Production Notes For Terminator Genisys (Possible Spoilers)

Production Notes for Terminator Genisys.  Potential spoilers.

When John Connor (Jason Clarke), leader of the human resistance, sends Sgt. Kyle Reese
(Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) and safeguard the
future, an unexpected turn of events creates a fractured timeline. Now, Sgt. Reese finds
himself in a new and unfamiliar version of the past, where he is faced with unlikely allies,
including a new T-800 terminator, the Guardian (Arnold Schwarzenegger), dangerous
new enemies, and an unexpected new mission: To reset the future…
Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions present “Terminator Genisys,”
starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, J.K. Simmons
Matthew Smith, and Byung-hun Lee.
“Terminator Genisys” is directed by Alan Taylor. It is written by Laeta Kalogridis
& Patrick Lussier. It is produced by David Ellison and Dana Goldberg. The executive
producers are Bill Carraro, Laeta Kalogridis, Patrick Lussier, Megan Ellison and Robert
Cort. The director of photography is Kramer Morgenthau, ASC, and the production designer
is Neil Spisak. The film is edited by Roger Barton. The costume designer is Susan
Matheson. The music is byLorne Balfe and Hans Zimmer is Executive Music Producer.
This film has not yet been rated
www.terminatormovie.com

GENISYS: THE BEGINNING

In 1984, a cyborg arrived from the future. He was called the Terminator.
Among the millions enthralled by this new cinematic icon were producers David
Ellison and Dana Goldberg, their own filmmaking future still ahead of them.

As Ellison recalls: “The Terminator franchise—and really James Cameron—is a
seminal part of why I got into filmmaking in the first place; to me, he’s simply one of the
greatest filmmakers of all time. I think Terminator 2 reinvented the modern day tent pole.
So, for me to get to work on a franchise that is literally something I fell in love with as a
kid, and which led to my wanting to become a filmmaker, is just a dream come true.”
Dana Goldberg adds, “When it was announced that The Terminator rights were
going to be available, we were obviously interested—as were many others in the industry,
because it is such an incredible franchise. The first two Terminators, in particular, are
movies that David and I revere. And at Skydance, we love making big, event movies.
The idea of resetting Terminator for both the audiences that loved the originals and a
whole new audience was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.”

The rights under their belts, the Skydance Productions duo began to scout writers
for the mammoth project, including writer/producers Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick
Lussier. Kalogridis remembers, “David and Dana approached us around Christmas 2012,
and our first response was ‘No’, as was our second and third response. We said no because
of respect for James Cameron’s universe. I had worked with him for years—he’s
an inspiration to me personally and cinematically—and I did not want in any way, shape
or form to do anything that would not be respectful of what he had created. It’s some of
the most amazing science fiction ever, and he is certainly an inspiration to me, and not
just me—he’s one of the greatest living filmmakers, and possibly, ever.”

But Skydance was persistent, so Kalogridis checked with Cameron himself, who
not only granted his permission and gave his blessing, but started the ‘idea bouncing’
chain reaction inevitable in any great pre-production phase, advising Kalogridis: “Make
sure you write a good part for Arnold!” Patrick Lussier comments, “Laeta became infected
with the idea, and once we started thinking of the story possibilities—and re-watching
the first two Terminator films—we could see how to revisit that world and those characters
in a present day setting… and not in a present day setting.”

Kalogridis continues, “Time travel is embedded in the DNA of the material,
which gives rise to the possibility of alternate universes and different timelines without
affecting the original material at all. Those stories exist and continue to exist, they still

have happened, but you can tell a different story that branches off in a different direction
using the characters that all of us love.”

Both the 1980s’ worlds of global politics and filmmaking that gave rise to the
original films have changed tremendously. The Terminator proclaimed “I’ll be back” a
full five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and when the realization of the full potential
of computer generated imagery was still decades away. The light years that have
passed since the first Earthly adventures of the T-800 opened up countless avenues of exploration
to the Terminator Genisys filmmakers.

“The Cameron films to me were really Cold War era films,” notes Ellison, “where
the analogy that was being laid on top of the story was very much the threats felt during
that time period. The advancements in AI give us the ability to really update the franchise
to today, to where Skynet no longer has to break free—we’re actually lining ourselves
up and giving away our privacy, our freedoms, our information. We’re standing in
line for the latest in technology and software. The canon lends itself to comment on what
is actually going on today in a way that’s new and fun and exciting—it comes across in a
big entertaining way. To me, science fiction is at its most effective when it’s actually taking
real world events and placing them in a fictional setting.”

At the heart of it all, felt the “Genisys” filmmakers, was the ‘dysfunctional family’
and its love story Cameron placed at the center of the films—among the Terminators, the
potential obliteration of the entire human race, the filmic feats of illusion. The same story
hook resonated for the project’s director, Alan Taylor.

Producer Ellison says, “We knew we had to have a director who cared about character,
and the love story of this family. Yes, there’s a lot of action in ‘Terminator’ movies
and we definitely plan to live up to that promise. There are a lot of people who are great
at shooting action, but only a handful or so that we thought could get true character-driven
performances in the midst of it all. We all pray at the altar of HBO’s ‘Game of
Thrones,’ and we thought ‘Thor: The Dark World’ was phenomenal. And, sure enough,
when Alan came in, he said that we could talk about what the Terminators are going to
look like, and how many of them there are, and the different types, and how the third act
fight is going to look, but the love story and relationships have to work. He said that in
our first meeting, and we thought, ‘Okay, this is the right guy.’”

For Taylor, some of the appeal of making the film was the sheer challenge of
working out how to do it: “It’s funny,” admits Taylor, “I was looking at various potential
projects but this was the first one that felt like I couldn’t at the beginning tell exactly how
to do it: it was a puzzle to solve it and that made it exciting and interesting. There’s so
much to love in the Cameron mythology, and so much that the audience we’re hoping to
reach is already in love with. At the same time the story’s moving forward – it’s got to get
bigger and go into new directions and unlike other sequels this felt like a whole new ballgame
and I wanted to see how we could pull that off.”

Frequent Taylor collaborator (and his future Sarah Connor), actress Emilia Clarke,
sees the director’s accomplishment in his honoring the subject matter while giving it a
new relevancy. Emilia Clarke observes, “Alan manages to get a beautiful marriage of old
meets new, but also puts a very sensitive, intelligent spin on it. I think one of his goals
with this movie is to ask what it is to be truly free as a human being, and the choices
these characters have to make in deciding that. I think we are paying a lot of respect to
the Terminator that has been before, and bringing it to this new audience today.”

“What we’ve tried to do,” says Taylor, “is to begin in timelines that we know
from the mythology and then take them in new directions, and do it in a way that makes
sense so we see a future that we saw glimpses of in the previous movies and then we dive
to a past that we’ve seen glimpses of in the past movies but this film tries to take us into
new territory behind that while not contradicting any of the things we already know about
this mythology.”

Producer Goldberg comments, “To me, great science fiction is always more than
just the bells and whistles of things blowing up. I still remember watching ‘The Terminator’
and thinking, way back then, ‘Oh wow, this is a love story.’ It’s this amazing science
fiction movie and Arnold Schwarzenegger is this killer robot—it’s all incredibly cool.
But to me, it all boiled down to the line, ‘I came across time for you, Sarah.’ And somehow,
Cameron figured out a way to present this love story to mass audiences as this unbelievable
science fiction movie.

“And in ‘Terminator 2,’” the producer continues, “one of my favorite parts of the
movie was in a Sarah Connor voiceover, where she talks about how the Terminator that
she hated so much [in the first movie] would be the perfect father for her son. He’d never

abandoned him, he’d never hurt him, he would always be there for him—in Cameron’s
movies, you have both the incredible visuals and the groundedness in reality, the emotional
story at the center of it all.”

To begin the telling of “Terminator Genisys,” filmmakers open the movie with the
final assault of the remaining humans on the machines, led by John Connor and Kyle
Reese, in what could be the twilight of mankind. Dana Goldberg explains, “We open
with Kyle Reese as a child, talking about what had happened before he was born—that
humans beings basically got complacent and allowed machines to take over the world.
Eventually, the machines decided that humans were a threat, seizing control of missile
defense systems and wiping out three-billion people. That was Judgment Day.”

In this film’s current day, 2029, the resistance rallies, and believe they have conquered
Skynet, only to discover that the machines have launched their version of a failsafe—the
first tactical time displacement weapon, sending a Terminator back in time to
kill Sarah Connor, John’s mother, before she has a chance to conceive and give birth to
the future leader of the human resistance.

Fans will no doubt recognize the Terminator’s arrival in the Los Angeles of 1984,
but will also soon realize that this story launches into new, splintered directions.
David Ellison notes, “The 1984 that our characters travel back to has been altered
since the original movie—events have transpired that have driven it in a completely different
direction. Also those films were always set in present day, not in the future, not in
the past. Ours bends that set-up. And so, through a series of events, our characters find
themselves traveling forward to 2017 in an attempt to stop Judgment Day from ever happening.”
Dana Goldberg acknowledges, “We wanted to be incredibly respectful to the
characters Gale [Anne Hurd] and James Cameron created. So we finally arrived at the
place of whatever timeline you’re talking about, when you’re talking about the Terminator
world, there’s always going to be a Sarah Connor, a Kyle Reese, a John Connor, a
Terminator—they just might not be the identical people they were in the prior films.
That’s the attitude we started and stayed with going into the development of the script.
They are all here…just not exactly the people that have been represented in films previously.”

Filmmakers did get to delve into their inner sci-fi geeks, with a fairly meticulous
recreation of the initial sequence of Kyle Reese landing in 1984, down to the homeless
man in the alley and the dog. But along with the familiar is a T-1000—a huge signal of
all expectations being blown sky high.

