Face/Off

In the plot-twisting high-tech thriller "FACE/OFF," relentless FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) must go dangerously undercover to investigate the location of a lethal biological weapon planted by his arch rival, the sadistic terrorist-for-hire Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). After undergoing a radical surgical procedure, Archer literally "borrows" Troy's face and identity to carry out his mission. But things go awry when Troy, emerging from a coma, transforms into Archer and wreaks havoc upon his life, both at work and at home. As the bomb continues to tick and the tension mounts, it becomes a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse as both Archer and Troy, ironically trapped in their enemy's body, try to save face…their own.
"FACE/OFF" reunites the powerful team of John Travolta and internationally acclaimed director John Woo. Woo and Travolta's previous collaboration was the exciting box-office blockbuster "Broken Arrow." Nicolas Cage joins forces with them, fresh off the box-office success of "The Rock" and the critical sensation "Leaving Las Vegas," which earned Cage an Academy Award® for Best Actor.
Two-time Academy Award® nominee Joan Allen also stars, with Gina Gershon, Alessandro Nivola, Dominique Swain, Nick Cassavetes, Harve Presnell, Colm Feore, John Carroll Lynch, CCH Pounder, Robert Wisdom and Margaret Cho rounding out the cast.
"FACE/OFF" is a Paramount Pictures presentation of a Douglas/Reuther Production, a WCG Entertainment Production, a David Permut Production of a John Woo Film. Produced by David Permut, Barrie M. Osborne, Terence Chang and Christopher Godsick, with Michael Douglas, Steven Reuther and Jonathan D. Krane serving as executive producers. The associate producer is Jeff Levine. "FACE/OFF" was written by Mike Werb & Michael Colleary, who also serve as co-producers. Paramount Pictures is part of the entertainment operations of Viacom Inc.
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World-renowned filmmaker John Woo brings the dynamic pairing of two American icons of cinema to the screen, John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. Seen together on screen for the first time, these incomparable actors are pitted against one another in a high-stakes struggle between good and evil in the lightning-paced "FACE/OFF."
Riveting and unquestionably charismatic, John Travolta plays Sean Archer in "FACE/OFF." A crack FBI agent who heads a covert anti-terrorist unit, Archer has been tracking criminal mastermind Castor Troy for eight years. Troy is not only responsible for countless terrorist bombings and cold-blooded murders, but for the death of Archer's five year old son Michael. Propelled by revenge, Archer, described by Travolta is "a broken man" and is consumed by this personal chase for which he has sacrificed everything.
The insatiable and brutal sociopath Castor Troy is played by Cage, whose strength and versatility as an actor has created many indelible screen personas. Madman Castor is as bad as Archer is good.
"They are the yin and the yang," Cage says. "Archer has lost his grip and passion for life. Castor, on the other hand, has a huge appetite for life, more specifically for sex, money, gold and killing."
Archer thinks his nightmare is over when he captures Castor, whom he has left in a coma, barely alive. What he doesn't realize, however, is that the nightmare is just beginning. Castor has left the legacy of a mega bomb capable of decimating downtown Los Angeles, with thousands of lives lost in its wake. The only way for Archer to find the location of the bomb and close this chapter in his life is to secretly, and temporarily, enter a maximum security prison and extract the information from the one person left alive who knows: Castor's paranoid schizophrenic brother Pollux. To do this, he must assume the identity, the face of Castor Troy.
Through advanced medical technology, both Castor and Archer's faces are removed. Archer's face is preserved in a saline drip while Castor's is mapped onto Archer. However, while Archer is in prison assuming the identity of Castor, the real villain revives from his coma -- faceless. He forces the medical staff to give him the only face available - that of FBI agent Sean Archer. Reality becomes terribly obscured as the hero now finds himself trapped in prison and the villain is out in the world as an FBI agent.
Traditionally, in order to play both good and evil in Hollywood, actors have had to play twins. This is not the case in "FACE/OFF." The script calls for two actors - two great actors - to not only play both the good and bad guy, but to switch places and mirror each other's performance. John Woo comments, "The struggle between good and evil within each of us is always in conflict." The battle within each character and with each other in "FACE/OFF" is, as John Woo describes, "symbolic of mankind."
