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| All Children Grow Up... Except One |
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION |
| This page was created on December 23, 2003
This page was last updated on
December 23, 2003
—Review
—Feature Article
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film
—About this Cast
—About the Crew
—Spiritual Connections
—Forum
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"...for children and for those who were once children..."
The story of Peter and Wendy's trip through the night skies is rooted in the collective consciousness like a recurring dream -- intoxicating, fantastical, irresistible. Much more than romantic nostalgia or a simple bedtime story, Peter Pan represents our most primal hopes and fears. Its powerful emotional truth springs from a fantasy of flight and adventure that is both universal and timeless. Technologically, the time has never been better to tell this story on screen. Philosophically, the world's need to dream, imagine and believe, as Peter Pan urges us to do, is greater than ever. Nevertheless, it was a long time coming. The partnership that finally brought Peter Pan to the screen convenes players who have been loyal to the project for many years. Lucy Fisher first procured the film rights 20 years ago and has nurtured the project through development with producing partner Douglas Wick. Sharing a passion for the story, Revolution's Joe Roth and Todd Garner and Columbia's Amy Pascal alchemized the project with P. J. Hogan on-board as director and co-writer. Universal's Stacey Snider, Mary Parent and Scott Stuber completed a team whose energetic and muscular collaboration realized this version of Peter Pan for audiences everywhere.
"...when the world of make-believe becomes real ..."
A beguiling duality ripples through Peter Pan. Are we meant to imagine that the Darling children actually stepped off their window ledge and flew to Neverland one night when their father had been especially stern? Or should we instead assume that Wendy bid her childhood a poignant farewell with a fantastic dream on her last night in the nursery? Either scenario offers audiences an awfully big adventure.
With P. J. Hogan at the helm, a calibrated balance between the magic of storytelling and the magic of effects was always the mandate. Set in a world that appears "normal," his visually lavish film has the romantic tone of a turn-of-the-century painting with fresh, authentic performances and a lively respect for the original material
-- as well as children who fly, a ticking crocodile the size of a double-decker bus and a fencing duel set in the sails of a pirate ship high above the ground. The contrast between the story's two worlds -- prim Edwardian London and larger-than-life Neverland -- is sharply drawn. The city's gray, cold formality melts from the children's memories as soon as they breathe in Neverland's surreal jungles. P. J. Hogan's openness to magic and imagination, along with his ability to draw others into that special world, were balanced with a scholar's mastery of J. M. Barrie's work. "The book is amazing -- dense and full of great characters and marvelous moments. You get the feeling that J. M. Barrie put everything that ever occurred to him in it," Hogan observed. "And the play is so different from what I remembered -- the story is strong, filled with adventure and action, and very funny, but also very, very moving. What drew me to making the film was realizing it had not been done. Yes, it's literally been filmed, but the full story hadn't been done. There were wonderful things that had not been put on-screen before." Hogan's intimacy with the material made the script sing -- he rewrote an earlier draft by Michael Goldenberg (Contact) after coming on-board as director. "I think P. J. has the entire play and the book in a sort of mental Palm Pilot that he can draw up anytime," said actress Olivia Williams, who plays Mrs. Darling. "I don't think there is a phrase spoken that isn't somewhere referenced back to Barrie. To have produced something so natural and modern and filmic from a story written 100 years ago is amazing."
Hogan's knowledge was also a valuable arbiter on-set, guiding the director and his actors during the inevitable moments when something that works on the page doesn't hold up in performance. "Whenever there was a creaky bit we couldn't quite get through, P. J. would always go back to the source material," said Jason Isaacs, who had also immersed himself in writings by and about Barrie to prepare for the twin roles of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook. "What P. J. has done is what Barrie would do today if he had a Hollywood studio at his disposal." Oscar® nominee Lynn Redgrave plays the Darling family disciplinarian, Aunt Millicent, a character Hogan invented with Redgrave in mind. "Aunt Millicent is not in the original, but she fits right in," said Redgrave, who saw the play many times as a child in England. "She's a desperate romantic, and a funny, full character.
"P. J. is endlessly inventive," she continued. "If he were a painter, he'd be inventing new colors that had never existed before. He has been fantastically true to J. M. Barrie while bringing in some original touches that are so Barrie-esque that it would be hard for me to say whether something was in the original or not."
