Assembling the Cast, with One Very Pleasant Surprise
Chris Lee, who produced the revolutionary Final Fantasy, the first all-CGI feature, was formerly president of production at Columbia/TriStar Pictures where, during his tenure, the studio released such Academy Award-winning films as Philadelphia, Jerry Maguire and As Good As It Gets.
After leaving the studio to become an independent producer, Ecks vs. Sever was one of the first screenplays to come to his attention. Lee had been hoping to work with Kaos, a talented young director whose first film, Fha, enjoyed phenomenal success in his native Thailand, and realized that Ecks vs. Sever was the perfect vehicle. Lee acknowledges that the development process can often be long and arduous, with most films taking four to six years from script to screen, and some even longer, but says that the two and a half years spent developing Ecks vs. Sever was a well-paced and constantly invigorating experience that he attributes to "a consistent, creative vision, honing the material and getting the right cast. We're thrilled to have Antonio and Lucy in the picture. "
Antonio Banderas was cast as Jeremiah Ecks early on. "He has a very interesting persona," Lee says of both the actor and his character. "Ecks is very troubled, and as Antonio portrays him you feel his pain and you also get a sense of the drive and determination as well as the depth of intellect that made him the FBI's best profiler. " The character of Sever was originally written as a male. As the casting process began, director Kaos posed the question, "What if Sever were female?" He approached Lee and the studio and they liked the idea. So, without re-writing Alan McElroy's script, Kaos prepared an outline with a female Sever. "By casting a woman in a role written for a man and not changing the dialogue to make it gender-specific in any way," Lee points out, "we underscore the fact that, ultimately, Sever is really all about the business at hand. And it makes for an interesting dynamic between these two characters who are equals in strength and training but still approach their craft very differently, in perspective and in execution. "Sever is much more precise in her movements, whereas Ecks responds with his own brand of dogged determination," says Lee,
comparing the styles of the two protagonists. "Clearly the years since his wife's death have taken their roll physically as well as emotionally and he appears somewhat beaten down. But inside, his training, talent and true professionalism cannot be denied. "
Sever has also suffered but she doesn't show it as much on the outside. "Actually," says Lee, "she looks amazing, no matter how difficult the situation in which she finds herself. " "Sever is the ultimate weapon," director Kaos explains. "In theory, no one can stand up to her. But part of what make Ecks so formidable is that he's completely relentless. He just will not accept defeat. " As a new round of casting began in search of a female Sever, it was Antonio Banderas who suggested Lucy Liu, with whom he'd worked on Ron Shelton's Play it to the Bone.
Says Lee, "Having Lucy in the role really works because she's able to convey an attitude visually without saying a word, which works especially well for a character that was purposely written with a minimum of dialogue. Quite frankly, the audience expects her to kick butt, both emotionally and physically, and she delivers. " Rounding out the cast are Gregg Henry (Body Double, Star Trek IX,Insurrection) as Robert Gant, the powerful head of the DIA; Ray Park (Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace, X-Men) as his reliable lieutenant, Ross; Talisa Soto (Pinero, License to Kill) as Gant's wife, Rayne; Terry Chen (Almost Famous) as Canadian Federal Police Special Agent Harry Lee; Miguel Sandoval (Blow, Jurassic Park) as FBI Assistant Director Julio Martin; and Aidan Drummond as Gant's young son, Michael. The film re-teams Banderas with a number of colleagues with whom he has worked previously, both in front of and behind the camera. He recently starred in the Brian DePalma thriller Femme Fatale with Gregg Henry, and Talisa Soto played the love of his life in The Mambo Kings, the Warner Bros. Pictures feature that marked Banderas' American and English-language film debut. Ecks vs. Sever also reunites the actor with producer Chris Lee, who served as studio executive on Philadelphia, Zorro and Banderas' directorial debut, Crazy in Alabama, and with renowned cinematographer Julio Macat (The Wedding Planner, Cats & Dogs) who was director of photography on Crazy in Alabama.
