The films atmosphere has the slow-burning edge of Gravity.
Its an alien on a spacecraft, so there are all different ways you could handle it.
But I liked the way you take it seriously.
Im not a pulpy director.
And I think [screenwriters] Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese are very pulpy writers.
I want to go into something from a realistic point of view; its my training from Denmark.
Thats the thing I like about John Carpenter, also: likeThe Thing.He has a kind of sobriety.
How did you go about pitching that tone youre talking about?
Essentially, when I got on the movie, it was a bit of a smaller movie.
They wanted to make a low-budget, $10m piece.
And they were looking for a more inexperienced director than me.
Then I got Jake [Gyllenhaal] and that pushed it up to $65m.
Then I thought, Okay.
But it demanded an almost Hitchcockian precision, because we didnt have time.
I didnt have time to fuck up, because the budget was limited.
So I shot with one camera, my unit no second unit directors, no secondary shooting.
Stuff you have to edit out afterwards.
I mean, its 90 people, working 24 hours blowing up cars and stuff.
Which for us Europeans is a good thing.
Because a lot of this film is about the suspense of waiting to see whats going to grow.
Youre allowed to say how long something lasts.
Youre not shooting with four cameras, where youre kind of spraying.
Theres a real commitment to the performances here, as well, which I found interesting.
Theres a moment between Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson that feels really natural and intimate.
Its Denmark, you know?
Giving them a real past together, so the story doesnt start when the movie starts, you know?
For me,Alienhas this.
People say, Oh, theyre so natural in that breakfast scene.
Has the blonde woman slept with that guy?
Is that why shes pissed off with him, and shes flirting with the black guy now?
But here, its not.
Thats the brilliance ofAlien.
Im one of Denis Villeneuves biggest fans.
Me and Jake spoke about different things, but we even flirted with the idea of Norman Bates.
Its an interesting tension to give the audience a red herring.
So youre manually crippling your body for the rest of your life.
Why does a person do that?
Because doctors have often the same grades as the smartest students, right?
So they could choose to become lawyers.
So most doctors choose to become doctors out of some kind of altruistic idea.
But a person who does that, but then goes up in space, where there are no patients?
Thats where the PTSD thing came from.
The fun thing with Jake is that he isnt afraid of those notions.
He starts with those ideas; he doesnt start with, Im the leading man kind of thing.
Or you could do the rotating space station.
But they do it too small!
Because it has to be huge to work.
Thats what he said!
I think hed done it a bit too much.
I adoreAlien, but one thing I like about [Life] is that it could take place tomorrow.
If wed have taken the easy way out, it would almost nullify the difference between our movie andAlien.
Alienrepresents what you did in the 70s.
He doesnt have an idea about what its going to look like in 20 years.
He doesnt have a fucking idea.
Not even a theory.
Theres not even a philosophical thought.
The only thing we can worry about is tomorrow, because thats how messed up weve become.
If you didAlientoday, it would be regarded as fantasy.
So were just borrowing ideas off each other.
Many movies that are science fiction, they dont quite understand what science fiction in movies is.
They dig down into our fundamental anxieties.
Thats whyThe Shiningalmost feels like a science fiction movie.
Its so vast that you dont know where to go.
Or youre completely claustrophobic.
Thats what science fiction in movies have become today.
I like the idea in this that it is just a creature.
Someones just tried to electrocute you!
Its not what the unknown does to us, its what we do to the unknown.
When it takes the hand, its like a baby grabbing your hair.
It doesnt know that it hurts.
No ones going to notice, but theres this secondary language that goes into the picture.
Look at the way the scientists treat the rat!
Its those ideas, for me, that are the fascinating part of making this picture.
How hands-on were you with the design of the creature?
First, what I did was, I spoke to a geneticist.
Because I didnt want to project my pure ideas of it.
I spoke to Ridley [Scott] about his process.
I thought, I need to base this on science.
Adam slowly built up the idea of this creature and what it could physically do.
How it could physically evolve and which way.
They started spit-balling ideas, and I came in once a week and started to guide them.
My friend is this very dark artist.
I met Giger once.
Oh, you didnt!
Yeah, I visited him at his house.
He had a box filled with pills that would make you funny, you know?
I thought, Maybe this is the time [to try one].
No, its not the time…
It was a very eerie place, because it was filled with his art.
Was that his castle?
Yes, exactly, exactly.
He liked acid a lot.
My friend reminded me of Giger; he had the same kind of Fuck off mentality.
So I thought that would be a good thing.
So they worked together, and out came [the creature].
So hes constructed like a hand.
And thats what Calvin does; he creates these limbs, and then the petals become smaller.
It all stems fromSolaris; hell make an impression based on what theyre feeding into him and then respond.
Theres an amazing line inSolaris.
We dont need other worlds.
Thats a great, great line.
Thats the secret of these sorts of films, isnt it?
They reflect our fear and…
Behaviour.
The outside world changes as we respond to it.
I think thats the fundamental question.
Now that weve found life on this planet, it raises the question of who we are.
I think thats what the function of these sci-fi movies is, to propose subtle, small questions.
And sometimes the whole movies about those questions the movies from the great artists, likeSolarisand2001.
Have you got a taste for the genre now?
Would you like to make another science fiction movie?
I would love to do another one, but the question is, where do you go next?
What is the next frontier?
How do you transcend this idea?
One thing I do in my career is I always change genres.
And genre gives you that rule set.
Daniel Espinosa, thank you very much.
Lifeis out in UK cinemas on the 24th March.
