We have to believe the characters performance as well as Halles performance as the character. Halle is playing a character, and the character is acting, he points out. James Foley praises Berrys ability to portray the characters double (or triple) life.
We would watch her alter each performance based on which mask she was putting on. Essentially, she had to play this character on three different levels: one as Rowena Price, one as Katherine Pogue, and another as Veronica. When you do, you realize that there were clues all along and reactions you might have missed the first go round. You cant fully appreciate the complexity of Halles performance, says Goldsmith-Thomas, until you go back and watch the film a second time. We were blessed to have her as our partner. Knowing that she was playing a character that was playing a character, she looked at scenes from every angle to make sure there were no loose ends. Halle loved what we wanted to do, where we wanted to take it. “We didn’t consider anyone else for the lead role,” says Goldsmith-Thomas. So, we started kicking around stories about what would happen when a persons virtual world collides with his real world. Its a dangerous gamble to presume that the person were speaking to online is who they say they are. We thought that the idea of online anonymity where anyone can be anyone was a provocative theme to explore. Things are packaged as the perfect product, but we know that nothing is perfect, most especially strangers, who can present one face but can hide so many others.Īccording to Goldsmith-Thomas, the idea for Perfect Stranger came out of a conversation with her husband, co-producer Daniel A. Its not coincidental that this film is set in an advertising agency. We should ask questions about the world around us, whether were receiving a diagnosis from a doctor or buying a product at the supermarket or meeting a person online. We believe things at face value, but we are living in an age in which we ought to be more cautious. We live in a world in which nothing is as it seems, says Goldsmith-Thomas. When somebody else gets it and thinks about that in a new way thats the ultimate thrill for me. To make a film is to reveal what it is to be human. Thats always stuck with me –each human being has an insight into what it is to be human that other human beings dont. The French filmmaker Robert Bresson once said something like, The directors job is to make visible that which you might never have seen. This movie tries to explore the limits of human behavior the lengths that people will go to keep the truth hidden, says Foley. This is a movie about duality the face we present and the face we keep hidden. He gets that we all present only a certain face to the world. He understands the intricacy of the world of shadows, she says. In addition, a characters double life lends itself to something that the cinema is uniquely designed to do: you can see and hear a character saying or doing something and realize that theyre thinking something completely different.Īccording to producer Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, director James Foley was the perfect choice to bring the film to the screen.
Im fascinated by the idea that people sometimes act in ways that they dont realize what theyre doing the audience understands the characters behavior, but the character himself does not. Everybody lies it just depends on how big the lie is and what the consequences of the lie are, says the director.
The closer Ro gets to the truth, the more we begin to ask: What was this secret Grace had And why would someone kill to protect it In a film about secrets and advertising, not everything is as it seems.įor James Foley, who has previously explored such territory in the psychological thrillers At Close Range, Fear, and Glengarry Glen Ross, the idea goes even further. This is a man with an appetite for power, a weakness for women, and a wife on alert. She watches the unsuspecting Hill from all sides, taking note of his wife doing the same. Armed with that knowledge, Rowena goes undercover and becomes the perfect stranger first as a temp, Katherine, in Hills advertising agency, and then as Rocketgirl aka Veronica, another one of his online paramours. Thanks to her associate, tech-savvy Miles Haley (Giovanni Ribisi), Rowena gains access to Graces e-mail and learns that Grace was threatening to go to Hills wife. So when childhood friend Grace Clayton, who was having an affair with married advertising executive Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), turns up murdered, Rowena is determined to find the truth. Rowena Price (Halle Berry) is an investigative reporter who has perfected the art of exposing other peoples secrets. And those we’ll do anything to protect”–James Foley