Red Planet Stars Get Spacey


SEARCH:


	Red Planet Stars Get Spacey By Robert Scott Martin Science Fiction Editor posted: 11:55 am ET 27 October 2000

While the cast of the upcoming movie Red Planet are pumped to be in an interplanetary adventure, not all would want a real-life ticket to Mars

While the cast of the upcoming movie Red Planet are pumped to be in a interplanetary adventure onscreen, not all would want a real-life ticket to Mars.

In the film, Carrie-Anne Moss plays the stubborn commander of a last-ditch mission to Mars. It's a natural role for the Matrix star hailed to by one reporter as "an action diva in a man's world" and by another as the successor to Sigourney "Alien" Weaver.

Months after filming, her fellow cast members still half-seriously refer to her as "our captain."

More Stories

Cast, Crew Deny Reports of Bad Blood on 'Red Planet'

Australia Provides Martian Stand-In

Related Links

Red Planet

Just the screen, thanks

However, the action diva doubts she'll be riding a rocket anywhere but movie theaters.

"No, I would not go in a space shuttle to another planet," Moss told reporters at a recent press event. "I'm extremely claustrophobic."

Australian actor Simon Baker, who plays a relatively green terraforming expert, agrees.

"You wouldn't catch me there," he said simply. "I like it here a lot."

"Too claustrophobic"

One main detail keeping Moss and Baker from wanting to join the astronaut community: spacesuits. Both hated their costumes, with Moss calling her helmet "extremely claustrophobic" and Baker saying he often "felt like a clown in that suit."

Nevertheless, like real astronauts, Baker came to appreciate his suit, which would keep him alive on an actual trip to Mars.

"It was quite a struggle but . . . you get used to it," he said. "You get to love that suit."

Touching the moon

On the other hand, Val Kilmer, self-described "space janitor" aboard the movie's 2050 Mars run, wouldn't mind seeing the high frontier for himself.

"I had a childhood experience that got me interested in space," he recalled. "My father was in aerospace. He sold some parts to NASA that were going to the moon, and so he had me and my brothers come touch them [so] part of something we had seen and handled had ended up on the moon."

"Every time I looked into the sky it was like I had some kind of personal relationship. I just loved it."

But would he go to Mars?

"Sure, I'd go," he said.

Next page: realism, goosebumps and the truth.

1 2 | >> Continue with this story >