The bond between hero and villain in the midst of intense animosity is a theme prevalent in many of John Woo's earlier films. "FACE/OFF" takes this theme and goes one step beyond, literally reversing the antagonists' roles, whereby each finds himself in the world of his enemy, a world as horrifying to one as it is to the other.
In being forced to behave contrary to their nature and assume antithetical values, we begin to see a convergence of two diametrically opposed personalities. "It's a bold and unique way of telling a story," affirms executive producer Steven Reuther. "There's a symmetry to the characters despite their violent confrontation." Producer Terence Chang, with whom Woo has worked for the last 18 years, adds, "'FACE/OFF' is the perfect vehicle for John because it's about two guys who are inherently good and evil. It's not just an action film but a powerful, emotional story with values. There is never just action for action's sake in a John Woo movie."
Travolta and Cage break new ground in jointly creating two complete and distinct characters. "It may be the first time two actors have ever had to jointly choose what a character does," Travolta explains. Cage continues, "Switching identities in the script gave John and me a chance to capture the essence and cadences of one another and run with the characters. It really was a kind of collective acting experience."
"We realized early on that making this movie was going to be an incredible process because each character had to have his own idiosyncrasies, and when the actor becomes the other character those idiosyncrasies have to be imitated," notes executive producer Jonathan D. Krane. Chang continues, "Travolta and Cage are perfect because they're both so charismatic and equally believable as a good guy and a bad guy and mimic each other with perfect precision, always surprising the audience."
Of her co-stars, Joan Allen says, "To see John and Nic move between Sean Archer and Castor Troy is an incredible thing to watch their ability to copy body positions, gestures, vocal rhythms and patterns is amazing."
Allen plays Dr. Eve Archer, the wife of Sean Archer, the person most profoundly affected by the deceptive identity swap. Her husband's lengthy and obsessive pursuit of nemesis Castor, coupled with the loss of her son six years earlier, has taken its toll on Eve and left her marriage in ruins. One day, however, Eve returns home to find her husband a changed man uncharacteristically attentive, passionate and willing to start anew. What Eve doesn't realize is that a lot more than her husband's behavior has changed: she has become a player in a twisted and treacherous plot.
Starring in an action film for the first time, Allen declares, "I had a chance to do things I've never done before - - breaking chairs over people, screaming, guns pointed at my head....I've had so much fun on this movie!" Allen's role as Eve is critical in the development of the story. As Cage points out, "She is the anchor of the piece, the fulcrum whose incredibly precise reactions to this far-out circumstance make this situation very real for everyone." Travolta continues, "She has such weight and gravity as an actress. She balances Nic and I very well. She's the reality check in the movie."
All three actors jumped at the chance to work with John Woo. Cage defines Woo as a "visual stylist, a signature director whose command of cinema is immediately apparent. He takes violence so far beyond reality that it becomes almost a visceral poetry."
Describing "FACE/OFF" as "a psychological thriller disguised as an action film," writers Mike Werb & Micheal Colleary wrote the first draft of their screenplay in 1990. Neither Werb nor Colleary had seen a John Woo movie at the time, citing such films as Raoul Walsh's brilliant crime noir "White Heat" and John Frankenheimer's identity thriller "Seconds" as influential in the creation of their script.
Colleary asserts, "When I saw Woo's 'The Killer' for the first time I was staggered. The way people moved in the film was like watching live animation. It was the most cinematic thing I had ever seen: brilliantly and kinetically directed. Without knowing John Woo or being familiar with his work at the time, I realized that we had written a John Woo movie." Having Woo direct their script was, Colleary adds, "the culmination of all my hopes and ambitions."
The script requires the two leading characters to be approximately the same size, but with distinctly different body types. Travolta and Cage not only fit the bill physically but, more importantly, as Werb states, "having to each play two very different roles, the script demanded actors who could really act or the conceit of the film wouldn't work." He continues, "We couldn't have dreamed of a better pairing. It was thrilling for us to see two phenomenal actors completely take over the characters and make them better than we ever could have imagined."