Per Goldberg, “Reese goes back as he did before, being told that Sarah Connor is
a fairly helpless woman working as a waitress—she’ll have no idea what you’re talking
about, but you’ll need to save her, even though she doesn’t believe. Then, not only is he
greeted by a Terminator, which completely surprises and confuses him, but then Sarah
arrives in a huge fashion, and it’s her character that has the famous line, ‘Come with me
if you want to live.’”

CASTING THE FUTURE, PAST & PRESENT

According to David Ellison, “’Terminator Genisys’ is not a remake, it’s not a reboot,
it’s not a sequel—it’s really a reimagining based on the Cameron source material.
Viewers don’t have to be familiar with any of the previous films at all—this is definitely a
stand-alone. But that being said, for the fans who have seen the first couple of films,
there are some great Easter eggs in there. Exploiting the inherent nature of time travel,
we go off on a divergent timeline to take these characters that audiences and I grew up
with in a completely new direction.”
First on the roster, the title character himself, brought to iconic life again by
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“I don’t think you can make a Terminator movie without Arnold,” suggests Taylor.
“Certainly, I couldn’t imagine it without him. There’s something about the way he
and Cameron built that character and then within the two movies explored such different
sides of that character that he basically set the parameters for that world – that mythology
means it would be really hard for me to think of a Terminator movie that let go of
him.”
“I was very happy to be involved,” admits Schwarzenegger. “I got a phone call
telling me that David and Megan Ellison had acquired the rights and the first thing I
thought was, “Finally they are doing another one! And finally I am again in the movie!

Also, I was very happy when I heard who was writing the script. I just liked the direction
it was taking from the beginning.”
Screenwriter Kalogridis says, “I considered Arnold’s character the ultimate Tin
Man—how does he become the cornerstone and the heart of the story, for a character that
essentially has no heart? There was something really tantalizing about the idea of Arnold
playing a Terminator who has aged—of not trying to do any crazy CG stuff, but to respect
the change in the actor. The Terminator was always very much of its time—so to be
able to tell the story in the moment and the age that Arnold is…it interested us all. The
human tissue surrounding the cyborg ages, but he’s also aged on the inside through his
very long experience with humans all this time. We thought it would be so much fun to
explore.”
“It’s like riding a bicycle,” grins Schwarzenegger. “You fall right back into it. I
remember when I read the script and I started then practicing the lines. I started talking
like a machine again. It was kind of like you slip into that character.”
Producer Ellison notes, “You can’t call a movie ‘Terminator’ without THE Terminator.
In this movie Arnold is playing a character that was sent back in time to when
Sarah Connor was nine-years-old—he was not able to save both her parents, but he was
able to save her and raise her since that time. He’s been her protector, her warrior, her
Guardian. Fighting for that long, he has a little wear, a few glitches. Also, his learning
processor has been on that whole time, so by the time he’s traveled forward, he’s had
more than 30 years to answer that question of can he actually be human? How does he
interact with Sarah in that role, and then once Kyle comes along, how does Kyle’s falling
in love with Sarah change that? Of course, Arnold’s also in some amazing action scenes
—he is Arnold, after all—and I think people are going to see that he’s back and he’s better
than ever.”
“If you’re going to have Arnold you’ve got to use him in a brand new way,” insists
Taylor. “You can’t just do the same thing again so in our approach it was very important
to me that we see a whole different take on this character that we take him in
places that he never was able to go before. You know, he’s evolving, growing, maturing
and that led to a brand new version of his character.”

The evolution of the character was something Schwarzenegger considered carefully:
“I protect Sarah Connor, and anything that is coming close to her, or is threatening
her I terminate. So I’m the Terminator in some ways, and I’m the Protector in another
way. So you have to be very careful in how you play that in each moment. It helped I
think that I've had daughters — my first daughter was born when we did "Total Recall" I
remember in Mexico, and she's now twenty-five years old. And so when you grow up,
and when you're father of two daughters, I think you learn a lot including how to be protective.
I think that experience helped me a lot.”
Deep appreciation of Schwarzenegger and his larger-than-life presence was
shared by filmmakers and performers alike. Jason Clarke offers, “I learned a lot from
Arnold, not only while shooting, but just by being around him. Not that he sets out to be
a good teacher, but he’s a pro at what he does, and he has a wonderful joy about life—
he’s a great conversationalist, he’s interested in a lot of things. To see him again in this
signature role, well, it’s been great. He’s really the glue in this whole thing.“
As the Guardian’s de facto daughter, Sarah Connor, filmmakers chose Emilia
Clarke for the role. “We go back a long way,” smiles Taylor, clearly happy to be working
with his Game of Thrones star again.
Producer Ellison interjects, “We all love Game of Thrones, and there is a strength,
and a sense of honor and nobility to Emilia—those are things that can’t be taught. You
either have them or you don’t. I think those attributes work perfectly for Sarah Connor,
whom I consider a seminal female heroine in cinema.”
Clarke echoes her colleagues when she says, “Arnold is the first thing that comes
to mind when you say ‘Terminator,’ and you can’t do it without him. Probably what I
love the most about this script is the relationship between the Guardian and Sarah. It’s
the heart. It’s beautiful. We get to see his character in this whole other gorgeous light.
Watching her all this time has kind of softened him—except, of course, when people have
tried to kill her. That hasn’t softened him at all!”
While the guardianship of Sarah has had an effect on the Guardian, the Guardian’s
presence has also affected Sarah. Jason Clarke feels, “Emilia brings a strength in femininity—the
Sarah we pick up now is different. She didn’t have to grow up without a
strong parental presence. I think there’s a bit more confidence in the woman, not just the

paranoia of knowing there’s a future out there that’s trying to end her existence. There’s a
bit more ‘girl about town’ that I think helps—you can see her truly start to fall in love
with Reese.”
Writer/producer Kalogridis enjoyed not only shaping these altered versions of the
characters, but also creating what the filmmakers named “callbacks” (or homage references
to the original films). She explains, “In the first film, Kyle takes Sarah on a car ride
and gives all of the exposition—now we have Sarah doing the ex-pos with the guns. It’s
an homage to the first film, but also an extension of what would Sarah have been like if
her life had been radically different—if she had realized who she was and what she was
supposed to do at a far younger age. What would she have been like when she and Kyle
first met? It would have been very different, and exploring that was a lot of the fun of it.”
The chemistry between Sarah and Reese was at the forefront of producer Goldberg’s
mind when filmmakers began to audition actors for the part. She says, “We’d done
the movie ‘Jack Reacher’ with Jai Courtney and loved him as a person, and thought he
was a wonderful actor. We weren’t sure he was Reese. He came in and he tested with
Emilia, and I remember standing on the stage watching his audition, and I emailed someone
and said, ‘We just found our Kyle Reese.’ It was clear their first read together.”
“When I heard there was going to be a fifth installment to this franchise,” says
Courtney, “I didn’t freak out to begin with – I’ve been involved with pre-existing things
before – and then I read the script in a locked room, you know with cell phones handed in
and all that sort of stuff. That’s when I got pretty excited! I realized that that the guys behind
this had the intention of making something pretty cool. That’s when I became invested
in the idea. It was a pretty funny process getting the role, I was on a film in Australia
shooting so I got on a plane Saturday morning, landed in LA, went straight to the
audition with Alan and the producers and Emilia, got back on a plane to Australia that
night back, missed Sunday and showed up for work Monday morning. So, just because
of the 30 hours I had to spend in the air that weekend I was pretty sure I wanted this role
just to make it worth it and fortunately it all worked out.”
Casting the part of John Connor—particularly for this John Connor, whose character
runs the gamut from messianic to maniacal—was an acknowledged challenge

among filmmakers. Dana Goldberg begins, “We knew John Connor was going to be one
of the hardest roles to cast, because he has to be charismatic—here’s the guy people who
have no hope choose to be their hope. These are people who’ve had everything taken
away from them, and yet, when this man stands up and says that it’s time to fight, they’ll
go to the ends of the earth for him.”
David Ellison continues, “The thing about John Connor is he’s tortured. For
some, he’s a prophet, but he says in our movie that he cheats, that his mother raised him
and told him everything that was going to happen. That’s a huge burden, and something
we’ve found fascinating about John Connor’s character—he will lead all of these people
and, in reality, he knows that a great deal of them are going to die.”
Adds Goldberg, “There’s a moment in the film where John wishes a soldier good
luck, and the soldier says that he doesn’t need luck—he has John Connor. When we shot
it, David and I traded smiles, because we knew that Jason would just fill that moment
with everything going on inside—appreciating what the soldier said, but also wishing that
there was another world in which this was not his position to fulfill. We think people are
going to be blown away by Jason Clarke in this movie.”
Clarke himself says, “One of the things that really made me want to be in this
project was to work with Alan Taylor. He’s a very smart man, he knows story and he
knows actors, and he’s done some of the greatest TV ever done—‘The Sopranos,’ ‘Game
of Thrones,’ ‘Mad Men.’ He’s got a wonderful doggedness, but also a gentleness. Going
in, you know a film like this will be a long, big tough shoot, and it requires a director
that’s going to support you and keep you going, and also just keep an eye on everything
and know that it’s done properly. He never moved until we got it, and it’s been a pleasure
to work with him.”
In setting out to honor but also break free from the first movies, Goldberg acknowledges
that some of the original imagery is all but impossible to forget. She says,
“You say T-1000, and you immediately remember Robert Patrick in that police uniform—
it’s an instant flash. We knew we didn’t want to copy it. It seems deceptively simple to
cast, but we needed to move in a way that is specific yet different, creepy and scary all at
the same time. There needs to be a real physicality for the role, and we knew from ‘G.I.
Joe: Retaliation’ that Byung-hun Lee had it in spades. Turns out he is a huge fan of the

