They’re the biggest, boldest and brawniest stars to have ever ruled Hollywood and it’s nothing short of a dream that Schwarzenegger and Stallone are back on screen with Escape Plan. Despite the fact that they’re both well past retirement age, the two action stars from the 80’s and the 90’s briefly came together in The Expendables and are now completely immersed in mind-blowing old-school action, with Escape Plan. Arnold ‘Arnie’ Schwarzenegger gets talking to City Express about life after politics and being incarcerated with Sylvester Stallone:
The Sly Story
We shot four hours on a Saturday only, since it was my day off. Then I did four days on the second Expendables movie. After I left office we knew we had a certain chemistry, so we were actively looking for something where we could appear in the whole movie together.
And now I think the fans will finally get what they were looking for — this has been the perfect movie for that because it’s such a unique story. It’s not just an action movie but also has some really great scenes where Sly can show his acting skills as well as a side nobody has ever seen before and I can do the same thing. So it has been something really unexpected; unexpected because for so many years we tried and we couldn’t do it and suddenly here we doing it and we are having a great time at it.
History of War
Sly and I were very competitive in the early days. It was always about who had the most cuts, the best muscle separation, the least amount of body fat, as well as who had the biggest guns and the biggest on-screen body count. This kind of competition was continuous. But we always appreciated each other’s talent and this competition gave way to mutual respect.
Taking Direction
Sly is a terrific director, an unbelievable writer and a very good actor. He had an endless number of ideas about how each scene could be better and Mikael was open-minded enough to listen. He is a very strong director with a very clear vision of what the scene should be and a perfectionist who rehearsed and tweaked and reshaped things until they worked.
Double Whammy
I think people will really be surprised because there are some dramatic scenes in the movie but also some old fashioned action and fight scenes.
Prison Break?
This prison (in Escape Plan) could be anywhere in the world; and it is an international prison which has prisoners from all over the world, terrorists and some of the worst possible prisoners housed together along with a multitude of guards who or more less robotic in nature.
And you have a prison where you are watched 24 hours a day, you are watched when you eat, you are watched when you go to the bathroom, whatever you do you are watched. There is absolutely no privacy because the entire prison is made of glass, there is no hiding, no trickery and you are on display.
Locking Fists
Not to have some kind of a confrontation between Sly and myself, or some kind of a fight would really let down the audience. So he suggested that we have a fight scene, and we have a major fight sequence in the movie and it was really, you know, wild because I haven’t done any fight scenes in a long time and this is kind of my comeback.
Working Story
Mikael is a really strong director, because he has a really clear vision and when you work with directors who have a clear vision on what every scene should be, then they are perfectionists — because they’ll rehearse and they tweak it and shape it and reshape it until it works, and that’s exactly what he’s done.
(The film is distributed by PVR Pictures in India has been running successfully in theatres since October 18)