All About Chloe
France’s StudioCanal fully financed the picture developed by Montecito Picture Company, co-founded by Ivan Reitman and former Universal chairman Tom Pollock. Ivan Reitman, Joe Medjuck and Jeffrey Clifford are producers for Montecito. Co-producers are Simone Urdl and Jennifer Weiss. Executive Producers are Tom Pollock, Jason Reitman and Daniel Dubiecki. CHLOE is distributed by StudioCanal in France and in the United Kingdom and Germany through its subsidiaries Optimum Releasing and Kinowelt. It will also handle worldwide sales outside its direct distribution territories.
To pen a screenplay that would tell a compelling story of erotic intrigue, Producer Ivan Reitman contacted Erin Cressida Wilson, who scripted Secretary and Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus; work the producers admired. “They’re wonderful scripts,” shares Reitman. “Particularly Secretary which had the right kind of ironic unusual eroticism that I thought would be appropriate for this movie.” They began a collaboration that would last four years. “My joke is that I started out writing this film when I was Chloe and I finished it when I was Catherine; that’s how long it took to write,” shares Wilson with a laugh while on set in Toronto.
In the Spring of 2007, Reitman sent the script to fellow Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan. “We approached Atom to direct because philosophically, there is much in this movie that he has touched on in his own films. There is a definite connection in his work to the themes of CHLOE,” explains Reitman. Indeed, the common threads that appear in much of Egoyan’s work: rich and complex characters, the dynamics of family; the differences between appearance and reality, and the subjective nature of truth are woven throughout CHLOE. However, unlike his own scripts, it is a linear story. CHLOE marks the first of his 13 feature films that Oscar-nominated Egoyan hasn’t written himself.
In receiving the script Egoyan found his interest piqued on many levels. “I’m very interested in the process of storytelling and how people recount and narrate their own lives, and CHLOE is really a wonderful examination of that,” shares Egoyan. “I was simply thrilled to receive the script because it was finally a chance to work with Erin—I’m a huge fan of hers, beginning with her theater plays and erotic stories; and of course, the fact that it came through Ivan Reitman, who is someone I have such great respect for, was wonderful.”
The appeal of CHLOE lies in the casting as much as the intrigue of the story. “We have assembled a great cast capable of making this intoxicating movie resonate with a very wide audience,” states veteran producer and director Ivan Reitman. Four-time Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore and Academy Award nominee Liam Neeson are joined by Amanda Seyfried, breakout star of worldwide smash hit Mamma Mia! “CHLOE is a movie that is totally dependent on the excellence and the specificity of the people playing these roles. As an audience we are very close to these characters and become extremely invested in what happens to these creatures, and unless they’re perfect, the movie’s a failure,” shares Reitman with great honesty.
Reitman’s long-time producing partner Joe Medjuck agrees that one of the biggest challenges in producing a film is finding the perfect actors to bring the characters to life. “I think we found a wonderful cast. Ivan had worked with Julianne before and Atom with Liam and we knew what they were capable of. For Chloe, it was key to find someone who could play the role and really be believable.”
The honesty and intimate sexuality of the character-driven film made casting the role of Chloe, an alluring young escort, difficult. Producers and director Atom Egoyan auditioned hundreds of actresses from Los Angeles, to Toronto, to London, and although they saw many strong performances, it was very clear to them that it was Amanda Seyfried who had the right chemistry.
“Finding Amanda to play Chloe was a great relief. If we had not gotten her to do this part, we’re not sure we could have made the movie,” admits Reitman. “Amanda has this extraordinary natural beauty that complements perfectly Julianne’s high sensuality. Their relationship switches from erotic drama to thriller as Chloe’s intimate involvement threatens the family’s perfect world,” he explains of the film’s female leads.
“I think the cast is fabulous. All four actors [Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Max Thieriot] are complex people and they’ve brought so much to their characters,” says screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson. “Amanda is some sort of gift from heaven with a face that was blessed by God and an idiosyncratic intelligence that is totally unpredictable and fun.” Wilson admits too that Julianne Moore was the first, and only person to ever be Catherine Stewart. “I wrote the role with Julianne in mind. Needless to say, I’m crazily thrilled that she accepted.”