originals. We knew he’d be great, and he surpassed all of our hopes. When we were
shooting his scenes, people on the set just started referring to him as ‘creepy goodness,’
because every scene he did something really creepy and really good, all at the same
time.”
Byung-hun Lee admits, “I have some history with this movie. I was really influenced
a lot by it when I was a teenager. When I was in high school, everybody called me
Terminator, because they thought I looked like him and because I was the champion of
arm wrestling. So it was kind of a coincidence to get a part in this project—it was really
great.”
Matt Smith, cast in the part of T-5000, also has teenage memories of the series:
“Growing up in the 80’s I think, for anyone who’s about my age, these movies, the first
two in particular, were seminal films and just really ahead of their time. When the opportunity
arose, I couldn’t wait to be involved.”
Slotted in the role of San Francisco Police Officer (later Inspector) O’Brien—who
encounters Sarah, Reese and the Terminator in 1984, and then crosses paths with them
again in 2017—was J.K. Simmons. He remembers, “I got a call about the project, and I
asked to read the script, which I did, and which turned out to be really great. I knew
about all of the talented people involved and the new actors. And I saw that Arnold was
back, and I thought the way they handled his character being older than he was in the
original—it was wonderful and I jumped onboard. My character’s spent the last 33 years
being ridiculed by everyone on the police force, because he’s been telling a story about
robots and strange people since 1984. So he has a lot going on, but he is also redeemed
somewhat, and it has been great to play.”
“The dynamics of this film are real and urgent and intimate,” says Taylor. Fortunately,
we have the actors who can pull it off. Kyle and Sarah are played by young actors
who are just starting to become massively recognized and then the ‘middle generation’,
our John Connor is Jason Clarke who is a masterful actor, as is of course J.K. Simmons.
And then you’ve got Arnold who sort of keeps everybody else in line because he just
nails it every time. It’s funny, we’d be doing a scene and he’s got this character so down
that he kind of forced everybody else to get their characters down too.”

PREPPING FOR JUDGMENT DAY…AND BEYOND

The weeks prior to the start of principal photography for “Terminator Genisys”
saw the talent entering the arena of training—the very physical shooting schedule included
stunts, fights, heavy wirework and…weapons.
Emilia Clarke jokes, “Yeah, there was training every day with guns, lots of guns,
and then some more guns, and then a few more guns thrown in. I didn’t know anything
about guns before this film, and now, well, I know a lot about guns! Since I had done
some stunt work before, they also had me preparing, to get a physical understanding of
what was going to be needed. This Sarah was brought up by a Terminator to be a warrior,
so she has a huge body of knowledge when it comes to fighting and survival. So a lot of
what was done was to help me feel comfortable embodying that part of Sarah, always being
prepared. I worked with an amazing military advisor, and a weapons specialist, and
then stunts and just physical training.”
“I think it’s a testament to how hard everyone worked,” smiles Courtney, “that the
demands of the shoot led to a situation where two Australians in the same cast didn’t even
have time to get a beer together!”
Of course, it wasn’t just those in front of the camera who were preparing for a
new world order. Prop master Diana Burton and weapons master Harry Lu were also attempting
to become part machine in their design work. Diana Burton says, “One thing
that went along with this story is the fact that if machines are designing weapons for machines,
they don’t care about the design. They just care about function. So we had to become
machines ourselves somewhat when we were thinking about what kind of guns that
they would create, keeping in mind they’re not creating them for anything aesthetic—it’s
only utilitarian, only for function. So we had to remember not to get too ‘design-y.’”
Their arsenal wound up featuring large plasma guns, courtesy of the machines, as well as
manmade weapons modified to fire plasma.
But the film features three different time periods so, per Harry Lu, “We needed to
fit each period with the proper weapons, so that the historians and the gun buffs would be
satisfied.”
Burton adds, “We wanted to hearken to the past, but also bring some things into
the future. And also, Arnold had a big say in the weapons he wanted to use.”

Lu and Burton welcomed the suggestions, and wound up with weaponry “that was
beautiful and performed without a single malfunction.” For the 1984 sequences, the
Guardian utilizes a Remington 1100, which Burton calls “functional and slick.” In 2017,
he is armed with M3 and M4 Benellis—“beautiful shotguns representing the high-tech
end.”
For Sarah, the design team needed to arm her with a key weapon that had to meet
two requirements. It needed to function as a sniper rifle that could take down a Terminator
from a distance; but the script also called for her to blow the back door off of an armored
truck at close range. “We chose a .50 caliber Barrett, which is proper for 1984,”
explains Burton.
Burton and Lu estimate the final tally of weapons on the set of “Terminator
Genisys" at around 500, which included the specially fashioned ones, the rubbers and the
replicas, and the real and collectible period pieces.
In the world of TG, however, practically anything can become a weapon—including
a big yellow school bus. One massive set-piece of the film involves a bus toppling
end over end, and finally dangling off the Golden Gate Bridge. The performers who were
included in the sequence prepared for filming by practicing harness work. All the while,
filmmakers kept at the drawing board, working on the sequence, to render it both safe (for
the actors) and intense (for the audience).
In the end, the production was able to leave the bus “wheels down” for filming by
employing clever camera placement and angles, and creative rigging for the harnesses—
along with some post-production magic, the final illusion created is one of the vehicle
hanging precipitously off the famous landmark bridge, with the characters inside clinging
for dear life.
For veteran Korean action star Lee, it wasn’t so much the stunt prep that he found
the most challenging. Lee says, “Action-wise this film was very different for me, because
I’ve never had to act not as a human—as a machine, I couldn’t blink, I couldn’t breathe.
We mostly discussed how I should move with the stunt team—and since there’s no final
answer actually, we just kept discussing and bringing ideas. Then we just chose the way
we wanted to do it.”

Jason Clarke relished the physicality, the fights and the super-human feats his
character is called upon to perform. He says, “We all worked very hard to be true to the
story’s heritage, but also keep it imaginative. It’s some of the most enjoyable action I’ve
ever done—great fighting moves, spinning around, piledriver maneuvers—it has just
been so cool.”
In some scenes, the action called for was well beyond human execution, even for
the most accomplished of bodybuilding action superstars or experienced stunt performers.
For those special circumstances, production called upon Jason Matthews from Legacy
Effects (the company begun by Stan Winston, pioneering effects artist whose work is
seen in the original Terminator movie franchise) to create a silicone replica of the
supremely pumped and buff Schwarzenegger circa 1984, outfitted with steel armature and
physiologically truthful joints, using measurements and face casts from the time around
the shooting and release of the original film. The replica was used when danger prohibited
the participation of any live performers, and also during the scenes where the older
Arnold meets his younger self in 1984. (A “stunt” duplicate was also built, but using a
softer foam material, so it could be subjected to more hazardous situations…and live
through it.)
Legacy Effects’ Mike Manzel and other artists also worked on creating updated
versions of the endoskeleton of the T-800 (the model of the original Terminator). Modern
painting techniques and composite structural substances (epoxies, resins) made for less
weighty skeletons, with surface effects replacing the chroming process of the 1984 T-800.
The final ‘hero’ endoskeleton took a crew of about 15 artists a little over a month to complete
and boasted of more than 260 separate pieces, all sculpted by hand. And thanks to
such advances as the 3D printer, duplicates could be created in a more post-Millennial
manner. Instead of hand sculpting, each piece would emerge from the 3D printer (some
pieces taking as long as 48 hours to print). From there, they would be molded, sanded
and subjected to finishing work. “However,” Manzel offers, “in reality, I still think it
takes just as much finesse to create these as it did back in the day—it’s just using another
tool to produce the final project.”
GENISYS BEGINS

Although a few of the characters of “Terminator Genisys” may make their entrances
sans clothing, the overwhelming majority of scenes required actors to be suited in
clothes and gear apropos of the era and their scripted purpose.
Costume designer Susan Matheson was eager to step up to the challenges of a bigbudget
science fiction film: “One of the most exciting aspects of getting asked to design
this movie was the final war set in the future—knowing that I would have this entire
world that I could create from nothing,” says Matheson. “In actuality, the reason I decided
to become a costume designer for film was really the fact that I was completely inspired
by ‘The Terminator’ and ‘Mad Max.’ Those are the two movies that said to me,
‘Oh, I don’t have to be designing costumes for Shakespeare—I could be taking these elements
and putting them into a film.” So inspired was the young Matheson by the visuals
of these films that her designs for a college production of “Macbeth” included a gas mask
on a sleeve and a prominently featured leather biker jacket.
The various groups and periods covered in the screenplay compelled Matheson to
seek authenticity for each specified character and situation. Take the human resistance
fighters making their last stand against machines: “They’re a ragtag group of people that
are just making do with what they’ve found in this post-apocalyptic civilization. They’ve
looked through the rubble and they’ve repurposed things. So, for example, I’ve got people
wearing armor made out of a California license plate, and arm and shoulder piece
made from repurposed tires. These warriors are going to use anything they can get their
hands on to produce their own gear.”
Matheson worked closely with Burton in fashioning the body armor for the resistance
and, once created, they needed to be covered in “the post-apocalyptic dust.” That’s
where the cement mixers came in—the shop reverberated with multiple mixers going at
all times, and costume pieces were subjected to a tumble with rocks and gravel, “because
once you throw something into a cement mixer with rocks, especially if they’re rubber
pieces, they start to pick up a patina.” After the mixers, pieces were sprayed with various
applications of glue, dirt and paint, all to achieve the look that “these people have been
living, sleeping, eating in these outfits continuously without any change.”
But beneath all of the armor, dirt and grime, Matheson strove to create the sense
of a Los Angeles after the blast. She explains, “If we had had an explosion in Los Ange-

