For producer David Foster, who spent several months in Mexico as one of the producers of the Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones film "The Mask of Zorro," the unique challenges of filming on such a location were not surprising. "It's the price a committed production pays for authenticity," he says.
"It was not an easy shoot, "Foster says candidly. "The roads were rough where we wanted to go, and in some cases they were non-existent. Water had to be brought in and carried everywhere. But still, it's an undeniably beautiful country with so many unspoiled areas, and for the atmosphere we were trying to create it was made to order. I was on the initial location scout in Veracruz with Andy Davis and instantly we knew that this was the place."
Accentuating the positive is Cliff Curtis, who says, "I love location work! Mexico, for me, was a breeze. I was staying at a beautiful hacienda and having a great time being out in nature with the elements. I got to see real-life poisonous spiders and poisonous snakes — how many other jobs could I have that would allow me to make that statement? That's why I don't work in an office."
Francesca Neri concurs, although not necessarily about the spiders and snakes. "It's always a pleasure to work on location," she says. "It provides you the opportunity to see different countries and speak to people you would otherwise not know anything about. Now I can say that I've worked and lived in a jungle in Mexico."
Perhaps the most daunting task fell to production designer Phil Rosenberg, art director Richard Reseigne and the art departments in Los Angeles and Xalapa. Practical sets included a carnival on the streets of Xalapa and a 200-year-old Mexican hacienda that had to be dressed to convey the look and feel of a Colombian estate. An old coffee plantation, still in operation, served as The Wolf s base of operations as well as the dark and dank jail where Gordy meets his quarry face to face for the first time since the bombing in Los Angeles.
Many of the sets, including the safe house where Gordy is captured by Claudio, and the guerilla camp, were built from the ground up. "For the safe house, finding an empty lot with an existing wall that could be blown up was difficult." explains Rosenberg. "The site had to be situated in a way that we could blow up our building without damaging the surrounding existing structures. The Mexican locations department did an outstanding job finding such a lot. It was perfect."
The safe house itself, a two-story hacienda-style structure built in the small mountain village of Xico, took five weeks to build. Hours of research went into designing the set, requiring close collaboration between Rosenberg and Reseigne, special effects supervisor Tommy Fisher and stunt coordinator Billy Burton. Weeks of planning went into devising a way to create the dramatic effect that the scene called for without compromising the safety of the stunt crew.
Movie Database
In Theaters