A great ensemble of gifted actors completes the cast. Pollux Troy, Castor's closest ally and brother, is brilliantly portrayed by Alessandro Nivola; Gina Gershon plays Castor's girlfriend Sasha; Dominique Swain plays Sean Archer's confused adolescent daughter Jamie; and Nick Cassavetes portrays underworld king pin Dietrich. Noted performances from members of Archer's team of FBI agents include Harve Presnell as FBI leader and mentor Lazzaro, Robert Wisdom as Tito Biondi, Margaret Cho as Wanda and CCH Pounder as Hollis Miller. Colm Feore and John Carroll Lynch also star as Dr. Walsh and prison guard Walton respectively.
Travolta summarizes, "Audiences can look forward to everything a huge action film can offer plus original characters and a great ensemble cast. The film is a rare mix of action, drama, humor and poetic filmmaking that is John Woo's magic. It's a lot of fun."
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ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

"Make it bigger, do it quicker and make it better," comments producer Barrie Osborne, "that's been our credo on this film."
With a spectacular high-speed boat chase, startling plane crash, careening humvees and helicopter acrobatics, multiple explosions and thrilling shoot outs, "FACE/OFF" required an enormous team of talented artists and technicians working around the clock months in advance of principal photography to achieve director John Woo's vision. As explained by executive producer Steven Reuther, "John Woo shoots sequences in a very stylized way so the environment, the space, the designs, the effects have to be constructed and planned with meticulous detail to really capture that."
"FACE/OFF" was shot primarily in practical locations although a small portion of the schedule was filmed on stages at Paramount. Production designer Neil Spisak supervised a team of illustrators, set designers, model builders and construction workers to transform these sites and create the world in which Archer and Castor find themselves. "The two characters in the film are in a situation where they infiltrate each other's lives without anyone knowing. The look of the film has to reinforce the believability of this idea. The designs of Archer's home and office needed to mirror the stability of his life, so that when Castor moves into them, entering the most intimate corners of Archer's life, we feel the frightening violation."
Conversely, the underworld and prison environment in which Archer finds himself trapped must appear as suffocating and assaulting to reflect his feelings of alienation. Spisak notes, "The idea is to show that both of the worlds are very real." The additional challenge of the designs of these locations, Spisak continues, "is that they must be conducive to the action sequences and give Woo plenty of room to move and create mayhem!"
The exciting and highly-charged shoot out in character Dietrich's loft takes place on the 9th and 10th floors of an empty building located in downtown Los Angeles. With circular windows that overlook the urban skyline of LA, its massive scale and rooftop accessibility, Spisak and five-time Academy Award®-nominated set decorator Garrett Lewis created a very lush and dramatic backdrop for Woo's eye-popping action. "The loft is extraordinary," affirms Reuther. "It shows the offbeat glamour and allure of the underworld in which Castor lives and the dark side of his character in a space large enough for John Woo to stage the most spectacular gun fight."
The entirety of the loft, including the walls and furniture, was rigged with over 5000 bullet effects by special effects wizards Lawrence Cavanaugh and Bruce Steinheimer. With multiple film credits to their name, Cavanaugh and Steinheimer were thrilled to be working for a director who, as described by Steinheimer, "knows what he can get - his scope is huge."
Shot entirely at night, director of photography Oliver Wood lit the sequence beautifully to highlight both the splendor of the setting and the movement taking place within it. Woo's skillful use of multiple cameras was once again deftly employed to capture the fluidity of the action. Barrie Osborne notes, "It's great fun watching John Woo conceptualize a scene, create the storyboards, anticipate the cuts in what he's capturing on film and use multiple cameras to create very compelling sequences. He's a master of action."
Twenty-year veteran stunt man Brian Smrz supervised a team of over 50 fearless stunt men throughout the filming of "FACE/OFF." With pyrotechnics abounding, boats traveling at 60 miles an hour complete with jumps and crashes, the challenges faced by Smrz were endless. However, as Smrz notes, "John Woo knows what he wants. He understands action, how to shoot it, the actors' part of it and where they have to be positioned which makes my job much easier."