les in the ‘90s, what would people have looked like? The culture in the city features a lot
of team wear, the Dodgers, the Kings, the Lakers. There is a conglomeration of multiple
cultures and ethnicities, and also the influence of gang culture. The camera may not catch
everything we put in, but we worked to establish a sense of the city if it had nearly been
annihilated in the ‘90s—even down to a Hello Kitty T-shirt requested by David Ellison.”
Specificity of time and place is also seen in the costumes of the story’s main characters.
Punk rock culture of the ‘80s informs what Sarah wears—leather biker jacket,
cargo pants and Doc Martens (“And she’s ready to kick ass,” laughs Matheson). Once
Reese is displaced into 1984, he steals the pants off of a homeless man, and then dashes
into a discount department store, where he dons a military surplus trench and a pair of
Nike Vandal sneakers. (Matheson proudly explains that one of her greatest triumphs on
the project was when she heard that Paramount had persuaded Nike to re-create the original
Nike Vandal from 1984, “down to the color and the Velcro straps!”) Two costumers
were sent on thrift stores expeditions, one time turning up the drab green trench—which
turned out to be a popular coat from the period, “so that started a hunt to try and find
these trenches all over America, with people calling everywhere in the country to find the
Kyle Reese coat.”
Those collisions of past and present were not infrequent during shooting. One
such occurrence resonated deeply with producer Dana Goldberg: “One of my favorite
moments was when we were shooting at the Griffith Park Observatory the very first night
—it’s Arnold’s reveal in the movie, where Arnold as the Guardian comes upon Arnold as
the 1984 Terminator. And I looked around at the crew, the night we were shooting it, and
every single person—male, female, 20, 60, it didn’t matter—had the same grin, because
we were watching Arnold do that thing… The man has done a tremendous amount of
impressive things in his life, but here is the thing he was born to do, and he’s phenomenal
at it. All of a sudden, we were stepping back in time, remembering being in the audiences
for T1 and T2. And we were here, now, with him, back in this character he knows
like the back of his hand. Then, we were all stunned when he fired off a shotgun four
times and never blinked. We were all deeply impressed by the fact that somehow, you
could actually shoot off a fully loaded shotgun four times and not blink once. Then he

told us that he learned how to do it on the first Terminator film. And I don’t think he’s
ever blinked since, I’m not sure!”
No stranger to big sets and big projects, Emilia Clarke was still impressed by the
enormous undertaking of filming “Terminator Genisys.” She says, “It’s just epic. For
every three minutes of footage onscreen, it has taken something like two weeks of shooting.
Every minute detail has been thought through and beautifully executed. Every
member of the crew is incredible, the sets are insane, the costumes are amazing. There is
just so much—and I also have to keep reminding myself, while I’m in the middle of this
epic scene and I think it couldn’t get any better, that these are totally without special effects,
that we’re only filming about 60%—it’s going to look that much cooler, with lots of
crazy stuff happening…and no tennis balls on sticks, either!”
GOING OUT WITH A BANG
Producer David Ellison says, “This is the largest scale Terminator movie that’s
ever been made. There are bigger action sequences in Genisys than any prior Terminator
film. You’re going to see the fully rendered future war, which nobody has ever been able
to do yet, and you’re going to see new Terminators that will hopefully have the exact
same impact as when you saw the T-1000 back in 1991. We have set the bar incredibly
high, and we’re going for it.”
For producer Dana Goldberg, the size of the film is in direct proportion to the level
of talent present in the filmmaking crews. She comments, “It’s a big, big movie. We
shot from April through to mid-August, with a lot of six-day weeks. We had a phenomenal
crew who just killed themselves to bring this thing to the screen. No one ever quite
understands how much work goes into everything you see on the screen—from hair and
makeup, to stunts, to visual effects, to special effects, to rigging, to grips, to lighting, and
on and on. It’s a giant undertaking, a movie of this size, and you need all of those pieces
working in unison to get it right—and we were beyond fortunate to have a crew that did it
right.”
“It’s interesting,” says director Taylor. “We’re sort of letting the audience know
that we know what they are expecting and then, ‘Whoosh!’ [laughs] trying to flip it. And
that’s something that goes deep into the DNA of the Terminator movies: Cameron’s first

movie uses Arnold’s character in one way and then he completely inverted for the second
and nobody saw it coming. You can go into new territory with characters that you already
have a feeling for but they take you somewhere that you never saw coming.”
ABOUT THE CAST
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (The Guardian) is one of the most recognized
individuals on the planet, having led an amazing life and achieving beyond his dreams in
Hollywood, fitness, and public service.
This world-famous athlete, actor and politician was born in Thal, Austria in 1947.
By the age of 20, Schwarzenegger was dominating the sport of competitive bodybuilding,
becoming the youngest person ever to win the Mr. Universe title. By generating a new
international audience for bodybuilding, Schwarzenegger turned himself into a sports
icon. With his sights set on Hollywood, he emigrated to America in 1968, and went on to
win five Mr. Universe titles and seven Mr. Olympia titles before retiring to dedicate himself
to acting.
Schwarzenegger, who worked under the pseudonym Arnold Strong in his first feature,
“Hercules in New York,” quickly made a name for himself in Hollywood. In 1977,
the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognized him with a Golden Globe® for New
Male Star of the Year for his role in “Stay Hungry” opposite Sally Field. His big break
came in 1982 when the sword and sorcery epic, “Conan the Barbarian,” hit box office
gold. In 1984, Schwarzenegger blew up the screen and catapulted himself into cinema
history as the title character in James Cameron’s sci-fi thriller, “The Terminator.” He is
the only actor to be in both categories of the American Film Institute’s Hundred Years of
Heroes and Villains for roles he played in the film. To date his films have grossed over $3
billion worldwide.
In an effort to give back to the country that allowed him to accomplish so much,
Schwarzenegger ran for public office and was elected California’s 38th Governor. As
governor, Schwarzenegger worked with leaders of both major political parties to address
the greatest challenges facing the state in a bold and historic manner. His leadership put
California at the forefront of the nation in addressing climate change, pushing for the de-

velopment of renewable energies, rebuilding critical infrastructure, investing in stem cell
research, and putting in place health care and political reforms.
Since leaving office in 2011, he has continued to promote state and local clean
energy efforts by founding the non-profit R20: Regions of Climate Action. Just last year,
he established the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy, devoted to
seeking bipartisan solutions to environmental, economic, and other public policy issues.
Most recently Schwarzenegger has combined his love of global issues and entertainment,
to serve as executive producer and correspondent on Showtime’s climate
change docu-series, “Years of Living Dangerously,” which debuted in April 2014. In addition
to being a legend on the silver screen, Schwarzenegger has also captivated the digital
world with a string of self-produced viral videos, including “Arnold Works At Gold’s
Gym,” a fundraiser for After-School All-Stars, which has garnered nearly 18 million
views on YouTube and 1 million dollars in charitable donations for the organization.
Schwarzenegger is also the top draw on Reddit’s Ask Me Anything and boasts more than
3 million Twitter followers. Beyond his social media domination, Schwarzenegger fans
have much to look forward to in 2015 and beyond as the star heads into production,
reprising some of his most beloved roles for “Terminator Genisys,” “Triplets” (the sequel
to “Twins”) and “The Legend of Conan.”
JASON CLARKE (John Connor) has emerged in the U.S. with a slate of critically
acclaimed performances in both television and film. He is most known for his lead role as
Dan in the Academy Award®-nominated film “Zero Dark Thirty,” directed by Kathryn
Bigelow. Next, Clarke was seen in the highly anticipated sci-fi sequel “Dawn of the Planet
of the Apes” co-starring Gary Oldman, Judy Greer and Keri Russell. He most recently
wrapped production on “Everest,” opposite Josh Brolin and Jake Gyllenhaal, and the reboot
of the “Terminator” series, “Terminator Genisys,” starring as John Connor alongside
Emilia Clarke and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Upcoming films for Clarke include Terrence Malick’s “Knight of Cups,” opposite
Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Natalie Portman, and “Child 44,” alongside Tom
Hardy, Gary Oldman and Noomi Rapace. He last seen in the Abraham Lincoln biographical
drama “The Better Angels,” with Brit Marling and Diane Kruger, which Amplify re-

leased in November, 2014, following its premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival to
positive reviews.
Clarke starred as George Wilson in Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of “The Great
Gatsby,” opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan. Additionally,
he was also seen in Roland Emmerich's “White House Down,” opposite Channing Tatum
and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Clarke also appeared in John Hillcoat's period drama “Lawless,”
opposite Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pierce and Jessica Chastain, as well as several
other high profile films, including Michael Mann's “Public Enemies,” opposite Johnny
Depp; Oliver Stone's “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” opposite Shia LaBeouf and
Michael Douglas; and Paul W.S. Anderson's “Death Race.”
Clarke first came to America's attention in the critically acclaimed dramatic
Showtime series “Brotherhood,” where he played Tommy Caffee, an ambitious Rhode
Island politician who navigates the treacherous worlds of local politics and organized
crime. He most recently starred in Shawn Ryan's acclaimed crime-drama, “The Chicago
Code” on FOX. Clarke starred as Veteran Chicago Police Detective Jarek Wysocki, who
leads the special unit fighting against the corruption.
In the world of independent films, Clarke starred in “Texas Killing Fields,” which
premiered at the 2011 Venice Film Festival; Jada Pinkett Smith's directorial debut, “The
Human Contract”; David Schwimmer's “Trust,” opposite Clive Owen and Catherine
Keener; “Yelling to the Sky,” directed by Victoria Mahoney; and “Swerve,” directed by
Craig Lahiff.
In his native Australia, Clarke starred in Phillip Noyce's “Rabbit Proof Fence,” as
well as “Better than Sex” and “Park Street.” In television, Clarke worked opposite Geoffrey
Rush on “Mercury.”
Clarke graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and also
has extensive credits in theater, both as an actor and director.
An undeniably talented actress, EMILIA CLARKE (Sarah Connor) has garnered
the attention of audiences for her pivotal performances and intriguing beauty.
In 2013, Clarke received an Emmy Award nomination her portrayal of Daenerys
Targaryen (or the Mother of Dragons) on HBO’s hit fantasy series “Game of Thrones,”

