From thislincolnshire.co.uk



Jodie: Good's fantastic cast

Tuesday, September 09, 2008, 11:49

Jodie Whittaker has only compliments for her Good co-stars, Viggo Mortensen and Jason Isaacs.

"It was fantastic. They're so incredibly generous. Jason and Viggo, they're so cool," she revealed.

"They're just brilliant, and they're such a good laugh. When the piece is as heavy as ours, you really need a sense of humour on set to keep the energy going, and it was great. I learnt a hell of a lot from such wonderful people."

The Yorkshire actress was impressed with how down-to-earth both stars are.

"You just saw tonight. He was absolutely soaking wet and he went outside on the street, and signed autographs for people who'd been outside. He works his ass off, and he deserves every accolade and success he gets," she added, referring to Viggo.

As for Jason, Jodie said: "I'm surprised by how normal he is. He's so excitable, he's so passionate about life and people and meeting new people. It was a phenomenal cast to be a part of."

From thiscroydentoday.co.uk



Viggo and Jason are 'best actors'

Tuesday, September 09, 2008, 12:51

Filmmaker Vicente Amorim has gushed about actors Viggo Mortensen and Jason Isaacs, who play best friends in his new film, Good.

"Well, for one, they're probably two of the best actors of their generation," he said at the movie's premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.

"Viggo has a kind of gentle masculinity, which is perfect for the part, and Jason has a spark that's necessary for the portrayal of the character as someone lively and not as a victim. And that was fabulous and fundamental for the dynamic of the movie."
He admitted his job was made easier because the duo were so experienced.

"They surprised me all the time. It was great, and obviously it made my life a lot more exciting and the film a lot better," he said.

And Vicente said they had fun filming the serious drama.

"Considering the subject matter, which is not light, we had a ball doing the film. It was great," he added.

Jason said of Viggo: "He's a really beautiful, delicate artist of a man. He's nothing like any other actor I've worked with. I was doing Brotherhood, and he came to Rhode Island to hang out with me and my family so we could create a history between us.

"And when we were shooting in Hungary, he said, 'I don't want my trailer to be bigger than the other actors'. He's a very special guy and that shows in the work. When you're on set, you feel like you're equals collaborating. That's often not the case with big stars."

Mortensen and Whittaker turn heads in 'Good'

Constance Droganes, entertainment writer, CTV.ca
September 9, 2008 4:24 PM ET

TORONTO — These days it's easy to look back at Nazi Germany and wonder how people put their trust in a madman like Hitler?

"How can you help it? We know how the story ends," says Jodie Whittaker, Viggo Mortensen's "Aryan bride" in Vicente Amorim's disturbing new movie "Good."

Based on the acclaimed play by C.P. Taylor, "Good" uses the moral decline of enlightened professor John Halder (Mortensen) to express the fate of an entire nation.

The end result is nothing short of chilling.

In the film, Halder is a "good" guy who muddles through his job, lacklustre marriage -- all while dealing with the stress of caring for his kids and his mother. Yet Halder is so busy running around looking after things that he fails to notice the ominous political winds swirling all around him.

"It's nothing. It'll all blow over," he tells his Jewish pal and shrink (Jason Isaacs).

Halder turns a blind eye to everything except the hot young student (Whittaker) who quickly beds him and weds him. Along the way Halder and the other "good" people in Amorim's grim flick make seemingly unimportant decisions that have devastating consequences.

Whittaker: A fabulous femme fatale

"On the surface it's easy to hate my character," says Whittaker, who spoke with CTV.ca during the Toronto International Film Festival. Anne has only one thing on her mind: Professor Halder. She shows up on his doorstep one rainy night and seduces him -- while his wife waits in their upstairs bedroom.

The cool blonde has no qualms about turning in Halder's shrink just as the Nazis were shipping Jews off to concentration camps.
"I did it for us," she cries when Halder finally clues in and tries to help his friend.

"What would you do if you were in her shoes? She's pregnant. She's worried about keeping her home and their life together," says Whittaker.

What a life indeed. Thanks to a novel penned by Halder supporting compassionate euthanasia he captures the attention of Hitler himself. Summoned to Nazi headquarters, Halder is asked to investigate the politically expedient subject further for Germany's Fürher. It's an offer and a payoff Halder can't refuse.

"All of us can look back at our own lives and ask 'How could I have done that?' or 'Shouldn't I have known better?' I voted for the Labour Party in the last election and they sanctioned going to war in Iraq. I share some responsibility in that," says the British actress.
"We all make decisions that seem like they have no consequence but they really do."

No going back after Viggo

The willowy Whittaker shot to fame with her debut in "Venus," a quirky tale that pitted the newcomer opposite legendary actor Peter O'Toole. The role earned Whittaker a BIFA Award as "Best Newcomer."