A pivotal moment in the script required Nicolas Cage to be precariously balanced on the top of a privately-owned oil platform three miles off the coast of Carpenteria in the Pacific ocean. Cage, who's afraid of heights, describes, "I was on top of this 200 foot oil rig without much of a ledge. It was one of the more frightening days of my life." With Smrz' infallible safety precautions in place, Cage was in no danger and the stunt went off without a hitch.
Osborne points out, "To take away John Woo's artistry and give it to a visual effects supervisor would be a mistake. You want an arena in which he can perform his magic and using stunt men gives him more control to accomplish that."
Weapons expert Rock Galotti worked closely with the actors and stunt men to train them in the handling of various weapons. Having worked with John Woo on all of his American films, Galotti knows what the director wants: "He needs a lot of weapons in his films - he likes things large both in gun flashes and in noise. The only weapon he specifies and reuses in his films is a Beretta."
Having an extensive military and law enforcement background, Galotti's knowledge of weaponry is incomparable. He selected each character's weapon with the utmost precision, equipping all of the FBI agents and SWAT team with SIG handguns, MP-5 machine guns and the fully-stocked nine millimeter full automatic submachine gun MP-5A2. "The FBI weapons used in the film are used by elite military and law enforcement agencies in reality. For the bad guys, we used weapons that can typically be found on the black-market." Nicolas Cage's character as the bad guy sports the flashiest weapon in the film a 24 carat gold-dipped 45 with handmade custom dragon grips.
Southern California International Aviation, formerly known as George Airforce Base, provided the actors and director ample space to play out the death-defying chase of a Jet Star plane. The airport provided the crew with total control of a runway 10,000 feet long. Osborne says, "John's desire, as well as mine, to do things practically rather than using miniatures and visual effects really pays off. We actually staged an airplane crash with a full scale, real airplane that we assembled from parts, and mounted another actual plane on a trailer in order to get the interior shots instead of using green screen. As a result, we were able to capture much more realistic footage."
Archer and Castor's perilous pursuit of one another takes to the water in a unprecedented boat chase through the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. Shooting in one of the busiest ports in the world was logistically very complicated, particularly given the extensive special effects and stunts that were being filmed. However, locations manager Janice Polley and 2nd unit locations manager Josh Silverman created an elaborate system of communication between production and the port authorities, the coast guard, port police, fire department, tug boat companies and captains.
"There's a great deal of shipping traffic in and around the area and these large ships, tugs and barges don't stop on a dime," said Polley. "A large tanker coming in, even at the speeds they are traveling in the inner port area, can take upwards of a half a mile to a mile to stop. So, for that reason you want to ensure that our flotilla, our production support vessels out on the water are not in an area that is compromising either their safety or that of the vessels assisting the ship. We have considerations on water that you would not normally have on land."
Shipping traffic could never be impeded and according to Captain Waters, who worked closely with the "FACE/OFF" crew to coordinate this line of communication, "A standard has now been set."
The power substation of Eagle Rock with its 25 foot ceilings and concrete walls provided the backdrop for the dour prison in which character Sean Archer is trapped. Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick designed cumbersome Frankensteinian boots for the inmates that give the appearance of being locked to the floor and controlled magnetically by the guards. Using canvas diving boots with a brass toe and plate as a prototype, Mirojnick and production designer Neil Spisak created 180 pairs of boots weighing 13 pounds a pair that looked, as Mirojnick states, "as through they could have been built in a metal shop in the prison - very elemental - so as to convey the idea of the inmates building their own imprisonment."
Despite brilliant action, designs and special effects, Osborne feels the film belongs to the actors. "It's their performances that make this movie...they are the ones that achieve the illusion of two characters switching places." Reuther continues, "In this massive violent world, John Woo's playing for the heart, which distinguishes his movies. There's always an emotional, a tremendously emotional content to his action sequences, and an emotional intent. We're going to give everybody a run for their money. This is something special, something really unique."