The Roque de los Muchachos Astronomical Observatory.
"I describe her as A letter of warning from the future." says Ethan Peck, grandson of Gregory Peck and the actor tasked with playing a young George Clooney in midnight sky (premiere on Netflix and some theaters December 23). “I am a believer in climate change and science is proving what is happening, so to be a part of a movie like this is a dream. Like Star Trek, it's very humanistic, unifying and tolerant”.
Three adjectives that could describe George Clooney, director, producer and star of the film, an adaptation of the book by Lily Brooks-Dalton, The Midnight Sky, which caught the Gravity and ER actor after reading the script by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant and also the author of the new Star Trek that Tarantino is preparing).
George Clooney at the Roque de los Muchachos... a little changed.
"There is a nostalgia in this story," Clooney says in the production notes. "It's the real need to connect, deeply connect. And there's also a conversation about what humanity is capable of doing to itself that catches you off guard."
Midnight Sky starts at the Barbeau Observatory, a supposed base in the Arctic Circle from which military helicopters depart with civilians. Something is happening. There will only be one man left, by his own choice, Augustine (Clooney), very sick and refusing that escape plan. We are in february 2049 and something has happened, an inexplicable catastrophe for which Augustine has to contact the crew of a spaceship, which has been wandering for two years, so that they do not return to Earth. The film talks about climate change, the concept of home, family and that human need for connection.
A whole reflection on profound themes linked to science fiction that Clooney filmed between Iceland and La Palma (and Shepperton studios in London for spaceship interiors).
George's frozen beard.
In Iceland, specifically, they shot on the Vatnajökull glacier, in October, the only possible date for them to have all the snow they wanted and not die of cold either. Even so, withstood temperatures of -28 degrees with a cool polar breeze. Clooney's beard freeze is real, the actor swears.
“We were five and a half hours by road from Reykjavik. When we say we were in the middle of nowhere, it's because we were in the middle of nowhere." says Grant Heslov, producer of Midnight Sky and Clooney's partner. Depending on the weather, it could take them up to two hours to get to the base camp where they had all the film trucks, from there they could only move by snowmobile.
“It was a real glacier job, we had experts telling us where to go so we wouldn't fall off a cliff, so we wouldn't do stupid things. But it was a lot of fun going around with the snowmobiles and living that life for a few days. It was the only place where we could shoot, honestly." Clooney says.
Well, George, not the only one. Although the snows of Iceland are passed off as those of the Arctic Circle, many of the landscapes we see, with a little digital retouching, l they found you in climatically more pleasant settings: on La Palma.
George Clooney's Heaven.
The Midnight Sky Team shot for four days in February this year on the Canary Island. The Roque de los Muchachos Astronomical Observatory it's the Barbeau Observatory on the outside with a little more snow included digitally. But his sky is the sky of La Palma. And he also appears in the flashforward scenes, in which Augustine remembers his past.
And connoisseurs of 'La isla bonita' will also recognize the Forest of Los Tilos, the Llano del Jable (El Paso) and Fuencaliente among the landscapes of Midnight Sky that George Clooney chose for his seventh film as director. Another good news for movie-loving tourism.