Mr. and Mrs. Smith Movie Trailer. To bring the necessary verisimilitude to their portrayals of top assassins proficient in a multitude of firearms and deadly martial arts, Pitt and Jolie attended what the filmmakers describe as “spy school.” The two actors attended weekly gun-training sessions with Stunt Coordinators Mic Rodgers and Tim Trella, and Technical Advisor Mark Stefanich. A former member of S.E.A.L. Team Two as well as S.E.A.L. Team Six (also known as the Dev Group), Stefanich facilitated the actors’ training in special operations and counter-terrorism tactics.
“Brad and I have separately appeared in action films,” explains Jolie, “but that’s a specific method of training. I’ve never had a partner on film before and it’s very different working with one. We had to learn to move in tandem with fully loaded pump shotguns, crossing each other, running into houses, breaking and covering an area, shooting at moving targets – it was crazy, but we learned to trust each other.”
“We started them off with the basics, including weapons familiarization, proper stance, how to hold the weapon, safety and use,” Stefanich explains. “We progressed to moving through and shooting at multiple targets.”
Rather than training Pitt and Jolie as CIA operatives, Stefanich familiarized them with the training one gets in law enforcement or regular military groups, because time was of the essence. Training exercises took place over several weekends during production at Canyon Oaks, a private shooting range in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.
By their very nature, covert operations are fluid and ever-changing, so the actors were taught to rely on their wits during much of the action. An operative must be ready to adapt to any circumstance, and change his or her tactics in the blink of an eye.
Pitt and Jolie were outfitted with the newest high tech weapons, including cuttingedge, non-lethal Taser and stun guns. The actors completed weapons indoctrination on a wide range of artillery, from the MP5 submachine gun to sophisticated pistols with aim points, optics and high capacity magazines. Prior to working with Stefanich, Pitt and Jolie selected their own weapons with one of the film’s Property Masters, Gary Tuers.
According to Stefanich, the actors were strict about not wanting to turn the action into fantasy. “They learned on the firing range how difficult it really is to become proficient with a firearm; how you can’t shoot from the hip and hit targets unless you happen to be a world champion shooter.”
Second Unit Director / Stunt Coordinator Simon Crane agrees. “The actors needed to learn a variety of the skills, such as weapons, firing rockets, driving cord bikes, and rock climbing. And to make it all look real, Brad and Angie constantly had to absorb new skills, and look like they’d been doing the tasks for years. There were lots of rehearsals.
Action!
Even before detailing his characters, screenwriter Simon Kinberg structured the story around the action sequences, finding parallels between the action and the process of constructing a successful marriage.
The film’s action, comedy and romance involve not only gunplay, but, of all things, dance. Inspired by the ballet-like grace of Hong Kong action films, Kinberg’s ideas for the script were more akin to those in a traditional musical than the traditional action movie. “The action had to be big and fun, and play like an exploration of character,” explains Kinberg. “In a musical when the characters’ interaction encounters conflict or their love or excitement hits a fever pitch that they can’t express with normal dialogue, they break into song. John and Jane break into gunplay or a chase sequence, which is an expression of where their characters are in the context of their relationship.”
To Doug Liman, whose taut action scenes in The Bourne Identity set a new standard for cinema spy adventure, the Mr. and Mrs. Smith dance sequences were even more challenging than its large-scale action set pieces. “Directing the scenes of John and Jane Smith dancing scared me more than any other – and that’s saying a lot because this was a logistically complicated shoot,” notes Liman. “The dance scenes are some of the most romantic – and exciting – work I’ve ever put on film.”
John and Jane Smith first meet in Bogota, Colombia, where amidst a fiery revolution, they ignite in a dance marked by adrenaline, attraction and mystery. Renowned choreographer Marguerite Derricks worked with Pitt and Jolie to make them look as graceful and fluid as possible.
“The first time John and Jane dance, they are both leading,” says Kinberg. “Sometimes he leads, sometimes she leads; they’re competing. It’s a bit anonymous. The characters are a little drunk; they don’t know who the other person is and the excitement and energy of the space informs the dance.”
After they’re married, the Smiths soon learn there are no accidents when it comes to love. The couple continues a ridiculous charade, leading to marital tedium. Once their covers are blown, the Smiths discover that no marriage can survive without love and trust – and a clear picture of what one’s spouse does for a living.
