UK: Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee says he had doubts while making the visually breathtaking Life of Pi, as he joined cast members in London for the film's UK premiere

Record ID: 220972

  • Title: UK: Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee says he had doubts while making the visually breathtaking Life of Pi, as he joined cast members in London for the film's UK premiere
  • Date: 4th December 2012
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (DECEMBER 3, 2012) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR RAFE SPALL, SAYING: "The animals are just extraordinary. To be able to, digitally, give animals emotions, that you can read, complex, delicate emotions, is just something that I'm completely in awe of."
  • Embargoed: 19th December 2012 12:00
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  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVAENMFNPP54PXGE90A6474SRRLK
  • Story Text: Director Ang Lee has admitted having doubts during the production of his new film, Life of Pi.
    The Academy Award-winner's latest project is his most visually ambitious to date, making extensive use of digital effects in 3D.
    Lee, who received an Oscar in 2001 for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and another in 2006 for Brokeback Mountain, said the scale and complexity of Life of Pi had him questioning the wisdom of continuing "two to five times a day."
    "There are a couple of moments I thought this thing might collapse and it's better to drop it now than continue, it's disastrous," said Lee. "But, like Pi's journey, you can't think that way more than one day. The next day you must come up and find a solution."
    Lee made the comments at the UK premiere of the film in Leicester Square in central London.
    Life of Pi is based upon author Yann Martel's novel, which is the biggest selling in the 44 year history of the Booker Prize.
    It tells the story of Pi Patel, an Indian teenager who becomes shipwrecked with a aggressive Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
    The plot is so unusual many considered it impossible to make.
    Despite his anxiety during film making, Lee said he had found extensive use of digital film making a rewarding process.
    "Like moving paintings, you're creating art with hundreds of people," he said. "Of course there's pressure because they're expensive, the commercial pressure is big. But the work itself is a great experience."
    Pi Patel is played by Suraj Sharma, a 17-year-old from India who had no formal acting experience when he was selected for the role.
    "I trust instinct," said Lee. "When I saw him I thought 'I see Pi.' And that's instinct you have to trust."
    The world's largest self-generating wave tank built for a motion picture was constructed in director Lee's home country, Taiwan.
    Sharma spent countless hours floating in the tank during the film's extensive scenes depicting the ship-wrecked Pi lost in the Pacific Ocean.
    "I didn't know how to swim so once I learned it was just a lot of fun," said Sharma.
    "Think of it this way, I kind of spent three months every day on that tank, no matter what I did I was in that tank. It kind of became like home."
    The early scenes of Life of Pi are set in the former French colony of Pondicherry in India.
    Around 5,500 local residents were hired as background actors.
    After filming had completed Lee, 58, took on the laborious task of using computer-generated imagery to bring the sensational plot to the big screen, taking a year and a half just to edit the film together.
    British actor Rafe Spall, who plays the writer hearing Pi's story later in life, said the depiction of animals in the film was "extraordinary."
    "To be able to, digitally, give animals emotions, that you can read, complex, delicate emotions, is just something that I'm completely in awe of," he said.
    Life of Pi has already opened to the United States and Asia, and has received glowing reviews.
    It begins screening in the United Kingdom on December 20.
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