DELUXE PEOPLE 38 DELUXE For ‘The Stranger Inside’ actor William Baldwin it was his first visit to Mallorca. He is best-known for his starring roles in Backdraft, Fair Game, <strong>and</strong> his appearances on Gossip Girl. Baldwin lives in New York with his wife Chynna Phillips <strong>and</strong> his three children. He serves on the boards of Project ALS (which raises funds to find a cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease), <strong>and</strong> The Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund.
DELUXE PEOPLE DANISH PRODUCTION COMPANY DRAMA DELUXE CHOSE THE TRAMUNTANA MOUNTAINS AROUND SÓLLER AS THE DRAMATIC BACKDROP FOR THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER ‘THE STRANGER INSIDE’ Hollywood stars William Baldwin, Estella Warren <strong>and</strong> Sarah Butler appeared in front of the camera for Danish director Adam Neutzsky- Wulff, who, in spite of his Nordic background, has not found his inspiration from colleagues such as Ingmar Bergman or Lars von Trier, but rather from the epic narrative style of Francis Ford Coppola. “We are looking for the simplest way to make a scene dramatic, <strong>and</strong> the scenery of Mallorca provides the perfect stage for this. We want to maintain tension for the whole 90 minutes, <strong>and</strong> to achieve this we use traditional methods from American cinema.” Although the film has a budget of ‘only’ 1.5 million euros, William Baldwin thinks it has a good chance of box office success, using as his reference his experience in the tragicomedy ‘The Squid <strong>and</strong> the Whale’, which premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival <strong>and</strong> grossed 4.3 million dollars in its first year. ‘The Stranger Inside’ tells the story of a highly successful actress, who after a traumatic “The script is so exciting” experience travels to a Spanish isl<strong>and</strong> with her psychotherapist husb<strong>and</strong> to try <strong>and</strong> find her way back to normality. When they arrive, the couple meet a young female backpacker... a triangle of deception takes its course – with unexpected twists <strong>and</strong> turns. “The script is so exciting, you never know “EACH OF US HAS A STRANGER INSIDE” what will happen next,” says Sarah Butler, “<strong>and</strong> it was an added bonus that filming took place in Mallorca. The bays are so beautiful <strong>and</strong> we had incredibly good weather in December. In one scene we were swimming in a bay – <strong>and</strong> at 18 degrees it was actually pleasant.” For the young actress from Tacoma, Washington, it was her first visit to the Isl<strong>and</strong>. “Travel <strong>and</strong> acting are my passions. And here I could combine the two.” It was also William Baldwin’s first film shoot in the Balearic Isl<strong>and</strong>s. “I’ve worked in the Philippines, in Canada <strong>and</strong> in Barcelona. The scenery here is unexpectedly dramatic <strong>and</strong> quite unique. Hitchcock would have loved it,” he told Deluxe Mallorca. Baldwin also works as a director <strong>and</strong> he is currently planning a film with his brother Alec, whom he would like to see in the main role. Whether he will have time to do it or not remains to be seen, as he is currently running for the office of Mayor of New York, the home of the Baldwin family. William is also very interested in politics, <strong>and</strong> he studied political science <strong>and</strong> worked on Capitol Hill in Washington DC before he embarked on his film career. But he has no ambition to run for public office himself. Asked about the high salaries of some Hollywood stars, he cites a statistic from the Screen Actors Guild: “In America there are 150,000 working actors, 97% of whom earn only about 20,000 dollars per year <strong>and</strong> thus fall below the poverty line. They can only survive by taking on part-time jobs, for example, waiting on tables.” Estella Warren is the only one of them to have known Mallorca since she was a child. The Canadian actress was Canadian National Champion in synchronized swimming, <strong>and</strong> came to the Balearic Isl<strong>and</strong> for the first time for a competition when she was fifteen. Later she returned to film a Japanese commercial for Diet Coke here. The team’s shooting schedule comprised twenty days of filming at different locations on the Isl<strong>and</strong>. The Mallorquin production compa- “Hitchcock would have loved it” ny Orange Valley was responsible for finding suitable film locations. In Palma, they even found a street that looks like New York. Both indoor <strong>and</strong> outdoor shots were taken there, <strong>and</strong> these were then digitally enhanced. Additional days of filming in the Big Apple in January completed the final ‘look <strong>and</strong> feel’ of the scenes. The crew stayed at the Gran Hotel Sóller. “The working atmosphere was very harmonious, we became a proper little family,” said William Baldwin during the filming. “I think we are on the way to creating something special.” We will see before long if he is right when the film is presented to critics <strong>and</strong> audiences at the festivals. One thing is certain: Mallorca will cut a good figure in its supporting role. “I have already put together the first ideas for another film here in the future,” director Adam Neutzsky-Wulff told us. TranslaTion: C.Moody www.dramadeluxe.com DELUXE 39