Q&A: The view from Dennis Quaid’s “Vantage Point”
Dennis Quaid has been a household name for three decades, thanks to a diverse range of films including “Breaking Away,” “The Right Stuff, “Innerspace,” “Dragonheart,” “Far From Heaven” and the recent blockbuster “The Day After Tomorrow.” Now he’s starring in Columbia Pictures' edge-of-your-seat thriller “Vantage Point” as Presidential secret service agent Thomas Barnes. The film, directed by Irish filmmaker Pete Travis, focuses on the attempted assassination of the president and told in “Rashomon” style from eight different perspectives. Quaid co-stars with William Hurt, Matthew Fox and Sigourney Weaver and Forrest Whitaker.
Question: Are you a fan of these types of films?
Dennis Quaid: Yes, I always loved the movie “Rashomon” and how you can tell the same story from different points of view and how each point of view has a different truth to it, so what is the truth?
Q: What attracted you to this film?
Quaid: It had me on the edge of my seat just reading the script!
Q: What do you think about your character Barnes?
Quaid: He’s a very tortured soul. The whole key to him is that he took a bullet for the President a year before the story started and this is his first day back on the job and he’s a very loyal, dedicated person to his President and his organization and he has as very high standard for himself. At the beginning of the movie he doesn’t know if he's up to it and he wonders if he can go out there again with a different point of view. After you’ve been bucked off a horse, getting on a horse the next time is a very different experience for you until you get on and start riding.
Q: What do you think of that job now you are more familiar with what they do?
Quaid: It sounds very adventurous and glamorous at first but most of your job is spent sitting in a hallway for 12 hours at a time and you can't even take a bathroom break. And you go from that to immediate jeopardy situations and you never know when the boogey man is going to jump up and you have to anticipate it.
Q: How physically challenging is a film like this?
Quaid: In a way the action makes it easier because all that is set up with the character and through the action is how it all comes out without me having to think about it or tell it through dialogue.
Q: How hard was it to have to say the same lines from different points of view?
Quaid: Tough, because I have to say them the same way each time so that was challenging. But what's interesting is that Pete put in a scene at the beginning of my character alone in a hotel room getting ready to go back to work and you can see how apprehensive he feels, so you see what's behind him and that's all I needed. Everything else I do is informed by that.
Q: How was working with Matthew Fox?
Quaid: I didn't know him before but he did a really great job in this film because he is very contained in this film and perfect for the part. I'd never watched “Lost” so I hadn’t seen him before. You usually find me on the History channel so I think he was glad I wasn’t grilling him about what's going on with the show.
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(Opening across the
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