The Time Traveller

In Time, that released late last month in the US, will be many things to many people.

The film is the latest bit of dark social commentary and mind-bending sci-fi from Andrew Niccol, writer of The Truman Show (1999) and writer/director of Gattaca (1997). It’s the kind of movie that features Olivia Wilde as Justin Timberlake’s mother and Vincent Kartheiser as Amanda Seyfried’s father. It’s a chase movie with lots — and lots — of running. And it’s an eye-candy fest that includes not only Kartheiser, Seyfried, Timberlake and Wilde but also Matt Bomer, Johnny Galecki and Alex Pettyfer.

Earlier this year, on a set in Los Angeles, Niccol put Seyfried and Timberlake through their paces as they shot a sequence in which their characters rob a bank, stealing not money but time. In the film’s vision of our near future, time is money and people die by the age of 25 if they don’t accumulate more time.

Timberlake plays Will, a working stiff unexpectedly turned rich in time, only to be chased by a relentless team of Time Keepers. He kidnaps and then connects with Sylvia (Seyfried), the daughter of a powerful industrialist (Kartheiser), and they end up on the run together.

Timberlake and Seyfried work for an hour-plus on their scene. An armoured truck crashes through the bank window, and Will and Sylvia invite passers-by to grab as many capsules of time as they can from a vault, knowing full well that Sylvia’s father owns the bank.

The film is Justin’s first starring role after a series of impressive character roles in such films as Black Snake Moan (2006) and The Social Network (2010) and co-starring roles in Bad Teacher (2011) and Friends with Benefits (2011). It would be understandable if Timberlake were feeling pressure to carry the movie. He says, however, that such is not the case.

“I don’t really look at it that way,” the musician-turned-actor says.

“After reading the script, there are two really interesting arcs for both of our characters. The movie definitely starts off with my story, but after you meet Amanda’s character in the middle of the film, and through our relationship, our affair, she has a great arc.

“I feel like, obviously, it’s going to be hard to answer a lot of these questions while we’re making the movie,” he admits. “I’ve never done this before, so forgive me if I seem the opposite of specific. But after reading it, I feel like you start off seeing the movie through my character and you end up getting the value out of Amanda’s character’s arc in the second half.”

“Together,” Seyfried says. “As we go through it together.”

“Yeah,” Timberlake agrees. “It kind of becomes a two-hander.”

For all the movie’s 
futuristic elements, none may throw off audiences more than the sight of young actors portraying the parents of other young actors. Timberlake, for example, is three years older than Wilde, who plays 
his mother.

“You just commit,” he says. “I know Olivia was very conscious of moving in a way that felt more motherly and maternal. When I first read it, it didn’t hit me as hard as when you first see it. The movie will open with me waking up and walking into the kitchen, and... Any other movie where I and Olivia Wilde are the first two actors you see, you’re like, ‘Oh, they’re obviously together.’ (This time) I walk in to say, ‘Good morning, Mom,’ and I’m sure it’ll be a shock for the audience.

“But it’s cool and, as the movie progresses, when you see that everyone looks the same age, I think you start to let it go.”

Seyfried jumps in.

“But then they don’t act the same age, which is crazy,” she says. “I’m a little envious of the people that get to play the older characters, like Vincent. In my career I like to look for characters that are so unlike me, and then that’s the challenge, trying to relate to someone like that. So he’s trying to relate to someone that’s 80 years old, and it’s just so weird. So you have to study that and the nuances of someone that’s lived 60 years longer than you.”

In Time first made news back in December 2010, when Timberlake injured his leg during a stunt sequence. Mention the action, and the injury, and Timberlake and Seyfried sigh in virtual unison.

“It’s the most physical movie in the world,” Seyfried says. “We were trying the other day to figure out if there was a movie where there was more running, other than Run, Lola, Run (1998),” Timberlake says. “Forrest Gump (1994), maybe.”

“No,” Seyfried says.

“Yeah,” Timberlake insists, “he runs when he’s a kid.”

“That maybe took a 
half day to shoot,” Seyfried scoffs.

“Where my character comes from, we don’t have time to walk at a normal pace,” Timberlake says. “We have to move quickly. I don’t feel like this is an action movie more than it is a thriller, because I feel like the running is a huge character (point), because it relates to the time you don’t have to live.”

He pauses for a moment before continuing.

“But injuries,” he says, “are just reminders that you’re not as young as you used to be… This is physically the hardest job I’ve 
ever done… including world tours.”

— New York 
Times Syndicate