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cinemas today. releases in UAE walked into the room until Lena did.”
Waithe, who plays an auto mechanic in the film, is quick to shower praise on the director, as well. “There’s no better way to kick off your debut feature than Steven Spielberg directing you. But he’s also just a really wonderful man. He made me feel safe and it was just fun being on the sets around him,” said the actress in a phone interview from London, where she was attending the UK premiere of the film with the rest of the cast and crew.
Cooke was effusive in her praise, too. “I think Lena Waithe said it best when she said, ‘He’s a giant who doesn’t make you feel small’. We come in with our pre-conceived notions of what it’s going to be like and so we’re very nervous. But he undercuts that with his own nervousness, and his passion for the project. He’s not only kind and generous but he’s also hugely collaborative. He puts his trust in others because he believes in what we can contribute to the film, which is incredibly confidence-instilling,” she said, adding that she felt “absolutely gobsmacked” when she heard that she had bagged a role in a Spielberg film.
TWO-STEP PRODUCTION
The actors describe a two-step method to the production process. The scenes set in the Oasis/VR world were shot first, using motion capture. “We actually had two weeks of stunt rehearsal prior to the actual shoot where we had a chance to become acclimatised to motion capture. What was wonderful about it was that it was liberating,” Cooke said.
“When you’re void of any sets or anything tangible to hook you into the scene, you’re forced to live inside your own imagination and you could just do these long sequences without stopping. It was actually really wonderful; uninhibited in a wonderful way,” she added.
The live action bits came next, shot in typical Spielberg sets, huger than you can imagine, and with meticulous attention to detail (the production budget is estimated to be at $175 million, or Dh642.66 million). Since the characters have two aspects to their personalities — their real-life selves and a digital identity — the instruction was to treat them as two separate characters.
Sheridan, who plays Wade Watts, a lone gamer on a quest to find the Easter egg, loved the opportunity to display this duality. “Steven pulled me aside on day one and said, ‘I want you to approach this character as two separate people.’ Parzival [his digital persona] is this confident person, very sure of himself inside the Oasis, like most people are when they go online. Whereas Wade Watts, who he is in the real world, is not like that at all. I thought it was beautiful and builds to the complexity of the character.”
The women attest that they got the better share of the deal. While Waithe described her character Aech/Helen as “a badass” and “someone you’re not going to expect”, Cooke said her Samantha/ Artemis “is an incredibly self-less and intelligent person.”
“She is aware and conscious of the world around her and how humanity needs to be responsible for their reality,” she said.
The soul of the film, of course, lies in the ’80s. The original book is a giant throwback and love letter to the decade where pop culture really exploded, with arcade games, pop music and genre films taking over the entertainment world, a subculture Spielberg actually helped birth.
The film itself is the largest Easter egg hunt you’ll ever embark on, so you’re basically spending your time playing Where’s Wally?, except Wally could be anyone from Batman and Chun-Li to He-Man and Robocop. The stars of the film had their own little fanboy moments after they watched the completed film. “I spotted Beetlejuice in there for all of two seconds and that got me so excited,” said Cooke.
Waithe, who said she was a huge video game and pop culture geek growing up and likes to keep up with it all still, cited “Chucky, Jason [Voorhees], Freddie Kruger and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” as the most exciting Easter eggs from the film.
Sheridan said, with the awe evident in his tone: “I think my most favourite one was the Iron Giant, just because I have such a sentimental relationship with that character. I’m a huge fan of [director] Brad Bird and that movie. When I watched the final version of the film and saw my avatar standing next to the Iron Giant, that was a special moment for me.”
But games aside, Sheridan insists the movie has a “deeper humanity” and that Ready Player One is both a metaphor and warning from the future of a world that’s too trapped by its technological advancements. “Even though it takes place in a dystopic future, the film speaks to what we’re dealing with now in 2018. The Oasis stands as such a huge metaphor and symbol for social media and some digital platforms that we all have and all encounter.” Waithe, directorproducer Sheridan, Cooke, Spielberg, Ben Steven John-Kamen, Mendelsohn, Hannah
Zhao and Morisaki.