based on the bestselling novels by George R.R. Martin. The series returned for its fourth
season in 2015 to record ratings on April 12th. On the big screen, Clarke recently starred
alongside Jude Law and Demian Bechir in “Dom Hemingway,” which was released by
Fox Searchlight on April 4, 2014.
In 2013, Clarke made her Broadway debut as Holly Golightly in the stage adaptation
of Truman Capote's classic 1958 novella, “Breakfast at Tiffany's.”
After graduating from the Drama Centre London, Clarke began her career with a
guest-leading role in the BBC series “Doctors,” and a co-leading role in the U.S. made
for television movie, “Triassic Attack.” Clarke grew up in the Berkshire countryside, and
currently resides in London.
JAI COURTNEY (Kyle Reese) has quickly become one of Hollywood’s most
highly sought after actors.
In 2014 he co-starred in three films. In March he was seen in box office hit “Divergent,”
alongside Shailene Woodley and Kate Winslet. The film, directed by Neil Burger,
is an adaptation of the hit sci-fi novel of the same name.
In October he co-starred with Joel Edgerton and Tom Wilkinson in “Felony.” Jai
plays a young police detective who suspects Edgerton’s character is lying about a crime
he’s committed and gradually builds a criminal case against him. The film had its World
Premiere in 2013 at the Toronto Film Festival.
In December Jai co-starred in “Unbroken,” directed by Angelina Jolie. The Universal
film is based on the unbreakable spirit of Louis Zamperini, the former Olympic
track prodigy who endured unimaginable hardship as a WWII POW at the hands of Japanese
prison guards. Jai plays Cup, a WWII veteran pilot who gets caught in tenacious
midair gunfight alongside Zamperini.
In 2015 Jai co-stars in “The Water Diviner,” Russell Crowe’s feature directorial
debut about an Australian man who travels to Turkey to attempt to locate the bodies of his
three sons, who were killed there during WWI. Jai portrays Lt. Col. Cyril Hughes, who is
tasked with organizing the effort to identify the tens of thousands of soldiers killed at
Gallipoli.

In March he will be seen in “Insurgent,” the second film in the Divergent trilogy
and in 2016 he will be seen in the highly anticipated comic book movie Suicide Squad.
Jai was born and raised in the northwest region of Sydney, where he developed an
early interest in acting. He participated in a state sponsored drama program for young
people, which led him to audition for the National Institute of Dramatic Art after high
school. In 2004 he joined the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA)
a well-respected institution in Perth, from where he graduated in 2008.
Following graduation, Jai quickly landed guest-star roles on two hit Australian
shows, “Packed to the Rafters” and “All Saints,” and later that year he won a Theatre
Critics Award for Best Newcomer for his performance in “The Turning” at the Perth Theatre
Company.
In 2009 Jai landed the sought after role of Varro in the international Starz hit television
series “Spartacus: Blood and Sand.” The character of Varro became the closest
confidante to Spartacus until his death in the tenth episode. Fans of the show created an
uproar over Varro’s death, and to this day continue to lament about it on the many Spartacus
fan sites and blogs.
After “Spartacus,” Jai was cast in the Paramount film “Jack Reacher,” alongside
Tom Cruise and Werner Herzog.
After Jack Reacher, Jai starred alongside Bruce Willis in “A Good Day to Die
Hard.” The fourth installment of the Die Hard franchise opened in February 2013. The
film made over $300 million worldwide.
J.K. SIMMONS (O’Brien) has appeared in a diverse range of projects spanning
from motion pictures, television and the stage on and off-Broadway. He won the 2015
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of merciless jazz instructor,
‘Fletcher’ in Sony Pictures Classics’ “Whiplash.” His performance in the film also garnered
him a Screen Actors Guild Award, Golden Globe, Independent Spirit Award and
BAFTA Award, as well as many critics’ group awards around the world. “Whiplash”
premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and won the Dramatic Audience Award
and Grand Jury Prize for Best Film. The film also received five Academy Award nomina-

tions including Best Picture and received awards for Best Editing and Best Sound Mixing
in addition to Simmons’ Best Supporting Actor award.
Most recently, Simmons wrapped production on Gavin O’Connor’s “The Accountant”
co-starring Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick, and he is currently in production on the
independent film “The Meddler” co-starring Susan Sarandon and Rose Byrne. Following,
he will begin production on Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ “Kong: Skull Island,” alongside Tom
Hiddleston.
In 2014, Simmons appeared in Jason Reitman’s “Men, Women and Children”
with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Garner. He also starred on the NBC comedy “Growing
Up Fisher,” opposite Jenna Elfman, “The Rewrite” opposite Hugh Grant and Marisa
Tomei, Gillian Raimi’s feature “Murder of a Cat,” and Jeremy Sisto’s indie “Breakpoint.”
In 2013, he was seen in theaters in the Steve Jobs biopic, “Jobs,” and in Jason Reitman’s
film, “Labor Day.” He is known for playing the character J. Jonah Jameson in
Sam Raimi’s “Spider Man” trilogy and memorably, his portrayal of the off-beat but not
deadbeat father, Mac McGuff, in the hit comedy “Juno.”
Past projects include “The Words,” “The Music Never Stopped,” “Jennifer’s
Body,” “Extract,” “The Vicious Kind,” “I Love You Man,” “Beginner’s Guide to Endings,”
“Contraband,” “Hidalgo,” “The Ladykillers,” “The Mexican,” “Off the Map,” “For
Love of the Game,” “The Gift,” “Thank You for Smoking,” “Rendition,” “Burn After
Reading” and the Academy Award-nominated “Up in the Air.”
On the small screen Simmons played LAPD Assistant Chief Will Pope in TNT’s
hit series “The Closer.” He also played Vern Schillinger on HBO’s acclaimed drama
“Oz,” and had a recurring role as Dr. Emil Skoda on NBC’s “Law & Order.” He has had
guest starring roles on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation,” and a recurring role on TBS’ hit
comedy “Men at Work.” Simmons has appeared on the Broadway stage in performances
of “Guys and Dolls,” “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” “A Change in the Heir,” “Peter Pan”
and “A Few Good Men.”
MATTHEW SMITH (T-5000) has become a hugely popular presence in both TV
and film. In 2013, he ended a four year run in “Doctor Who”, as the youngest ever ‘Doctor’.
His unique portrayal has received both positive acclaim and a BAFTA nomination.

His last appearances were the highly anticipated 50th anniversary episode in late November
and of course, his exit and final farewell, in the Christmas special.
Smith is currently filming “Patient Zero” directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky and costarring
Natalie Dormer, Clive Standen and Stanley Tucci. The story follows the aftermath
of an unprecedented global pandemic, which has turned the majority of humankind
into a violent "Infected," race.
Smith was recently seen in “Lost River” , Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut. The
film was selected to go to Cannes and featured in the Un Certain Regard category and
was released in April in the US. Smith plays ‘Bones’ opposite Christina Hendricks, Eva
Mendes, Saoirse Ronan and Ben Mendelsohn in the story of a single mother swept into a
dark underworld, while her teenage son discovers a road that leads him to a secret underwater
town.
Smith recently finished filming filming “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, directed
by Burr Steers and co-starring Lily James, Lena Headey and Douglas Booth. He
will be seen in the role of ‘Mr. Collins’ and the film is a take on Jane Austen’s “Pride and
Prejudice”.
Last year saw him complete a run in the highly acclaimed musical adaptation of
Bret Easton Ellis’ “American Psycho”. Directed by Rupert Goold, the Almeida Theatre’s
Artistic Director, Smith played the lead role of ‘Patrick Bateman’, a character who has
been described as one of the most iconic antiheroes of the 20th century.
He made his theatrical debut at the Royal Court Theatre in “Fresh Kills” directed
by Wilson Milam, who also directed Smith in the West End production of “Swimming
With Sharks” opposite Christian Slater. His other theatre credits include “On The Shore
of the Wide World”, “Burn”, “Citizenship”, “Chatroom”, and “The History Boys” all at
the National Theatre, and the hugely acclaimed “That Face”, Polly Stenham's debut play,
that transferred from the Royal Court to the West End.
In 2011 Smith claimed the protagonist role of Christopher Isherwood in the BBC
Television film. “Christopher and his kind”.The role received critical acclaim and Smith’s
performance was described as ‘appealing and disreputable’. He also starred as the lead
male ‘Thomas’ alongside Eva Green in Benedek Fliegauf’s 2010 film “Womb”.

