] comes out very, very quickly, so the Moose, which is the name of his robot, never really goes into production and his life’s work is obsolete before it even hits the market. But he will do anything to defend that work; it’s his life’s work and he believes in it. Also, the competition, Chappie – or that technology: a true form of artificial intelligence – is something he’s against. He thinks it’s philosophically, ethically and morally, in every way, a bad idea. How you could release this being that…may actually become independent from humans? He thinks it’s dangerous, in every sense of the word. So he’s against that and it also happens that it’s competing against his own creation.
Q: Can you talk about your character’s relationship with Dev Patel’s character, Deon?
HJ: He hates Deon because, to him, Deon is not only responsible for making his life’s work obsolete but he’s also responsible for creating something that he doesn’t believe in, in any way, shape or form. He thinks [it’s] dangerous allowing these [artificially intelligent], powerful beings – these entities – to go out into the world completely autonomous without ever having to answer to a human being. He’s a soldier; he’s been in the field. [He knows] there are moral decisions being made every second of every day. It’s not as simple as, “I’m going to take this city,” or, “I’m going to do that.” He believes someone is making a moral decision about what is good, what is bad, and what is acceptable in order to maintain victory, and…he’s terrified that a sentient being with no moral compass will just ignore all that. And he’s worried that it will be the end of the human race.
Chappie is available to own now in the UK on Blu-ray and DVD.
