Every dog has its day and action movie favourite Paul Walker tells Steve Pratt that he was happy to share the screen with eight huskies in sub-zero temperatures. Once Walker showed he wa a dog-lover then the job of rescuing a sled team was all his.
DIRECTOR Frank Marshall had one very important question for actor Paul Walker before he offered him the leading role in new family film Eight Below. He needed to know if the star of The Fast And The Furious and Into The Blue liked dogs.
After all, if he was going to play an Antarctic guide who's devoted to his team of sled dogs, then it was vital that he got along with the huskies stars. Once Walker revealed not only to being a "dog person" but actually keeping one, the role was more or less his, says Marshall, who directed Alive, Arachnophobia and Congo as well as producing many Spielberg movies including the Indiana Jones series. "That bond and that relationship between man and dog, I don't think you can fake," he says.
Walker had even worked with his own dog in his last film, the sun-kissed sea adventure Into The Blue. Not that working with huskies was easy. "Some are real sweet, but they're working dogs first and foremost," explains Walker.
"They're not a golden retriever that just wants to please and be petted. They don't require a lot of human contact. For the most part, I don't think they necessarily make the best house pets, especially in Southern California where I come from. But I'm comfortable with dogs - where I grew up, there were always a couple of dogs and cats around."
His character Jerry Shepard is forced to leave behind his eight sled dogs in the Antarctic after a massive blizzard hits the area. But he refuses to just abandon them, mounting a daring rescue mission to save the animals.
The film-makers couldn't shoot in Antarctica, filming instead in Smithers, a small high altitude ski town about 750 miles above Vancouver in Canada that offers a plateau with 360 degree views of tree-less wilderness, well able to stand in for the Antarctic icescapes.
Walker recalls that all the scenes involving the snow and outdoor elements were shot first, when little more than physical acting was required. He says: "Mother Nature pretty much dictated what we did day to day. It was important I had a relationship with each and every one of those dogs. We had trainers but ultimately the dogs had to listen to me. Especially with huskies being a working dog, you have to earn their respect, much like you would, say, riding a horse. Horses can sense if you're an inexperienced rider and dogs could sense if I was inexperienced with the sled.
"I spent almost a month, eight to ten hours a day, working with the dogs before principal photography began. By the end of the shoot, they listened to me and we got along pretty well."
He admits that when first told about the story, he thought it had been done before in the Cuba Gooding Jr film Snow Dogs. Then he read it "and was laughing and crying and by the end I was feeling really good about things - it's not pretentious, it is what it is."
As for the extreme temperatures, Walker points out they were well equipped for the cold ("I had the right parka and all the layers"). It was cold without reaching the point where it was unbearable, despite the wind chill factor dragging temperatures to more than 30 below centigrade at one point.
What no-one told Walker or co-star Jason Biggs, the American Pie series star, until the first day, was that they would have to run from the sauna to an outside heated snow pool wearing just their boxers for the film's opening scene. They undertook the icy dip without complaint.
Walker did wonder if the producers weren't just trying to get him to take off his shirt again and display his six-pack torso for the purposes of box-office appeal. Does the 32-year-old actor think he's typecast in that way? "Yes, maybe a little," he concedes. "But I'm extremely competitive so when people start counting me out or trying to categorise me, I try even harder. I don't mind having to chase projects that I like, such as Running Scared.
"I like dark movies. At the same time, when I've been watching too much news and am feeling down, I like to watch something a little more upbeat. I realise there's a time and place for both genres."
He also wanted to do a family film for his seven-year-old daughter Meadow. "The whole time I was making it, I kept hoping that it wouldn't be too sentimental. So I'm happy it's not turned out that way. When I read the script, it reminded me of those old Disney classics like Old Yeller. They are happy, they are sad, but ultimately happy," he says.
"My daughter was so excited. She came on the set and loved it. She was screaming with excitement a lot of the time and our dog was there too. Making this film is all about my daughter, for me, as well as my nieces and nephews. It's so nice to make a family film that they can enjoy."
* Eight Below (PG) opens in cinemas today.
Published: 20/04/2006
