Science a 'fun challenge' for Jeremy Renner in Arrival
Playing a supporting role is no issue for Jeremy Renner, especially when his co-star is a close friend. In the case of Arrival, it was Amy Adams, whom Renner had worked with for 2013's American Hustle.
"My friendship with Amy has been long-running since we met in 1999 in a karaoke bar.
"So I jumped at the chance to be able to work with her again, especially in a role where a strong, intellectual, smart woman has the lead and the story is told through her eyes," said the US actor.
Playing a scientist was a new experience for Renner.
"Binary is something I was familiar with from computer science and computer languages - Pascal, DOS, and all that stuff I studied - but that did not really help me.
"But part of the draw for me to play this guy is to investigate that side of me, and my connection to it. I had to try to make things that are scientific and theories, emotional and accessible to audiences. So that was the fun challenge in taking on that role," he said.
ACCESSIBLE
Renner, 46, stressed that Arrival should not be pigeon-holed into the sci-fi genre.
"This movie crosses a lot of things for me. I love the sort of plausibility of this kind of science fiction - it is a little bit more accessible.
If I knew what is happening in the future, it will affect everything I am doing now. So, where is the excitement in life? Jeremy Renner
"I do not have to really suspend too much disbelief.
"I like that I can grab onto truth - it is authentic, it is honest, and it is emotional. All those things are kind of what attracts me to this sort of movie, whether it is a drama, or a science fiction, or a horror film, whatever the heck you want to label it as."
Following a theme of the movie, knowing the future is not something he wants.
The actor, who is best known as playing Hawkeye from The Avengers films, said: "If I knew what is happening in the future, it will affect everything I am doing now. So where is the excitement in life?
"I would rather be here and talk to you at this moment, and not think about what I am going to have for lunch after this. If I could see a crystal ball, like well, I would not want to have that."
Is he afraid that would make him fearful?
"I steer towards fear and not away from it. I just realise that any fear I had, from fear of sharks, to fear of success, to fear of intimacy, the common thread through all those things is ignorance."
Organic sounds were made with natural elements
It may be an alien movie, but Arrival has none of the sounds usually associated with such movies - no warp speed, Martian death rays or beeping robots.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times yesterday, supervising sound editor Sylvain Bellemare and re-recording mixer Bernard Gariepy Strobl said director Denis Villeneuve wanted a sound that was not "electronic".
Mr Bellemare said: "Denis wanted to do another type of science fiction. So he wanted to use an approach of (making) the sound really organic."
How did they create that organic sound?
Mr Bellemare said they started with a New Zealand-based sound designer who had worked on many Peter Jackson movies.
He said they started the design of those organic voices using an old trick - animals.
Mr Strobl said: "There were definitely some marine animals that were used in it that we can recognise, some whales in the recipe."
Mr Bellemare said they had 11 different devices for communication and that "they were all made of certain types of walkie-talkies and devices".
On the natural-sounding noises for the vessel, he said: "We really made the vessel like there is a mountain moving. We do not hear any engine. We just hear the movement of the rocks and ice."
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