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This interview originally ran on July 23, 2020.
Were republishing it in honor of the new movieTwisters.
De Bont was one of the key figures in the late 1980s and 1990s renaissance of American action cinema.
We talked about all this and more.
And it took a long time the hardware and the software had to be designed for the movie.
It was like two steps forward and one step backward, but it was exciting.
It looked so real.
It was such a great effect something coming right toward the camera, and it really hits the windshield.
The studio people were totally stunned at how effective it was.
That ultimately decided whether the movie was made.
Lets talk about the script.
As I understand, it changed quite a bit, both before and during production?Yeah.
It was written by Michael Crichton and his wife at the time, Anne-Marie Martin.
What they told me later was that they based it onHis Girl Friday.
I had never thought about it when working on the script.
Michael used to base things on other movies he liked, especially their structures.
But the screenplay needed more.
The world of storm chasing and the excitement you feel when chasing the dialogue had to be very energized.
You had to get the same throw in of feeling that you get when youre part of a chase.
Ive done several chases, and talked to so many people who have done it all their lives.
If you dont do that, it gets very stilted very quickly.
To me, that makes a movie almost immediately less interesting.
I said, No, that will kill the movie.
You dont have to explain everything.
It drives me crazy.
To me, I always feel that things will explain themselves as you keep watching.
What were the other challenges of the screenwriting process?
Because thats what they knew.
It wasnt like you have a dialogue and then theres some action.
Its not sit-down dialogue scenes.
I met those guys.
These guys do this at the University of Oklahoma, and theyre like grad students.
They look very much like the group we ultimately assembled in the cast.
Thats how they talked.
A lot of that we had to improvise on the set.
So, its real hail, and it can hurt you if youre in a moving truck.
I told Bill, Listen, those machines cannot spit out everything the same size of hail.
Some pieces are bigger.
And of course some pieces were bigger, and they hit him in the head.
He was supposed to duck more often, but he didnt.
Then on the trucks, driving through the cornfield, a little bit later.
The moment you cut to a stunt double, the reality effect is immediately gone.
And then the power of the corn closes the door on the side.
Of course, you take the softest debris you could find.
So, youre not acting anymore.
Theres nothing you have to do.
You respond to the power of the wind, and that makes it all very real.
They really fall from the sky, and it is not like a little fall.
And you have to drive around.
It looks dangerous from the ground, but in reality, it always was safe to do it.
Generally, it was always like 20 feet or 30 feet in front of the car.
Its a little close maybe.
But its just spectacular to watch in real life.
In fact, his former stunt double now directs movies with him.
He was afraid of it.
He was more like a happy-go-lucky guy at the time, with high aspirations of dramatic theater.
That is not a stunt person.
People can see its my face.
Its not over my shoulder.
It is in my face while things are happening around me.
And then he started to enjoy it.
But it took him a long time, and he was always a little grumpy about it.
He said, Oh, Im not an action hero.
I dont like it.
I dont know how to do it.
See, thats the whole point of that movie.
Everything in that movie is real.
They never got bored.
They were talking to each other.
They were looking outside.
And you always got really interesting-looking actors.
They were always involved in what was going on.
You could never get that with the professional cast extras.
And Sandra actually was driving the bus.
Shes actually steering the bus.
That reaction, you cannot act that.
Look at any driving scene of people in movies.
InSpeed, theres never a tow car pulling the bus.
Its always a person in the bus whos driving.
Because they never see the driver.
They just see Sandra driving the bus.
The reactions are so real, and that energizes almost everything immediately.
Youve worked with a number of actors who became big stars.
What was it like working with Philip Seymour Hoffman onTwister?
Did you sense that hed become such an acclaimed actor?He was actually the last person we cast.
I met him and immediately liked him.
I had not seen anything from him.
Even though action was not his thing, he totally made it believable.
He put so much enthusiasm in it, in the storm sequences.
He was a revelation.
I found it really hard not to put a camera on him.
Theres always something in his face, in his demeanor, in his turns and twists.
He cannot walk straight.
He really becomes that person, and he doesnt need much makeup.
His whole body changes.
Suddenly, we were able to create a layer of energy that was never really seen in movies before.
There was almost never a cutaway to a stunt-double scene.
So there was better connection between the foreground and the background.
That integration, I think, was extremely important.
That was our goal.
It immediately will be better, almost instantly.
I always planned to come to Hollywood.
Its a plan I had since I was 12 years old.
I had worked on quite a few movies in Europe.
I thought,Well, this might be a great experience for me.
The producer didThe Exorcist.
I couldnt really imagine that you could work that long on one movie.
[The film eventually took five years to finish shooting.]
And then, as we started working, it became basically a trip through hell.
We had animals escape.
We had a flood destroying the whole set.
We had a fire destroying the whole set.
Each time, everything had to be rebuilt.
We had people getting injured left and right.
And I was getting injured myself multiple times.
And then one lion smelled there was something there, and he put his head in the hole.
Its a very small hole, and he grabbed my head, and he totally scalped me.
I couldnt see anything.
I remembered that Id been told to make yourself as big and as loud as you could.
So I stood up, but not knowing where the lion exactly was, I kept rotating.
There were trainers there, but they were all looking at the action on the boat.
They didnt look at me to see if everything was okay.
Then Tippi started to scream and yell, and they thought it was all part of the action.
I had to go to the hospital.
I was there for a long time.
They couldnt do surgery for multiple days because there was too big a danger of infection.
You know what that sound is that you make on the chalkboard?
The scratching sound, but a hundred times stronger.
The teeth on both sides of your skull in stereo, because thats how I remember it stereophonic sound.
I woke up every night.
The doctor said, Maybe you should go and visit them.
And then I decided to go back for a short time.
