Taglines: Two agents. One city. No merci.
James becomes part of the CIA and his partner is Charlie. They go on a shooting spree through the Parisian underworld that has James praying for his desk job. He soon realizes that there is not turning back and Charlie might be his only hope for making it the next forty-eight hours alive.
A personal aide to the U.S. Ambassador in France, James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) has an enviable life in Paris and a beautiful French girlfriend, but his real passion is his side job as a low-level operative for the CIA. All James wants is to become a bona fide agent and see some real action. So when he’s offered his first senior-level assignment, he can’t believe his good luck – until he meets his new partner, special agent Charlie Wax (John Travolta).
A trigger-happy, wisecracking, loose cannon who’s been sent to Paris to stop a terrorist attack, Wax leads James on a white-knuckle shooting spree through the Parisian underworld that has James praying for his desk job. But when James discovers he’s a target of the same crime ring they’re trying to bust, he realizes there’s no turning back…and that Wax himself might be his only hope for making it through the next forty-eight hours alive.
When John Travolta first appears in Lionsgate and EuropaCorp’s action thriller, FROM PARIS WITH LOVE, audiences will behold an incarnation of the film star they’ve never seen before. From his early years in the seminal films SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and GREASE to his iconic re-emergence in PULP FICTION, Travolta has made a career of manipulating his popular image and tackling a breadth of characters that might intimidate most stars. As Charlie Wax, a senior level CIA agent with a slippery sense of morality and an over-active trigger finger, Travolta marries American bad-boy swagger with wry humor, adding another indelible character to his colorful gallery of performances.
“Charlie Wax is one of those guys who, because he’s so good at what he does, can afford to be a little unethical,” explains Travolta. “He’s the kind of guy that would be hired, for a lot of money, to go into very dangerous situations, war zones and so on, to do espionage type of work, undercover type of work, and he’s got it nailed. He’s not afraid of death. He has the war mentality.”
The idea of Charlie Wax was born from the mind of French filmmaker Luc Besson (LA FEMME NIKITALA FEMME NIKITA, THE FIFTH ELEMENT), who made his international mark bringing Hollywood-style storytelling and directorial pyrotechnics to European cinema. Working with screenwriter Adi Hasak, Besson developed the seed of a story about a reckless American agent on a 24-hour assignment in Paris into a rousing action script. “Luc pitched me the scene where Wax and Reese go back to Reese’s apartment and have dinner with Reese’s girlfriend,” says Hasak. “In that one scene, everything was there. The humor was there, the buddy element, the intrigue and action. I wrote a five-page treatment and a month later, I spent a week working with Luc to produce a full outline. A year later we were in pre-production!”
From the moment he read the script, Travolta saw in Wax the opportunity to try something completely new. “As an actor I’m first attracted to what I can do with a character that’s different than what someone else can do with it,” he says. “This was an outrageous character and it gave me a lot of opportunities to stretch.”
Conferring with French director Pierre Morel (TAKEN) and Besson, Travolta decided to fashion Charlie Wax’s look after real-life soldiers of fortune. “These guys are almost stylish now for some reason,” says Travolta. “We looked at pictures of these guys with guns and scarves and leather jackets and parachute pants and they looked glamorous and it was so bizarre to see this dichotomy of glamour with guns.”
Travolta also grew a goatee and shaved off his hair, which he found unexpectedly liberating as an actor. “A bald look gave me the freedom to be bald,” he explains. “Just like in PULP FICTION, where this unusual kind of Dutch haircut gave a kind of euro-trash feeling to the character, this heroine hit man. It’s very important because film’s a visual medium and all you know is what’s on screen, so you have to have a look that you are completely happy with. It satisfies the character.”
Pierre Morel agrees. “When you see all the movies John has done in his career, you always see him change. He likes to play with his image. Wax is a larger-than-life, over-the-top, itchy trigger-finger agent and we had a lot of fun creating the character with him.”
When directing Travolta, Morel encouraged the actor to perform takes that varied widely, with an eye toward further shaping Wax’s character during the editing process. “What I tried to do, which is something we talked a lot about with John, was to have John play the scene in a very logical straight-forward way and then have him do it in a funny way, almost over-acted, and then a much darker way,” explains Morel. “By taking bits and pieces from one take to the other, in editing we were able to build the character, who is a guy you never really know what to think of – is he someone you can trust or not?”
