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Compiled by: Jack Foley
Q. Based on the success of National Treasure in America,
can we assume that you have the makings of a franchise?
A: I’d certainly love to do it. We’ve just
to hope that the Walt Disney Company would like to do it. I’ll
be there, and hopefully the rest would like to join in again.
I don’t write the cheques, Disney does, so it’s up
to them.
Q. So there's no script in development?
A: No.
Q. The robbery in the film is quite thrilling, audacious,
yet believe. How did you go about making the robbery real –
was sort of research did you do?
A: We hired an individual whose job is to work with the
government and break into their facilities, to check their security.
That’s what he does. We had him to that with the National
Archives, which he went and scouted. It was pre-9/11 so the security
wasn’t the same as it is today, in fact they’ve changed
everything, remodelling their archives and changing their security
system.
But the way he does it is the way you actually could break into
a very secure building. He designed it with Jon and the writers.
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Q. Is he an ex-con?
A: No, he’s an ex-Navy SEAL, and that’s how
they’re trained, to break into very secure facilities.
Q. How important was the casting of Christopher Plummer?
A: He’s a brilliant actor, and you try to populate
your movies with brilliant actors. He’s at the top of his
game, I’ve wanted to work with him for a long time and fortunately
I think Jon shared my ambition.
Turteltaub: Also, this probably makes no sense,
but for some reason when you’re casting relatives of big
stars you sort of want them to be big stars themselves. I don’t
know why, but it felt right for Nic’s father to be a really
substantial actor like Jon Voight, and it felt right for his father
to be Christopher Plummer.
Obviously, you also want the best actor you can get.
In Plummer’s case, we knew that a large part of his role
was going to be as voiceover to that whole legend sequence at
the beginning of the movie. So we were also looking for someone
who would be entrancing and interesting just in their voice. That’s
why Christopher was so appealing to us.
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