Director Marcel Langenegger arrived for his first day on the job to find his office decorated with movie posters--a fact that prompted a somewhat unusual directorial task: interior decorating. "I said, 'Take them all down,'" Langenegger remembers, laughing. "The one picture I wanted on my office wall was of a painting by Edward Hopper. It's just this man sitting in a room looking out a window. It's a very lonely figure, a lonely person, and I remember when I first saw the painting I thought: That's Jonathan.
"The first time I read the script," Langenegger explains, "I was very drawn to its thriller-like elements. It was such a great, smart script, and it reminded me of Hitchcock, the mind games. And Jonathan is so susceptible to such things, I think, because he's so lonely. It's like he's locked in a room, it's completely quiet. The solitude, the loneliness. You can really feel that."
Hugh Jackman, whose Seed Productions chose DECEPTION to be its first feature film, shared Langenegger's vision. (Jackman, one of the film's producers, also plays Wyatt, who befriends Jonathan and pulls him from his psychological confinement.) "I thought there was something very fresh about the script," Jackman says. "Something very new. It was smart and sexy, and it takes you to a world that you never get to see. A lot of thrillers, fun as they are, can seem kind of ridiculous. You go 'Come on! That could never happen!' But in DECEPTION --this is something that could happen. This world could exist. Because even with our cell phones and our Blackberry's people still feel disconnected, and lonely, just like Jonathan. He's someone that people can relate to, and his journey in this movie is so terrific. He really comes alive."
Ewan McGregor, who plays Jonathan, agrees: "Often thriller scripts can seem kind of standard," he says, "but DECEPTION had something extra about it. It's a very well-crafted script, for one thing, and I was really struck by Jonathan and how he's so cut off from life--that's not the usual sort of character to have at the heart of a thriller."
It was this same unusual aspect of the story--that of a protagonist who is cut off from the world--that producer Arnold Rifkin found so compelling. "The innocence of the story really got to me," Rifkin says. "This young man who leads a life of anonymity. There are thousands and thousands of people like Jonathan, people who suffer from being alone." Screenwriter Mark Bomback first pitched Rifkin the idea for DECEPTION over coffee. "I bought it before our cups were empty," Rifkin says. Later drafts of the script were written by both Bomback and Patrick Marber.
Like Langenegger, producer John Palermo also saw elements of Hitchcock in DECEPTION. "I think that over the last few years filmmakers have begun to make thrillers almost exclusively in the horror genre," Palermo says. But both he and producer Robbie Brenner (who says that DECEPTION reminds her of "old school films, like Marathon Man and Klute") see DECEPTION as something of a throwback to an earlier era of filmmaking. "I think DECEPTION is proof that thrillers can actually be character-driven stories," Palmero says, "with themes that are relevant and with characters that you care about."
"Jonathan's not your average leading man," McGregor says. "For one thing, people have conversations in his space like he's not there. He's someone who's so cut off from the world, who hasn't allowed himself to feel emotional ties to people, that when he falls for 'S.,' I think he falls really hard. It's quite a deep love story. In many respects, playing Jonathan was like an unpeeling. It was like playing a flower opening up--different levels of him becoming alive in the world."
"I think people can really understand and relate to Jonathan," Langenegger adds. "We've all had moments of loneliness, of feeling disconnected from the world. But Jonathan, his isolation has overtaken his life. He's stuck in a cubicle, in his apartment, in the city, in his mind. He's a tourist in his own world."
Langenegger's interest in Jonathan extended far beyond the character's loneliness; what truly connected was the journey that Jonathan takes. "Marcel has talked a lot about this idea of Jonathan being born," McGregor says. "Like him becoming alive. And DECEPTION really is about the stages of that. Sometimes, through terrible experience you can grow, and I think the nightmare of what happens to Jonathan in this film is what allows him to come out on the other end, transformed. He's kind of set free. It's about him coming to life, really."
"The thing about Ewan," says Langenegger, "is that his sense of measure is so good. Oftentimes, Jonathan doesn't have to do anything. He just sits in a chair and waits for a phone call, or he works on his laptop. I had been a bit worried about finding an actor who could bring something across in those scenes, you know, without saying a word. But everything I had imagined in my wildest Jonathan dreams, Ewan brought to the table on the first day. Everything he does is so subtle, he's just remarkable."
