Whiteout Creator Praises Kate Beckinsale
Posted 09.01.09 by BrentJS
Writer Greg Rucka has waited a long time to see his comic book series Whiteout on the big screen. Rucka said that the comic was first optioned in 1998, the year the series debuted, but one option after another lapsed and he was beginning to think the adaptation was never going to happen. A fateful call from producer Joel Silver later, and Rucka was on his way to realizing his dream of seeing his tough U.S. Marshal, Carrie Stetko, transformed into flesh and blood in the form of actress Kate Beckinsale.
Kate is a very talented, subtle actress who just knows exactly what she's doing with the character ... she was great. Since there are a lot of close-up shots during some of the more action-oriented scenes, Kate had to do those instead of the stunt people to show that it was her, but she was just great in carrying those out.
In Whiteout, Stetko is the only deputy marshal assigned to Antarctica and she has only three days to solve a murder before the brutal winter beings. Rucka said that the environment of the story is one of the most crucial elements.
Antarctica is a violently intolerable place. It has its own rules and its own personality. It's not responsible for the care and feeding of people, and environments like that provide many great insights into other characters and their humanity. There are rules to surviving there.
Though shot in Canada rather than Antarctica, Beckinsale agreed that the environment could be terrifying:
There were times when I looked out and couldn't distinguish where the land and the sky met; it was just one huge whiteness. Totally disorienting. It's easy to imagine how scary that would be if you were alone. You could turn away from your camp for a moment and not find your way back.
Whiteout is directed by Dominic Sena and also stars Gabriel Macht as Robert Pryce and Tom Skerritt as Dr. John Fury.
Next Showing: Whiteout opens September 11