Christophe Pinol: In what way is Hollow Man different from your previous movie, Starship Troopers?

Paul Verhoeven: I think every movie I've done is a little bit different. So this is different from before because instead of adding thousands of insects, this was about taking the right person out of the shots. From a special effects point of view, it was the reverse of what I did before. In this case, Kevin Bacon was on the set fighting, kissing and caressing, whatever he was doing was with the others actors. He was always among the actors, in blue, in green or black, whatever… I was kind of unpleasantly surprised when I realized how difficult it was. I thought that it would be easier than Starship Troopers, but it was the reverse.

C.P.: You've mentioned Plato in relation with the theme of invisibility. You've also said that the themes have nothing beneath them, they're simple themes. What interested you in the theme of invisibility?

P.V.: Basically, it's more the theme of what you're doing if you get away from everything. I mean it's a metaphor of course. Invisibility is certainly not a scientific concept. I mean it's certainly not something that you can make possible, scientifically. Not now, and probably not in the next couple of thousand years. So it would be difficult to make that from a metaphorical point of view… What it is about is what would you do? And that's the interesting thing with Plato, because he uses the story of invisibility too, but he uses it so as to explain whether people are born good or bad. And he says -of course he's very negative, very pessimistic- but he says in reality, society constrains us. That people would behave in a much more horrible way than they do, all right.

That's what Plato said. And the movie takes his point of view. At least as far as Sebastian Cain (Kevin Bacon) goes. But Sebastian is portrayed in the beginning as a guy who is a shadow. The other people in the group, certainly Linda (Elisabeth Shue), seem to be more positive. But Cain always treats his collaborators in a trivial way… He can be nasty and he makes kind of dark jokes… And you feel that he is arrogant. He's not a criminal, he's not evil. He has some decency but the power of makes him become evil, because then the dark side of him takes over. And he gives himself to all these darker elements. But I don't think for example, my wife or children would do that.

C. P.: If you could become invisible…

P. V.: … you would be careful then (laughs)!

C.P.: Would you like to be invisible?

P.V.: No. I think it's pretty boring and lonely. I think it's a very lonely existence. For three or four days, it might be fun, but then I think … I mean you can't look anyone in the eyes anymore.If you have sex, who are you looking at? So it's kind of boring I think (laughs). The only thing interesting would be to check out your ex-girlfriend, you know, something like that (laughs) …

C.P.: Did you think that the idea of making a woman invisible…

P.V.: No. But I'm sure that's the sequel.

C.P.: Did you watch old "invisible man" movies before making yours?

P.V.: No. I had to see the old one, the Claude Rains movie (The Invisible Man by James Whale, 1933), but I didn't want to look at them all, I didn't want to be influenced. I didn't want to steal something. I looked at only one movie, which is very strange, an American comedy called Invisible Maniac (Adam Rifkin, 1990). Just to be sure that I would avoid all the tricks that you would see in the movie that did not work. By being very clever in the way he uses invisibility and sure be that it is not becoming idiotic or funny. And somebody showed me a clip of Memoirs of an Invisible Man from John Carpenter (1992) saying, "We should not do that." That's why you see him eating with all his clothes, and never see the food going inside. I always avoided everything like that: drinking, eating, all the things going in that direction. When Kevin Bacon throws up, basically, you don't see what hits the water. But we tried to be as -I think- clever as possible to avoid giggles.

C.P.: I was told that before the test screening, the rape scene was longer and really explicit…

P.V.: Yes, I read that too. But it was never planned. I read that there was a four minutes rape scene on the Internet. The rape scene is what you saw! There was an aftermath of the rape scene, that is. But not the rape itself. The rape was never more than that. There was nothing to be seen really. I tried to do a shot on the couch, and he is on her and she's doing like this (Verhoeven shakes his arms up in the air). But it looked silly.

C.P.: Did you have any problems with the censorship for Hollow Man?

P.V.: No. Not at all. We gave it to the censorship, the MPAA and it was… an R. For the first time of my life! All the other movies… Oh, not Showgirls because we had an NC17, but that was planned. But from Flesh + Blood on, all my movies were X-rated. And for Basic Instinct, I had to go back 10 times to the MPAA.

But the writing of Hollow Man by Andrew Marlowe is much more -let's say- tamer than, for example, what Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct) or Ed Neumeier (Robocop) wrote. But Andrew Marlowe is a much more Studio oriented person. I mean, you saw Air Force One for example, and the other one he did for Arnold, End of Days. Its not so edgy, it's more mainstream. The script is really written in that kind of "Studio tone." Where things are not written to the extreme. With a 90 million dollar budget you are taking gigantic risks, of course, if you make it an NC17. The studio would loose 50-60 million dollars. I mean this is the boundary of what film is, you know, propped against economics and art. The cheaper you make your movie, the more art you can make. The more expensive they get, the more you also realise that it's an economic product.

Total Recall was an economic product. And again, that was a movie that was at that time 85 million dollars, which was a gigantic amount of money. You would not force the Studio to say, "Well, you know, we cannot release it without an R. We have to release it NC17." I think you are part of a system. You have to acknowledge that it is not only art. Like building a house where we cannot live. Skyscrapers look absolutely great from the outside, but there is no toilet (laughs)! Or something like that. And for a 90 million dollar movie, you need an audience. Otherwise it collapses.

Christophe Pinol