All About Hereafter
“Hereafter” unfolds through the eyes of three individuals in different parts of the world. Though their lives ultimately converge, they begin their journeys alone. Matt Damon plays George Lonegan, a reluctant psychic medium trying to break free from the desperate people seeking one last moment with loved ones that have passed on.
After working with Damon on “Invictus,” Eastwood hoped to cast the actor in the film, a desire Damon echoed. “I originally thought that my schedule wasn’t going to permit me to do it because I was on another movie when Clint called me,” Damon remembers. “I said, ‘Did you just call me and say you have a Peter Morgan script that you’re directing? You want to offer me the part and it’s going while I’m working on another movie? I’d rather be tortured than get that call,’” he deadpans. “But it worked out, luckily, because Clint is so flexible. I love working with Clint and his whole team.”
Since the story is comprised of three separate storylines in three countries, Eastwood was able to shoot the film in a way that accommodated Damon’s schedule. “I thought, why not just do the two stories and then do Matt’s story when he’s available?” Eastwood recalls. “So, that’s what we did. I’m obviously a fan of Matt’s and knew he could really play the character’s conflict.”
“I think Matt is emerging as one of the most important actors that we’ve had in a long time, when you look at the body of work and the array of roles that he’s taken on,” Kennedy comments. “And one of the reasons he loves working with Clint is that there is always going to be something that he can learn from him in terms of acting or directing.”
The actor describes his character as “a very lonely guy. He has, within the last three years, made a big life change because of this ability he has to talk to people that have passed on. It’s something he doesn’t want, that he looks at more as a curse than a gift. It interferes with his ability to be intimate with anybody because of what he experiences when he makes any kind of physical contact with them.”
Though George is genuinely gifted, he is aware that the field of psychics and mediums is rife with phonies and the pseudo-scientific. “We try to show the legitimacy of what he does,” Eastwood notes, “as opposed to the charlatans out there. Whether there are some who are legitimate and others who are not is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak, but the story does touch on the existence of people that take advantage of those who want to make contact with what might be out there.”
One who would like to take advantage of that market is George’s brother, Billy, played by Jay Mohr. “I think Billy is a natural-born hustler,” asserts Mohr. “His brother has a very special ability, and I think Billy would really like him to use it to make them both rich, even though, emotionally, it’s very soul-sapping for George. But Billy is just relentless about it.”
“Casting Jay Mohr as Billy was by far the easiest job we had,” states Lorenz. “Jay came in and was a real salesman. He didn’t go for any of the sappy stuff. Jay’s Billy was the ideal contrast to George.”
In an attempt to move on, George enters into a tentative romance with Melanie, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, a displaced Midwesterner he meets at a cooking class. “Melanie has just moved to San Francisco because she just got dumped by someone, so she’s also trying to start over,” Howard says. “When she gets paired up with George at this cooking class, he seems perfect for her. She’s a little bit nervous and he’s a little bit shy; they have a nice, genuine rapport. But as they get to know each other, it becomes clear that George has his secret, and Melanie has secrets of her own.”
Lorenz says Howard brought the character’s vulnerability to life: “Bryce has a youthful charm and spirit that was perfect for Melanie in so many ways. And her chemistry with Matt was very strong, which we all saw in their first scene together in the cooking class. But, of course, in an emotional, heartbreaking moment, we discover that she’s got a lot of turmoil in her life.”
“Meeting Melanie is an example of how George’s life gets screwed up by having this talent, this clairvoyance… whatever you want to call it,” says Eastwood. “They’re the kind of people you root for. You want them to be together. But, of course, there is a problem.”
“George’s demon is that he literally can see people’s souls,” Kennedy explains. “He can very quickly tap into things that they feel only they know. And oftentimes what he’s revealing, what he’s uncovering, are things that people don’t necessarily want to reveal to other people.”
The one place George has always found refuge is in CD recordings of the works of Victorian novelist Charles Dickens, read by English actor Derek Jacobi. “George realizes that he’s connected to this writer who’s got all these ghosts in his head that are there with him all the time,” Damon remarks.
Marie in Paris
Marie Lelay, a popular French anchorwoman and political journalist, begins her journey in a small seaside town in Southeast Asia while on a holiday with her boyfriend, Didier.
Marie is played by Belgian actress Cécile de France, who offers, “Marie is a strong, wealthy businesswoman who is in love with her job and passionate about always telling the truth in her reporting. It’s why she’s a good journalist and why she’s so popular. She is in a relationship with the producer of her show, and theirs is the love of extremely busy people. They’re not very attached to what is happening in their hearts at the beginning of the story.”
Eastwood chose de France for the role after viewing her audition tape early in the casting process. “I looked at a few people and right away, she just jumped out,” Eastwood recalls. “I wasn’t familiar with Cécile prior to this, but I think she’s one of the finest actresses I’ve worked with.” Marie’s life is forever changed when she leaves her hotel to look for gifts for Didier’s children in the street market. In the distance there is a roar and she turns to see a devastating tsunami thundering towards her, destroying everything in its wake. “She is absorbed by this killer wave,” de France says. “She fights to catch her breath but is dragged under. And while she is actually dying, she experiences this vision. Everything becomes quiet and completely dark; a distant light catches her eyes. Time stands still, and the light in the distance comes closer and closer. There is no sense of linear time or emotion. It’s all-knowing, all-sensing.”