With Travolta on board, the filmmakers deliberated over who might play the best foil to Wax. The classic everyman, Reese is an embassy employee and aspiring spy who winds up getting much more than he bargained for when he’s assigned to be Wax’s guide and chauffeur. The versatile Irish actor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, known to audiences for his roles in Woody Allen’s MATCH POINT and the Showtime series, “The Tudors,” had a British classicism that contrasted perfectly with Travolta’s brash American character.
“Even though he’s a very grown-up guy and a very responsible guy, Reese has this idea of what being a spy is all about and it’s mainly stuff out of comic books. That element makes him like a child in a sense,” says Rhys Meyers. “But then slowly he starts to realize that it’s not all James Bond cars and nice suits and covert operations. It’s very dirty and bloody and messy and disgusting – the real world. He’s sort of living out his fantasy and the fantasy turns into a nightmare in front of him.”
Much of the comedy in FROM PARIS WITH LOVE stems from the mismatched couple at its heart. Wax has no trouble shooting first and asking questions later, while Reese fumbles, like any civilian might, at the prospect of killing anyone at all. Says Travolta, “At first Wax is trying to estimate who Reese is and how much of a liability he’ll be. Wax is taking a guy who has potential and turning him into someone a little more rugged.” “And Reese expects somebody who’s neat and proper and suited and booted, and what he gets is somebody who looks like he’s from a biker club in Florida,” adds Rhys Meyers.
According to Morel, the difference between the two characters was reflected in the actors themselves. “John is very American in his approach to acting – he likes to play with the character on set but it takes time and rehearsals to make it evolve. Jonathan, on the other hand, is very British in his approach. He works a lot beforehand, knows all his lines, so once he gets on set he knows precisely where to go. It’s not so far from the characters they play. Wax is the crazy guy who improvises all the time, while Reese is a very meticulous, do-everything-by-the-book type of guy.”
However different Travolta and Rhys Meyers may be in real life, they succeed in generating a sharply comic, vibrant chemistry on screen. “Jonathan and I both have a similar attack on acting, so we both approach it in a very naturalistic way,” says Travolta. “Our energies are similar in that we keep the fire lit throughout a scene and if we don’t, we make it happen. So having that agreement where we trust each other and we’re comfortable with each other allows for a scene to come alive.”
Taking advantage of the fact that Travolta and Rhys Meyers didn’t know each other before filming began, Morel arranged for the two actors to meet for the first time on camera. “They didn’t know what to expect from each other,” explains Morel. “So when their characters first meet in that French custom office, they are getting to know each other as actors too, and that was very helpful for the scene.”
“We were lucky because the chemistry works or it doesn’t work and you don’t know until you get there,” says Rhys Meyers. “We had the greatest time together because John is just a really genuine guy, a very open and warm individual.”
Adds executive producer Virginia Besson-Silla, “The really special thing was having two brilliant actors performing together, to have so much emotion when there was just the two of them in the simplest scenes. As soon as Pierre said, `Action,’ the dialogue fizzed between them.”
Actress Kasia Smutniak rounds out the principal cast as Caroline, Reese’s French girlfriend whose innocence masks a dark secret. “Caroline is very interesting,” says Smutniak. “I tried to give as much humanity as I could to her, because she’s trapped in a difficult in-between place. I wanted to keep her, in the first part, very sweet and very calm. That’s what we need so that you don’t know exactly who she is. Even in the movie we don’t know exactly where she’s from, why she’s doing this and only in the last part of the story do we learn more about her.”
“We did a test with Kasia and she just nailed it right away,” reports Morel. “She was able to be light and funny and nice, and the next second very emotional or very dark. “
“Kasia is just great, a wonderful girl and an exceptional actress,” avows Rhys Meyers. “I just thought the world of her. She was a lot of fun to work with.”
After directing Liam Neeson in the dark thriller, TAKEN, director Pierre Morel looked forward to combining action and comedy in FROM PARIS WITH LOVE. “This project is more about the relationship between the two guys, who aren’t supposed to work well with each other but they have to, and that’s what makes it fun,” he explains. “It starts out like a funny buddy movie and evolves, slowly but surely, into a darker plot, all the way to the final twist.”
