By Fred Topel | Images property of Columbia Pictures.
There are eight different points of view in Vantage Point, some full of intrigue, some full of action. As Secret Service agent Thomas Barnes, Dennis Quaid was in the thick of the action. He had to rush the president to the ambulance, interrogate suspects and chase bad guys eight times.
Dennis Quaid on Vantage Point
"It was fantastic," said Quaid. "They really did it well too, the car chase. I guess this is my car chase of my career that I got to do. I did just about all the driving except for the actual 40-mile-an-hour crashes. I didn’t really want to submit myself to the G-Forces needed for that.”
Each of the eight perspectives reveals new aspects of the story, but Quaid's job was always the same. "I just played it the same way the entire time. I think because it’s from another person's point-of-view then the audience has a different perception, even though I’m doing the same thing. You get to see this 15 minutes, then the next time you shoot that same 15 minutes, you might catch a different angle of that character that you couldn’t see before, what that character was thinking. You see them go around the corner and what really happened, from what they said. It’s what is interesting and what is so exciting about this movie."
Such a high concept could be a risk with audiences too. "You never know. It just read so well. When I read a script it’s the only time I get to be an audience member. It’s the first time I experience something. It really read so well that I felt if they could just put this on screen it was going to work. [Director] Pete [Travis] not only did that, but he really elevated it as well, in the way that he shot it.”
Vantage Point
Quaid had to brush up on his black suit and sunglasses routine. "We were there for two weeks before we started shooting. We trained as a team, as a Secret Service Unit, of these guys. The president never goes anywhere that its not choreographed well in advance. That’s what we would do. We would really rehearse and go over these moves, like a team. We would move the president through this crowd, and also just the stories they had to tell, and the psychology behind what they do. It was fascinating. You always see the president, he’s working a crowd, and there is some guy that is right up on his back. He’s got his hand underneath his jacket, with his hand around his belt, so he can just rip him away, like that, and at any given moment."
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