On television, Smith has performed alongside such respected talents as Jim
Broadbent and Timothy Spall in Jimmy McGovern’s critically acclaimed BBC drama
“The Street”. He also starred in BBC2’s drama “Party Animals” and in the role of
Olympian ‘Burt Bushnell’ in the BBC drama “Bert & Dickie”, an uplifting real life story,
timed to coincide with the opening of the London 2012 Olympics. The film received two
nominations at the Golden Nymph awards including that of ‘Best Television Film’.
As well as acting, Smith recently directed “Cargese”, a short film for Sky Arts series
Playhouse Presents written by playwright Simon Stephens. The film stars Craig
Roberts, Joe Cole and Avigail Tlalim as a group of disaffected teenagers in south London
and aired in May 2013.
BYUNG-HUN LEE (T-1000) is an actor who is recognized as one of the instigators
of the “Korean Boom” in television and film. Having solidified his position as one of
Asia's biggest stars, he is known as one of the Four Kings in Japan. Additionally, he is the
only actor to sell out the Tokyo Dome with 45,000 screaming fans. In 2012, he was one
of the first two Korean actors ever to be honored with a hand and foot print ceremony at
The TLC Chinese Theater.
Lee started his acting career in 1991 with a starring role in Korean TV drama
“Asphalt, My Hometown”. Additional TV projects include “Tomorrow Love”, “Police”,
“Son of Wind”, “Happy Together”, “Beautiful Days”, “All In”, and "Iris" in 2009.
Although much of his early success came from television dramas, Lee’s real passion
is in films. His breakout performance came in 2000 with a starring role in Park Chan
Wook's, "JSA". He then followed with Kim Jee Woon's "A Bittersweet Life" which was
an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival in 2005. “The Good, the Bad, and the
Weird” and “I Come with the Rain" premiered in 2008. Lee's critically acclaimed film "I
Saw the Devil" premiered in 2011 at the Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews.
Lee's first foray into Hollywood films came in 2010 with a starring role in “GI
Joe: Rise of Cobra." Following the global success of that film, he signed on for “GI Joe
2: Retalitation," which was released in March 2013. His first period piece feature, "Masquerade"
was released in late 2012, and was met with stellar reviews from both audiences
and critics, and has become the highest grossing period piece in Korean history. He next

starred in "Red 2" starring opposite Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, and
Anthony Hopkins. The film premiered in Korea on July 18, 2013. Korea became the
second highest grossing market for the film behind the US.
This year Lee will have two Korean films, “Insiders” and “Memories of the
Sword” released. He is currently filming an Independent US film, “Beyond Deceit”, opposite
Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino, which is due for a 2016 release.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
In 2012, ALAN TAYLOR (Director) took on his most ambitious project yet, when
Marvel courted him to direct “Thor: The Dark World,” starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie
Portman Tom Hiddleston, and Sir Anthony Hopkins. The film released November 8th
2013, and grossed over $640 million dollars worldwide.
A student of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Taylor began his career in the early
‘90s, directing an episode of “Homicide: Life on the Street.” He directed his first film, the
award-winning indie, “Palookaville,” staring William Forsythe, Vincent Gallo, and
Frances McDormand, in 1995. He then set course as director on some of television’s most
critically acclaimed shows, including ‘The West Wing,” “Oz” and further episodes of
“Homicide.”
He co-wrote and directed the award-winning 2001 feature “The Emperor’s New
Clothes,” a fanciful adaptation of Simon Leys’s novel, starring Ian Holm and Iben Hjejle.
He followed that in 2003 with the indie feature “Kill the Poor,” based on Joel Rose’s
1988 novel. Alan dove back into television and established himself as one HBO’s go to
guys, directing numerous episodes of “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City,” as well as
“Carnivale,” “Rome,” “Deadwood,” “Six Feet Under” and “Big Love.” In 2007 he won
an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for his “Sopranos” episode
“Kennedy and Heidi.” He was again nominated in 2008 for directing the pilot episode of
AMC’s critical hit “Mad Men.”
Alan’s directorial reach extended beyond HBO as well, with episodes of “Lost,”
“Law & Order,” “Rubicon” and Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie.” He would continue his
strong run with HBO by directing episodes of “In Treatment,” “Boardwalk Empire” and

the off-beat comedy “Bored to Death.” In 2011 Alan directed the final two episodes of
“Game of Thrones” freshmen season. He would then join GOT as Executive Producer for
season two, as well as directing four more episodes. He garnered his third Emmy nomination
for his work on the series.
LAETA KALOGRIDIS (Co-Writer / Executive Producer) is a writer-producer in
film and television. Her writing work includes the first X-MEN, TOMB RAIDER,
SCREAM 3, ALEXANDER, NIGHT WATCH, BIONIC WOMAN and Martin Scorsese’s
SHUTTER ISLAND, which she also executive produced.
Additional producing credits include James Cameron’s AVATAR and WHITE
HOUSE DOWN. Most recently, Laeta has partnered with Skydance Productions as
writer and producer for the re-launch of the Terminator series.
PATRICK LUSSIER (Co-Writer / Executive Producer) is a genre writer, editor
and director, who has mastered the art and craft of directing live-action 3D. He has collaborated
on several projects with Ms. Kalogridis, dating back to 1999, when Laeta was
hired to rewrite “Scream 3,” which Lussier was film editing. His previous motion picture
credits include directing both “Drive Angry 3D” and “My Bloody Valentine: 3D,”
released by Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate, respectively. (MBV3D, made for $16
million, made over $50 million domestic on 1003 screens over just 3 weekends, and over
$50 million foreign in its initial release. It is currently the 11th highest-grossing horror
film of all time.)
Lussier directed and edited “White Noise: The Light” (aka “White Noise 2”), and
directed and co-wrote the vampire trilogy “Wes Craven Presents Dracula 2000,” notable
for Gerard Butler's feature debut in a starring role, “Dracula II: Ascension” and “Dracula
III: Legacy.” He made his directorial debut with the horror fantasy “The Prophecy 3: The
Ascent,” the Prophecy series final installment with Christopher Walken as the Archangel
Gabriel.
Lussier edited the lion's share of Wes Craven's movies through the 1990s and early
2000s, including “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare,” “Vampire in Brooklyn,” “Music of
the Heart,” the “Scream” trilogy, “Cursed” and “Red Eye.” Additional editorial credits

include Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego's “Apollo 18,” Guillermo del Toro's “Mimic,” Steve
Miner's “Halloween: H20” and the comedies “My Boss’s Daughter” and “D3: The
Mighty Ducks,” directed by David Zucker and Rob Lieberman, respectively. Prior to a
career in features, Lussier edited “Macgyver” for three seasons and the “Doctor Who: TV
Movie” in 1996. Lussier has also worked as a visual consultant on “Darkness Falls,”
“54,” “Brothers Grimm,” “Exorcist: The Beginning/Dominion,” “The Return” and
“Whisper,” and as a music consultant on “Reindeer Games” and “Equilibrium.”
DAVID ELLISON (Producer) serves as CEO of Skydance Productions. Ellison is
currently in post-production on “Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation, with Christopher
McQuarrie directing, to be released July 31st, 2015, and the disaster film “Geostorm,”
written by Dean Devlin and Paul Guyot with Devlin also directing, to be released in October
2016. In addition, Ellison is set to executive-produce the third installment of the
“Star Trek” franchise, with Justin Lin directing, to be released July 8th, 2016. Ellison also
owns the rights to the Terminator franchise and is in development on the next film in the
trilogy.
Ellison executive-produced the Paramount feature “Mission: Impossible—Ghost
Protocol,” produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by Brad Bird. Ellison’s recent releases
include “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” starring Chris Pine and directed by Kenneth
Branagh, “World War Z,” starring Brad Pitt and directed by Marc Forster; J.J. Abrams’
“Star Trek: Into Darkness,” starring Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto; and “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,”
starring Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum and Dwayne Johnson. Ellison also executive-produced
the Christopher McQuarrie film “Jack Reacher” with Tom Cruise.
Skydance Productions launched a television division in May 2013 with Marcy
Ross as president. Their first entry into producing scripted content was the WGN America
series “Manhattan,” which premiered in July 2014, and is currently shooting its 2nd season
for Fall 2015. From writer Sam Shaw and director Tommy Schlamme, this 13-
episode drama is set against the backdrop of the clandestine mission to build the world’s
first atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Next up for Skydance Television is the
original comedy series “Grace and Frankie” starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as longtime
rivals brought together by a rather unusual change in their marital circumstances.

Written and created by Marta Kauffman and Howard J. Morris, the show’s 13-episode
first season will premiere on Netflix May 8.
Ever the film enthusiast, Ellison grew up in Northern California and attended the
University of Southern California’s prestigious School of Cinematic Arts. He is an accomplished
pilot with over 2000 flying hours, a commercial multi-engine instrument rating
and a helicopter rating. In 2003, at 20 years-old, Ellison was the youngest airshow
pilot performer at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Airventure Show in Oshkosh,
WI, where he was one of six pilots performing as the “Stars of Tomorrow.”
Ellison formed Skydance Productions to tell big stories and create immersive
worlds, producing narratives that span film, television, games and more. The company
focuses on tent-pole action, adventure, science fiction and fantasy films, along with modestly
budgeted comedy and genre films. In 2013, Skydance entered into a new four-year
production, distribution and finance deal with Paramount Pictures. The first film released
under their original deal was the Academy Award® nominated “True Grit,” Joel and
Ethan Coen’s take on the Charles Portis novel.
DANA GOLDBERG (Producer) currently serves as Skydance Productions’ chief
creative officer. She joined Skydance in 2010 as president of production, and has played
an integral role in its expansion into multiple mediums of entertainment.
Most recently, Goldberg produced through Skydance, the Christopher McQuarrie
film “Jack Reacher,” with Tom Cruise; “G.I. Joe : Retaliation,” starring Bruce Willis,
Channing Tatum and Dwayne Johnson; “Star Trek: Into Darkness,” starring Zachary
Quinto and Chris Pine; and “World War Z,” starring Brad Pitt.
Upcoming films Goldberg is currently developing through Skydance include
“Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation” directed by Christopher McQuarrie and starring
Tom Cruise, and a disaster film on a global scale titled “Geostorm,” written by Dean Devlin
and Paul Guyot with Devlin also directing.
Additionally, Skydance Productions launched its television division in May 2013.
Their first entry into producing scripted content was the WGN America series “Manhattan,”
which premiered in July 2014. Goldberg is also Executive Producer of Skydance’s
new Netflix show “Grace and Frankie.”

