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As a CIA officer, Evelyn Salt swore an oath to duty, honor and country. Her loyalty will be tested when a defector accuses her of being a Russian spy. Salt goes on the run, using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative to elude capture. Salt's efforts to prove her innocence only serve to cast doubt on her motives, as the hunt to uncover the truth behind her identity continues and the question remains: "Who Is Salt?"
In Columbia Pictures' "Salt," Angelina Jolie stars as Evelyn Salt, a CIA officer who swore an oath to duty, honor, and country. When she is accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy, Salt goes on the run to clear her name and ultimately prove she is a patriot. Using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative, she must elude capture and protect her husband or the world's most powerful forces will erase any trace of her existence.
About the Film
The contemporary spy thriller Salt, starring Angelina Jolie, began life with an offhand comment Jolie made a few years ago. “I was meeting with (Sony Pictures Co-Chairman) Amy Pascal a few years ago when it came up in conversation that she was getting ready to make one of the new James Bond films,” Jolie remembers. “I playfully said, ‘I want to be Bond!’ That was our little joke, and then she found this project.”
Screenwriter Kurt Wimmer had originally conceived the role of Salt to be played by a male actor. His original spec script was developed with producer Sunil Perkash, who then brought it to producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Amy Pascal at Sony, who in turn brought on director Phillip Noyce. Like all motion picture projects, the screenplay then went through several drafts, but the major change to the script occurred when the filmmakers envisioned Jolie, an Academy Award-winning actress and one of the few women in the world who can carry an action picture, in the title role. Very quickly, “Edwin Salt” became “Evelyn Salt.” “We had a really smart script we all collectively loved with an intriguing and complex character, so the idea of Angelina doing this suddenly felt like a no brainer,” says Perkash. “She's an incredible actress who would bring such depth and realism to a very enigmatic character. Having that realism in an otherwise fantastical story was very important, and we were beyond thrilled when she responded to the role.”
“When we changed the gender of the main character, we began to question the dynamic of every scene,” explains producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. “We didn’t simply question whether a woman would make all the same choices, but also how the other characters would act or react differently, given that it’s a woman. It was a huge change that rippled through the entire script.”
In the film, Evelyn Salt, a CIA operative, is accused of being a sleeper spy for Russia. With her entire world crashing down, Salt must stop at nothing to prove her innocence – but her efforts to evade capture only throw her motives in doubt.
di Bonaventura says that the notion of sleeper spies is not fantasy. “There’s no question that they exist,” he says. “The CIA believes that they exist. There’s something really mysterious and sexy about the notion that somebody could lie in wait – for decades, if necessary.”
“The real fun of this movie is that it’s an action thriller and a mystery centering around the identity of this character – ‘who is Salt?,’” says Perkash.
“Salt has a lot of elements in it,” di Bonaventura explains. “It’s a thriller, it’s an action movie, it’s a spy movie, it’s a dramatic love story, and it has some kick-ass action.”
In the movie, Evelyn Salt must go on the run to prove her innocence when a defector alleges that she’s a mole, triggering Day X – the day when Russian sleeper spies awaken and begin the war against the United States. “Day X is still a controversial topic inside the CIA,” says Jolie. “Some think it’s absolute nonsense and others believe that not only is it real, but sleeper agents have already been activated for certain cases. When we first approached the idea, we thought it was a bit of a fantasy, but as we found out more information, we discovered it was more real than we could have guessed. Truth really is stranger than fiction.”
For example, it has been contended that Soviet Union, and then Russia, deployed covert agents masquerading as citizens in Western countries in the 1980s and 1990s as part of a network of intelligence operatives who would live under assumed names for fifteen to twenty years, or longer. When activated, these sleeper spies would then orchestrate “Day X,” a chain of sabotage and terrorist attacks within the United States, the beginning of a large-scale war with Russia.
About the Production
Principal photography began with early scenes of Salt’s escape from the Washington, DC CIA building where she works, after a Russian defector accuses her of being a sleeper spy. L’Enfant Plaza, Constitution Avenue, the Navy Memorial, and New York Avenue one block from the White House provided the locations for Salt’s initial escape. Director Noyce chose these exteriors, not the typical post-card views of Washington DC, because they reflected the more day-to-day environment of massive federal buildings inhabited by the typical bureaucrat.
Production Designer Scott Chambliss had extensive experience designing spy stories prior to signing on to Salt. “I’ve done a lot of material that involves spies in my career, and government buildings,” says Chambliss, who designed the hit TV series “Alias” for several years. “Because I have such a backlog of information on this type of material already, finding new stuff takes me further afield or deeper into different directions, and that can be exciting.”
After a week in Washington, the film company moved to New York, where much of the story is also set: after eluding the CIA, Evelyn Salt travels to Manhattan, where the Russian defector has claimed an assassination attempt would be made at a state funeral for the U.S. Vice President.
