The Manila Times

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#0099FF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Press</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="press.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Press"><U><B>home</B></U></A><B> </B><B>/ What's new</B><B>/ </B></div> <div> <A HREF="id44.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="us weekly 06"><U>us weekly 06</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ingenue"><U>Ingenue</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="No more mr cute guy"><U>No more mr cute guy</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Razor"><U>Razor</U></A>   |   <B>The Manila Times</B>   |   <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="inside tv"><U>inside tv</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Trusting his instinct"><U>Trusting his instinct</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="GQ Italian"><U>GQ Italian</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Star Magazine"><U>Star Magazine</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id49.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="solstice"><U>solstice</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MPR"><U>MPR</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="outabout"><U>outabout</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id30.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="soapopera mag"><U>soapopera mag</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Us Weekly"><U>Us Weekly</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=100 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> September 04, 2004</div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <I>The Manila Times</I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Best known for his role as Bruce Willis' mohawked lieutenant in Antoine Fuqua's Tears of the Sun,</B></div> <div> <B>Johnny Messner now comes into his own as he headlines Columbia Pictures action-adventure Anacondas:</B></div> <div> <B>The Hunt For The Blood Orchid  (now playing in Metor Manila)  the follow-up to the 1997 box-office hit</B></div> <div> <B>which starred Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson and Ice Cube.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>In this nail-biting thriller, a scientific expedition is sent to the jungles of Borneo to search for a rare black</B></div> <div> <B>orchid by a powerful pharmaceutical company that hopes the orchid can be used to unlock the secrets of</B></div> <div> <B>youth and immortality. What the expedition team discovers is that the orchid is already being used by a </B></div> <div> <B>powerful group ... a swarm of giant snakes that derive their super strength, size and vitality from the</B></div> <div> <B>flowers.  And extremely large snakes are also extremely hungry snakes.  Portraying a rugged boatman</B></div> <div> <B>who, for a hefty fee, agrees to take the scientists down river even though the situation is fraught with</B></div> <div> <B>peril, Messner discusses the moive in the following interview:</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Question: What makes Anacondas a worthy successor to the original?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Johnny Messner:  It's a better story, it's more an adventure. It's not all about the snake.  It's about overcoming</B></div> <div> <B>adversity on a three-minute basis, basically.  It's about the ripple effect, it's more like Jaws and there's</B></div> <div> <B>more character development in this one.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Q: People have a lot of phobias when it comes to animals, but snakes seem to be on the top of the list. Snakes</B></div> <div> <B>and sharks. What do you think it is about those animals?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Messner:  I just think that snakes and sharks are kind of like in the same boat.  They kill you, so it makes people</B></div> <div> <B>afraid of them, even though I think that snakes are more timid than anything.  I mean you have to actually come</B></div> <div> <B>upon them and invade their space before they'd even strike.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Q:  Did your crew amd cast run into any on this shoot?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Messner: Fortunately, there are no snakes in Fiji and Hawaii where we shot.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Q: What did you learn about anacondas?  Did you read about them at all?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Messner:  I did a lot of research on them.  They're timid too.  They live really deep in these swamp like</B></div> <div> <B>wetlands, but they can take out cattle.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Q:  I've seen pictures of them with bodies five times their size.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Messner:  And they  just swallow them up.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Q:  What kind of filmmaking is this when you're out there chooping your way through the jungle and working</B></div> <div> <B>in a real environment?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Messner: It's putting yourself right there where you can actually focus on your surroundings, which to me is very</B></div> <div> <B>important and that puts you exactly where you need to be.  If y ou're chopping down greenery and there's a</B></div> <div> <B>huge cliff with water running in front of you, where else do you need to be?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Q:The guy that you played, did you see him as a sort of solitary figure whose life is invaded by these people?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Messner: They were his escape.  He was spiraling at that point.  He had been in Boreno for seven years trying</B></div> <div> <B>to fight the demons in his brain and, the expedition was his ticket out of there.  Then he made that transition</B></div> <div> <B>where the money was irrelevant and he actually decided one time in his life he wasn't going to be a failure.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Q:  Did you gain a new respect for nature working in Fiji?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Messner:  Absolutely.  Actually I gained a whole new respect for the Fijans, 'cause they were the most pleasant</B></div> <div> <B>people that I had ever met.  There was one guy, his name was Pierre and he was the second assistant Director</B></div> <div> <B>and he took care of us.  He was probably six-foot-four and he was like a big teddy bear.  And he was the nicest</B></div> <div> <B>guy that I think I've ever met in my entire life and he touched me in a way that I had never been touched, and</B></div> <div> <B>he died of a heart attack at 26 in front of us while we were there, and I experienced this whole funeral in the</B></div> <div> <B>Fiji way, and I hadn't cried taht much since September 11 and it was really an eye-opening experienc.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B> <META HTTP-EQUIV="imagetoolbar" CONTENT="no">  </B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>