The Commuter, which comes to theaters on Friday, is Collet-Serra’s latest collaboration with Neeson. We spoke with the director about filming in claustrophobic settings, adapting scripts to the screen, and the work that went into making this film stand apart from Non-Stop, the second feature collaboration between Collet-Serra and Neeson. Jaume Collet-Serra: Yeah, obviously it is something that you could guess that I do on purpose. It is not like the scripts just come looking for me; I go looking for those scripts. If you look at the original script for Non-Stop—even or the original script for The Commuter—there are scenes that cut away from the train. I don’t do that. I personally change the movie so they only happen in one environment. I feel that is important; these movies are very much about a point of view. You follow one character and you know what that character knows, and it is fun to see him solve it. To me, it is almost like cutting away to other characters, cutting away to other scenes, is a cheat to me. I feel like those movies benefit confined spaces, so I do it on purpose. I saw that you mentioned that when you first read the script that you automatically saw the comparisons between this film and Non-Stop. So was it a bigger challenge this time around to make the films feel fresh and independent of each other? Now me and Liam, we always try to surprise ourselves and try to surprise the audience, so we try to do things differently. For instance, in Non-Stop, the communication between person to person is done exclusively through text, which we show onscreen. With The Commuter, it is all mainly on the phone, all shown on screen with no text. It is with things like that, where we were aware we couldn’t do that again. What I really enjoyed was—as a New Yorker, yet someone who really doesn’t ride Metro North that much—it really felt like you were at those specific stations and the train seemed very genuine. Of course, this is now your fourth film with Liam, so you must have a very well put together working relationship. How is it working with him now, as the relationship has progressed and matured? Obviously it has changed; I would say it changed in Non-Stop, with Unknown being the first collaboration. There you are just learning about each other’s energies and what not, but when we did Non-Stop, that is when I think we really came together, and it’s been a great experience ever since. Because I know him and he knows me, we are able to be freer in a way. For me, personally it means to take more risks visually, and stuff like that, where I can plan complicated shots ahead of time, knowing that he will make it work, even if it is something very, very specific. Sometimes, if you don’t know the actor and it is a type of scene, some actors might feel a little intimidated. Like if I say, “Listen, we’re going to do these five scenes together as one shot.” That is actually something we did in Non-Stop. Once you know a person and once you know he would be game for that, you can already plan ahead. In this particular movie, I put a 16mm macro lens, one centimeter away from his eye. That is very intimidating for anybody. If I’m doing something like that with someone I don’t know, I wonder if you can build this visual language where I widen the lenses throughout the movie to end up on this wide angle on his eye, like I do when he is listening to the phone and his family is getting threatened. I knew he would be okay with that, because this is our fourth movie together. Let’s finally talk about the other people on the train though. You have a lot of amazing, well-known character actors throughout the whole movie. I did notice though that a lot of them, while they’re known to a lot of people for many things, many of them are known worldwide in recent years for doing television series. Jonathan Banks of Breaking Bad, Elizabeth McGovern of Downton Abbey, Dean-Charles Chapman of Game of Thrones, etc. Was there a specific idea to put these well-known faces as the faces to remember on the train? Not really. I mean, we are in London and I was just looking for great actors in London that could play American and that could be diverse, and that anyone could relate to. I’m not a TV watcher; I’ve never seen any of the shows you’ve mentioned. Honestly, I can only watch movies and so it really has nothing to do with the TV. Now for your screenplay writers [Bryon Willinger and Philip de Blasi], I guess you can say they have a hot hand right now. They have a lot of scripts out there currently in development, but in essence this is the first feature people are going to see that was penned by them. Do you feel that you have some sort of obligation to help them through this process? Usually, when I come onboard, I kind of develop the script with my own writers. So we get the script from the original writers and we develop it from there. We really adapt it to what we want to do. Naturally, it is great to come up with the original idea, and take it as far as we can. Then, we have to adapt it to the situation of the film, the budget, the cast, and all types of things. So usually I take it from there, from everybody’s hands, and I own it. Yes. Now, I don’t mean to keep bringing up Non-Stop, but was it something where the character was originally more like an alcoholic and you thought, “We have to change it.” What about the action sensibility of the film? It was more… I made it with less action. The original script had the movie leaving the train. There were care chases and a lot of other aspects. There were kidnappers and people with masks entering other people’s houses. It was a very different. I mean, vision is more than just where to put the camera, right? It depends on what the movie is about, the tone, and everything else. I am really comfortable doing the movies that I have been making. I get a lot of creative freedom and I get to work with my friends. So I am very happy… and other people can be happy doing other movies. The Commuter opens on January 12.
