High-speed horse collisions. Exotic python encounters. Grueling
workouts in 100-degree weather.
For the cast and crew of the film “Alexander,”
surviving dangerous situations like these almost became second
nature. Of course, coming from controversial director Oliver Stone,
it’s not surprising his interpretation of the life of the
epic conqueror has more than its fair share of venturous
moments.
The film, which follows the life of legendary Macedonian leader
Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell) as he and his army battle
against the mighty Persian Empire and through the furthest limits
of India, is set to hit box offices Nov. 24.
And while Stone maintains it was his intent to remain as
historically accurate as possible (he hired Oxford University
professor and respected historian Robin Lane Fox as an adviser to
the film), re-enacting the life of one of the most daring and
limitless conquerors of ancient times proved no painless task for
Farrell and the rest of the cast.
“It’s a cinematic film; it’s not going to be
historical,” said Rosario Dawson, who plays a Persian
princess named Roxanne, whom Alexander takes as his bride.
“It’s not going to be particularly accurate in that
sense, but I think we all struggled very hard to make it the best
we could for the story for what we were trying to
convey.”
In fact, re-creating one of the largest calvary charges ever
filmed proved to be one of the most dangerous struggles in the
making of the film for many of the actors, who were riding bareback
in only short tunics and a pair of sandals. During the filming of
the battle scene in India, which takes place deep in a tree-filled
forest, many of the horses ran into problems, literally.
“We’d do a take and we had to gallop at full speed,
and it was so precarious because you don’t know what your
horse was going to do,” said Jared Leto, who plays
Alexander’s life-long companion Hephaistion. “Some of
them were running right into the trees at full speeds. You
wouldn’t think a horse would do that, but every single take,
someone would come off a horse. People were falling off and
breaking legs, arms, shattering rib cages ““ everybody fell
down.”
In order to prepare for such grueling stunts, many of the actors
went through an intensive boot camp, which brought a new meaning to
the term “movie-star lifestyle,” added Leto.
“Everybody got unbearably ill during boot camp. They were
blaming it on something in the dust, like 1,000-year old-camel
(dung),” said Leto. “But our tent was right next to the
Porta-Potties, and I woke up every morning for three weeks with
sounds of people vomiting and other noises I’m not even going
to try to make.”
Farrell, who injured his leg during the last three days of the
taping, said the actual boot camp was not as hard for him as the
working out he needed to do to bulk up for the role.
“It just doesn’t do it for me. Some people enjoy
working out; they like the feeling or something,” said
Farrell. “I did a lot of physical training for Alexander,
more than I’ve ever did before, and I hated every minute of
it.”
And while the women of the cast may have been left out of the
boot camp and horseback riding, that didn’t prevent them from
facing dangerous situations of their own during filming. Angelina
Jolie, who plays Alexander’s manipulatively seductive mother
Olympia, said she had to carry huge pythons and other snakes with
her during many of her scenes, which only seems to provoke the
daredevil in Jolie.
“I was OK with that for me,” said Jolie. “But
I was nervous when there was a little kid, that I, as the
responsible adult, was putting a large snake around a 6-year-old
saying, “˜Take it.'”
Despite the hardships the cast faced while creating the film,
Stone says that doing it any other way would have taken away from
the believable nature with which he tries to infuse all his
films.
“If you buy “˜dumbing down,’ then you dumb down
and you accept it,” said Stone.
“If you don’t, then you operate at your level and
you trust the audience, and frankly I’ve been surprised all
my life that people respond how well they do.”