A designated New York City landmark, the Byzantine edifice of St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue provided the interiors and exteriors for the funeral scenes, a key sequence in the story of Salt. On several days, costume designer Sarah Edwards and her team dressed over seven hundred extras for the massive funeral procession made up of mourners, military honor guards, New York City Police officers, bagpipers, as well as secret security agents surrounding the U.S. President, and Russian security, there to protect the Russian President, who delivers a eulogy for the late Vice President.
The city of New York in particular offered the filmmakers a great variety of practical locations to film. “I take tremendous pleasure in finding locations that are suitable for the storytelling,” Chambliss says. “And that was one of the great things about this project: the variety was wonderful. New York is so rich in terms of what it offers filmmakers.”
Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays CIA counter-intelligence officer Peabody, also enjoyed his time in New York. “Who doesn’t love shooting movies in New York?” he exclaims. “I’m always excited when the script says, ‘Exterior New York, Day.’ That’s always a great opening for a movie for me,” he laughs.
The production would film in some iconic New York locations, including the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, the main branch of New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, and the 59th Street Bridge, but also locations ranging from the out-of-the-way (like Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn and the Coler Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island) to the industrial (the DonJon Iron and Scrap yard on Staten Island and the Newtown Creek Water Treatment Plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn) to the underground (inside the New York City subway system). “We’ve gotten to know the underbelly of the city a bit,” Jolie says.
Outside the city, the production also filmed in various locations in New York State, including the Westchester County Courthouse in White Plains, Republic Airport in Farmingdale, and Cantiague County Park in Hicksville.
One set was the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (called the PEOC or “the bunker”) where the U.S. President takes refuge when under attack. The real PEOC, originally built for Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II, lies underneath the East Wing of the White House, and exists to handle nuclear contingencies.
About the Stunts
With Angelina Jolie in the lead role, the filmmakers were limited only by their imaginations when it came to the action and stunt sequences in the film. “Angelina is very much into doing all the action herself,” says Simon Crane, who directed the second unit and coordinated the stunts. Crane had collaborated with Jolie on many films prior to Salt, including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Mr.& Mrs. Smith. “She’s really game for anything.”
“I think it’s great when a movie star is willing to put themselves out there because it makes you stay in the moment even more as an audience member,” says producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. “She’s pretty fearless.”
“I love doing action movies,” explains the actress. “I’ve always loved to run and jump around and be physical.”
Jolie felt particularly safe working with Crane not only because of their longstanding professional relationship but because Crane is simply one of the best in the business. “He started out as one of the great stuntmen,” says Noyce. “In Cliffhanger, there’s an amazing midair transfer – that was Simon. The greatest, most exciting war sequence I’ve ever seen – the D-Day sequence in Saving Private Ryan – that was coordinated by Simon. The greatest fight sequence I’ve ever seen – in Braveheart – choreographed by Simon. The greatest swordfight, in Troy – Simon. The guy is a living legend. He’s seen it all and done it all. He takes the audience by the seat of their pants and plunges them into the scene.”
Crane says he was gratified by the opportunity to re-team with Jolie. “She was always trying to find or come up with new ways of doing action,” he says.
In one major action sequence, Salt, cornered by her pursuers, makes a bold leap off a freeway overpass and lands on top of a moving truck on the highway below. Salt’s pursuers follow her in an SUV, and arrange a roadblock, forcing Salt to take some dramatic evasive actions in the middle of a six-lane thoroughfare.
Working from an animatronic storyboard designed over the previous months by Phillip Noyce, Crane and his team spent several weeks on the highways of Albany, New York, planning, rehearsing, and shooting this complex sequence. The Route 787 and Route 20 interchange next to downtown Albany matched DC’s highways, and caused little traffic disruption when exit and entrance ramps had to be closed for filming.
Crane, working closely with stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood and Jolie’s stunt double Eunice Huthart, planned the shot. “That’s really Angelina on top of the vehicles,” says Crane.
“I trust them so much with their rigs and harnesses,” says Jolie. “Instead of feeling scared, it’s like working with the circus for the day, and you get to play. They know me and they know what I can do, and what I’m not very good at.” Citing another sequence, in which the actress walks a ledge twelve stories up in her bare feet, she says, “I happen to like heights, so we’ve found these moments where I can use that.”
Jolie also worked with Crane and his team to develop the fight style that her character would employ. “Because I’m a girl and I’m light on my feet, we naturally went to styles like Muay Thai, which is very long and beautiful,” Jolie says. Muay Thai employs the “Art of Eight Limbs,” in which not only fists are used to make strikes, but also elbows, shins, and knees. “But then we realized it wasn’t as practical a fight if you have face-to-face combat, and it didn’t look as aggressive,” says the actress.
So Jolie and Crane and his team added Krav Maga, a more brutal form of fighting developed in Israel and used by the FBI and American special operations forces, to Salt’s fighting technique. “She fights secret service guards in the film,” notes Crane. “You can’t have her take those guys out too easily, or it would soften the whole film.
 Production notes provided by Columbia Pictures. |
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Salt