Posts Tagged ‘Unstoppable’
I have updated the photo gallery with 31 new HQ and MQ photos! There are production stills and on set photos from “Project Five”, “Ten Year”, “Unstoppable” and “Zookeeper” added. Also, I updated the Twitter photos section of the gallery.
Two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington (Training Day, Taking of Pelham 123, American Gangster) teams up again with director Tony Scott (True Romance, Man on Fire, Taking of Pelham 123) to tackle the train system in there new action film ‘Unstoppable.’
The film is about a runaway train carrying a cargo of toxic chemicals. The film pits an engineer and his conductor in a race against time. They’re chasing the runaway train in a separate locomotive and need to bring it under control before it derails on a curve and causes a toxic spill that will decimate a town. Rosario Dawson’s character dispatches the developments to railroad executives and attempts to redirect the runaway train.
Blackfilm.com recently sat down with Mr. Washington and Rosario Dawson to discuss their recently pairing after working together on Spike Lee’s ‘He Got Game’ a few years ago.
blackfilm.com: How complicated was it getting the lingo down because? It seemed like that train terminology was difficult, where you able to understand everything?
Rosario Dawson: I think that falls into the research category that’s why I spent a lot of time talking to Mary Alexander who we had chosen to be the back ground story for Connie. A lot of the time was spent asking her “What does this mean tying off the air breaks, and what does it means if it’s not?” So whatever I was saying I knew what I was talking about which was really helpful. Also what was the energy behind it; is this really important, are does it sound technically really huge but in actuality it’s really simple don’t infusive that. (Laughing) So it was very helpful to know what you’re talking about.
blackfilm.com: Denzel can you talk about playing an average guy who was forced to doing heroic things?
Denzel Washington: What’s an average guy? That’s most of the rest of the world I don’t know what that really means so I don’t worry about that. There is nothing average about someone who can control a 100,000-ton machine and certainly risk his life to do it. See I’m the average guy what they did is not average but I don’t look at them that way, I don’t put them into a slot before I start they are slightly above average (Jokingly)
blackfilm: What were some interesting and helpful things you learned from the real workers at the rail yard?
Denzel Washington: It was great to get a chance to drive the trains everything on them hurts. If you step on a train and hit your knee it hurts. I was always more nervous because Chris and I was looking forward, and you have all these guys & women looking forward in our direction with all these things going 50mph behind them. We can see what’s coming and they couldn’t. Chris and I would be talking hoping they get down. It was great see all that I couldn’t image making this movie on green screen I don’t think it would’ve worked cause you wouldn’t know what getting hit by what we used to simulate rocks hitting Chris I in the face.
Like her “Unstoppable” co-stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson put in serious time and research to prepare for her role in the Tony Scott thriller about a runaway train. Dawson says she had the opportunity to meet with a real-life inspiration for her character: a female rail-yard manager.
“We had a great opportunity, we found this amazing woman, Mary Alexander,” Dawson recently told MTV News. Dawson said she got to pick Alexander’s brain, and peppered her with questions about proper rail-yard vernacular, protocol and technical terminology.
In the film, opening Friday, Dawson plays Connie, a headstrong rail-yard manager who, along with Pine and Washington’s characters, goes up against her corporate bosses in an attempt to stop a train loaded with explosive chemicals from careening into a small town.
“To do that and know it was a woman who went through it, I was like, ‘How did you work your way up? What did that feel like?’ ” she recalled asking Alexander. “You get those obvious clichéd things about a woman working in a men’s industry, but you also get this [explanation]: ‘Listen, this is a high-stakes situation, this doesn’t happen every day but when it does, you want capable people to be there.’
“To be someone composed and a leader in that, that’s what I wanted Connie to be,” Dawson added. “Not just a cool, spunky woman or a bitchy aggressive woman, but just the right person for the job.”
Rosario Dawson Interview UNSTOPPABLE; Plus She Reveals She’s a Trekkie and Wants to be in the STAR TREK Sequel from ColliderVideos on Vimeo.
When I sat down last week with Rosario Dawson to talk about her new action thriller Unstoppable (which also stars Chris Pine and Denzel Washington), I had no idea it was going to turn into a conversation about Star Trek. But it did. If you didn’t know, Dawson is a huge Trekkie and we spent a bunch of the time talking about how she wants to be in the Star Trek sequel. She even spoke some Klingon. Of course we also talked about making Unstoppable, dressing for premieres and the double standard between men and women, and she talked about her next project called Girl Walks Into a Bar.