“Pierre Morel was the perfect director for this project,” says Besson-Silla. “This is a buddy movie with a lot of comedic dialogue and situations, and also a drama because the backdrop to the story is terrorism, which of course is anything but comic. Pierre has the subtlety to make a movie that combines comedy with a very dramatic story totally credible.”
Travolta, who has worked with many of the industry’s best directors, reports that he was impressed by Morel during production. “Pierre has a high intelligence, a good sense of logic and a desire to really make a good movie. He’s a very elegant man and a good communicator. He’s filled with good ideas, and the crew respected him and worked very hard for him. He has a very strong passion for this.”
“He’s the most patient person I’ve ever met in my life,” adds Smutniak. “He always puts you in a good mood and I felt safe. He always gives you a lot of space to improvise.”
Born and bred in Paris, Morel had to consider how to shoot his native city in a manner that was appealing to foreigners, while remaining grounded in the gritty, every day reality of the story. “You’re always torn between making Paris look like a postcard and making it like Paris really is,” he admits. “In the beginning, we go to the Eiffel Tower and the nice parts of Paris and then, slowly but surely, we drift towards the edges, the places in Paris that people don’t want to see.”
Morel’s balancing act with the film’s tone also extended to the action scenes themselves. He was careful to choreograph sequences that were less dark than those featured in TAKEN, while adding a subtle comic touch to the action. With this in mind, Morel sought to take advantage of Travolta’s skills as a dancer, featured most notably in his iconic performances in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and GREASE. “We choreographed all his fights and moves and stuff in a very swinging and dancing way,” the director says. “It really is more like choreography in the dance sense than fight choreography.”
“I like the movement and I like the different mindset,” says Travolta. “You use your body in a different way in an action movie. But I wouldn’t be able to do half the stunts that I do today if I didn’t dance. Or I could do them but they wouldn’t be as fluent or as interesting perhaps.”
Despite Travolta’s talent for physical movement, he admits that FROM PARIS WITH LOVE was a notable challenge, particularly at his age. “This is probably the most action-packed film I’ve ever been in and is the most active that I’ve ever been,” he says. “I laugh at the idea that I’m allowing myself to do half the things I do. Every time I do a stunt where I’m rolling over, jumping over a table or jumping in the air with two guns, I giggle because theoretically you should be winding down at my age and not winding up!”
For Rhys Meyers, who has starred primarily in dialogue-driven dramas, his first experience starring in an action movie proved to be unexpectedly challenging. “It’s hard,” he says. “Action scenes look cool but they’re technically complicated to shoot. It’s hard to find a sense of flow since it’s all little bits, little vignettes that you cut together to look cool. It takes a lot of time.”
Despite the difficulty of the production, both stars enjoyed the opportunity to live and work in France. “I’ve worked in foreign countries where I haven’t been able to speak the language, and this French crew in particular, they were very nice to each other and to me,” says Rhys Meyers. “They were nothing but really pleasant to me. There was a great camaraderie. The crew genuinely liked each other and they supported each other.”
Working in France, for Travolta, was the fulfillment of a life-long wish. “I’ve wanted to do a movie in France for years,” he reveals. “I loved the atmosphere on set. I’m a very affectionate person and I loved that everybody hugs and kisses each other. But more importantly, I really appreciated that there is a work ethic and a care factor that matters. I had a great time.”
From Paris With Love (2010)
Directed by: Pierre Morel
Starring: John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kasia Smutniak, Amber Rose Revah, Melissa Mars, Farid Elouardi, François Bredon, Sami Darr, Rebecca Dayan, Julien Hagnery, Joaquim Almeria
Screenplay by: Luc Besson, Adi Hasak
Production Design by: Jacques Bufnoir
Cinematography by: Michel Abramowicz
Film Editing by: Frédéric Thoraval
Costume Design by: Olivier Bériot
Set Decoration by: Véronique Melery
Music by: David Buckley
MPAA Rating: R for strong bloody violence throughout, drug content, pervasive language, sexuality.
Distributed by: Lionsgate Films
Release Date: February 5, 2010