THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE directed by Lee Tamahori, written by Michael Thomas from the book by Latif Yahia, with Dominic Cooper, Ludivine Sagnier, Raad Rawi and Mem Ferda. A Maple Pictures release. 108 minutes. Opens Friday (August 5). See listing
Dominic Cooper is awfully charming. Sharply dressed in tailored jacket and jeans, he’s taller and lankier than he seems on film, but the broad smile is exactly the same.
Even after a long day of press (longer than planned thanks to a cancelled flight the day before that meant coming to town on a 6:25 am plane), the actor, whose credits include The History Boys, Mamma Mia! and this summer’s superhero blockbuster, Captain America: The First Avenger, is as bright-eyed and animated in person as he is onscreen.
The point of his new film, The Devil’s Double, is that you won’t recognize him. Cooper plays two very different people: Uday Hussein, Saddam’s psychotic elder son, and Latif Yahia, the Iraqi soldier conscripted to impersonate him in public around the time of the first Gulf War.
“I found that extraordinary about his story,” Cooper says of Yahia, who wrote the book on which the film is based. “This ordinary guy suddenly has to be a world-class actor for the sake of his own life and the benefit of his family. “
Using a motion-control system similar to the one David Cronenberg employed in Dead Ringers, director Lee Tamahori could shoot Cooper as Uday, then repeat exactly the same shot with Cooper as Latif, seamlessly blending the footage in post-production. On screen, the effect is remarkably convincing – and belies the immense effort required to pull it off.
“It was chaos,” Cooper admits. “I would do Uday first, the more dynamic of the two – the guy who’s in charge of the scene – and then I’d run off, get changed and do Latif, backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. They would be sticking things to the walls so my eye line was right, and I’d have an earpiece as Latif, listening to Uday so I could respond and react to that. And guessing or remembering whereabouts I’d moved in the room at the time. It was madness. A lot going on, a lot to think about.”
Preparing for the dual role was almost as challenging, since Cooper was faced with portraying both a vilified psychopath and the man who perhaps knew him best but became his traumatized victim.
“I met [Latif] and I asked him about Uday, but I didn’t want to pry too much,” he says. “I saw scars that were both mental and physical, and I didn’t think it was necessary to reopen them. The hard thing for me was making sure I understood where that rage and venom and hatred in Uday came from. The man was truly sick, and I despised him. But I needed to understand [him].”
Interview Clips
Dominic Cooper on creating his very different performance:
Cooper on the logistics of motion-control effects:
Cooper on the vast machine that is the Captain America movie:
normw@nowtoronto.com