Moore’s character, Dr. Catherine Stewart, has found herself at a point in her life where she feels she has lost control. Her only child, Michael, played by Max Thieriot, is entering into adulthood after a few tumultuous and emotional teen years and Catherine, feeling she’s lost touch with her “little boy,” is unable to allow him to make the break from his parents. At the same time, her relationship with her husband David, played by Liam Neeson, shifted somewhere along the way. The sense of loss is poignantly captured in the moment David decides to penetrate their relationship issues and asks Catherine when the two stopped picking each other up at the airport. Catherine finally responds: “It just happened one day. We didn’t have time anymore.”
“The one thing Catherine thought she understood was her relationship with her husband and child and suddenly she doesn’t understand it at all and feels like she doesn’t have a hand in it,” shares Moore of her character. “These people she loves seem so far away. Her intention, [in hiring Chloe], is to understand her husband and find a way to come to see what it is that he wants. And so the intimacy she develops with Chloe, is really about trying to be closer to her husband. To be in a movie where there’s discussion of the nature of intimacy and how dangerous, how loaded it can be, is really compelling. In a sense she didn’t seem unusual to me, she seemed like someone who was at a point where their life is changing and I think almost anyone can relate to that.”
An exceedingly accomplished performer, Moore was initially attracted to the project because the script found its way to her desk from Atom Egoyan. “Atom is a director whose career I’ve followed avidly and I’ve always wanted to work with him,” says Moore. “I felt reassured in embarking on this emotional journey because Atom’s work is always so compelling and so grounded in feeling, in emotion, in thought; his work is not flip or light or glib. It is always provocative and there’s behavior in it that you recognize and are interested in.”
Liam Neeson had read an early draft of the screenplay but it was in 2008 while working with Egoyan who directed him in the Lincoln Center remount of Samuel Beckett’s teleplay Eh, Joe, that Neeson agreed to reread the script. “In reading it again, I found it to be very erotic and dangerous. There aren’t many directors who would take this on and I thought, ‘my gosh, this is right up Atom Egoyan’s alley.‘ He’ll do this in such a way that it will be unique and special,” Neeson explains. “In portraying David, a loving husband and father who idolizes his job, I wanted to play each scene for the truth that’s there and it was easy to do that with Julianne and Amanda because there was such an atmosphere of trust; the three of us got on very well,” adds Neeson. The undeniably charismatic Neeson bears a versatility and quiet forcefulness that make his performances compelling. “I think it’ll really surprise people who haven’t seen this side of him,” Egoyan says.
In preparing to shoot the film, Egoyan recalls: “One of the most important things for me was to ascertain that this type of woman could exist—a prostitute that works in hotels. One of the fears I had, in the age of the Internet and escort services, was whether someone would in fact still go to a hotel lobby or bar to pick up a prostitute. So on the trips I was making to New York for Eh, Joe, I did some research and found it’s very much alive. It’s very subtle—all about eye contact and a very specific code one can’t intercept that easily, but it’s very present. I would then talk to Amanda about it as we discussed her character and what moment Chloe is at in her life where someone like Catherine becomes so compelling for her. Amanda is disarmingly available but she also has an incredible amount of emotional reserve; she’s unpredictable and compelling—truly a rare talent.”
Embracing the role of Chloe was something Seyfried did fearlessly. “When I first read it –it was unlike anything I had ever done and I knew it would be difficult. The film is certainly a thriller but it’s so much more intense in structure and complexity. Chloe is an exotic creature but she is a very damaged soul who has been on her own since she was 15. She’s obviously very experienced and smart in terms of the business of being a professional, but at 23, she’s still very young.
Once she meets Catherine, the evolution of Chloe is linked to Catherine’s cues—every little thing Catherine does affects her. In playing Chloe, and the costumes and hair and makeup certainly helped me embody her, I found it’s a very powerful feeling to be able to give men what they need and then just walk away from it and be just a memory and I think there’s something in that – I don’t know if I could do that but I can see where it’s attractive,” Seyfried muses. “It was a lucky break for me to be able to work with Atom,” shares Seyfried. “He has a wonderful approach which made working with him to deliver such sensitive material a joy.”
Chloe (2010)
Directed by: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Julianne Moore, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Max Thieriot, Meghan Heffern, Nina Dobrev, Mishu Vellani, Tiffany Lyndall-Knight, Natalie Lisinska, Laura de Carteret
Screenplay by: Erin Cressida Wilson
Production Design by: Phillip Barker
Cinematography by: Paul Sarossy
Film Editing by: Susan Shipton
Costume Design by: Debra Hanson
Set Decoration by: Jim Lambie
Art Direction by: Kim McQuiston
MPAA Rating: R for strong sexual content including graphic dialogue, nudity and language.
Distributed by: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: March 26, 2010