Jackman describes McGregor as "an asset to the film in every way," and says that "the subtlety and finesse" that he brings to the role of Jonathan have "really been a large part of what has helped to elevate this film into something very special." But for Jackman, who never watches dailies as an actor, McGregor's performance has even prompted something of a change of habits. "As a producer, of course, I'm watching dailies now," Jackman says, "but with Ewan, I watch every take. He really acts from this place of enjoyment. Each take is nuanced subtly different. He's always working, always doing something to bring a scene to life.
"In Ewan's scenes with Michelle there's such a spark, such a chemistry," Jackman continues. "It's infectious. You just really feel for them as a couple." Of her scenes with McGregor, Michelle Williams says, "It's always the best experience with another actor when you're truly playing with each other in front of the camera."
Producer Palermo concurs that, from the first reading of DECEPTION, he had seen that the challenge of playing Jonathan was one to which McGregor was perfectly suited. And producer Brenner, who calls McGregor "brilliant and inviting," says she thought it would be "great to see him transform from an introvert into a shrewd manipulator who controls his own destiny."
Not that shaping his destiny comes as naturally to Jonathan as it does to his new friend Wyatt Bose. Jackman, who plays Wyatt, describes him as "a fairly Machiavellian character. He's manipulative and smart, he's charming and enigmatic and mysterious. Wyatt has the confidence that he owns the world. He's the kind of guy you want to be around." "Hugh is so infectiously charming," says producer Brenner, "that I thought it would be amazing to see him playing a seducer."
Langenegger could not agree more. "We all know that Hugh is an incredible actor," the director says. "He's a very physical actor, with a strong sense of this healthy masculinity. And, also, he has an amazing range. He can do almost anything. When he came in on the first day, he was Wyatt." In one scene, Langenegger recalls, he decided to give Jackman a bit of "indirect direction," and so he suggested that Wyatt should think of Jonathan as a cockroach. "Hugh took that small, little idea, and he used it to transform the scene," Langenegger says. "It was such a great experience to work with him. I feel like there's nothing Hugh Jackman can't do."
"All actors love to play shadier characters," Jackman says. "And these are parts I don't get to play a lot. With Wyatt, you're not quite sure what his motives are at any point in time, you just have the feeling that, enticing and enigmatic as he is, you probably shouldn't be going along with him. It might lead to trouble."
And so it does. Trouble could well be the middle name of Williams' character, "S." "She makes bad decisions, she's with the wrong people," Williams says. "She's a gypsy and a fly-by-night kind of girl. I'd never played anybody quite like her before, so 'S.' was a whole new challenge for me."
Even so, Langenegger knew Williams was "S." the first time they met. "She sat in front of me and she was just raw. I saw this vulnerability she has. She was so exposed and fragile, and yet there was so much power. The character of 'S.' is a very complex role. On the surface, it seems like a standard femme fatale in a thriller--the beautiful woman who is part of some kind of plot. But I wanted to give 'S.' a greater depth, add something that is not expected in a role like that. And Michelle's vulnerability is perfect for 'S.,' because it allows her to get manipulated and get hurt. It takes a very special actress to communicate all of this in just a few scenes."
"Marcel was determined to cast Michelle," producer Rifkin says. "Sometimes it's as simple as that." But landing her for the part wasn't easy, and, in the end, it came down to Langenegger calling Williams and singing to her over the phone.
"It was a song by the band Jane's Addiction, called 'Jane Says,' and it reminded me of the role of 'S.,'" Langenegger explains, [citing the lyrics: 'Janes says she's never been in love. She only knows when someone wants her.']. "I sang it to Michelle, and then I said, 'This is your role. You meet Jonathan for the first time, and you're like a teenager who's just discovered that there's something called love. This is why your character is so difficult and so wonderful and so beautiful.' And then she said, 'Yeah, I'll do it.'"
"'S.' is aggressive and confident and capable and sexual. These are all things I haven't really explored before," Williams says. "And then she comes into her own at the end of the film. She has a self, and she has the promise of an altering love."
"It is sort of shocking how beautiful she is," Jackman says of Williams. "And how mysterious and seductive. She just draws you in, you can't help it. You just fall for 'S.' and Jonathan completely. The chemistry between Michelle and Ewan is so incredible, it just makes them into one of those movie couples that you root for. You want them to be together."
"We both threw ourselves into it and didn't try to work out too much in advance," McGregor says of his scenes with Williams. "So when the camera's turning, we're creating, and we're working together. There's a real sense of play, you know, where we're really trying to find the scenes together, and they're really delicious, I think, the scenes with Michelle."