"After working with Peter, Viggo and Jason -- I am spoiled for other actors," Whittaker laughs. "These guys are all about the job, not how many times you're picture ends up in People magazine."

Mortensen in fact was so humble that he refused the gargantuan trailer the studio provided him during the filming of "Good."

"Viggo was so embarrassed by it," says Whittaker. "He couldn't see how anyone could okay such an expenditure when the money should really be going towards the project."

As Whittaker says, "Viggo's an A-list star. He didn't do this job for the money. None of us did. He thought it was an important story to tell. We all did especially given the times we live in."

That's an understatement. Called one of the "100 Best Plays of the Century" by the National Review neither Taylor's play nor Amorim's adaptation may sway modern voters one way or the other.

"Good" may not change peoples' views on why or when countries should go to war, but the consequences of human complacency mirrored in "Good" promises to shake moviegoers up.

Whittaker was most troubled by the scene in which she and Mortensen sit in a park watching people rush to a Nazi rally. "It's a gorgeous day and everyone around us is happy. How could anything that makes all these Germans feel this great be so terrible? But it is and there's no way for anyone to know," says Whittaker.
When Halder finally arrives at a concentration camp looking for his pal, he can't believe what he sees.

Underscoring that shock is the glaring realization that his inaction helped lead his friend and country to this awful end.

"He walks into a hell that has nothing to do with the crisp white files and the nice, neat order the Nazis sell him," says Whittaker.

"But that's the thing. How could he or any ordinary German for that matter have known?"

As Whittaker says, "We look back through the eyes of history and say Germans were bad. Who are we to judge? We all might have done the very same thing if we found ourselves in similar circumstances."

Jason Isaacs counters O'Connor; says Brit sounds are good for 'Good'

by Clint O'Connor/Plain Dealer Film Critic
Saturday September 13, 2008, 1:49 PM
AP

Jason Isaacs combats the critic who criticized his latest film, "Good." Based on the CP Taylor play, "Good," with Viggo Mortensen, examines how even good Germans signed on with Hitler and the Nazis.

Jason Isaacs emailed me after I dumped on his new film, "Good," for being heavy on British accents despite its 1930s-Germany setting.
"Good," with Viggo Mortensen, Isaacs, and Jodie Whittaker, screened recently at the Toronto International Film Festival. Isaacs is a talented actor (Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series; Michael Caffee on Showtime's "Brotherhood"; and a host of other films and shows), and he wrote a very persuasive email. Here it is:

Hi Clint,

wanted to do something weird and drop you a note to address your criticism of Good, the movie that just premiered at The Toronto Film Festival. Obviously you're free and, indeed, professionally bound to hate whatever aspects you like of the film, but I think you're way off the mark when you attack the dialect.

"Apart from the fact that there's a long standing cinematic convention of neutral english standing in for whatever the foreign language would be - think Amadeus (German), Exodus (Polish), Hunt for Red October (Russian), The Ten Commandments (Aramaic), etc etc etc - if we'd all put on cod-German accents then a number of things would happen: we'd send a message that these people are speaking their second language - which isn't true - and we'd put a barrier between the audience and the characters.

"We all felt that an English accent - as opposed to American - has the clipped and class connotations that best and accessibly approximate the qualities of German. Given that the whole point is to help the viewer to identify with Halder's predicament and journey, Hogan's Heroes meets Inspector Clouseau would have been a terrible choice.

My suggestion would be to savage us by all means, but shift your targets. Or, obviously, change your mind and rave about us as many others have done!

thanks,
Jason Isaacs

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Film Review: Good
Bottom Line: Absorbing drama about a good man who is blind to the horrors of Germany's Nazi regime
By Ray Bennett
Oct 23, 2008

Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Brazilian director Vicente Amorim's drama "Good," based on a play by C.P. Taylor, is set in Nazi Germany and tells with escalating tension the story of a presumably decent man whose bland acquiescence to Nazi terror makes him a horrified accessory.

Viggo Mortensen is outstanding as a head-in-the-clouds lecturer who allows a novel he wrote exploring euthanasia to be exploited in support of Hitler's demented theories about a master race. Using a credible English accent along with the mostly British cast, Mortensen conveys the scholar's self-absorption and willingness to be blinded to events all around him that point to the Holocaust.

Paced deliberately in a way that reinforces the tragedy of evil flourishing when good men do nothing, "Good" may find boxoffice returns slow to build but the film's aim is true and patient audiences will be well rewarded.
Perhaps the original title, "A Good Man," would have been better employed rather than the ineffectual "Good," for that's what Professor John Halder (Mortensen) appears to be. An earnest, intense teacher, he loves his obsessive-compulsive wife and their two children, and he looks after his addled mother.

