Mexico City steals the spotlight in "The Matador"

Sandra Kraisirideja
Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear may be the most visible stars of “The Matador,” but there’s another character who had as much to do with the look and feel of the movie as them—the location itself, Mexico City.

Writer-director Richard Shepard filmed the entire movie in Mexico City, helping keep production costs under the $10 million budget. At different times the city stood in for Colorado, Budapest, Vienna and Arizona.

“The Matador” addresses the unlikely friendship that develops between an aging assassin, Julian Noble, (Brosnan) and a struggling salesman, Danny Wright, (Kinnear) who meet in a hotel bar in Mexico City. The film opens Dec. 30.

Julian Noble would never be confused with James Bond, but since the two characters handle guns and live dangerously, comparisons are bound to be made.

Brosnan, who also produced the movie under Irish DreamTime, insists he did not latch onto the script hoping to erase his Bond persona.

“I thought it was very play-like and I liked that it was a kind of ensemble of three people. I love the twists and turns and the flamboyance, the sheer vulgarian way of Julian Noble’s mouth. I thought it had good character and I thought it had good heart,” he said.

A matador is the main bullfighter who is given the task of killing the bull. There is a bullfight in the movie, but thanks to some skilled editing, Brosnan did not have to witness one for real.

“I don’t want to see it. Didn’t go near it. The mythology of the bullfighter and the metaphor of it, I thought it was well used in the film by Richard, [but] to actually see one go down, no desire,” Brosnan said.

The production had to take safety precautions while filming because kidnapping is an issue in Mexico City, said Shepard, who had filmed there before. The actors had bodyguards and were discouraged from exploring the city on their own at night.

“It’s a dangerous city in terms of it’s not like you can just walk down the street in the middle of the night and feel free,” Shepard said.

However, the vibrancy and energy of Mexico City had an intangible impact on the set, Shepard said.

“I mean this honestly, I don’t think the movie would have been as good if we shot it in Hollywood,” because of the proximity to the press and the actors’ agents and managers. Shepard said.

“We were down in Mexico. No one wanted to visit us,” and that isolation gave the cast a sense of freedom. “And it was also a story about loneliness and when you’re on location in a strange city it helps,” Shepard said.

“It’s only a three-hour flight, but it feels like a far away place,” agreed Kinnear. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful city, and it’s really a great character in the movie the way David Tattersall shot it, but I think that it felt like, while we were doing it, anything was possible down there,” Kinnear said.

Being in Mexico City certainly had other advantages for the actors.

“By the end of the movie, we didn’t even deal with the margarita mix or any of that stuff anymore; we were just down to the tequila. A couple of Irish guys in a movie together – that’s combustible,” Kinnear said.

While Kinnear and Brosnan were sampling different varieties of tequila, Hope Davis, who plays Kinnear's understanding and supportive wife, was just trying to keep her food down.

“That part was really rough. Thank God I had Greg and Pierce who were so…they made me laugh so many times and really took me out of myself,” said Davis, who was eight weeks pregnant when shooting began.

For scenes in Colorado, Shepard had to create a snowy landscape in a suburban neighborhood.

“You try getting snow in Mexico City in April,” said Shepard, who had a snow making machine driven in from L.A. “We used all the ice in Mexico. You couldn’t get a margarita in Mexico that night,” he added.

One night the whole neighborhood and the local mayor came out to watch the actors filmed in the snow, recalled Kinnear.

“All these kids were just looking at us in our big fur coats with snow everywhere, and they must’ve just thought Mars had landed on Earth,” he said.