Going In Style International Junket

Going In Style International Junket

International Junket Q&A 

MORGAN FREEMAN (Willie Davis)

MICHAEL CAINE (Joe Harding)

ALAN ARKIN (Albert Garner)

ANN-MARGRET (Annie Santori)

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD (Milton Kupchak)

JOHN ORTIZ (Jesus)

DONALD DE LINE (Producer)

QUESTION: How in the world did you get all of these amazing people together in one movie?

DONALD DE LINE:   It’s a marvel to me, but we started with a script by Ted Melfi, who did a great job of reinventing or reimagining the original Going in Style, and the guys read the new script, which is hard not to like it because it’s smart and clever and filled with heart. At the same time, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

QUESTION: Ann-Margret, what did it feel like to be the only lioness in a den of lions? What did you learn from watching these gentlemen work together?

ANN-MARGRET: I see them as teenagers. I really do. It’s so much fun working with these guys. I really had a heck of a time. And the character I’m portraying, Annie, is full of life and she knows that life does not end at a certain age.

QUESTION: Alan, Morgan and Michael—watching you on screen together, well, it is magic. You are the heartbeat of the film. I’m wondering how much of it was improvised.

MICHAEL CAINE: No, no, no, there was no improvisation.

MORGAN FREEMAN: We’re too lazy to improvise! We stuck to the script.

QUESTION: What advice would you give your twenty-something selves?

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD:   I’d make an effort to not have so many marriages. Think it would work?

MICHAEL CAINE: I would tell my twenty-something self my motto when I was actually twenty and life was a bit rough. It was from Winston Churchill, who said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

MORGAN FREEMAN:   If I could see my 20-year-old self—it was when I was in the military—I think I would tell myself, “Your dreams are going to come true.” I never had one that didn’t.

ALAN ARKIN:   I have a version of what Morgan just said. I would say to myself, “Calm down. Everything’s going to be okay. Take it easy, calm down.”

ANN-MARGRET: I remember when I was 17, I said I was going to be married one time in my life. And guess what? If we make it to May eighth, it will be fifty years of marriage!

QUESTION: John, what was it like working with these legends? Were you nervous at all?

MORGAN FREEMAN:   I never call myself a legend. I always call myself an iconic Academy Award-winner … wait, I did say legendary? Never mind.

JOHN ORTIZ:   You know, it’s really easy to inflate what you’ve see on screen your entire life, especially if it’s a constant. Many times when you meet folks like that you’re disappointed. It was a great surprise and an affirmation, that Morgan, Michael and Alan weren’t afraid to be vulnerable and to just do the work.

MICHAEL CAINE: And go home early. That’s one of my main ambitions.

Going In Style International Junket

QUESTION: Was it difficult to play characters that are a little down on their luck and need to scheme to survive?

ALAN ARKIN:   We have good memories.

MORGAN FREEMAN:   Yeah, and that is not something you forget in life. Been there, done that, know all about it.

MICHAEL CAINE: And if it’s tough enough you never forget it.

ALAN ARKIN: I think all three of us never had a paying acting job until we were in our early thirties.

MICHAEL CAINE: I started out in movies making twelve pounds a day, for maybe two days. I did hundreds of those. If you look it up on IMDB it looks like I did two million movies. But I only did one day on each of those early ones.

QUESTION: So what kept the three of you going in those early days?

ALAN ARKIN:   Insanity, madness.

MORGAN FREEMAN:   I was on the very verge of going to the taxi limousine service and getting a chauffeur’s license when I got a job from Paul Newman. You’ve got to keep going.

MICHAEL CAINE: If you’re going through hell, keep going.

QUESTION: Ann-Margret, someone in this room has revealed that you used to babysit for them, and I was wondering how you would compare handling a child as a babysitter to handling a man in this movie?

ANN-MARGRET: Oh boy! (Laughter) It’s really about the same! Are you are the person I was babysitting? Was I a good babysitter?

QUESTION: Of course! Oh my gosh!

ANN-MARGRET: Oh, I’m so glad.

QUESTION: Given the characters and themes, do you think this movie is going to resonate with audiences of all ages, and specifically with young people?

MORGAN FREEMAN:   We have a fervent hope that it will. You can see that we’re really enjoying what we’re doing on screen, and audiences will respond to that.

MICHAEL CAINE: This film is like life; it has everything in it: charm, comedy, depth.

ANN-MARGET: You laugh. You can identify with these characters.

JOHN ORTIZ:   I remember I was at a restaurant in Spain, and it was about 8:00pm, and I thought it was weird to see family members all together—older people, young people. They were talking to each other. You don’t see that here anymore. Everyone gets put in their own niche, and it’s very strange.

MORGAN FREEMAN:   And everyone has a cell phone. So we can just text anybody without leaning over to ask, “Hey. Hey, how are you doing?”

QUESTION: Once you became positioned to help others, what has been the most selfless thing you’ve done for someone else to change the course of someone’s life?

MORGAN FREEMAN:   I don’t know if I’ve done anything to literally change the course of anybody’s life, but if you get to a spot where people do come to you for help, and if you give the help, hopefully you change the course of their life.

ANN-MARGRET: One of the closest things to my heart and my mind is when I went to Vietnam to entertain the troops in 1966 and 1968. I learned so much from those men and women. All through the years, when doing my shows, I kept getting little crumpled notes saying, “Hey, I saw you in Cu Chi or Quang Tri.” It makes me feel really good that I had a chance to do that, because I think about all of the men and women who are out there for us.

QUESTION: Can you talk a little bit about your friendships with each other and how they evolved off set?

MORGAN FREEMAN:   You are not going to believe this: Off the set we are really not friends.

MICHAEL CAINE: It’s a very good act.

MORGAN FREEMAN:   Ann-Margret and I sing together.

MICHAEL CAINE: I’m a cook and a gardener, so it’s rather dull. They are two things that you do to be on your own, you know. On set, you’re always working with 150 people. You go home and do cooking and gardening and you don’t have to talk to anyone.

MORGAN FREEMAN:   We don’t leave the set and visit each other’s homes.

MICHAEL CAINE: We did go to a party together, didn’t we?

MORGAN FREEMAN:   Well, because we were invited as a group.

DONALD DE LINE:   As an objective observer who was on the set every day, I can tell you the guys had a great time together. They spoke between takes and in off time there was a little village where they all sat and there were lots of great conversation and jokes and stories. There was a great feeling on that set.

MORGAN FREEMAN:   Try to remember, he’s the producer (laughs). He’s trying to maintain the image of this movie.

GOING IN STYLE arrives in cinemas April 7th, 2017.

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