Prior to joining Skydance, Goldberg served as president of production at Village
Roadshow Pictures, where she was involved with the company’s entire slate of films. She
also served as executive producer on many of the company’s films, including “I Am Legend,”
“The Brave One” and the Academy Award ®-winning animated feature “Happy
Feet.” Prior to her tenure at Village Roadshow, Goldberg spent three years with Barry
Levinson and Paula Weinstein at Baltimore/Spring Creek Pictures, where she was vice
president of production. She began her career in entertainment at Hollywood Pictures.
Goldberg has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since
2007.
BILL CARRARO (Executive Producer). Prior to “Teminator Genisys”
Carraro Executive Produced the ‘reboot’ of “Robocop” directed by Jose Padilha, starting
Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish, and with Samuel L. Jackson.
Carraro, a New York-based Producer, was instrumental in launching Universal’s
“Tower Heist” in locations filmed throughout New York City. As Executive Producer,
Carraro worked closely with Producers Brian Grazer and Kim Roth, in addition to Brett
Ratner who was directing an ensemble cast, including Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Casey
Affleck, Matthew Broderick, Tea Leoni, & Alan Alda. Tower Heist featured some of New
York’s most recognizable locations, including Trump Towers, and an action set piece that
required the re-enactment of the Macy’s Day Parade along Central Park West.
He was a producer of, “The Adjustment Bureau” for Media Rights Capital (MRC)
and Universal Pictures. The film was inspired by the Philip K. Dick short story of the
same title and screenplay was written and directed by George Nolfi, and starred Matt
Damon and Emily Blunt.
His other feature credits as Producer or Executive Producer, include: “The Wolfman”
starring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving;
“The Golden Compass” starring Nicole Kidman, Sam Elliott, Eva Green and Daniel
Craig; “The Sentinel” starring Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Langoria and
Kim Basinger; “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” starring Uma Therman and Luke Wilson;
“Stay”, starring Ewan McGredgor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling; “The Best Man”,

starring Taye Diggs, Nia Long and Morris Chestnut; “Frequency”, starring Dennis Quaid
and Jim Caviezel; “Undercover Brother” starring Eddie Griffin, Chris Kattan and Dennise
Richards and “American History X” starring Edward Norton (who received an Academy
Award nomination) and Edward Furlong.
Carraro produced the HBO television movie “The Tuskegee Airmen” which received
10 Primetime Emmy Nominations, with 3 wins, in addition to being recognized by
the Golden Globes, the Image Awards, The Peabody Awards and the DGA. The story was
based on the true events of the first African-American fighter pilots, and starred Laurence
Fishburne & Cuba Gooding. For this highly acclaimed project Carraro was awarded the
Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Achievement.
Carraro was the recipient of the N.A.A.C.P Image Award for producing “The Best
Man” and a Saturn Award for producing ‘The Frequency”.
A member of both the Producers Guild and the Director Guild of America, he has
worked as a 2nd Unit Director on a number of his projects.
Carraro is a native New Yorker, born in Brooklyn, and a graduate of Ithaca College,
with a degree in Film and Photography and a Minor in Business. Having lived in
Los Angeles for seven years, Carraro and his family returned to New York, where he currently
resides.
MEGAN ELLISON (Executive Producer) is the founder and principal of Annapurna
Pictures, a film production and finance company that focuses on creating sophisticated,
high-quality films which stand out amongst those produced by traditional Hollywood
studios. As the head of Annapurna Pictures, Ellison successfully upholds the company’s
vision to produce critically and commercially conscious projects which appeal to a
growing and diverse audience, allowing filmmakers to create films of all genres and budgets
while preserving their originality.
Annapurna’s most recent project, Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” starring Channing
Tatum, Steve Carell and Mark Ruffalo, was released last year by Sony Pictures Classics.
The film earned five Academy Award nominations and three Golden Globe nominations
including one for Best Motion Picture, Drama. Annapurna’s projects from 2013
alone earned 17 Academy Award nominations, and made Ellison the first woman to earn

two Best Picture nominations in the same year. Those projects included David O. Russell’s
“American Hustle”, Spike Jonze’s “Her”, and Wong Kar Wai’s “The Grandmaster”.
Additionally in 2013 Annapurna’s “Spring Breakers”, directed by Harmony Korine broke
records earning the biggest box office opening weekend of 2013 for a film playing in limited
release. Annapurna’s past releases include Kathryn Bigelow’s Academy Award nominated
“Zero Dark Thirty”, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s multiple Golden Globe and
Academy Award nominated “The Master”.
Annapurna is currently in production on David O. Russell’s “Joy” and Ana Lily
Amirpour’s “The Bad Batch”, in post-production on Richard Linklater’s “That’s What
I’m Talking About” and Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon’s animated “Sausage Party”,
and preparing for production on Todd Solondz’s “Weiner Dog”, Mike Mills’ “20th Century
Women”and Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing”. Annapurna will also re-team with
Bigelow on a film based on the non-fiction book “The True American”.
ROBERT CORT (Executive Producer) has produced 48 feature films, which have
grossed over $2.5 billion in worldwide box office. These include “Outrageous Fortune”,
“Three Men and a Baby”, “Three Men and A Little Lady”, “The Hand That Rocks the
Cradle”, “Cocktail”, “Class Action”, “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”, “Bill & Ted’s
Bogus Journey”, “The Cutting Edge”, “Terminal Velocity”, “Operation Dumbo Drop”,
“Bird on a Wire”, “Jumanji”, “Runaway Bride”, “Mr. Holland’s Opus” and “Save the
Last Dance”. The films have garnered numerous honors, from the Peoples’ Choice Award
for “Three Men and A Baby” to the Silver Lola for Best Picture at the German Academy
Awards for the family drama I”m Winter Ein Jahr".
Cort’s HBO film, Something the Lord Made, became one of the most honored
movies in television’s history, winning three Emmys, including the 2004 Outstanding
Film Made for Television, the American Film Institute Award, the Director’s and Writer’s
Guild Awards, the Christopher, NAACP Image Award and the prestigious Peabody
Award. His six other television films have also won multiple honors, and Cort won the
1991 Emmy for Best Children’s Programming for “A Mother’s Courage: The Mary
Thomas Story”.

Cort entered the motion picture industry in 1976 as vice president of advertising,
publicity and promotion for Columbia Pictures. In 1980, he became executive vice president
of marketing for Twentieth Century-Fox. As a marketing chief, Cort planned and
supervised the campaigns of such films as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “Midnight
Express”, “The China Syndrome”, “All That Jazz”, “The Empire Strikes Back”, and
“Nine to Five”. He then served as executive vice president of production at Fox, where
he oversaw the making of “Romancing the Stone”, “Bachelor Party” and “Revenge of the
Nerds”.
For the next eleven years, Cort was a partner and president of Interscope Communications,
which was sold to Polygram in 1992. From 1996 to 2001, Cort was the managing
partner of The Cort/Madden Company, a production unit with close ties to Paramount
Pictures. He currently operates Robert Cort Productions, an independent production company.

Prior to the entertainment industry, Cort was a management consultant for McKinsey
& Company. He also served a three-year assignment in the Central Intelligence
Agency.
In 2003 Random House published Cort’s novel, ACTION!, which earned outstanding
critical reviews and became a bestseller. His articles and essays have been published
in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker and several websites,
and he has appeared frequently on television discussing the film industry. Cort
serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations, including the Mr. Holland’s
Opus Foundation, which was inspired by his movie. He is also a professor on the faculty
of the American Film Institute and a mentor in the Peter Stark Program at USC.
He received his BA, magna cum laude, and MA degrees in history from the University
of Pennsylvania, where Cort was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He later earned
an MBA from the Wharton School, graduating at the top of his business school class.
Cort and Rosalie Swedlin, a literary manager and his wife of thirty-one years, live
in Beverly Hills.
KRAMER MORGENTHAU, ASC (Director of Photography). Morgenthau has
traveled the globe shooting feature film and television, documentary and commercial as-

signments. His recent feature projects include “Thor: The Dark World” with director Alan
Taylor, “Chef” with director Jon Favreau, “Feast of Love” with three time Academy
Award winning director Robert Benton and “Fracture” with director Gregory Hoblit.
In the world of television he has been nominated for 5 Emmy awards and 4 ASC
awards. He recently shot “Game of Thrones” for which he won an Outstanding Achievement
Award in Cinematography from the American Society of Cinematographers. He
also shot and was nominated for Emmy Awards for “Boardwalk Empire” , “Too Big To
Fail”, “Flash Forward”, and “Life on Mars”. In 2011 Morgenthau was named one of the
10 Cinematographers To Watch by Variety magazine. In August 2013 he will be featured
in Variety’s Below The Line Impact report.
He has worked with a wide range of directors including James Mangold, Tim Van
Patten, David Nutter, Curtis Hanson, Brian Kirk, Spike Lee, Gary Fleder, Barbara Kopple,
and George Hickenlooper. Some of the cinematographer's other feature film credits
include: “The Express”, “The Man From Elysian Fields”, “The Big Brass Ring”, “Empire”,
“Godsend” and “Havoc”.
Morgenthau began his career shooting documentaries based out of New York City.
In 1996, Morgenthau shot the Academy Award nominated “Small Wonder”s for two time
Oscar winning director Allan Miller. That same year a feature film Morgenthau shot, “Joe
and Joe”, was accepted to the Sundance film festival. The cinematographer soon became
a regular entrant of the festival with some seven features and documentaries. He eventually
migrated to Los Angeles to further pursue feature films.
He grew up in Cambridge MA, and was introduced to the world of documentary
film at a young age. His father Henry Morgenthau produced documentaries for flagship
PBS station WGBH in Boston. Morgenthau often tagged along on location shoots with
his father to Africa, Europe and many other places. His father also introduced him to the
world of art and painting; they spent many days in art museums and galleries around the
world.
Morgenthau's mother, Ruth, gave him an early introduction to global politics and
rural development. She was a Polish Jewish refugee of Nazi occupied Vienna, Austria
who went on to become an advisor to three American presidents, a professor of African
politics and a forerunner in sustainable rural development. Kramer Morgenthau's back-

ground has had a profound effect on the types of projects he has chosen to work on.
He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, The American Society of
Cinematographers, The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the International
Cinematographers Guild.
NEIL SPISAK (Production Designer) most recently worked on the global smash
hit “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Prior to that he twice collaborated with Peter Berg: on
“Battleship” and “Hancock”.
Spisak also created the look for Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy, which has
collectively grossed $2.5 billion to date. He first worked with Raimi on his 1999 romantic
baseball drama “For Love of the Game,” then re-teamed with the filmmaker the following
year on the gothic thriller “The Gift,” which boasted an all-star cast that included
Cate Blanchett, Keanu Reeves and Hilary Swank.
His other big screen collaborations include Nora Ephron’s “Bewitched,” John Woo’s
“Face/Off” with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, Michael Mann’s action-packed thriller
“Heat” with Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, John Schlessinger’s thriller “Pacific Heights”
with Michael Keaton and Melanie Griffith, and Barry Levinson’s sexually-charged legal
drama, “Disclosure,” which starred Michael Douglas and Demi Moore.
Spisak has also worked three times with actor-director Peter Masterson on “Night
Game,” “Full Moon in Blue Water” and “A Trip to Bountiful,” the film adaptation of Horton
Foote’s play, which netted star Geraldine Page the Best Actress Academy Award in
1986.
Other feature production design credits include “Benny & Joon” (which coincidentally
starred Masterson’s daughter, Mary Stuart Masterson), “My Life” and “End of the Line.”
He first production design credit was for the Disney telefilm “Tiger Town,” which earned
a CableACE Award as Best Dramatic Special.
Spisak, a graduate of Pittsburgh’s prestigious Carnegie-Mellon University (in scenery
and costume design), began his career designing clothes before his focus changed to sets.
Upon relocating to New York City after college, he landed a job assisting veteran costumer
Ann Roth, assuming the wardrobe responsibilities for the touring companies and

