UN allows Kidman thriller
2004-01-30 08:01
United Nations - Director Sydney Pollack has been given rare permission to shoot a political thriller at the United Nations later this year starring Nicole Kidman, UN officials and Hollywood sources said on Thursday.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has given Pollack the green-light to shoot The Interpreter at the UN's famed New York headquarters, where even Alfred Hitchcock had trouble getting full clearance to film in the building.
"There are numerous requests for activities such as these. Each of the decisions is made on a case-by-case basis," spokesperson Marie Okabe said. "There are a number of practical issues still to be worked out."
Officials said the move would raise the UN's profile as US surveys show public confidence in the world body is at a low ebb.
They said it was the first time in recent memory that a feature film has been allowed to shoot in the UN buildings in central Manhattan, widely noted for their 1950s modernist style.
"The secretary general has given us what I would describe as preliminary permission to shoot," said a source at Hollywood's Universal Studios who asked not to be named.
"We are very honoured as this is a watershed - no film has been allowed to shoot there for many years," he said. "It is so far unclear what this would mean in terms of locations and times of shooting, but I'm sure we'll work it out."
The studio said Kidman has signed to play the lead role, a UN interpreter who overhears an assassination plot and then becomes a target herself. But it denied reports that bad boy Sean Penn has already signed on to co-star.
The film is due to begin shooting in March and sources said it was unclear how much access, if any, the producers would be given to live events ongoing at the United Nations, including debates at the Security Council.
Okabe said that current council president Heraldo Munoz and the president of the UN General Assembly had also given their blessing to the project.
Hitchcock reportedly was denied permission to shoot parts of his 1959 classic North by Northwest inside the building.
The veteran Pollack is no stranger to political thrillers. He lensed 1975's Three Days of the Condor, in which Robert Redford plays a CIA researcher who finds all his co-workers have been killed.