One role that Langenegger didn't have to worry about casting for was the "character" of New York City. As producer David Bushnell puts it: "New York plays a lead character in DECEPTION, and the team knew we had to film it here." And, though parts of the film are shot in Madrid, around La Plaza Mayor and the Paseo del Prada, there's no denying that New York--the city itself--plays an essential part in giving DECEPTION its energy and mystique.

Shooting in New York City
"Shooting in New York is not easy," Langenegger says. "It comes with a lot of obstacles. But no city can replace New York. That's why, when I scouted for locations in, for example, offices or hotel rooms, I tried to find places that also offered a view of the city, giving a vista--again, like in Hopper's paintings, where the lonely figure is locked inside, and outside there is something beautiful that is not part of his world. And so I tried to find locations where we could see Jonathan in his glass box and outside is Manhattan, the beautiful world that he has not been a part of."
Like Langenegger, Williams found herself caught up in the charms of shooting in New York. "A lot of the movie's been shot at night," she says, "which I always think is such a strange bewitching, witching hour to be awake in the city. You're down in the subway, working, while the rest of the city is asleep. There's something intensely romantic about it."
For Ewan McGregor, however--while he does admit that on this film he's "fallen in love with New York"--the most exciting thing about making DECEPTION has been working with Langenegger. "I find that when you work with a first-time director, you're working with someone at their most passionate," McGregor says. "They give it a hundred and ten percent. I was really taken with Marcel, with his enthusiasm. He had some really interesting ideas to take the film to another level from the scenes on the page. He'll give you a tiny little note, and it's just absolutely right for that moment and it unlocks a scene.
"I think he's surrounded himself with a really good crew. Around the camera, with the whole team, it feels very creative. Duane Manwiller, our camera "A" operator, is quite extraordinary, he's incredible with the handheld camera, and many times I've kind of felt like we were dancing with one another while were playing those scenes."
"I went into this film thinking I would like to create a very comfortable space around the camera," Langenegger says. "I thought it would help to liberate the actors, and that would help me, as well, because if they feel that comfort, then I feel it. I wanted to create an atmosphere around the camera, which is very comfortable, so the camera becomes invisible somehow, like it wasn't even there. That's why we used the new Genesis."
Despite its virtues, the decision to use the digital Panavision Genesis camera wasn't taken lightly. "Genesis versus film is a whole philosophical debate Dante Spinotti, our cinematographer, and I had," Langenegger says, adding that he can laugh about it, now. "I wanted to shoot in film, and he wanted to shoot in digital, so we had a real clash of interests. There were days where I came to the set and said, 'I'm losing sleep because we're shooting Genesis,' and other days where he'd say the same thing, 'Marcel, I can't sleep.'"
It's not just Langenegger and Spinotti's individual passions, though, that were causing their insomnia. The two are good friends, having grown up a on the same "hill" in the Alps (as Langenegger puts it), only a generation apart and on different sides of it: Spinotti in Italy and Langenegger in Switzerland. "There's just something we share somehow," Langenegger explains. "The food, the way we look at the world. We have a very easy understanding of each other." Acclaimed cinematographer Spinotti and Langenegger forged their friendship working together on commercials over the years, and Spinotti was one of the first to recommend Langenegger to Hugh Jackman when SEED Productions was starting out with DECEPTION. ("I've gotta tell you about this kid, Langenegger," Jackman recalls, mimicking Spinotti. "I'm telling you, he's the man. He's the guy.") There is, however, a price to be paid for such easy familiarity: "We're both a bit stubborn in our heads," Langenegger says. "It has to do with, I guess, growing up in the mountains. You know, like sheets of rock in front of your face."
"It was kind of interesting," says producer Bushell, "that we had this new-school, younger filmmaker who wanted to stick with film, the old technology, and this old-school, giant of his profession who was all for embracing the new, digital technology." Langenegger adds: "I remember Dante saying to me, 'You're young, you should be for the new stuff! You should be for the Genesis. You should be for technology and progress! Human history is all about the spirit of moving forward and not being stuck in old-fashioned things.'" Finally, the two reached a compromise, "as we always do when Dante and I argue over things." Langenegger and Spinotti decided to split the film, roughly, into night and day. For the day, they would shoot film; for the night, Genesis (though, in the end, they shot some of the day sequences with Genesis as well).
Spinotti explains his side of the debate this way: "When you're searching for the look of a movie, you're not searching only for the look of a movie. You're actually looking for a language. Imagine that every movie is spoken, or shot, in a different language. It's as if a movie would be shot in German, or in Spanish, or in Italian, or in English. Every movie speaks, and is written by the camera, in a different way.
