"You’re out in the middle of the dessert poking and prodding at air in front of 300 people. But once you get into a rhythm of it, you just let your imagination go because there are no constraints with what you’re acting with. It’s all your imagination. Once you kind of get into the motion of it, it’s kind of fun."
Steven Strait (“The Covenant”) stars in Roland Emmerich’s journey to a prehistoric time where man and beast battled for supremacy and danger lurked around the corner from all species. “10,000 B.C.” tells of one man’s rise as a hero as he journeys across dangerous lands to rescue his childhood love Evolet (Camilla Belle).
We talked to Steven recently at a press day in New York City about working on a project of “mammoth” proportions.
Q: Was that your real hair in the movie?
STEVEN: (Laughs) It was not.
Q: Did you have to grow your hair out though?
STEVEN: You need to let a little bit so it attaches because when you’re running all over the place, you don’t want the wig to go flying. It was pretty extensive. It was about two or three hours of hair and makeup every morning. It was the wig and four layers of makeup with dirt and mud. Putting on the clothes was an hour or so, so yeah it was pretty extensive.
Q: Running across all those lands, you must’ve gotten pretty dirty…
STEVEN: We were dirty! I never appreciated how much I loved bathing until after the movie.
Q: So despite the challenges, what was it that attracted you to “10,000 B.C.”?
STEVEN: Roland, first and foremost. I’m of the generation that grew up with his films. I saw “Stargate” when I was nine years old. I’ve been a huge fan since I was [little]. I read the script and thought it was incredibly original. The originality of it, I loved a lot. Essentially it’s a love story that has all this action and adventure all around it and I just found it incredibly unique and cool.
Q: What was it like having to exercise your imagination and act against beasts and mammoths that weren’t there?
STEVEN: Well, initially you feel a little silly. (Laughs) I’m not going to lie. You’re out in the middle of the dessert poking and prodding at air in front of 300 people. But once you get into a rhythm of it, you just let your imagination go because there are no constraints with what you’re acting with. It’s all your imagination. Once you kind of get into the motion of it, it’s kind of fun.
We shot most of [the film] on location so there wasn’t a lot of blue screen. They just plugged them in post. At the time, when we were shooting the mammoth hunt sequences, for example, there was nothing there. There was no blue screens and nothing to react off of. They basically said, “You react off of what you’re imagining and we’ll work around you.” That was liberating in a very strange way.
Q: Did you and Roland talk about the mythology of what might have taken place back then?
STEVEN: I think Roland has a big fascination with theories of when things were made, lost civilizations and things of that sore. We talked about how the pyramids and Sphinx and how there’s a debate as to when they were made because of a lack of hieroglyphics. Things don’t tend to match with other Egyptian temples. But “10,000 B.C.” is by no means a documentary. We really allowed the fantasy of it to go and wanted to make a movie that had a little bit of everything and it’s a film that you can disappear into for two hours and just have a good time.
Q: Did you have to lose weight prior to shooting the film?
STEVEN: It’s interesting because I grew up with martial arts. My mother was a karate teacher growing up. I boxed for many years. Dropping and gaining weight was something I was pretty familiar with because I would have to get into a weight class. You’d drop 10 to 15 pounds so you could register for a weight class and then you’d put it back on before the match. I had lost 30 to 40 pounds in a month and a half before boot camp and before production. They had me on this dietary program that was limited enough so that they would get the maximum amount of weight off but not be totally detrimental to my health. It was extensive.
Q: Having done a wide range of genres in your career, which is still young, are you surprised at the kind of things you’ve been offered?
STEVEN: To be perfectly honest with you, it just panned out that way. I started going to acting school when I was 13 years old. I love all types of films and I love all types of genres. I’ve been fortunate that way. I’ve been fortunate in many ways but that is certainly an aspect of it – being able to do a comedy, a musical, a supernatural film and even a war drama.
"10,000 B.C." opens in theaters on March 7th.
