Satan was going to look like Christ except with all this black blood and this crown of thorns made out of bugs 
Francis Lawrence has made the switch from directing music videos to helming Hollywood movies with the big budget supernatural thriller Constantine. Keanu Reeves stars as the eponymous exorcist on the frontline of an epic battle between God and Satan. It got mixed reaction in the States, but this looks like the dawn of an exciting career for a young filmmaker drawn to the dark side.
In the original comicbook Constantine comes from Liverpool. Why did you relocate to LA?
You know this project existed six or seven years before I came on board. It was almost going to be made by Nicolas Cage and Tarsem [Singh, director] the guy who made The Cell. I don't know if he was English then either so I think he was changed into an American during that process or before that. I don't know why it was changed. The location thing was always interesting to me too because the Hellblazer comics are all over the world - he goes to the Midwest of America, New York, Africa. Of course there's a lot in England but I always thought that Constantine could be told anywhere. If people like this and we had the opportunity to make a sequel, it wouldn't be in Los Angeles. It could be England. It could be anywhere.
LA is a traditional setting for film noir and Constantine is such a hardboiled figure. Is it fair to say you're following in that tradition?
Yeah, I mean there's definitely that quality to the character in general - in the comicbook and just in his attitude. And then the script taking place in Los Angeles added to that a little bit because it is such a classic noir city. I've been a fan of noir films since I was in high school. I took this humanities class and I remember my teacher showing us The Third Man and The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity and all these kinds of films. I've always loved that genre so I tried to put some of those elements in there. Definitely his character helps with that and, with location choices in Los Angeles, I tried to find slightly seedier off-the-beaten-track spots around Hollywood and downtown as opposed to the tourist spots. So, yes, I really tried to work all of that in.
Do you personally see LA as a place of moral descent?
I think there are some jokes to be had with that - like with the freeway traffic jam in hell and things like that - but I actually really like Los Angeles. I like the history it has with noir and there's a certain architecture that people are familiar with from noir that other cities just don't have. It's that sort of 40s, 50s thing that really works for it. I enjoyed tying those things in.
Why do you think Keanu Reeves has cornered the market in Messiah-type action heroes?
It's interesting. I think this role is so different for Keanu and it's so funny because we keep getting this comparison to The Matrix. I know that even if we cast somebody else and didn't make him blonde and still dressed them in black we would never get The Matrix comparisons. I don't see him as a Messiah. It's so funny because he's just so into saving his own ass and he does things for his own selfish reasons and that's it. He's so different from Neo. Constantine is a prick. Neo is discovering who he is and learns that he's The One. He's a real hero, but Constantine is not. He's an antihero. The only reason any of this is really happening is because he wants to try and get out of going to hell.
Were you worried about the reaction you'd get for treating old Bible stories with a comicbook sensibility?
I wasn't worried, but I thought we would be dealing with some stuff and I thought it would be more offensive than it has been. I didn't mean for it to be offensive, but I didn't mean for it not to be offensive. We just wanted to make the movie we thought was cool and interesting. What's been really weird is that when we finished the movie we started showing it to religious press and they've actually embraced it, which has been a strange surprise. It's because they see a guy who's struggling with his faith and this battle between good and evil and ideas of redemption, but what they're not seeing are some of the jabs we've made against the Christian right with characters like Gabriel. They're picking up only what they want to pick up and other people are picking up what they want. It's been fascinating but I definitely thought people would be much more offended than they are.
Do you believe in God and Satan?
No. I'm not religious. It was the character [Constantine] that appealed to me. I really like the idea that the world works in a way that you don't know or understand, but then there's this character who does have it figured out. He knows. I say that I'm not religious, but there's always that possibility.
How tricky was it to figure out how you would portray Satan?
That was the hardest decision of the movie. It went through many, many incarnations. My first idea, which was honestly the only one that got nixed by the studio, was I thought: "Okay, so Satan is the antichrist so I'm going to make him be the dark version of Christ." He was going to look like Christ except with all this black blood and this crown of thorns made out of bugs and the studio were just like, "No f***ing way!" You know? So that didn't happen. I came up with the idea that Satan doesn't necessarily have to get angry, maybe he's just really nonchalant. He's so powerful he doesn't have to yell or scream. Maybe he's the kind of guy who wants to f*** every man, woman, child, elderly person and animal on the planet. So he's got that sick perversity. Then I thought of Fagin from Oliver Twist and mixed all those things up. I thought Peter Stormare could play that well.
Do you have your next project lined up?
I'm trying to get an animated film going and also a science fiction film - both at Warner Bros. The animated film is based on a children's book, sort of this dark gothic fairytale. It's called Eddie Dickens And The Awful End. The science fiction movie is I Am Legend but I don't know if it's going to happen.
Constantine is released in UK cinemas on Friday 18th March 2005.
