FIRE FIRE

thriller V for Vendetta. Here she explains why the film redefined her concept of violence I BY EARL DITTMAN
While The Wachowski Brothers have said they always
envisioned a bald Natalie Portman as Evey, McTeigue was
unhappy with the initial choice of James Purefoy as V. In a
surprising (and costly) move, after much of V for Vendetta had
been filmed, McTeigue replaced Purefoy with Aussie actor
Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith from the Matrix trilogy).
What attracted you to this project?
“I really think it’s an action movie and a graphic novel that
makes you think a lot about violence and sort of how we categorize
violence, how we differentiate between state violence and
individual violence and how we define terrorism and all of that.”
Were there many changes to the graphic novel?
“It keeps the integrity of the story, even a lot of dialogue is
direct. I think probably the really impressive thing Larry and
Andy did when adapting the graphic novel into the screenplay
was just how to find one story. The graphic novel takes
place in three parts and there are several different storylines
that are wonderful, but if you did that with a movie, you
famous 35 | march 2006
would have people sitting there all day. Or you could make a
trilogy, if you wanted to.”
Does the screenplay preserve the British nature of the book?
“Yeah, I think that it is definitely a British piece, but I think
something that is strong about it is that it also speaks to America
and the American political situation right now and everywhere
else in the world…. I think it’s important that it takes place in
a specific time and place. Obviously, I think with the art direction,
production design and direction, we are keeping it very British
in terms of where the story takes place.”
Often with adaptations of books, the original author will say, “I
didn’t like it,” but here the writer, Alan Moore, didn’t even want it
made, and said he would stop it if he could. Did that affect you?
“No, I really had no idea what was going on with all that…but
I think all of us who made it — speaking for myself — we are
obviously huge fans of the graphic novel and wanted to be as
true to it as possible. I just hope it pleases Alan Moore, because
all of us are such fans of his.”
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Natalie Portman as
V for Vendetta’s
revolutionary heroine