His best friend is a Jewish psychoanalyst named Maurice (Jason Isaacs, also executive producer) and together they treat the Nazi grip on government as an aberration that will soon pass.

Things begin to change when Halder is called before a charming but sinister government officer (Mark Strong in a typically sinuous cameo) and asked to write a paper advancing the notion that the lives of chronically sick patients should be terminated.

He dashes something off but is soon encouraged to accept that an honorary membership in Hitler's SS will help his ambitions for promotion at his university. He also succumbs to the temptations of a beautiful student (Jodie Whittaker) although he waits to marry her until she has graduated before leaving his wife.

The film tracks Halder as Germany convulses in Hitler's madness while the professor somehow fails to see what is going on around him. It's a harsh tale and not one that aims to forgive men like Halder. It may help to understand them better, though.

Good Film, Miromar Entertainment
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs, Jodie Whitaker, Mark Strong.
Director: Vicente Amorim.
Screenwriter: John Wrathall.
Producer: Miriam Segal.
Director of photography: Andrew Dunn.
Production design: Andrew Laws.
Music: Simon Lacey.
Costume designer: Gyongyi Szakacs.
Editor: John Wilson
Sales agent: Imagem Filmes
No rating; 96 minutes.

From latimes.com:

THE ACTORS

Viggo Mortensen's history lessons


Viggo Mortensen stars in “Good”; the story is set in 1930s Germany.

The actor, who stars in 'Good,' a film adaptation of a play he saw more than 25 years ago about 1930s Germany, sees parallels between the movie plot, the real world in 1982 and the world now.

By Michael Ordoña
November 2, 2008

Viggo Mortensen doesn't need prompting to talk about the modern resonance of "Good," the film adaptation of C.P. Taylor's play about an ordinary man in 1930s Germany being slowly co-opted by the Nazis.

"I made the leap immediately from what would I have done if I were Prof. John Halder, to what am I doing now, in my time?" he says by phone from Denmark. "When I saw it in 1982, [Margaret] Thatcher was prime minister and [Ronald] Reagan was president. But certain things were the same as now: the politics of war, misinformation, pressure on the citizenry to go along with certain measures from the legislative arms of this country -- some things don't change.

"I guess the main thing I felt, making the movie, just like I did in watching the play 25 years earlier, was that it's worthwhile paying attention. You don't need to be some kind of bookworm or political activist; little and big decisions that individuals make in society on a daily basis are what any country is."

The easygoing demeanor of this actor-photographer-poet-painter-polyglot and founder of Perceval Press (dedicated to presenting otherwise obscure artistic works) might be deceptive if one didn't listen to the words. He sounds tired, having just flown in from Argentina, where he was promoting his Ed Harris western, “Appaloosa,” following the enthusiastic reception of "Good" at the Festival do Rio in Brazil. So he's awfully soft-spoken and measured for someone who is figuratively screaming for citizens to "pay attention!"

"Things that happened, let's say in the United States in the last eight years, maybe if they had to do it again, legislators and citizens, they may not have given up so many things," says the self-identified "proud American" with quiet insistence. "There have been incredible changes in a short period, just as there were then in Germany. If somebody said to you, 'Would you be willing to put up with all these changes to your rights and the legal system,' you'd say, 'Well, no.' But by having it happen little by little, it's like death by a thousand cuts. Pretty soon you're bleeding to death."

"Good" challenges its audience with a protagonist who, some have told the actor, becomes less sympathetic as he takes baby steps to hell, a reaction Mortensen doesn't mind.

"It's not wrong for you to feel that way. What's interesting is that a lot of people, as they're watching this character, as he's making certain decisions with the knowledge he has at hand, for the reasons he, you know, food on the table, take care of his mother, there's a lot of stress -- 'You've got to join the party,' 'Whatever, I've got to take care of my kids right now,' 'You've got to ban Proust this semester,' 'OK, whatever' -- these little choices he makes, people kind of identify with the character in a way: 'I can see that, I can see that.' But then they get to a certain point and they go, 'No, no, no, I would never do that!' "

He also stars in the upcoming adaptation of "The Road," the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by "No Country for Old Men" author Cormac McCarthy. A bleak journey by foot through post-apocalyptic America, Mortensen says, the project came about when he was exhausted and stressed out -- so it seemed like just the right thing to do. But now, despite his jet lag, he still musters the energy to drive home the relevance of "Good," which opens Dec. 31.

Usually, the bird's-eye view of such films is " 'These bad Germans, they're easily led, they're robotic,' " he says. "It allows you a comfortable distance from a period historically and a group of people in a country who did things. I think you feel, watching 'Good,' this is not really just a German problem.

"To not speak up about something in your relationship, in your family, in your town, at work; to not speak out about something you know in your heart, from the information you have, may be wrong or problematic, is complicity."