Con Air at 25: Simon West in Life of Action II
Con Air is a considered an action fan favourite and remembered fondly by many. It sits within a cannon of larger-than-life, 90’s action blockbusters and an era of peak Nicolas Cage heroic flicks, including The Rock and Face/Off. However, with a cast that also includes John Cusack, John Malkovich, Colm Meaney, Mykelti Williamson, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Dave Chappelle, Danny Trejo and more, Con Air might just top the list in terms of star power.
I discussed this cult action classic, plus many more films, with British director Simon West when I interviewed him in my book, Life of Action II.
Born 1961 in Hertfordshire, England, West was always a film aficionado, regularly visiting his local cinema and shooting on his father’s camera before experimenting with short films. After an early career honing his skills at the BBC, hardly the action background you’d expect, he began shooting commercials and music videos. In a surprise twist of fate, one of his commercials was seen at the NFL Super Bowl by producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who called a meeting. This led to their collaboration on Con Air, launching West’s film career in the process. He would, of course, later go on to make The General’s Daughter, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Mechanic, The Expendables 2, Wild Card and many more. This was quite the debut.
Recalling that early meeting with Jerry Bruckheimer, a legendary Hollywood producer behind box office hits like Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun and Bad Boys, West told me; “I went into Jerry’s office and he had a huge wall of scripts on display, so he reached back and pulled three off the shelf. He asked me to read them over the weekend and see if I’d want to make any of them. I read them all and two were pretty standard, dreadful action, Navy SEALs in the jungle type of stuff, and the other was called Con Air, which I chose. The script was quite a small, character-driven story written by Scott Rosenberg who did two indie films, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead and Beautiful Girls. Con Air was actually a lot like that too but, of course, working with Jerry he asked that we expand it and make it bigger. I sat down and we collaborated on what was there and ended up making it this huge action movie. At the heart of it, I felt it still had those great characters which attracted me in the first place. It wasn’t generic action, we had something quite different.”
Describing the actual shoot and experience of making the film, he told me; “I had to learn how to shoot action really fast. I’d never really seen a gun close up or shot a fight scene, so I had to learn the techniques. Also, looking back, I probably didn’t turn off the comedy muscle much. This is why it’s a pretty surreal comedy with a lot of action in the background. I really thought I was making an action film but I’d been flexing the comedy style for so long that it’s still present and there’s a lot of humour in there.”
Some gifts I received from Simon West celebrating the 20th anniversary of Con Air
“I storyboarded huge amounts of the film, both because it was my first film and I wanted to get it right, and it was a big studio film so we had a lot of prep time. I still have a lot of those storyboards at home. This was pre CGI when everything was captured in camera. We shot on 35mm because I wanted to shoot with real, old-fashioned anamorphic lenses, some are four feet long and weigh 100 lbs. I explained everything to my director of photography David Tattersall, who I’ve known for a long time and worked with on many commercials. I wanted to shoot it classically, with very majestic crane shots, beautiful landscapes, not fast and scrappy like a lot of action films. Although it was my first feature, I’d filmed commercials all over the world. I’d shot on mountains, aerial scenes, underwater and used every piece of equipment possible.”
I asked how he found the hands-on experience of making a feature film, after shooting commercials for so long? He explained, “the biggest difference was the period of time. Most commercials lasted seven days at most, so making this film over 100 days was the biggest shock, with all the stamina required. You go in sprinting and realise it’s a marathon, you need to pace yourself.”
“I got to day 30, completely exhausted, and realised we had another 70 to go. The scale was also much bigger. We had a 400 strong crew in the desert for six weeks, so managing that amount of people was challenging. It’s a huge machine to move, you can’t just hurry over the road to shoot something, everything needs to be planned. Things would change, we’d lose a location, or the weather was different, so we had to make something up on the day. When I watch the film now, I can see that some scenes were meticulously planned and others were improvised [Laughs]. However, it all came together in the end. So the biggest challenges were definitely the period of time, the scale and also working for a massive studio.”
Reflecting on the release of the film, how he felt afterwards, he told me, “since it was my first film, I had no reference or comparison, I just threw everything I had into it, but it turned out very well. Some of my best childhood memories were at my local cinema in Letchworth called the Broadway, a classic 1930s style cinema. It’s where I used to go every Saturday as a boy when I first fell in love with film. Years later, the UK premiere of Con Air took place there so it was a nice full circle experience to come home to.”
My book Life of Action II is still available in hardback, softcover and on Kindle, for those who want to read Simon West’s career-spanning interview in full.