But first, they play a dangerous cat-and-mouse game, culminating in an explosive fight – a “dance of death” – inside their suburban home. Their battle royale transitions from fighting to lovemaking, from wanting to kill each other, to finally discovering their real passion for each other.
“The scene is a cathartic release of energy that’s been stored up over the course of their hunt to kill one another,” says Kinberg. “John and Jane actually start to fall in love again because they’re paying attention – really paying attention – to each other for the first time. Their lies are being stripped away.
“When their secrets are exposed,” Liman says, “they are liberated and at the same time, vulnerable. Ironically, from that moment forward, the movie becomes about the characters feeling safer, even as life becomes more and more dangerous.”
Not technically a dance number, another big action sequence in the third act was nonetheless the most choreographed of the entire film. The sequence unfolds, then explodes, at a fictitious home improvement store. The production moved into a vacant IKEA warehouse in Torrance, California for the three weeks it took to shoot the scene.
Doug Liman and Simon Crane attacked this crucial action sequence with a vengeance. “We combined a mixture of styles for each character for the finale,” says Crane. “It looks like John makes up his plan of action as he goes along, but Jane is more succinct and very direct in her approach. Jane uses a sniper rifle whereas John is blasting away as he moves around. We had to come up with comedy beats within the scene and still make them look like killers.”
Adds Liman: “Our philosophy was that up to this point the Smiths were having problems working together, but now they’ve solved many of their underlying issues and are learning to work together. It was fun to watch them work as partners, like a smooth machine.”
About the Screenplay
Screenwriter Simon Kinberg wrote the first draft of the screenplay for his Master’s thesis at Columbia University Film School. “The idea came from my passion for Hong Kong action films,” says Kinberg, who went on to write or co-write XXX: State of the Union and X-Men 3. “The Hong Kong action films were cool, sleek, sexy and kinetic, and all that became the framework for my original draft.”
While Kinberg was brainstorming specific story ideas, he went to dinner with close friends who were experimenting with marriage therapy for the first time. “I was still trying to figure out the story,” says Kinberg, “when my friends told me about their experiences in marriage counseling. It sounded like a kind of mercenary experience, which I felt could be grafted on the skin of an action movie.”
With his first draft ready, Kinberg met with Akiva Goldsman, a noted screenwriter (he won the Oscar for his adaptation of A Beautiful Mind) and producer. The screenplay’s mix of action, adventure, romance, comedy and thrills impressed Goldman, who became a champion of the project.
“Mr. and Mrs. Smith is all about danger, sex and misunderstanding,” says Goldsman. “Rather than the traditional romantic comedy grammar, we have lots of action and bombs. But the action is secondary to character. The story is about a married couple being forced to hunt down and kill each other – and that forces them to pay attention to each other for first time in years. Learning the truth about one another, John and Jane Smith fall in love all over again.”
Goldsman and Kinberg shopped the script around, with little success at first. After Summit Entertainment and, eventually, Regency Enterprises, acquired the script, Brad Pitt came on board to star as John Smith. Before ‘Mrs. Smith’ was cast, the producers and Pitt handpicked Doug Liman to direct. Liman had proven himself capable of handling edgy fare, with Go, and big-scale action-adventure, with The Bourne Identity.
Liman was intrigued by the opportunity to make a film that pointed out that being a top assassin is easy compared with the rigors of keeping a marriage afloat. “My previous film, The Bourne Identity, celebrated Jason Bourne’s exceptional physical abilities,” says Liman. “So I was excited Mr. and Mrs. Smith gave me the chance to make a film that said, ‘Big deal, so you’re a highly-trained assassin. Try being married for six years; now that’s really impressive! “The film asks a question that is really fun to consider: How do assassins married to each other deal with their marital problems? Of course, the answer is, they try and kill each other.”
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)
Directed by: Doug Liman
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Adam Brody, Vince Vaughn, Kerry Washington, Michelle Monaghan, Rachel Huntley, Stephanie March, Jennifer Morrison, Theresa Barrera, Melanie Tolbert
Screenplay by: Simon Kinberg
Production Design by: Jeff Mann
Cinematography by: Bojan Bazelli
Film Editing by: Michael Tronick
Costume Design by: Michael Kaplan
Set Decoration by: Victor J. Zolfo
Art Direction by: Keith Neely, David Sandefur
Music by: John Powell
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, intense action, sexual content, strong language.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: June 10, 2005
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