Producer Lucy Fisher shared the devotion to Barrie's work. "It is a privilege and an honor and a burden to do something that so many people love," she confessed. "You want to do it justice. Peter Pan is not just about kids having an adventure and playing with fairies," Fisher emphasized. "The actual Barrie material, while completely accessible to children, also has a depth and mystery to it, which is why I think it has sustained for so long. The myths that sustain themselves are the ones in which people face fear and come through it." For Fisher, the story has always been Wendy's as much as Peter's. "The play is called Peter Pan," she noted, "but the book is called Peter and Wendy because it's really two stories. Peter is certainly the star but the point of view was always Wendy's -- jumping out the window and coming back in."
The filmmakers all agreed that what happens in between Wendy "jumping out the window and coming back in" had to feel believable for their Peter Pan to make its mark. "One of the great ambitions from the very beginning was to give the audience the pleasure of letting it seem true, letting us all really go to Neverland, letting us inhabit a real version of a fantasy place," said producer Douglas Wick. "We knew that with today's technology we could create that kind of strange reality in a way that's never been possible before.
"The emotional reality was the other great challenge -- and finding a director who could deliver both," Wick continued. "Our mission was to avoid any kind of arch version of a moustache-twirling Hook or a silly Peter. We knew P. J. would bring a tone of emotional reality and credibility. His script was very focused on a credible Hook, a credible Mr. Darling and a family that interacted in a recognizable way so that it wouldn't seem like remote people in a remote place and time."
"Proud and insolent youth!"
"Peter Pan is this kid who's free and gets to do anything he wants. He gets to fly, he gets to sword fight, he gets to kill pirates -- it's what every kid wants and Peter Pan has it." So says Jeremy Sumpter, who ought to know. The young American actor chosen to perform this iconic role is the first boy ever to portray Peter Pan in a major production. Hogan appreciated the opportunity to put a boy on-screen as Peter Pan. "Peter Pan has been a cartoon character, and onstage he's mainly been played by women," the director explained. "In the silent film version, he was played by a woman, and in Hook, he was 40 years old. Now a kid is finally getting to do the greatest role ever written for a kid. Jeremy is Peter Pan. He is wild, confident, boisterous, fun -- all those things that were so difficult to find in one kid. I was looking for the 12-year-old Errol Flynn, which was very difficult because 12-year-olds usually don't know who they are, and are not confident. We searched a long time. But I knew as Jeremy walked through the door that he was it."
Jason Isaacs, the versatile British actor who plays Peter Pan's nemesis, felt the impact of Sumpter's energy every day. "They can't hold him still to put the make-up on him in the morning," Isaacs joked. "He's a terrible influence on me and the Lost Boys, which is why he's such a great Peter Pan. He never looks down, he never looks back. He's like a supernova -- you have to try and keep up with him."
Sumpter relished acting out the rivalry between Peter Pan and Hook. "My favorite shot in the whole film is when Peter says, 'To die would be an awfully big adventure.' It makes Hook so mad and then -- tick tock! -- Hook looks back and there's the crocodile!"
But Sumpter understood that Peter Pan isn't always crowing. "Jeremy has the face of an angel, but also has the face of an animal," observed producer Lucy Fisher. "He has complete energy, a leadership quality and unbounded personal charisma. Yet he has a tender side, too, so there are scenes where he is hurt or sad, and he is a breathtaking natural actor. He delivers the lines with a naturalness that never sounds stagey. He is fearless and yet has a lot of heartfelt emotion, too."
For his villain, Hogan followed the tradition observed since the very first stage production of Peter Pan nearly a century ago by casting one actor as both Captain Hook and Mr. Darling.
It made perfect sense to Jason Isaacs. "Hook's an incredibly dangerous man. He's been played for laughs in other versions, but Barrie wrote a book that adults and children can enjoy, and at its center is a frightening character. It's no surprise that this creature, who represents the scariest things about being grown up, looks a lot like Wendy's father."
Both of these frightening men are also very fearful themselves. "Mr. Darling is ruled by Aunt Millicent who tells him what everyone will think, how everyone will judge him," Isaacs explained. "And Hook's scared that he'll never fulfill his destiny. He should be ruling the Seven Seas and have the respect of his men, and yet this irritating little boy doesn't seem to be scared of him."
"One girl is worth twenty boys..."
The three-continent search for a young actress to portray Wendy was ultimately the filmmakers' biggest challenge in casting Peter Pan. Hundreds of girls were seen at open calls in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia before Rachel Hurd-Wood, who had never acted before and lives in England's Home Counties, was found at an open call in London. "Rachel was the last one cast," said Hogan. "We needed a girl who felt right for the period -- a 12-year-old girl with dignity, strength and wit. Kids are different now.
The filmmakers were more concerned with emotional truth than professional credits. Nevertheless, the role of Wendy was technically challenging. "It's a very difficult part because she has to change during the movie," Fisher explained. "When we found Peter, we thought, 'Who is going to be able to look good next to him?' Then we found this girl who has the same degree of presence as he does, and she pulls off a very complicated part with vigor and elegance."
