Jason Isaacs On Braving Boot Camp For Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down
The Harry Potter star on the horrors of making movies in Morocco, the pressures of playing an Army Ranger, and how one learns to love Eric Bana.
What was the Black Hawk shoot like?
It was a complete nightmare. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world but the actual shooting was deeply unpleasant.
What was the major problem?
Well, apart from the fact we were shooting in one of the worst slums in what’s a pretty deprived country [Morocco], there was the fact that there were too many actors for us to have our usual level of ludicrous pampering. First thing in the morning, you’d be stuck in your army gear and given your gun and then you’d be left to your own devices for the rest of the day. There was no one fanning you or bringing you cool drinks.
And things were even tougher when the cameras rolled?
Sure, it was organised chaos. The assistant director would go, ‘Right, you’re going to run down the street and all hell is going to break out!’ So you’d set off and try to do your lines, but often you wouldn’t know where the cameras were. You had five thousands extras, millions of rounds of ammunition going off, chunks of buildings falling down, and things exploding all around you - it was as close to being in a war as a coward like me could put up with.
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