Da: of course, it’s not unusual for a movie to be set in one locale but shot in another. That being said, do you think that actually filming “gold” in indonesia where the story is set could have added something different to the experience? Ér:

It definitely would have added its own texture, and the movie would have been formed in a different way, but we still shot in some of the most spectacular locations in Southeast Asia. Getting to shoot in Thailand was an amazing experience and we even had the chance to work with Indonesian people. Of course, shooting in Indonesia would have been awesome, but I don’t think that the movie suffered from not shooting at the real locations. We were in the most beautiful jungles and places in the world.

Oh man, there are so many! We worked so hard on the film and it was in the middle of monsoon season, so we had to really fight through the weather in Thailand. There was actually one week where we lost eight different sets because of the water levels and the amount of rain. The struggle that these characters had to go through in the story was the same struggle that we had to go through in real life—just two guys fighting against the elements. It wasn’t only us, but the entire crew struggled through this weather to make the film. We bonded together; me, Matthew, Stephen [director Stephen Gaghan] and the rest of the crew trying to get this movie finished despite the weather and the geographical difficulties. Probably one of the most memorable moments were the times that Matthew and I had to sleep in our respective trailers in the middle of the jungle in order to make our call times the next day. We would film late into the night and, if we went all the way back to our hotels, it would have cut our sleep