Taglines: Take back your life.
Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) awakens after a car accident in Berlin to discover that his wife (January Jones) suddenly doesn’t recognize him and another man (Aidan Quinn) has assumed his identity. Ignored by disbelieving authorities and hunted by mysterious assassins, he finds himself alone, tired and on the run. Aided by an unlikely ally (Diane Kruger), Martin plunges headlong into a deadly mystery that will force him to question his sanity, his identity, and just how far he’s willing to go to uncover the truth.
Unknown is a British-German-French action thriller film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, starring Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones, Aidan Quinn, Bruno Ganz, and Frank Langella. The film is based on the 2003 French novel published in English as Out of My Head, by Didier Van Cauwelaert.
About the Production
Martin: He’s not Martin Harris. I am Martin Harris. That man is pretending to be me. What if you knew, deep down, who you really were, but couldn’t prove it? And what if someone else—someone you didn’t know—claimed to be you, and everyone believed him?
That is the dilemma at the center of “Unknown.” Who or what determines who we are? Is it our friends…our memories…where we come from…a piece of paper…? Where is the proof? Based on the novel by Didier van Cauwelaert, “Unknown” explores exactly that as Dr. Martin Harris, played by Liam Neeson, races through the cold streets of Berlin in order to take back his life, while dodging the men who are hot on his trail and trying to kill him. Though he has no idea why.
Director Jaume Collet-Serra offers, “My favorite films are those Hitchcockian thrillers that have that mysterious atmosphere, where the audience is as much in the dark as the characters, and you don’t really know where the story is going to take you.”
Producer Joel Silver states, “I love a nail-biter, a real edge-of-your-seat movie, and that’s what I liked most about this story. You don’t know if Martin Harris is the good guy, or if he’s gone slightly insane and is making this whole crazy thing up.”
It was producer Leonard Goldberg who brought French author van Cauwelaert’s book to Silver. “When I read the novel, I thought it would be a perfect vehicle for Joel and I to produce together, because it was such a unique thriller and the ending totally surprised me,” Goldberg says. “Happily, Joel was as intrigued with the story as I was.”
“Leonard was right; it had such an interesting hook to it, I couldn’t put it down,” Silver confirms. “We developed the screenplay with two great writers, Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell.”
To direct the film, Silver looked to Jaume Collet-Serra, with whom he had collaborated on two prior films. “Jaume has a great style and understands how to let a mystery unfold. I was eager to work with him again.”
“I loved the idea of this man waking up one day and discovering that he has been replaced in the world,” Collet-Serra says. “And there was the added drama of another person being able to prove he was him, while the protagonist could not. It was the first of several great twists in the tale, and even with all these great clues sprinkled throughout the script, I liked that I could not figure it out.”
The star of “Unknown” was pulled into the story from the start. “For me, it’s always the script, and this was a real page-turner,” Neeson asserts. “My litmus test is this: if I can get to page 50 without stopping for a tea break, then it’s a very good sign. This was such good material that I had to read it all in one sitting.”
Producer Andrew Rona agrees. “This was one screenplay I truly couldn’t put down. It was such an exhilarating read; I couldn’t wait to see how it would translate to the screen.”
“‘Unknown’ is a freight train, it just grabs you and goes,” Joel Silver says. “And you may think you know where it’s going, but I don’t think you’ll see this one coming.”
Martin: Liz, I was in an accident. I was in a coma… I’m so sorry, they didn’t know who I was.
Liz: Excuse me… do I know you?
Liam Neeson plays Dr. Martin Harris, a botanist, who arrives with his wife, Liz, at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin for a biotechnology summit. When Martin realizes that his briefcase didn’t make it into the taxi with them, he grabs another cab to rush back to the airport. But en route, they are in a terrible accident. The driver, Gina, bravely saves Martin’s life but then mysteriously disappears. After lying in a coma for four days, he awakens; with no identification, Martin struggles to remember who he is.
“Once he remembers his identity, he urgently tries to locate his wife, assuming she must be frantic with worry,” Neeson relates. But when he finds Liz back at the hotel, she doesn’t know him, and worse, another man is claiming to be him—and Liz believes this “other” Martin.
“It’s like reverse amnesia,” Collet-Serra reveals. “It’s as if the world has amnesia about him—he absolutely knows who he is, but everyone else has forgotten him.”
The filmmakers all agreed that Neeson was the perfect actor for the role because he has such tremendous screen presence.
“I’ve always admired Liam’s work,” Collet-Serra says, “and for a director, he is a generous actor that keeps on giving, on set and on screen. He can be very intense and very subtle at the same time.”
Both would be required; it was essential that the character draw the audience into his psyche, so they would be trying to decipher why all this is happening, right along with him.
The director continues, “One of my concerns was that the viewer has so little time to get to know Martin before everything goes awry. But with Liam, there’s an instant connection. You like him, you believe in him.”
“We wanted somebody people would root for,” Silver adds. “Liam has great charisma, and is also totally accessible, and those are exactly the traits we needed for Martin Harris.”
“To the audience, Martin Harris seems to have the perfect marriage and an interesting life,” Neeson explains, “but it’s all suddenly shattered in an instant. He is alone and not just abandoned, but rejected by everyone he thinks he knows. And his every impulse makes him more determined to find out the truth and, more importantly, prove he is who he says he is.”
Neeson was attracted to the idea of exploring lost identity. “I totally locked in to what Martin was going through,” he says. “I was an amateur boxer as a kid, and I got my bell rung a few times. It’s always stayed with me, that memory of not having a memory, even for a short time. It was an interesting life experience to draw on for this role.”
Nearly everywhere he looks for help, Martin is turned away, the first being the most devastating—when he goes to see his wife. Expecting her to be relieved to see him and to run to him with open arms, he is stunned when she greets him with nothing more than the guileless stare of a complete stranger.
Playing the part of Elizabeth Harris is January Jones who, like Neeson, was drawn to the unique qualities of the story. “This was something I hadn’t read before; it was so interesting and intricate,” the actress offers. “It reminded me of those old spy movies, with a sense of danger and intrigue, but also a hint of glamour to it.”
Jones also enjoyed the enigmatic way her character was written. “Nothing was set in stone with Liz; she was very smart, but also inscrutable, and I loved how unpredictable she was. You know that Martin loves her, but her side of the story isn’t quite clear, so there was a lot to play around with,” she says.
“January is an intelligent actress and her work is very layered,” Collet-Serra says. “She’s also beautiful in a way that is reminiscent of the femme fatales of the `50s, so she really had all the qualities we wanted to play this indefinable figure.” “Liz Harris is the icy, sexy blond who is right in the heat of things,” Silver comments. “January was wonderful at giving you just enough to let you know there’s more to her story, without giving anything away.”
When even his own wife doesn’t recognize him, Martin must find the only other person in Berlin who saw him before the accident—the taxi driver, Gina. After the crash, she saved him from certain death at the bottom of the river, but then inexplicably vanished.
Unknown
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones, Aidan Quinn, Bruno Ganz, Frank Langella, Sebastian Koch, Olivier Schneider, Eva Löbau, Mido Hamada
Screenplay by: Oliver Butcher, Stephen Cornwell, Didier Van Cauwelaert
Production Design by: Richard Bridgland
Cinematography by: Flavio Martínez Labiano
Film Editing by: Timothy Alverson
Costume Design by: Ruth Myers
Set Decoration by: Bernhard Henrich
Art Direction by: Stephen Dobric, Anja Müller, Andreas Olshausen, Cornelia Ott
Music by: John Ottman, Alexander Rudd
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some intense sequences of violence and action, and brief sexual content.
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: February 18, 2011
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