by Andy Gibbons

Last week Splice star Sarah Polley gave us her thoughts on the upcoming movie and this week we track down her on-screen hubby (and Oscar-winning actor) Adrien Brody to get his take on the film….

Tell us a bit about Clive…

Well Clive is a very hip, young, successful scientist who’s at the cutting edge of genetic research. Basically when the story begins he and Elsa, who’s played by Sarah Polley, they lose their funding – they work for a private firm where they’re basically integrating different animal genes to create creatures to synthesize proteins for medical research – then she convinces him to go one step further since this is all about to be pulled from us and we integrate human DNA with animal DNA and create a new chimera. And then the s*** hits the fan….

Both Clive and Elsa make some rather questionable decisions during the course of the movie. Did you find it hard to have much sympathy or empathy for them?

No actually, I think people make mistakes all the time. I think it’s very realistic. People make mistakes that are shockingly foolish and probably often realise that in retrospect but you know, we get excited by things. If you asked any criminal in a penitentiary if they thought they’d get caught, I don’t think they’d say yes so I don’t think their intentions are to do something malicious in the film but they were ambitious and they were not thought out and not entirely scientific; there were emotions which got in the way that makes for an interesting story.

The world Clive and Elsa operate in is a very technical one. Can you tell me a bit about the research you did and how much of the technobabble you actually understood?

Well I had to have a basic understanding of it. I did a kind of a genetics research for dummies course – I got to spend time in a hospital with a great young geneticist who guided me through the process. I actually did a similar number of procedures that these characters were doing and I got to understand protocol and terminology. It’s a very complex process but when you understand what’s transpiring and the nature of it, cell structure and these things, it becomes much more personal. It was essential for The Pianist for me to learn to play the piano so that they could shoot it so I did that on a superficial level for the shot to work. But what it taught me and the insight that it gave me to the relationship between the pianist and the piece and the language and the story telling and the way that you play and the emotional connection to the place that the character was in and the music and all these things, enhanced my connection beyond anything I could have imagined. That’s the beauty of any research you have the opportunity to do.

Some people will call Splice a science fiction, some will call it a thriller while Delphine has described it as a love story. Where do you stand?

That’s interesting. I think it’s a family drama, a dysfunctional family drama (laughs).

Splice opens across the UK on July 23rd