"We are witnessing, with the Genesis, a transformation that I believe you can compare to the advent of sound. What the Genesis camera does is capture the world of darkness, the world of night, so that you can really explore the visual world that goes from evening into the next morning. The world of darkness."
Normally, when a scene is shot at night, the set is flooded with light, so much so that, to the actors and crew, it looks almost like daytime, even though it will look like night in the finished movie. The Genesis camera, however, can shoot using only available light. "The Genesis has a much stronger sensitivity," Spinotti explains, "so it can read in the shadows much more than film does. Because of that, you can approach images in a different way. You can capture the fascination of what already exists, without having to modify it. It makes the whole film much more believable."
Another compromise Spinotti and Langenegger reached was that, when shooting with the Genesis, they would use old, Ziess lenses, but, when shooting film, they used new Prima lenses. "We sort of took the edge off the digital image by using older lenses, and we tried to shoot the film image as sharp as possible, to better match the digital image," Langenegger adds. "Our general idea was to get as close as possible to what 70-mm. film would look like.
"Our discussion started with a bottle of wine," he continues, "and Dante and I kept discussing, and drinking more wine, and this is the solution we came up with. Once we have the finished print, we'll sit down with another bottle of wine, and I guess we'll finally resolve the debate."
Acclaimed production designer Patrizia Von Brandenstein and costume designer Sue Gandy were the two entrusted with helping to create the actual scenes and images that Spinotti and Langenegger were trying to decide how to shoot. "Jonathan goes to different companies every three or four days," von Brandenstein says, "but he is never part of the life of the corporation he's visiting. So, in a sense, these offices are all the same. There are subtle differences in levels of prosperity, I suppose, but in essence it is all just the 'corporate world.' But when he discovers the wilder side of New York, through Wyatt, I wanted to show how enticing it was to him, but also that it was dangerous. So that world is full of bright, reflective surfaces and colors, but there is a darkness underneath."
Gandy, too, found herself trying to convey the differences between Jonathan's two worlds. "It's not going to be a big, colorful movie," she says," but there are splashes of red here and there, splashes of blue and gold. The inspiration for my clothing designs does come from Hitchcock films, film noir. A void of color, but using it where color makes a statement. Marcel showed me photographs of the city, of how he wanted things to look. Lots of steely, New York cab colors. Blood colors. Vibrant blues."
The end result is a mind-boggling thriller that re-imagines the genre while simultaneously paying homage to it. "What Marcel, and Dante, and the entire team, have done," says Jackman, "is give DECEPTION a moody and intimate atmosphere. It's almost dreamlike, in a way. It's incredibly sexy, somewhat noirish, if you will, and the whole film kind of seduces you. It doesn't rush you, it's not formulaic in that normal thriller way. It just kind of draws you in.
"At the same time, it is a real roller-coaster ride. It's smart, there are a lot of twists and turns, and it takes you on one hell of a sexy ride. It's the kind of ride you don't get at Disneyland."

Award-winning director Marcel Langenegger makes his feature film debut with DECEPTION.
Acclaimed for his distinct cinematic style, impeccable art direction and poignant storytelling in the commercial arena, the Swiss-born Langenegger is the recipient of three Clio Awards and a Cannes Gold Lion.
He recently directed a two-minute spot for Toyota via Circle Productions, Toronto, and Toronto agency Saatchi & Saatchi, which debuted during the Canadian broadcast of the Academy Awards. The director also recently shot a campaign for the Swiss Postal Service. He directed the spot via Chocolate Films, the company that represents him in Europe.
Langenegger attended art school and began his career as an art director and graphic designer in Switzerland. He moved to the United States in 1997 to pursue a Master's Degree in film at Art Center College of Design and, from there, he signed with Propaganda Pictures. One of his first professional assignments was a spot for Doctor's Without Borders (Advico/Young & Rubicam, Zurich). The spot won a Gold Lion at the 2001 Cannes International Advertising Festival and a Gold Clio the following year. A spot that Langenegger directed for Swiss banker Migros (Advico/Young & Rubicam, Zurich) also won a Clio Award.
In the United States. Langenegger is represented by A Band Apart for exclusive representation. "There are a handful of defining directors in any generation. Marcel is in that handful," says A Band Apart managing director Jeff Armstrong. "It's an honor to be able to represent a director whose work has such vision and integrity."

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