Defendor (2009): Producer Nicholas Tabarrok on casting Sandra Oh and Sandra on why she chose to do the role. (Click here to read director Peter Stebbings' version of the story.)
Defendor (2009): Bloopers
Hard Candy (2005): Director David Slade about casting Sandra Oh and why she agreed to do the cameo role.
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Woody Harrelson is set to walk the biggest red carpet of the year on March 7. That's Oscar Sunday and he's a best-supporting-actor nominee. But Monday night, Woody walked a small red carpet for his new small-budget film "Defendor."
In "Defendor," Woody Harrelson plays a man with some mental limitations. But when he becomes his alter ego, he feels like a crime-fighting superhero.
"And, of course, bullets don't bounce off and he gets beat up," said Woody.
Woody continues to take on roles that now defy stereotypes. Recently, there's his Oscar-nominated work for "The Messenger," where he's a military bearer of bad news, and a zombie-slaying tough guy in "Zombieland." These roles are very different from his days tending bar on TV's "Cheers."
"I'm very happy to hear you say that because there was quite a while in the earlier part of my career where I felt like I would only have played one part, you know?" said Woody. "So I felt lucky to have an opportunity to get into movies at all."
Sandra Oh plays Woody's psychologist in the film. One reason she took the role? To work with woody.
"His work in 'No Country for Old Men' -- there's a scene where he and Javier Bardem are sitting chair to chair and his work in that scene was so stupendous, I wanted to sit opposite Woody Harrelson," said Sandra.
For all the stars of this low-budget film, it was about the material, not the money.
"In the long run, I feel like really excellent work is more important than money," said "Defendor" co-star Kat Dennings. "It is, I'm sorry."
"Defendor" is rated "R." It opens Friday.
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The film was shot in just 20 days, for about three million dollars — a shoestring budget compared to Hollywood fare. Remarkably, Defendor is visually impressive, far exceeding the expectations that usually greet a low-budget Canadian feature. It’s an unusual achievement for a first-time director, but Stebbings stopped at nothing to ensure his film would be a success. That included courting his high-profile actors himself.
“Sandra Oh [who plays Arthur’s therapist] turned me down twice,” Stebbings recalls, laughing. “I sent it to her manager; she turned it down. I brought it up again; she turned it down. Finally, I sort of wrote her a personal letter and offered to sweeten the pot with a handbag of her choice, because I’d read somewhere that she liked handbags, and I think all that did was make her giggle and make her manager giggle, but it kept the dialogue open, so I gave her a more comprehensive overview of how I would treat those scenes. She’s a busy girl at Grey’s Anatomy; she came up on the weekend and flew out on Sunday night. We shot all those scenes in two days.”
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Running Time: 101 Min.
Rated: R
Release Date: April 13Synopsis
Arthur Poppington (2009 Golden Globe® Nominee Woody Harrelson) doesn’t need superpowers or fancy toys to fight crime. Armed only with a childlike sense of wonder and his quirky arsenal of cheap, homemade gadgets, he becomes DEFENDOR! He finds an unexpected partner when he rescues and falls for a local prostitute (Kat Dennings, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist). Can the two of them take down the city’s most fearsome crime boss without getting killed in the process?
"Harrelson at his very best!" Pete Hammond Boxoffice Magazine
DVD Features
- Featurettes
- Woody Harrelson, Kat Dennings and Filmmakers Commentary
- Outtakes
- Deleted Scenes
Fest dealmaking continues to trickle on as the third U.S. distribution pact was inked in Toronto midweek.
Despite the dearth of U.S. pickups, a flurry of deals for prominent international territories shouldn't be underestimated, say reps.
And film critics apparently still have some credibility, according to producers, as buyers are carefully scrutinizing reviews before pulling out their checkbooks.
Though so far without a theatrical commitment, comedy "Defendor" was picked up in a seven-figure deal by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group for all U.S. rights and most of Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Pic, which stars Woody Harrelson as a self-made superhero, had its fest bow in Toronto on Saturday. Helmed and written by popular Canuck thesp Peter Stebbings, it was produced by Toronto- and L.A.-based Nicholas Tabarrok of Darius Films.
Tabarrok had pre-sold Canadian rights to Alliance Films as part of the movie's financing mix. Alliance also nabbed Canadian and Spanish rights (through subsid Aurum) to Toronto's most high-profile pickup so far this week -- Tom Ford's directorial debut, "A Single Man."
The Weinstein Co. and various foreign bidders vied for the film deep into Monday night.
"We pretty much sold most of the world in five hours on Monday night," foreign sales agent Stuart Ford of IM Global said. "We intentionally didn't pre-sell the film, and I'm glad the gamble paid off."
Among the territorial buyers were Icon in the U.K. and Oz, Mars in France, Svensk Film in Scandinavia, Sun Distribution in Latin America and TWC for Germany along with the U.S. rights.
Ancillary and territorial deals may not be as sexy as a big-advance theatrical deal for the U.S., but they beat the alternative.