The sensation doesn’t last, and soon Marie is gasping for breath and regaining consciousness. Eastwood says, “After that near-death experience, she goes back to Paris and back to work, but this event has disturbed every aspect of her life.”
“There is an anxiety that all human beings share when we are confronted with the mystery of death,” de France asserts. “We don’t have answers to something that we cannot control. And this kind of trauma forces us to face the fact that we all die one day. Marie can’t move on from what has happened to her.”
As she attempts to reintegrate back into her life, she discovers an essential separation between herself and those around her. “As a journalist, she’s very fact-based; it’s all about the images and the stories,” Kennedy relates. “When this happens to Marie, not only does she become profoundly curious about what happened, but the people around her begin to think that’s she’s gone a little off the deep end. They don’t want to even talk about it.”
Her producer boyfriend is immediately uncomfortable with the change in her. French actor Thierry Neuvic, who plays Didier, explains, “Didier assumes she’s under a lot of stress and has post-traumatic shock from the tsunami. He’s a pragmatic man and cannot understand the change she’s going through. So, a gap begins to grow between them. Didier doesn’t want to go down this road with her.”
Marie’s loneliness and search for answers drives her to begin writing a book about her own experience. Her frustrating quest for information eventually leads her to a hospice in the Alps. Veteran Swiss actress and contemporary opera director Marthe Keller plays Dr. Rousseau, who has studied the phenomenon and now administers to patients in a hospice in the Alps.
Marcus in London
Twin brothers George and Frankie McLaren were cast as the centerpiece of the film’s story of loss. Casting director Fiona Weir read over 100 sets of twins in London for the roles of Jason and Marcus. Though they had done some theater, they had no film acting experience, which Eastwood saw as an asset to their roles in “Hereafter.” “They have great faces and come from a working class neighborhood,” he says. “They were the least experienced, but they jumped right into it and had a very natural way about them that appealed to me.”
“They were so instantly right for the way Peter had written these twins,” adds Kennedy. “Clint brought out of them a kind of quiet, somewhat damaged sensibility, and some secret that you sense they share.”
Jason and Marcus are twin brothers from London’s working class council estates. Their mother, Jackie, played by Lyndsey Marshal, is struggling with addiction, and the boys are one social worker visit away from being sent to a foster home. “Jackie loves her children but she can’t really cope on her own,” Marshal describes. “She’s quite young, doesn’t have a lot of money, and she’s fallen into drugs. The boys really feel a need to repair her, and cover for her when social services visit their flat. There’s an absolute wisdom beyond their years from having to cope with the situation.”
Born 12 minutes earlier, Jason is the more confident twin and looks after both his mother and brother. “They’re close because they don’t have many friends,” says Frankie McLaren. “They always stick by each other because they’re all each other has.”
On an errand for his mother, Jason is struck and killed by a car, leaving Marcus to face the unimaginable alone. “Marcus is sort of the weaker of the two, and when his brother is tragically killed, he is set adrift, unsure of what to do next or how to go about life,” Lorenz comments. “He’s really lost and searching for answers.”
“Getting back in touch with his brother becomes an obsession for him,” adds Kennedy, who is herself a twin. “He’s trying to find a way to make sense of his life without the person who was so much like him. I think anyone has these feelings when they lose a close sibling or a parent. But as an identical twin, I think you do feel like you lose a part of yourself. This aspect of the story definitely resonates with me, but I think it’s an idea that will resonate with anybody who understands that kind of relationship.”
Both McLaren twins alternated as the characters of Jason and Marcus, which added to the sense that they were two halves of a whole. “I think the most profound loss would be of a twin, someone who is literally from your own cell,” says Peter Morgan. “It is especially terrible because the boys in the story are so young and only know life together.”
Marcus clings to the memory of Jason, along with the hat his brother always wore. “Jason has a special cap that he wears,” says George McLaren. “And when Jason is killed, Marcus takes the hat and puts it on. He wears it to bed; he takes it everywhere with him.”
Adding to Marcus’s isolation is the fact that the accident results in him being taken from his mother and placed in a foster home. “He’s very young and wary of the world and wary of us,” says Irish actress Niamh Cusack, who plays his foster mother. “He needs to feel that Jason is still with him. That is his only security.”
In an attempt to reestablish a connection with his brother, Marcus goes on an odyssey through the internet’s community of psychics and mediums. “He goes around and talks to people to see if there’s anybody who can contact Jason, and he runs into all these charlatans who say they can talk to the afterlife, but they can’t really,” says Eastwood.
But his search ultimately yields a name, and the name a face: George Lonegan. So, Marcus sets out on his own to find the one person he believes can help him find the answers he needs.
Hereafter (2010)
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Matt Damon, Bryce Dallas Howard, Cécile De France, Thierry Neuvic, Cyndi Mayo Davis, Lisa Griffiths, Jessica Griffiths, rankie McLaren, Charlie Creed-Miles, Lyndsey Marshal, Rebekah Staton
Screenplay by: Peter Morgan
Production Design by: James J. Murakami
Cinematography by: Tom Stern
Film Editing by: Joel Cox, Gary Roach
Costume Design by: Deborah Hopper
Set Decoration by: Gary Fettis
Art Direction by: Patrick M. Sullivan
Music by: Clint Eastwood
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic elements including disturbing disaster and accident images, and for strong language.
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: October 22, 2010
