Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on February 16, 2012, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Nicolas Cage’s many fans rejoiced when word came down that the actor would be taking another whack at Marvel Comics’ flame-headed antihero in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. But just as exciting to another cadre of cult cineastes was the news that the new film would be directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the daredevil duo behind the adrenalized Jason Statham vehicles Crank and Crank: High Voltage. Fango sat down with the filmmakers to find out how they applied their anything-goes style to the Ghost Rider’s latest adventure.
Scripted by Scott M. Gimple, Seth Hoffman and David S. Goyer, Spirit of Vengeance opens with Johnny Blaze (Cage) trying to keep his hotheaded alter ego at bay. But it can’t help but flare up when he agrees to protect a young boy (Fergus Riordan) and his mother (Violante Placido) from evil forces—namely Roarke (Ciarán Hinds), a.k.a. the devil himself, who’s responsible for Johnny’s fiery dual nature, and his minion Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth). The pursuit stretches across Europe, encompassing gear-grinding chases, fiery confrontations and lots of odd and amusing camera angles.
This is the first film you’ve directed that you didn’t also write; how was it working with material you didn’t originate?
MARK NEVELDINE: It’s not a big deal to us whether we write something or not. It’s more about, do we like the material, do we want to do a movie like this? And Ghost Rider was kind of the perfect thing for me and Brian to do.
BRIAN TAYLOR: We’re also super-lazy, and it saved us a lot of time in front of the word processor.
NEVELDINE: I had arthritis for a couple of years, and needed some time to let it go…
The film does have a number of stylistic flourishes that are familiar from the movies you’ve written and directed. Did you throw in a lot of your own little asides?
TAYLOR: Sure, yeah.
NEVELDINE: We tried to simplify it a lot. It was based on a David S. Goyer script from 10 years ago, even before the first movie, which was really cool but very dark and hard-R. Over the time since, it had gone through a lot of iterations, different writers and development to the point where when we got it, it was incredibly complicated. There was a lot of plot, a lot of characters and it was kind of hard to follow. So mostly, what we tried to do was just strip it down and bring the pace up to where we could cut through a lot of the exposition and get to the meat of the story. So it was mostly addition by subtraction. But a lot of the little things, like the animated sequences and stuff like that, were intended to address the exposition in ways that were hopefully entertaining, and a little out of the ordinary.
Spirit of Vengeance also has more humor than the first Ghost Rider; was that something else you brought to the table?
NEVELDINE: We definitely added more humor, yeah.
TAYLOR: And Nic added a lot too.
NEVELDINE: He added a couple of one-liners that were just complete zingers.
Did he have a lot of input into the overall script?
NEVELDINE: Well, he had so much input as the lead characters, because he plays Johnny Blaze and Ghost Rider, he is part of the script. It was kind of an organic process. He studied insects and African tribal dancing to help him move as the Ghost Rider, so he brought that attitude to it—doing the cobra and things like that.
TAYLOR: He’s not a by-the-numbers, generic actor who just comes in and reads the words that are put in front of him. He’s totally invested in everything, so the story kind of becomes him, and he becomes the story.
How did collaborating with Cage compare to your teaming with Jason Statham on the Crank movies?
NEVELDINE: Well, the movies are completely different, because Crank’s ridiculous, but one thing that’s similar is that they’re both real physical guys. They aren’t afraid to do anything. Jason is more of a mixed-martial-arts sort of guy in terms of fighting and stuff; that’s how he tackles things. Nic is equally capable physically, but he also loves to study his characters and get deep, deep, deep into the psychology of the roles, whereas Jason will rely on his physical ability. He’s a great actor, he’s a funny guy, and the difference is just between a Method actor and an action star. But they’re two of the hardest-working guys we’ve had; they always show up to set on time, super-respectful, super-professional and not afraid to do what we want. They crave direction, both of them. They don’t want to do it by themselves. That’s pretty awesome.
Was there ever a point where you had to rein Cage in, in terms of either the performance or the stuntwork?
NEVELDINE: Even if something might have been too much of a performance, we always wanted to shoot it at least five times, because it would be awesome to watch. It was like sitting in the front row of a Broadway theater, and for us it was great. I think once or twice, we pulled him back a little bit. We love the crazy mega-acting Nic does.
