COMPLETE GUIDE
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
098 | W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U KBy the time you realise,
it’s already too late.
Outer Space) signifying a clever rewrite of the
original intended ending of Siegel’s fi lm.
“I don’t look at our version as a remake...
it’s really a reimagining in a way, a variation
on a theme,” Kaufman continues. “We could
explore more of the characters... what makes a
pod and what makes people be not pods and
is that ‘not podiness’ worth preserving.”
One of the earliest characters suspected of
having transformed into a pod was Geoffrey
Howell, the already rather preoccupied and
self-absorbed husband of Brooke Adams,
portrayed by actor Art Hindle.
“Philip and I had extended conversations
about what these pod people were,” Hindle
tells SciFiNow. “What we decided was
these characters, even though they no longer
had emotions, could think emotions and they
could fake emotions by thinking: ‘I should be
smiling here; I should be relaxed here; I should
be this or that.’”
“An acting technique is to play against the
emotion. When somebody is sad for insistence,
don’t play that. Try to play that you’re trying to
put on a happy face or you’re trying to be
happy through all this sadness. With playing
a pod person, you’ve got to try and play it a
little monotone, but also the ‘pod’ character
would try and play or ‘think’ an emotion
against that monotone so as not to be found
out... a more perfect example than my
performance would be Leonard Nimoy’s Dr
Kibner and his complex personality...”
“Art and myself were just a fabulous match
immediately, however you suspect that really I
liked Donald’s character more like a husband,”
remarks Brooke Adams to SciFiNow, looking
back at the unconventional relationship her
character shares with Sutherland, which forms
the pivotal humane backbone to the story.
“We had a really nice rapport and
chemistry. Donald even felt we should
become a new romantic couple in movies,which never happened but we did do another
movie together.”
The cast, which also included Nimoy as
a pod-skeptic psychotherapist and Veronica
Cartwright and Jeff Goldblum as hippie
mud bathhouse proprietors, were able to
draw unique inspiration from their urban
surroundings, identifying the real ‘pods’ living
amongst them at the time. “Brooke, Jeff [Goldblum] and myself went
out to dinner one night,” recalls Cartwright,
who played early pod believer Nancy Bellicec,
to SciFiNow. “Jeff being ‘Mr Outgoing’ was
talking to the taxi driver and carrying on [but]
the driver wasn’t answering him. So, when we
got out Jeff said: ‘Oh my god! He’s a pod! He’s
a pod!’ We began looking at people totally
differently. There would be people who went to
the bank and they’d stand in line and then sort
of just walk away... they did seem to be like
pod people!”
The naturally irregular geographic structure
of San Francisco also helps to play its part
in conveying an unusual unease. In fact,
the city’s real ‘pod-like’ population were
discreetly captured unstaged, for example,
the memorably intimidating glances from
people on public transport, or ‘soulless’
shoppers striding the streets. This, together
with the strange off-kilter angles, ominous
shadows, eerie refl ections and overall fi lm
noir visual paranoia brilliance achieved by
cinematographer Michael Chapman, (who had
lensed Taxi Driver) all add to a forewarning of
something strange lurking from this city and of
a world gradually closing in on itself.
The conception of the fi lm’s extraordinarily
visceral opening plant pod invasion sequence- where the alien organism passes through the
rain and cross-pollinates – was given some
legitimacy too, due to a peculiar occurrence in
San Francisco just prior to the fi lm’s production.
“WE BEGAN
LOOKING AT PEOPLE
DIFFERENTLY...PEOPLE
STANDING IN LINE...
THEY DID SEEM TO
BE LIKE POD PEOPLE!”
VERONICA CARTWRIGHTCOMPLETE GUIDE
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
098 | W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U KBy the time you realise,
it’s already too late.
Outer SpaceOuter SpaceOuter Space) signifying a clever rewrite of the ) signifying a clever rewrite of the
original intended ending of Siegel’s fi lm.
“I don’t look at our version as a remake...
it’s really a reimagining in a way, a variation
on a theme,” Kaufman continues. “We could
explore more of the characters... what makes a
pod and what makes people be not pods and
is that ‘not podiness’ worth preserving.”
One of the earliest characters suspected of
having transformed into a pod was Geoffrey
Howell, the already rather preoccupied and
self-absorbed husband of Brooke Adams,
portrayed by actor Art Hindle.
“Philip and I had extended conversations
about what these pod people were,” Hindle
tells SciFiNowSciFiNowSciFiNow. “What we decided was. “What we decided was
these characters, even though they no longer
had emotions, could think emotions and they
could fake emotions by thinking: ‘I should be
smiling here; I should be relaxed here; I should
be this or that.’”
“An acting technique is to play against the
emotion. When somebody is sad for insistence,
don’t play that. Try to play that you’re trying to
put on a happy face or you’re trying to be
happy through all this sadness. With playing
a pod person, you’ve got to try and play it a
little monotone, but also the ‘pod’ character
would try and play or ‘think’ an emotion
against that monotone so as not to be found
out... a more perfect example than my
performance would be Leonard Nimoy’s Dr
Kibner and his complex personality...”
“Art and myself were just a fabulous match
immediately, however you suspect that really I
liked Donald’s character more like a husband,”
remarks Brooke Adams to SciFiNowSciFiNowSciFiNow, looking , looking
back at the unconventional relationship her
character shares with Sutherland, which forms
the pivotal humane backbone to the story.
“We had a really nice rapport and
chemistry. Donald even felt we should
become a new romantic couple in movies,which never happened but we did do another
movie together.”
The cast, which also included Nimoy as
a pod-skeptic psychotherapist and Veronica
Cartwright and Jeff Goldblum as hippie
mud bathhouse proprietors, were able to
draw unique inspiration from their urban
surroundings, identifying the real ‘pods’ living
amongst them at the time. “Brooke, Jeff [Goldblum] and myself went
out to dinner one night,” recalls Cartwright,
who played early pod believer Nancy Bellicec,
to SciFiNowSciFiNowSciFiNow. “Jeff being ‘Mr Outgoing’ was. “Jeff being ‘Mr Outgoing’ was
talking to the taxi driver and carrying on [but]
the driver wasn’t answering him. So, when we
got out Jeff said: ‘Oh my god! He’s a pod! He’s
a pod!’ We began looking at people totally
differently. There would be people who went to
the bank and they’d stand in line and then sort
of just walk away... they did seem to be like
pod people!”
The naturally irregular geographic structure
of San Francisco also helps to play its part
in conveying an unusual unease. In fact,
the city’s real ‘pod-like’ population were
discreetly captured unstaged, for example,
the memorably intimidating glances from
people on public transport, or ‘soulless’
shoppers striding the streets. This, together
with the strange off-kilter angles, ominous
shadows, eerie refl ections and overall fi lm
noir visual paranoia brilliance achieved by
cinematographer Michael Chapman, (who had
lensed Taxi DriverTaxi DriverTaxi Driver) all add to a forewarning of ) all add to a forewarning of
something strange lurking from this city and of
a world gradually closing in on itself.
The conception of the fi lm’s extraordinarily
visceral opening plant pod invasion sequence- where the alien organism passes through the
rain and cross-pollinates – was given some
legitimacy too, due to a peculiar occurrence in
San Francisco just prior to the fi lm’s production.
“WE BEGAN
LOOKING AT PEOPLE
DIFFERENTLY...PEOPLE
STANDING IN LINE...
THEY DID SEEM TO
BE LIKE POD PEOPLE!”
VERONICA CARTWRIGHTSan Francisco just prior to the fi lm’s production.