TeenHollywood is in Beverly Hills again [we hang there a lot] to chat with the stars of the fast-paced, exciting action flick Unstoppable about a runaway train and the people who risked their lives to stop it! The movie is based on a real life incident in which a train carrying dangerous, toxic chemicals was rushing unmanned through populated areas.
Star Trek’s Chris Pine and the great Denzel Washington play a young conductor on his first real run paired with the way more experienced engineer [actual driver]. The two are on another train which becomes instrumental in the struggle to stop the dangerous runaway choo-choo.
It’s tons of action for the two guys but hot actress Rosario Dawson plays a female “Yard Master”; the woman in charge of routing all the trains in a specific area and she is just as involved as the guys but from a distance.
Talking to the trio, we are getting a lot from Rosario about creating her strong, in charge, yet vulnerable female character and the guys are talking about stunts, how dangerous trains really are and being attacked by cereal! We’ll explain. Read on….
TeenHollywood: It’s amazing how many technical terms go into running a railroad. Rosario, you play a woman who runs a rail yard. How did you learn that “lingo” your character Connie was spouting with ease?
Rosario Dawson: I spent a lot of time talking to the [person we chose to be] the background person for Connie. So we drilled her. She was constantly talking to [director] Tony [Scott] and she talked to me and then we would go over the transcripts. A lot of the time I would ask her, ‘What does this mean? Time off the air-brakes, what does it mean?’ At least I knew what I was talking about, which was really helpful. But also then just the energy behind it. All of it sounds really huge, but she’d be like, ‘No, that’s something pretty simple, don’t emphasize that.’ It was very helpful.
TeenHollywood: Chris and Denzel, what was the most interesting or helpful thing you learned from the real railroad workers that you talked to? And did you actually get to drive a train?
Chris Pine: It was interesting and frightening. I remember when we went to the rail yard in L.A. and they said that the most dangerous place for trains is actually not out on the track, it’s almost in the yard, because the trains can be so quiet and so seemingly innocuous, but of course they’re 1000 ton beasts.
TeenHollywood: That sounds scary!
Chris Pine: I remember this one guy telling the story [about someone who] got surprised on the track in the yard, and the train was only going three or four miles an hour, and it pinned the guy. And then they had to call the family up because the guy was still alive and they said their goodbyes and the train separated from the guy and then the guy passed away. But that’s how dangerous these things are. Pretty much everyone we talked to had an experience, whether it be a conductor or an engineer, with life and death stuff, people trying to cross the tracks and there’s no life emergency stop button on the train. A lot of people experience traumatic events, so there were counselors and stuff like that.
Denzel Washington: It was great to get the drive the train. Everything on them hurts! You step on it, you hit your knee. It was dangerous all the time. I was always more nervous because Chris and I were looking forward and you had all these [people] around on the platform and you’re going fifty miles an hour, so we could see what’s coming and they couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine making this movie on green screen. It wouldn’t have worked. Chris knows real well that you wouldn’t know what getting hit by puffed wheat [felt like]. [Note: a seal breaks on a grain-carrying car and grain pelts poor Chris while he is outside trying to save the train].
Chris Pine: [laughs] [Hit by Sugar Puffs] cereal. ‘And then cue cereal action sequence.’ Who knew that cereal could be such a pain in the ass!? It’s a credit to Tony really too, that everything was practical so we were we on trains, on tracks, moving. We had two trains, one train looked like a train, and another was chopped up so that cab [Denzel and I were in] could be circled by this camera, so that we could run scenes over and over and over again and feel like we were driving the train and not be hindered by worrying about a master shot and [lots of] coverage. We could just run the scene. It was such a freedom and a liberty to be able to do that.
Rosario Dawson has joked that she did all of her own stunts on new movie Unstoppable.
The actress teams up with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine in Tony Scott’s new action packed movie – but Dawson missed out on the stunt work.
And while her part wasn’t as action packed as her co-stars the actress admits that she loved her time on set.
Speaking at the L.A. premiere of the movie she said: “I did my own stunts… [which was mostly] running to my phone.
“It was amazing, I lunged! I really had an amazing time on this,” she said.
“The boys got to do a lot of the action but I made sure I played the frustration for Connie, she’s always throwing her hair up and you see her wanting to be more places than she could be.
“I hold it down in the control room, I did as much action as I possibly could!”
It’s the first role for the actress since The hugely successful Percy Jackson and the Lightening thief earlier this year.
