Part 2 Of My Interview With Edgar Ramirez For Carlos

As promised here’s part 2 of my interview with Edgar Ramirez for his epic new movie ‘Carlos’. A film anchored by a enigmatically multi layered performance from Mr Ramirez in the role of the notorious, convicted Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramirez Sanchez) – one of the most wanted terrorists on the planet. Between 1974, in London, where he tried to assassinate a British businessman, and 1994, when he was arrested in Khartoum, he lived several lives under various pseudonyms, weaving his way through the complexities of international politics of the period. Check out what he had to say below. Check out part 1 of my interview here.

One of my favourite sequences in the film was the OPEC hostage situation. How was it shooting that sequence?

Edgar Ramirez: What I was speaking about a second a go had a lot to deal with that sequence. There’s probably few sequences in the movie were you see choice by choice by choice. He’s making choices by impulse minute after minute, each minute he has to go in a different direction. He has to solve the whole mess.

Not just with me, but with everyone involved, we were just going with the conflict and the decisions that this character had to make, we didn’t plan that much. I think that with the brilliance that Olivier had done with that sequence is just keep with the rhythm and just show the facts and not just the introspections of the characters. I think that is very brilliant. How can you talk about human nature so much, those human beings, without explaining them? Without explaining what’s going through their heads? The best way is just showing the facts, one after another. When you play a character you have to not know more than the character as an actor. Meaning that if you’re going to a specific event or situation, you’re going through that at the very first time. You as an actor you have to live the part moment after moment. You have to appeal to the emotions.

I thought the atmosphere in the film was so realistic. It felt like a documentary at times, how hard was that to capture? Especially considering you’re in England one minute, then France, then Algeria. It felt so real still.

Edgar Ramirez: This movie was a total happening. We would sometimes go to the locations and film in places we just found a few hours before shooting. This movie was sort of a train that departed from London in the winter of 2009, and just ended without ever stopping in Lebanon about seven months later. We never stopped, we were losing cast along the way, we were losing locations, we were being rejected by certain governments. We had to reconfigure certain things just days before shooting. It was very dynamic in all ways. The movie that was going on behind the camera was very dramatic (laughs). We were always on the verge of collapse. As we were running out of money and as everything was getting smaller we managed to portray that tension into the movie.

How do you think someone like Carlos would fit in this current political climate? Do you think the perception of ‘terrorism’ has changed?

Edgar Ramirez: Yeah, I think the notions of terrorism have changed, they have changed considerably, from the seventies, until this current day. Carlos would have never considered himself a terrorist though. They would see themselves as freedom fighters, or radical militants. In this movie we see how an entire generation made this path from revolutionary theory, to military action. They would never see themselves inflicting terror. I think for them they were defending the oppressed from the oppressors.

There is a difference, but at the same time have things really changed? Is the suffering cost by terror different from the seventies than it is right now? I consider the consequences the same, the suffering, isolation, death, destruction…… When I mean terror, I mean terror in general. Terror coming from anywhere. It could be coming from a radical group, an army, a government, terror is terror. In my opinion there is no good violence or bad violence, violence is violence, the consequences are the same. That brings us back to the point where it’s human nature, for better or for worse, this movie shows that. The contradictions and the struggle between idealism on one side, and individualism on the other side. The will to change the world and the dreams of revolution on one side. Then the narcissistic obsession for recognition, fame and a place in history on the other side. Power, fear, greed, ambition, sex and love, fortunately or unfortunately kind of speak to all of us. So for me that reinforces the fact that this movies not about terrorism. It’s about human choices and human nature.

Do you think Carlos imagined himself as a new Che Guevera?

Edgar Ramirez: We have to remember Carlos belongs to the generation immediately after Che’s campaigns. All of his generation were deeply influenced by what Che did. Che was the first and biggest icon of a line of a political thought called internationalism. Which meant that all revolutionaries all over the world come together to fight for the oppressed against the oppressors. Regardless of your ideology, ethnicity, religion ect. I think they were very influenced by Che. I think Carlos was pretty aware of what symbolically Che represented.

Release Date: 22 October 2010 / Certificate: 15

Movie Runtime: 246 minutes/ Trilogy Runtime: 338 minutes