London production of the musical, “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” directed by
Peter Masterson, with whom he would later collaborate in the film world.
He continued working with Roth on the Broadway stagings of “Crucible of
Blood” and “They’re Playing Our Song,” in addition to several Circle-in-the-Square productions.
Back in the feature film arena, he assisted Roth on such movies as “Maxie,”
“Jagged Edge,” “Silkwood” and “The World According to Garp” before graduating to
assistant designer on “The Last Dragon,” “The Morning After” and “Stars and Bars.” He
earned his first costume design credit on the 1990 thriller “The January Man,” and also
created the wardrobe for Sidney Lumet’s 1990 police drama, “Q&A.” His costume work
in the television medium includes an Emmy nomination for the 1985 American Playhouse
presentation of “Roanoke.”
ROGER BARTON (Edited by) is associated with some of the biggest tent-pole
movies of the last several years including Michael Bay’s “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor,”
“Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen,”, “Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon.”, and
“Transformers 4: Age of Extinction.”
           Among his other films are “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith” for
George Lucas, “World War Z” for Marc Forster, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” for Jim Sheridan,
“Speed Racer” for the Wachowski’s, “The Grey” for Joe Carnahan, and “G.I. Joe:
Retaliation” for Jon Chu, to name a few.
 Barton’s first screen credit was as the associate editor on James Cameron’s “Titanic”
He resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife Andrea and their son Aidan.
SUSAN MATHESON (Costume Designer). Matheson’s diverse body of work includes
not only tentpole releases like “Terminator: Genesis” but also independent fare
such as the Toronto Film Festival hit “Welcome to Me” starring Kristen Wiig. Matheson
designed action-thrillers “Safe House ” starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds
and “Jack Reacher” for writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and starring Tom Cruise.
Matheson also designed the acclaimed Ben Affleck crime drama, “The Town,” which included
the distinctive bank-robbing nuns in tactical gear. Among her other film credits

are Peter Berg’s “The Kingdom” and “Friday Night Lights,” “Fright Night”, “Couples
Retreat”, “Best Laid Plans, “Dancer Texas, Pop 81” and “Crazy Beautiful.” Her designs
for the film, “Blue Crush,” were hailed by Vogue and Good Morning America as influencing
fashion for that year.
Matheson is currently working with frequent collaborator Adam McKay on “The
Big Short” for Paramount and Plan B, starring Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling
and Steve Carell. Her other films with McKay and with Will Ferrell include “Anchorman
2,” “Talladega Nights” and “Step Brothers,” and with Ferrell on “Semi-Pro.”
Matheson relocated to the US from South Africa as a teenager. She went on to
study sculpture and costume design at Vassar College. After graduation she moved to
Tokyo where she continued her studies in fashion design. She moved back to the US,
received a BFA from Parsons School of Design, where she won the prestigious Designer
of the Year Award, as well as design awards from Nike and Bob Mackie. Upon graduation,
she worked for Mattel Toys designing products for both Barbie and Disney.
Since then she has gone on to design costumes for film, theater and fashion publications
in addition to collaborating with many international performance artists.
LORNE BALFE (Music by) is a Grammy Award winning, Emmy and BAFTA
nominated film composer from Inverness, Scotland. He is known for composing the
scores to the Dreamworks’ animation “Megamind”, and Ubisoft’s acclaimed game, “Assassin’s
Creed III”.
In addition to recognition earned for producing two of Hans Zimmer’s Oscarnominated
scores, “Sherlock Holmes” and “Inception”, he has also received significant
recognition for his work in the United Kingdom. In 2009, Lorne was nominated for the
Discovery of the Year World Soundtrack Award for his score in the BAFTA award-winning
film, “Crying With Laughter”. The same year he was nominated for the prestigious
Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award.
Bale began his career in Hollywood providing additional music on several major
motion pictures including the second and third installments of the “Pirates of the Caribbean”
series, “The Simpsons Movie”, “Angels & Demons”, “Iron Man”, and “Transformers:
Revenge of the Fallen”. He also composed additional music on the 2009 Golden

Globe nominated film Frost/Nixon. Complimented by his additional music, his role as a
score producer on 2008ʹs “The Dark Knight” earned him a Grammy for Best Score
Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture.
In 2009, he was music producer and composer of the “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
2” video game, and score producer for Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes”, which
earned a 2010 Oscar nomination for Best Original Score. In 2011, he produced the score
for Christopher Nolan’s “Inception”, which also earned an Oscar nomination for Best
Original Score.
Bale composed additional music for “The Dark Knight”, “Inception”, “Rango”,
“Kung Fu Panda 2”, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”, “Madagascar 3”, and“The
Dark Knight Rises”.
His solo projects have kept him hard at work in the UK, composing for
“Ironclad”, “The Sweeney”, “Not Another Happy Ending” (starring Karen Gillian from
“Doctor Who”) and “Side by Side”. His music is featured in the BBC and Sundance
Channel TV mini- series, “Restless”, starring Hayley Atwell and Rufus Sewell, for which
Balfe received the 2013 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Music Composition.
In the US Balfe worked alongside director Scott Walker for Walker’s film “The
Frozen Ground”, starring John Cusack, Nicolas Cage and Vanessa Hudgens. In collaboration
with composer Rachel Portman, he completed the music for 10×10ʹs feature documentary
“Girl Rising”, directed by Academy Award nominee Richard E. Robbins that
features narration by Hollywood actresses such as Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett. After
years of work with director Shane Salerno, Balfe’s music in the highly secretive feature
documentary, “Salinger”, was finally released in September 2013.
Balfe has found additional footing in the video game world. In 2011, Balfe composed
alongside Jesper Kyd for the game, “Assassin’s Creed: Revelations” and earned a
BAFTA nomination for Best Original Music. He worked as a solo composer for “Skylanders:
Giants” and “Assassin’s Creed III, the latter earning him his second BAFTA nomination
for Best Original Music, as well as the BSO Goldspirit Award for Best Score for a
Video Game. In late 2013 “Skylanders: Swap Force” as well as “Beyond: Two Souls”

were released. “Beyond: Two Souls” features performances by Ellen Page and Willem
Dafoe and received three BAFTA nominations including one for Best Original Music.
In 2014 he composed the score for “Manny”, a documentary about the life of
Manny Pacquiao, eight-division world champion and ten-time world title winning boxer,
which premiered at SXSW. Lorne composed the score for Dreamworks Animation’s “The
Penguins of Madagascar” and most recently completed the score for Dreamworks Animation’s
“Home” starring Rihanna, Jim Parsons and Steve Martin.
HANS ZIMMER (Executive Music Producer) has scored more than 120 films,
which have, combined, grossed over 24 billion dollars at the worldwide box office. He
has been honored with an Academy Award®, two Golden Globes®, three Grammys®, an
American Music Award, and a Tony® Award. His most recent Academy Award nomination
for “Interstellar” marks his 10th career Oscar nomination with the Academy. In 2003,
ASCAP presented him with the prestigious Henry Mancini award for Lifetime Achievement
for his impressive and influential body of work. He also received his Star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010, and in 2014 was honored with the Zurich Film Festival
Lifetime Achievement Award. Zimmer recently completed his first concerts in the
UK, “Hans Zimmer Revealed,” at the Eventim Hammersmith Apollo.
Other recent releases include Simon Curtis’ “Women in Gold”, “The Amazing
Spider-Man 2”, Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave”, Ron Howard’s “Rush”, Zack Snyder’s
“Man of Steel”, History Channel’s miniseries “The Bible”; the Christopher Nolandirected
films “Inception”, “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises”; and Guy
Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”. Some of Zimmer’s most notable
works include his scores for “Rain Main”, “Driving Miss Daisy”, “Thelma & Louise”,
“Crimson Tide”, “The Thin Red Line”, “Gladiator”, “Mission: Impossible II”, “Hannibal”,
“Pearl Harbor”, “Tears of the Sun”, “Spanglish”, The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise,
the Kung Panda and Madagascar films, “The Da Vinci Code”, “Frost/Nixon”, and
“The Lion King”, for which he won the Academy Award.

The Bearded Trio - The Site For Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and John Williams

THE BEARDED TRIO ON FACEBOOK
THE BEARDED TRIO ON TWITTER
THE BEARDED TRIO ON GOOGLE+
THE BEARDED TRIO ON PINTEREST

CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON STEVEN SPIELBERG
CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON GEORGE LUCAS
CLICK HERE FOR FACTS ON JOHN WILLIAMS