'Without Blood’ | Deadline Studio at TIFF 2024 - video Dailymotion

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00:00When I read the book, I hadn't read something, or maybe in a long time, but not in my memory

00:17of something that really was just addressing that very complex gray area of human beings,

00:24where it wasn't defining who was good, who was bad, what was absolute.

00:31It was dealing with post-conflict, which I feel I had studied a lot of conflict in films

00:39I directed and written, and this was an aspect of it, this after, this idea that it would

00:46end or how it lingers with us and what it does.

00:51It felt so true to what it is like for the many people that I know that have gone through

00:58war.

01:01And I liked when I read it.

01:02I thought it was going to go one way, and I was surprised that it didn't, and I was

01:08surprised that I was happy it didn't.

01:10At the beginning of the book, he says this is not a place.

01:14This is not a particular place.

01:15He wanted it to be universal, but he did say he liked Spanish names.

01:18He likes the sound of language.

01:21In the choice of the actors and actors, and these extraordinary actors, even though we

01:29weren't defining a place, we were taking a texture of a place.

01:32We were taking a place, their homeland as a center, and the tones and the feeling would

01:39inform a lot of the piece, and we chose to shoot in Italy, and that would also inform

01:45where we were.

01:46There was something about the dirt and the blood and the skin and the flesh that all

01:51kind of felt right to this, and it felt very organic, it felt of the earth.

01:58This feels very of the earth, this piece.

02:00And then also the table, there was something that I don't know if anybody notices, but

02:04as the conversation grows more difficult, it actually becomes warmer at the table.

02:11So they sit down, it's daytime, in the light of day, death in the light of day, which happens

02:17a few times in this.

02:18There's a lot of hard things in the light of day.

02:21And then as they go through the harder things, the sun sets, it gets warmer.

02:26As it gets harder, the candles get lit.

02:31It's a strange thing that hopefully brings you, and I think it felt that way maybe at

02:35the table.

02:36You kind of feel that you were kind of, the womb was closing in.

02:39When Angelina was prepping the film, we were talking and she was telling me that she wanted

02:48to do like a mood board.

02:52And she started pulling things by herself.

02:57This is a long time before the film started shooting.

03:01When she showed me what she called mood board, it was exactly the movie that I see today.

03:07It already looked like she had already shot a movie and she had put those pictures together.

03:15I wish I could hire her for any presentation of any project.

03:20It was shocking.

03:21It was perfect.

03:22It was beautiful.

03:24It was like Godfather, but in Mexico.

03:31Because I'm Mexican, she wanted to show me all these things.

03:34About that, I also want to say another thing.

03:36The book says it's an imaginary place.

03:39She could have picked anything, like any kind of new world, any kind of world for Damon

03:51and I, where sometimes they've taken our world and making it wide so that they can

03:58have, you know, bigger movie stars, you know, and things are taken away.

04:06This woman who could have taken any choice to bring it close to create a new culture

04:10that is inspired by our culture, it really feels like we are entering a new era.

04:20I've never, we were so proud that she took that base as an inspiration for her film.

04:29You know, I love sports in general and I love tennis and the only way you can have a decent

04:37match and the only way your game can exponentially grow is if you have a phenomenal tennis player

04:46playing alongside.

04:48And this is without a doubt the biggest challenge that I've encountered as an actor for many

04:54different reasons.

04:55I will always be grateful to Angelina and Salma to have moved heaven, earth and hell

05:03to allow me to make this film in terms of timing and the emotional essence of it.

05:11And to me it was, I was invited to take this huge risk and the only way you can do that

05:19is if your director is a generous human being, not only a phenomenal artist, and that's both,

05:26you know, Angelina is both.

05:27And she created this environment in which she allowed us to be free and feel safe in

05:36a way, feel safe to go through this emotional ride.

05:41And the only way I was able to survive was because of Salma, because she helped me and

05:48she had my back at all times and just the fact to have her in front of me and look at

05:54her eyes and look at each other in our eyes and all that, the rest of it was only to remember

06:01my lines, which I have never talked so much in any film in my life, not even in theater.

06:10I come from the theater and it was insane and it was the beautiful thing about all this

06:18is that our mother, she was always so calm and so relaxed and she had everything under

06:25control and warm and had everything ready for us to just go ahead and boom, do the best

06:33thing that we could.

06:34She was all that and so much more, but from time to time, even though she gave us time

06:40to explore, no, no, you will see, he's laughing already, she would come with all this elegance

06:48and loveliness and the smile, the guy said, guys, we're ahead of schedule, so I am going

06:58to give you an hour to go to your rooms and learn your next three page monologues, because

07:06I'd like to start like shooting it today, not tomorrow, since we are doing so well and

07:13we are ahead of time, and we would go like, okay, and then, oh my God, how are we going

07:20to do this?

07:21There was so much complicated emotional dialogue and at one time I said, I don't think this

07:27is possible, just give it a try, and then we did it, we would do it, I mean.

07:35I think she trusted us more than ourselves, you know what I mean?

07:42Now I'm better than I was, after this movie, because I didn't know I could do certain things

07:48that...

07:49That is the magic thing, she knew that.

07:50That she just...

07:51How?

07:52No one knows.

07:53I didn't want to eat kind of easy.

07:54But Thelma's not telling you, and I don't know if she'll ever say it, is your first

07:57day on set, she was so game, I always say this, you don't trust both of them, just that

08:05you could say, I'm going to try something, we're going to just agree that we're going

08:08to just push ourselves as people, we're going to talk about the hardest stuff, we're going

08:12to sit in the hardest stuff, we're going to share all the stuff, and we're just going

08:15to do something really like human together and, you know, that's the thing, right?

08:20And this is the first day, she said, go in there, there is no script, there are no props,

08:28and live the life of those years, explore what it was like.

08:37I am going to have one camera here, do you mind if I have a handheld really close to

08:42you?

08:43And I knew one of the operators said, fine, he's fine, I'm going to ignore him.

08:47You go and stay there.

08:52I'm not going to cut.

08:56This was so powerful.

08:59I did an improvisation, I say this very proudly, of 45 minutes that I didn't realize it was

09:0545 minutes, where so many things happened, and in this time, the first day, we got to

09:12know my character that we created together, because this character, I feel, is not just

09:17me.

09:18I think this character, it's the three of us, so I know this is a really strange one.

09:24I promise you, I really never felt it was me doing it.

09:30It always kind of just showed up as a spirit combined of the three, and in that improvisation,

09:38she did things that I would have never thought out, and we got to know that character that

09:46day.

09:47We got to meet that character that day in a deeper way than that goes beyond all the

09:53great conversations, amazing conversations.

09:55She was so brave.

09:56She won't say that.

09:57It is her.

09:58I'm not going to taunt her for it, but she was so brave, and it was a moment for me to

10:02really discover, and then I knew, then I realized just how amazing, and then, of course, I wanted

10:09to, then it was fun to push and play, because I saw this extraordinary, yeah, I know this

10:17extraordinary artist.

10:28Yeah.

10:29Yeah.

10:30Yeah.

10:31Yeah.

10:32Yeah.

10:33Yeah.

10:34Yeah.

'Without Blood’ | Deadline Studio at TIFF 2024

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