JIM CAVIEZEL APALLED BY NEW ORLEANS STENCH

Production on Déjà vu was to begin October of last year in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina thwarted their plans and devastated the city in August. The film resumed its schedule in February of this year making it the first movie to shoot there since the hurricane hit. Jim Caviezel who stars as a terrorist in the film describes what it was like to return to the city.

Jim used the experiences he had from people he encountered in New Orleans to drum up the rage his character felt toward Denzel Washington’s governmental organization which his character perceived as a threat.

“I was down there with the 82nd Airborne. I was in the water. I was on the rafts going around. I smelt the stench. The common thing they’re saying is man how life can be just gone and snuffed out just like that. But the heroes and the evil, the dichotomy of what people will do in these situations and six months later here we are filming there and that devastation was just as bad. All of that stuff that was there is still there. We were filming in the ninth ward and they’re pulling bodies out. And the stench is still there. And to understand what 35 square miles in a city center is, gone.”

Déjà vu opens today in theaters.

“Now when you add New Orleans on top of this as they would quote saying that big bitch came in here and destroyed our city in the way it did. You take that and you couple it with a lot of people who’ve been wronged and very upset and angry. I tell you that energy, New Orleans literally becomes a character in the movie so I just grabbed that and put it right back at him.”