According to Isaacs, who shared many scenes with Hurd-Wood, her lack of training proved an asset. "Rachel doesn't have any craft to hide behind," he noted. "It's got to be real for her or she can't do it. That's why her performance is so truthful."
Hurd-Wood's trip to Neverland began one day after school when her mother met her at the door with a tape measure. "My grandparents heard about the part on television and told my mum they were searching for a typically English Wendy of this height and that sort of thing. I'd never done any acting. Mum said I wasn't going for the part but for the fun of seeing what an audition for a film would be like."
After the open call, she was called back to audition on camera, called again to read opposite Isaacs, called a third time to work with an acting coach, and then flown to Australia for a screen test. Next, she spent four days in Los Angeles to see the producers and work with John Kirby, the acting coach for all the children in Peter Pan. Finally, after a long spell of waiting, she learned that she had the part. In the course of filming, she acquired skills she'd never imagined, from fencing to flying, and only complained about one thing. "It's not fun to cry," she said. "Your friends from the set can't talk to you because it will get you distracted from the scene, so it's hard and tiring and just not fun. One time I spent a whole day crying and the next day I could have broken an arm and wouldn't have cried because I was just totally drained of all crying."
Laughing or crying, she admired her character. "Wendy's a really great person," she said. "She loves adventure, but still has a girly side. If I had lived then, I would have loved to be her friend."
A Century Ago
J. M. Barrie was born in the tiny Scottish town of Kirriemuir in 1860 and moved to London as a young man to make his mark as a writer. His earliest stories were colorful newspaper pieces about a fictional version of Kirriemuir. He also contributed to the National Observer, along with such contemporaries as Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells and W. B. Yeats. Later, with several successful plays and novels to his credit, he lived across the road from the Kensington Gardens, where he took daily walks with his St. Bernard. It was during these rambles that he met the Llewelyn Davies children, the five brothers who inspired him to create Peter Pan. When the children's parents died, Barrie adopted all five boys. Peter Pan first appeared in J. M. Barrie's 1902 novel, The Little White Bird, as the hero of a story the book's narrator tells a child. Barrie was already a popular novelist and playwright in London when his Peter Pan play debuted on December 27, 1904 at the Duke of York's Theatre. The premiere was not a children's matinee, but a glittering West End opening night for an audience of sophisticated Londoners who had come to see the latest work by one of the top writers of the day. The patrons had no idea of what to expect from Peter Pan, nor did anyone feel prescient enough to predict the fate of the thematically daring and technically demanding production. But the producer's faith in Barrie, and Barrie's faithfulness to his own unique vision, made Peter Pan an immediate classic. Barrie refined the play's text for many years after it debuted and expanded the story for his Peter Pan novel, which was published as Peter and Wendy in 1911. The play was not published until 1928, after a full 24 years of stage productions -- and revisions. Thanks to writer Andrew Birkin, a comprehensive volume of Barrie's notes and drafts as he conceptualized, wrote and revised Peter Pan over this long period was collected in one massive document, affectionately known among the Peter Pan filmmakers as 'the tome.' 'The tome' was an invaluable aid in making this film.
An Ongoing Gift
Peter Pan is cherished around the world for its promise of an awfully big adventure, but in Britain there is something more. Several years before his death in 1937, Sir James Barrie donated all rights from Peter Pan to London's Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). The charismatic boy who would not grow up has been helping to save the lives of very sick children through this bequest ever since.
Built by Dr. Charles West in 1852 with just 10 beds, Great Ormond Street Hospital was London's first hospital specifically designated for children. Charles Dickens lived nearby and read a chapter from A Christmas Carol on the front steps to help raise funds for expansion. The hospital was able to buy the house next door, doubling its size to 20 beds, and it has grown from there to 350 beds. A National Health Service hospital, GOSH is funded by the government for day-to-day operations, but not for its many critical care specialty areas. "We get the sickest children, if their own doctor and district hospital can't help them; it's a place of last resort," explained Kit Palmer, who looks after Peter Pan rights issues for GOSH. "We have 22 different specialties and offer the widest range of pediatric specialties under one roof in the U. K. Most patients see at least two specialists, some as many as five.
"The message of the play is eternal," Palmer continued. "Who hasn't worried about growing up and what the world has in store for us? This play has something to say to any nation, any individual. We at the hospital had always hoped to have the classic Peter Pan on film, based on Barrie's original work. The timing is so wonderful, so now I hope we'll have another hundred years of sharing this film."
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