TAYLOR: Insurance wouldn’t let the guys do all of their own stunts, but they did close to all of them. And we always push to try to get as many real stunts as we can from the actors. It’s just night and day; you can feel the performance in the action. Not that stunt guys aren’t great actors…but stunt guys aren’t great actors [laughs]. We had a great stunt team, but there’s nothing like Nic Cage really giving you a performance right in the middle of all this chaos.
He also put on that Kabuki-esque makeup and black contact lenses to assist the other actors when he was playing the Ghost Rider.
TAYLOR: That was awesome.
NEVELDINE: It was amazing. He didn’t want to just show up on the set as Nic playing the Ghost Rider, and then the digital head would be put on later. He wanted to be intimidating to the other actors and really be the Ghost Rider, and be frightening. He thought the black contacts and the makeup would help him, and I think they did. In fact, he wouldn’t even talk to us; he would only whisper to us, through this translation of what the Ghost Rider meant to him. It was actually a lot of fun.
TAYLOR: It set a palpable tone on set. You could really feel it. When he walked in like that, there was sort of a tension. It was like there was something bad in the air, and hopefully that bleeds into the movie.
You also have Ciarán Hinds, who we just saw in The Woman in Black giving a completely different kind of performance, as the devilish Roarke. This is the first time I’ve seen him cut loose and go a little crazy. Was that intentional casting against type?
NEVELDINE: Oh yeah, we wanted him to give this big performance, and he just wanted to come out and play.
TAYLOR: He had a lot of fun, and pure evil is always better to play against type. The character who looks evil is never really as interesting as a guy who looks like Ciarán, who’s so charming and distinguished.
It’s the same with Johnny Whitworth, who’s traditionally handsome and plays this really awful character.
NEVELDINE: It may be a little bit close for Johnny, though [laughs]. Johnny’s great, because he’s troubled in all the best ways an actor should be, and that came out in all of his nuances in the way he tackled his dual role of Carrigan and Blackout. He’s another guy who’s fun to watch, he’s electric. He’s got a lot going on.
Speaking of taking risks, I’ve seen some of that behind-the-scenes footage of you shooting scenes while flying around in a harnesses or racing down the street on rollerblades…
NEVELDINE: Yeah, I liked being on the wires. I didn’t get to go to Six Flags in the last couple of years, so I do it on set as much as I can. I’ve done that since Crank; I’ve been on rollerblades on all our films, and this one specifically. For Ghost Rider, I actually had the opportunity to be on a wire 5 or 600 feet above a cliff, off the edge. I shot the scene with Idris [Elba] going off the cliff and flipping his motorcycle, which was fun. We wanted to shoot that in camera and make it look real, and our stunt guy said, “I think I have a way to do this.” We were all crazy to go through with it, but it looks great.
TAYLOR: And that’s the best way to convince actors to do the stuff, if you’re doing it right there with them. Then it’s kind of hard for them to be like, “OK, I’ll be in my trailer” [laughs].
Brian, did you also go out on the wires or the rollerblades?
TAYLOR: I don’t do rollerblades; if I tried to do that, I would be the one getting injured, definitely. But we’ve always tried to put the cameras as close to the action as possible, and we don’t have a very good sense of self-preservation. We’re pretty much willing to do anything to get the shot. That has resulted in some shooting techniques that may be a little scary and unorthodox to observers, but to us it’s just like, the adrenaline gets going and you get the shot.
NEVELDINE: I remember on Crank: High Voltage, Brian and I were in a helicopter, each out one side with our cameras chasing the motorboat while Jason was being dragged. At any moment, we could’ve died; I mean, we were so close to the water, so close to hitting the boat, both hanging out on one wire. But it looks great, and it feels fun and frenetic because we really did it.
TAYLOR: This is a cool job. You know, a lot of directors get a 2nd-unit guy to come in and do all that action stuff, and we’ve never understood that. We’ve never had a 2nd unit in our whole career, because it’s like, “Really? Why would you let someone else have all that fun? What are you doing that day, golfing?” This is awesome; this is why people want to make movies, to be able to travel to incredible places and…
NEVELDINE: Blow shit up.
TAYLOR: Blow shit up and do this amazing stuff.
TO BE CONTINUED
