CultBox were recently lucky enough to be present at a special preview event in London, where we were presented with around 15 minutes of footage Ridley Scott’s much-anticipated Prometheus. After rapturous applause for the clips has died down, director Ridley Scott and stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron come out for a Q&A session.

Ridley Scott sometimes has a reputation as being a bit of a grump, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s chatty and funny, and at times brutally honest.

In regards to the production design he loves it: “Because I was a designer, I really enjoy the process.” The director explains that he tends to work with the same people repeatedly, in this case long-time collaborator Arthur Max.

Scott recalls how he got Max a small group of people together to design everything “from the suits, to the kitchen on the ship, to everything you can possible think of” and compile them into one design book for him. “That became my bench-mark.”

As for shooting in 3D, he’s hilarious blunt. “It’s not brain surgery. It’s actually pretty straight-forward… Anybody who says you’ve got to add 16 weeks, it means they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Rapace in particular seems extremely privileged to be working with Scott. “He had seen The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a couple of times and he said to me that he loved my performance and he wanted to work with me, and I thought I was going to pass out.”

But how does her character compare to one of the most iconic female characters of all time, in Alien’s Ellen Ripley? “She feels like she’s in the same family. She’s a survivor and a fighter.”

Charlize Theron, meanwhile, teases that her character is “not a believer, not a scientist, she really is just there to make sure that everything is going to plan. But then, she’s also there for a very personal reason, of which I cannot speak…” Intriguing.

In regards to portraying Prometheus’ resident android David, Fassbender admits that he didn’t watch the previous Alien films to prepare, instead focussing on Scott’s other sci-fi classic Blade Runner, and – bizarrely – former Olympic diver Greg Louganis.

“I don’t know why, it just popped into my head. Just the way he moved… As a child watching Olympics I was like, ‘who’s that guy?’ it’s such a weird walk. It made me laugh. But also it seemed like a very efficient, centred, economy of movement.”

Watching the clips from the film, it’s clear to see that every single shot is impeccably crafted; every frame bleeding a mysterious, cold beauty. It’s worth mentioning too that the soundtrack is so good that it’s destined to become iconic in its own right.

It’s also evident from hearing the cast speak that they’re honoured to have worked on a film like Prometheus, and the way they speak in almost hushed tones, with such passion, helps cement what we could already tell from the clips; that Prometheus is going to be something very, very special indeed.

> Read our report on the footage reveal.

Released in UK cinemas on Friday 1st June 2012 by 20th Century Fox.

> Buy the Alien Anthology Blu-ray boxset on Amazon.

Watch the trailer…

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