wannabe Spartans were sent to boot camp for 10 weeks of intensive training to get their bodies in shape.
For four hours a day, five days a week, they ran, lifted weights and used all manner of gym equipment, all of which gave new meaning to the hoary old actor’s phrase of ‘suffering for my art’. ‘We knew we were going to have to wear leather Speedos and very little else in the film,’ said Michael. ‘They let us eat whatever we wanted but the workouts were brutal.’
But the punishing regime produced impressive results so that, by the time they started filming in November, they were in better shape than they had ever been. Their costumes consisted of tight and skimpy leather pants, red cloaks and sandals, which caused a fair amount of sniggering and mickey-taking among the mainly British cast, which included Gerard Butler as Leonidas, LeanHeady as his queen, Gorgo, Vincent Regan as Captain and Dominic West as the manipulative politician, Theron.
The movie was visually stunning, with the characters looking like drawings come to life against a dramatic backdrop of cliff tops, towering buildings and storm-lashed seas, with much use of high and low perspective. Red robes and a liberal amount of blood added slashes of vivid colour to grey or blue backgrounds. Together with dramatic and artistic posturing, it suggested comic-book art as well as the finest Biblical paintings from the old masters.
The story was a blood-fest from start to finish, with heads being cut off and flying through the air, soldiers charging on horses with swords aloft, bows and arrows and spears. But the cast saw little of this, as most of it was added by computer at a later stage. ‘The actors, very often working up to sixteen hours a day, were surrounded by a giant blank green screen and nothing else,’ explained Michael. ‘My training for the theatre was very useful. When you are working live in the theatre you may be looking out over an audience but you are imagining another environment.
‘In our mind’s eye we would project onto the screen the invading hordes of Persian soldiers or a vast landscape or extreme climate conditions – whatever was required – and take on the physicality of that. In those conditions the actors are thrown back onto the relationships and dynamics between themselves, which is exactly how it is in the theatre.’
But the rather camp atmosphere of muscular men in bulging leather pants gave rise to much mirth between takes, with some of the jokes being borrowed from the Monty Python team’s classic Biblical comedy, Life of Brian . As Michael told The Times , ‘There were a lot of Life of Brian gags, and certainly when Dominic West walked on in his full costume, someone did say, “He wanks as high as any man in Wome!” But that just helps to get it out of your system, so there’s none of it left in the film itself.’
Michael considered Zack Snyder to be an inspirational director and he welcomed Gerard Butler’s supportive comments during filming. ‘We had scenes together and he’d be like, “Nice work, you’ll do well,”’ he recalled. ‘Things that are nice to hear when you’re lower down on the rung.’
300 was also Michael’s first Hollywood film and he was impressed by the size of his trailer. ‘I thought to myself, “Why did I bother getting a flat? I could have just lived in this!”’
On its release 300 was a huge box-office success but film critics, although agreeing on its visual merit, were generally not so enthusiastic about the storytelling. The Irish Times called it ‘a stylised, violent and heady cinematic experience’. The Times said, ‘It’s exhilarating stuff, and Snyder gets the most out of every cent of what was reportedly a comparatively low budget. Still, you start to tire of all the macho posturing and male bonding.’ Tothe Observer it was ‘a ridiculous rendering of the ancient world’ and the influential Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times said, ‘ 300 has
For four hours a day, five days a week, they ran, lifted weights and used all manner of gym equipment, all of which gave new meaning to the hoary old actor’s phrase of ‘suffering for my art’. ‘We knew we were going to have to wear leather Speedos and very little else in the film,’ said Michael. ‘They let us eat whatever we wanted but the workouts were brutal.’
But the punishing regime produced impressive results so that, by the time they started filming in November, they were in better shape than they had ever been. Their costumes consisted of tight and skimpy leather pants, red cloaks and sandals, which caused a fair amount of sniggering and mickey-taking among the mainly British cast, which included Gerard Butler as Leonidas, LeanHeady as his queen, Gorgo, Vincent Regan as Captain and Dominic West as the manipulative politician, Theron.
The movie was visually stunning, with the characters looking like drawings come to life against a dramatic backdrop of cliff tops, towering buildings and storm-lashed seas, with much use of high and low perspective. Red robes and a liberal amount of blood added slashes of vivid colour to grey or blue backgrounds. Together with dramatic and artistic posturing, it suggested comic-book art as well as the finest Biblical paintings from the old masters.
The story was a blood-fest from start to finish, with heads being cut off and flying through the air, soldiers charging on horses with swords aloft, bows and arrows and spears. But the cast saw little of this, as most of it was added by computer at a later stage. ‘The actors, very often working up to sixteen hours a day, were surrounded by a giant blank green screen and nothing else,’ explained Michael. ‘My training for the theatre was very useful. When you are working live in the theatre you may be looking out over an audience but you are imagining another environment.
‘In our mind’s eye we would project onto the screen the invading hordes of Persian soldiers or a vast landscape or extreme climate conditions – whatever was required – and take on the physicality of that. In those conditions the actors are thrown back onto the relationships and dynamics between themselves, which is exactly how it is in the theatre.’
But the rather camp atmosphere of muscular men in bulging leather pants gave rise to much mirth between takes, with some of the jokes being borrowed from the Monty Python team’s classic Biblical comedy, Life of Brian . As Michael told The Times , ‘There were a lot of Life of Brian gags, and certainly when Dominic West walked on in his full costume, someone did say, “He wanks as high as any man in Wome!” But that just helps to get it out of your system, so there’s none of it left in the film itself.’
Michael considered Zack Snyder to be an inspirational director and he welcomed Gerard Butler’s supportive comments during filming. ‘We had scenes together and he’d be like, “Nice work, you’ll do well,”’ he recalled. ‘Things that are nice to hear when you’re lower down on the rung.’
300 was also Michael’s first Hollywood film and he was impressed by the size of his trailer. ‘I thought to myself, “Why did I bother getting a flat? I could have just lived in this!”’
On its release 300 was a huge box-office success but film critics, although agreeing on its visual merit, were generally not so enthusiastic about the storytelling. The Irish Times called it ‘a stylised, violent and heady cinematic experience’. The Times said, ‘It’s exhilarating stuff, and Snyder gets the most out of every cent of what was reportedly a comparatively low budget. Still, you start to tire of all the macho posturing and male bonding.’ Tothe Observer it was ‘a ridiculous rendering of the ancient world’ and the influential Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times said, ‘ 300 has
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