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Did you do any research or prep? I am such a big fan of Andy Serkis that I watched every single behind the scenes featurette a long time ago on DVD. Then I was watching Benedict Cumberbatch as Smog, and a lot of the Apes movies which were done by Weta Digital Effects who also did Alita. I talked to the technician, Paul Alvarez, who was the one hands-on working on the boom and fixing the helmet and making sure I have the dots on correctly. He enlightened me so much to the process and now I go to Manhattan Beach Studios just so I can shadow Jim as a director of performance capture, because that's where I think it gets really, really technical and interesting because I'm dealing with this set of things that I have to incorporate with the motion capture, but Jim's dealing with 75 million other things that he has to incorporate to make it work. Performance capture is so interesting. You can be in a scene with someone, say, a love scene that I have with Keean and really it all melts away. You hear actors say that and you're like ‘Okay, you're wearing a boom on your head, it's five pounds. Like, how does that melt away?’ But it just does. The shock value melts away when you're in those scenes and you're really focused and in it.
It sounds like you’re already prepping to one day direct a motion capture film. Yeah, I secretly am. I'm eager to learn and I feel like Robert and Jim respond to that. They want to be mentors. There are some people in this business that don't and that's perfectly fine. But, Robert and Jim do. They are really generous with their wisdom.
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Let’s talk a little about Alita, the character. Tell us in your own words who she is. Alita is… just a regular girl! In the same way that all of the mo-cap stuff kind of bleeds out when you're in it, Alita is a regular girl who happens to be made of cybernetic parts and has an insane, traumatic history. Alita's just like me. She has a whole palette of
emotions. She's insecure. She's brave. She's courageous. She's strong. She's curious and she's defiant. She's powerful and she's weak. She has a real soul and I think that she bares it all the time. She doesn’t really hold anything back. She doesn't suffer fools. She doesn't pull punches. But she doesn't actually know who she is. She's learning everything for the first time. Now that she's been reawakened.
So emotionally, she’s human. But in terms of physicality, did you have to play her slightly… Robotic?
Yeah. No. Although I had practiced and practiced with a friend who helps me read lines. And I was very stiff, very Ex Machina. I had all of these movements, all these intricate finger twitches and whatever. As you do. And right before I went in to audition, I suddenly thought, ‘Hey, wait a second. She’s not a robot, she's a cyborg….’ Her body was created by Ido [Christoph Waltz] who is a cybernetic surgeon, so he knows what he’s doing. She doesn’t move in a stiff way. In fact, the way she moves is very cat like. Even smoother than a normal person. Not only is she not stiff or robotic, her body movements are very fluid.
When actors do performance capture, often the character they're playing doesn't look anything like them. But with Alita there seems to be a reasonable amount of you in the character. Yeah. It’s an anime version of myself.
So how is that? It's super cool! And it was always the plan, that whatever actress was going to inhabit the role, it was going to be her performance and her face and her features. More and more as they edit the film and draw the film, every time I see it, it looks more like me. Which is
Read the full interview with Rosa Salazar in the February Issue of Live 24-Seven Magazine
LIVE24-SEVEN.COM
CE L EBRI T Y INTERVI EW ROSA SALAZAR
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