Interview - Isabel Lucas
By Anthony Morris
Interview with Isabel Lucas
Appearing in a Hollywood action blockbuster is a humbling experience at the best of times.
When Michael Bay - director of such Big 'n' Loud films as Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and the first Transformers film
- is at the helm, it feels like the actors' main job is just to hold on
and try not to get blown off the screen by the swirling mass of
machines and explosions.
So it is to Isabel Lucas' credit that she makes the impression she does in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
She
plays a student studying, alongside star Shia LaBeouf, at university
during the fifteen or so minutes when giant robots aren't busy trying
to kill him (or save him from the other robots trying to kill him).
And while it is a supporting role, it's definitely one audiences won't forget in a hurry.
The experience of doing a global publicity tour isn't one that Isabel won't forget in a hurry either...
"I
got back from Tokyo about three days ago, and I'm off to Sydney
tomorrow, and from there it's off to LA for the premieres there."
"I've
worked on five different productions since the show and this is the
first thing that's come out even though I've finished two things before
this one. So it feel like I'm right in the midst of it all, it's very
new to me and I'm trying to roll with it the best I can."
Since leaving Home & Away she has been working on the Tom Hanks / Steven Spielberg World War II epic The Pacific - which doesn't feature giant robots, by the way.
Her performance there caught Spielberg's eye, and as one of the producers of Transformers, he suggested her to Michael Bay for the role.
"Yeah,
it's really from that that's he's seen my work and he's asked me to
come and read, so I read with Michael Bay, and he liked what I did and
I got the part."
As you might expect in a movie based around a
war between rival factions of giant robots that can also turn into cars
and trucks and planes, there is a fair amount of computer generated
special effects going on in Transformers 2.
Isabel
didn't have quite as many scenes talking to the giant robots as some of
the cast, and by the sounds of things she might have preferred it that
way.
"I can't speak for the rest of the cast, but they had a lot
of scenes where they're communicating with the robots, and they are
basically talking to a tennis ball on a stick while a voice is coming
from somewhere behind that."
"It's odd, because as an
actor you're listening and responding to who's in front of you, and you
don't get that with this kind of filming."
"While I didn't have
that much work with special effects in my scenes, I spent a lot of time
hanging around on set, because even though I only had a small number of
scenes, Michael Bay wanted me to be available if I was needed."
"So
I spent a lot of time with Shia [LaBeouf], he has become a really close
platonic friend, and I saw how he coped with the special effects. I
guess if I do work on a production again with a lot of special effects,
I'll be ready for it."
Most of Isabel's scenes are with LaBeouf
(AKA one of the fastest rising young stars in Hollywood today) and she
has nothing but nice things to say about him.
"I loved
working with Shia. He has been doing stand-up since he was twelve, and
he's a great one for coming up with new dialogue and new lines to make
a scene that much sharper and funnier. It was really enjoyable."
"I
think that was one of the most challenging things, the re-creating of
scenes. Michael's very flexible and he likes to completely improvise,
so the scenes would evolve as we went along."
Isabel isn't a newcomer to the science fiction / fantasy genre, having filmed the Australian vampire film Daybreaker (from the guys that made the zombie film Undead)
last year. She's also been filming a romantic comedy in Melbourne, just
in case you got the impression that she was making a beeline for the SF
convention circuit.
But there's little doubt that in Hollywood at the moment it doesn't get a whole lot bigger than working with Michael Bay.
With
so many explosions to set off and giant robots to wrangle, it would be
easy to get the impression that dealing with actors might be a little
way down Michael Bay's list of things to do. But according to Isabel,
once he is off the set he is up for a friendly chat.
"We've all
come to know each other closely over the filming, and he's got a
completely different persona to what he has on set - he doesn't have as
much stress and pressure, and he doesn't have an army of people to
organise."
"He hangs out, he's such a 'hang with the cast' kinda guy, every
single dinner he can possibly organise and have us come and meet up, he
will organise."
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