Hide And Seek: Production Notes

10 January 2005

0Comments | Comment on this Article

PRESENTS

Release Date February 11th 2005

Certificate TBC

Running Time TBCCome out, come out, wherever you are! That command is familiar to everyone who has played the children's game, Hide and Seek. The words and game take us back to an innocent, carefree time in our lives, where the simple goal was to find hiding playmates. Many children could even enjoy a spirited game with imaginary friends.

But then, imaginary friends can sometimes seem so real For young Emily Callaway, her games of Hide and Seek with an imaginary friend named Charlie have become anything but simple and innocent. Instead, she finds herself in the middle of a series of increasingly nightmarish acts that even her father David cannot stop. Who or what is Charlie? David wonders. How can an imaginary entity have this kind of hold on her? Mayb Charlie is not imaginary at all, but instead a flesh-and-blood, malevolent presence? Academy Award® winner Robert De Niro stars as David Callaway, a troubled father and widower in the suspense-thriller HIDE AND SEEK, and Dakota Fanning portrays his young daughter Emily, who is hiding an incredible secret. As the story opens, Callaway's wife Alison (Amy Irving) dies suddenly, traumatizing Emily. Father and daughter move to Upstate New York to distance Emily from the memories of her life in Manhattan with her mother. Soon thereafter, Emily develops a friendship with Charlie. At first, David sees Charlie as a positive way for Emily to express herself, but a series of terrifying acts lead him to imagine the unimaginable: Charlie may actually be real.and if so, he must be stopped.I wanted to write a really scary movie, says first-time screenwriter Ari Schlossberg of his work on HIDE AND SEEK. I grew up in New York City, and the woods always held an element of fear for me. So of course I set my story in a rural woodsy town.In keeping with his story's suspenseful, eerie elements, Schlossberg often wrote sitting in the dark, at night, acting out all the roles himself. The characters' voices told me where the story was going, he says. Over time, the story evolved, until the writer decided his screenplay was ready to send out.

Producer Barry Josephson was among the first to read Schlossberg's work. The script scared the hell out of me, Josephson remembers. I just couldn't put it down. Josephson was so impressed with that not only did he purchase the script and bring it to Twentieth Century Fox, he promised that Schlossberg would the only writer to work on future revisions a rare occurrence in today's Hollywood where scores of writers are often brought in to fine-tune or polish a screenplay.

Josephson notes that casting the legendary Robert De Niro is critical to the film. De Niro leaves an indelible mark on audiences with every role he plays, says Josephson. He brings so much to HIDE AND SEEK in conveying David's increasing anguish and fear over what's happening to his daughter. Director John Polson, who joined the project after helming the hit Fox thriller Swimfan, notes that HIDE AND SEEK gave De Niro the opportunity to play a new kind of role for the actor. We haven't seen Bob play a father holding things together while his family's falling apart. It's a new kind of vulnerability for him to play, and it was exciting to watch him show us a different side.

The screenplay's suspense and thrills helped draw Polson to the project, but he most appreciated the story's father-daughter relationship. "A father trying to save his daughter from something...or someone neither one understands, makes for a really exciting dynamic, says Polson, himself a noted actor.

David's desperate attempts to help his daughter and his attempts to reconnect with her are moving, adds Polson. We have to first hook the audience with their relationship, so we have an emotional stake in everything that happens to them later.

The search for Emily, a complex and demanding part, led the filmmakers to Dakota Fanning. I don't think there's a better actress at her age out there, says Josephson. She is gifted beyond her years.

Dakota blows my mind; there's just no other way to put it, Polson says. Working with her is like working with an incredibly talented 35 year old.

0Comments | Be the first to comment!