George Clooney and Caoilinn Springall on braving the elements while making 'The Midnight Sky'
George Clooney and Caoilinn Springall, the stars of "The Midnight Sky," talk to Yahoo Entertainment about braving the elements while making the film.
Video Transcript
- Come in, ether. This is Barbeau observatory, are you receiving this? Is anyone out there?
KEVIN POLOWY: George, this is the seventh film you've directed now. I hope this is not disparaging, but I think you've had highs and lows as a filmmaker like most directors. I think this film qualifies as an instant high, but you know, what have you learned from those ups and downs? Especially those downs over the years that you think have made you a better filmmaker.
GEORGE CLOONEY: Well, you don't learn anything from success. When everybody says you knocked it out of the park, there's no lesson to be learned, there's nothing-- It's nice to have people like something, but you don't learn anything. It's not like you go, oh, well, maybe I should have done this or paid attention to this. You learn from mistakes, or from things that you didn't understand when you were telling the story, or-- I feel that way in life, you know?
You learn from the things you did that don't quite add up and hope you do better the next time. That's the only thing that's good, is if you improve and if you try to take out those mistakes you make. There's nothing gained just by the successes, not that I don't want them, but that you don't learn any lessons from them.
KEVIN POLOWY: OK, fine, then I take back everything nice I said about "The Midnight Sky." I think you can do much better.
GEORGE CLOONEY: Thank you.
KEVIN POLOWY: There is a scene where Tiffany Boone's character suffers this injury while walking out on space. The depiction of bloodletting in 0 G as she dies is just shocking, I think it's one of the most shocking movie moments I've encountered in a long time. I'm not sure we've seen anything like that on screen. George, what can you say about capturing that? I mean, is that all CG, was any of it practical?
GEORGE CLOONEY: No, there's nothing practical, that was all CG. It's interesting, in the script, she runs out of air, and we've done that in gravity so we couldn't do that anymore. And so I was watching some of the astronauts up in the Space Station drinking water, they'd throw it up in the air and they'd drink it out of the air, and I went to the effects guys and said, can we make blood floating? And they said, I think we can do it. I said, but I don't want this to be droplets, I want it to feel like a ballet, I want it to move and have this material vibe to it, and they really did a beautiful job and they worked really hard on it.
And you know, I was extraordinarily proud of them for the work they did on that piece, because we knew what we wanted and we didn't know what we would get, you know? You can't see it, they have to work on it for a year. And when they came up with it and showed it to us at the end, we were really excited by it.
KEVIN POLOWY: There were multiple sequences out in the Arctic, but one that just sort of pops out with the two of you where you're venturing through this really fierce snowstorm. I mean, it's so immersive. You can practically, like, feel the cold wind gusts coming through the screen. How and where did you shoot that? It looks very practical.
GEORGE CLOONEY: It was. We shot that on a glacier out in the middle of Iceland and we were getting knocked around, weren't we, Caoilinn?
CAOILINN SPRINGALL: Yeah, I remember when we were like, doing one scene, and on a string, it was going like this, whoop. But I didn't fall, that was good.
KEVIN POLOWY: Caoilinn, was that sequence scary for you at any point?
CAOILINN SPRINGALL: Nah.
KEVIN POLOWY: How about you, George?
GEORGE CLOONEY: Scary for me, yeah. I'm turning 60 this year, I could drop. No, look, we were all-- you know, it's still a production, so it's all done very carefully. We're all sort of tied together, all the strings, I've got Caoilinn by the hand. But you could get lost, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, it was pretty wild.
KEVIN POLOWY: Caoilinn, George is a pretty well known guy, I think you could say. Were you familiar with him? Had you seen any of his movies?
CAOILINN SPRINGALL: Well, I saw one of his movies, it was Fantastic Mr. Fox. And I think I never mentioned this to you, but also Spy Kids, George.
GEORGE CLOONEY: Well, see, that makes me happy. I've done something you've seen. I've done something you're allowed to see, your mother let you see.
KEVIN POLOWY: That's right, you hadn't seen Syriana, I take it, before.
GEORGE CLOONEY: I keep telling her I'm a big star, she doesn't believe me.