"How heartbreaking is it to see movies that cost $20 million with no distributors?" asked attorney and sales agent John Sloss, who along with Jeff Sackman worked on the "Defendor" deal. "The smart approach is to divide up ... deals, whether those deals come with advances or not. That's not a consolation prize, in my mind."
Deals also have been extremely review-driven, according to producers and sellers in Toronto. Strongly reviewed films that first bowed in Venice had a better chance of making deals in Toronto, as reviews hit and buzz from both fests crescendo -- as last year's "The Hurt Locker" and "The Wrestler" and this year's "Single Man" proved.
"Buyers aren't chasing films that trade paper critics don't like," CAA agent Micah Green said. "Distributors are wary of relying only on audience reaction. The power that critics have with buyers who are following the critical consensus is undeniable."
Reality intersects with delusion in the mind of Arthur Poppington (Woody Harrelson), a regular man who adopts a superhero persona known as Defendor, and combs the city streets at night in search of his arch-enemy, Captain Industry. In his attempts to combat crime and bring down Captain Industry, a drug and weapons dealer who he mistakenly blames for the death of his mother, Defendor ends up befriending a young prostitute, Katerina Debrofkowitz (Kat Dennings).
Armed with unconventional weapons of mass confusion, aided by his new friend, and putting his life on the line, Defendor proves that everyone is capable of making a difference.
Official sponsor Skyy Vodka unveiled its annual trifecta of celebrity-inspired cocktails, each with an unsurprising dose of—what else?—Skyy Vodka (although our preliminary research indicates that any kind of vodka can be used).
In keeping with tradition, the three beverages were named after Canadian talent (last year, Don McKellar, Scott Speedman and Atom Egoyan were boozified). Here are this year’s winners:
• The Page Pucker, named after Ellen Page in Whip It: a simple pink grapefruit juice and vodka combo, topped with a raspberry.
• The Ray of Light, inspired by Lisa Ray of Cooking With Stella: vodka, mango juice and X-Rated Fusion Liqueur.
• The C“Oh”conut Dream, in honour of Sandra Oh from Defendor: coconut water, vodka and Amarula in a glass rimmed with some off-putting coconut-flavoured grit.
SourceWhen night falls and danger emerges from the shadows of Hammer Town's alleyways, Defendor is the only man who stands between us and the drug-ravaged streets. He is the last bastion of decency, the last honourable man: he is Defendor! But he is also Arthur Poppington (Woody Harrelson), a simple man who lives in the workshop of the construction company that employs him to hold traffic signs. Arthur is a self-made superhero who runs afoul of the law when he lays a beating on an undercover cop, Chuck Dooney (Elias Koteas), who was abusing a young prostitute named Kat (Kat Dennings). Always the hero, Arthur takes Kat to his secret hideout hoping she can help him find his arch-nemesis, the diabolical Captain Industry. Mistakenly convinced that Captain Industry killed his mother, Arthur has made it his mission to track down this enemy at all costs. But in order to do so, he must first overcome his most difficult challenge ever: convincing the court-appointed psychiatrist Dr. Park (Sandra Oh) that he's sane enough to be on the streets.
Defendor is the clever and original feature debut from writer and director Peter Stebbings. Using familiar comic-book tropes, he adds a gritty realism to the genre and subverts convention by evolving a character largely unaware of his true identity. Harrelson is superb as Arthur, a man trapped in his childhood who bases his entire worldview on the panel-to-panel philosophy espoused by the comics he pored over as a child. Harrelson gives Arthur an innocent humanity and heroic spirit that belie his hockey-gear-meets-duct-tape costume. And Koteas is wonderfully wicked as the corrupt Dooney, the face of a city and society in collapse.
Steeped in comic-book iconography but stripped of the elaborate trappings of modern movies of the genre, Defendor questions our comic-saturated culture. By adopting a central character whose only special powers are kindness and determination, the film repositions the meaning of “superhero.” Feeling very much a film of the new economic landscape, Defendor finds its hero in the midst of a very real, decaying city, suggesting that true courage lies in the least likely individuals and that it only takes only one ripple to make a wave.
"Woody [Harrelson] plays this guy who, most of the time, is this meek individual," Koteas said in an interview while promoting his latest film, the March 27 release The Haunting in Connecticut. "And he takes it upon himself to be this Defendor. He doesn't have real powers. He has marbles that he throws at you. He has a club. He has bees in a bottle that he sics on you. You don't know if you should laugh or be pissed off or run or what. As a character opposite that, you don't know 'Who is this guy, and what the hell does he want?' The story is really quite beautiful."
Oh plays Harrelson's psychiatrist, while Dennings appears as a crack-addicted prostitute who befriends the Defendor. Koteas is a police detective who's crossed over to the dark side.
"He went in to infiltrate this group, this gang, and in the meantime the lines were fuzzy, so somehow he lost his family, he gets addicted to crack, and he becomes something like a part-time pimp for this organization," Koteas said of his character. "He's going to get indicted. So it sounds grim, but at the same time it's very funny. It's a great script and a first-time director. Woody Harrelson was great. Kat Dennings was great. So it could be good. It was a great experience, actually."
