Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried Talk In Time

(energetic electronic music)

(air rushing)

The whole idea for the movie

came from Andrew Niccol's brain,

which can be an awesome place.

Big place.

Yeah, and basically, when we turn 25,

the aging gene stops.

We figured out how to look 25 forever.

But the risk of that, you know,

that's the good part.

The bad part is what happens at that point

is your body clock starts,

it's sitting on your left forearm,

and you have a year of time

that you save up until the time you're 25.

It starts your 25th birthday.

And so,

so basically, you start running out of time.

Now you can make time,

you can steal time,

you can borrow time.

It's all kind of transmitted through your pulse.

And so I play Will,

sort of an everyday man from the slums,

who wakes up with 23 hours on his clock every day.

So he has less than a day to live.

And so he's almost like a rat in a maze, you know,

constantly running the wheel, so to speak.

Has to work, he works at a factory for time,

and that's kind of, that's where the movie starts.

And basically when you run out of time,

you have a heart attack and you die immediately,

which is really kind of an amazing concept,

because you just have these dead bodies on the street,

and we could've gotten really morbid with it,

but we didn't, 'cause that's not the point.

But it's pretty cut and dry.

Like, you run out of time, that's it.

There's nothing you can do.

If the doctors,

if through science we ever figure out how to live forever,

then I'm sure the government is gonna find a way

to steer away from overpopulation.

And that's, you know, that was sort of the paradox

that Andrew's, you know,

was the impetus for this movie,

and it's, on top of that,

you have these two characters.

You have mine who comes from a very poor part of town

and Amanda's character, Sylvia,

who comes from a very rich part of town,

and we end up together on the run

through these crazy, yeah,

you know, extenuating circumstances,

and it's a thrill ride the whole movie.

I think you're trying to stay alive--

I'm basically trying,

I wake up with 23 hours on my clock every day.

I come across a guy who looks the same age as me,

but he's 105 years old.

And, you know, I play a 28 year old.

And basically what happens is

I become accused, wrongly accused of a murder

and go on the run,

and I make my way to the rich part of town,

and through a crazy series of events,

I end up kidnapping Amanda's character, Sylvia,

and holding her hostage,

and we go on the run.

Because you lose all your money,

all your time. All your time.

Time is money.

He loses all his time at some point,

like, right in the beginning when he goes into the rich part

of the world, of the, where we are,

and he then loses all,

he gets caught and loses all his money,

kidnaps me, and then we kind of are slowly

becoming closer until we are naked together.

Oh, then there's that.

You can't do without romance--

I don't wanna-- Oh, oh,

I had a good time. Yeah.

I didn't mind it.

Wasn't bad.

Wasn't terrible. Wasn't great, but wasn't.

(laughing)

Well, it's completely original.

The script is completely original, obviously,

coming from Andrew Niccol's brain.

Yeah, I think it's one of those concepts

that really does work.

Sometimes you read something,

and it's just so existential

that you just can't wrap your mind around it.

This you can.

This makes actual sense.

When you're done with the script, you're like,

my God, this really could,

this is, this seems possible,

even though it's not.

It actually makes you feel like anything is possible,

because he's written, I mean, he's,

there are so many different ideas,

and they all make sense.

They all work.

It's a big puzzle that just goes together in Andrew's brain,

and he's expressing that on paper in his story,

and with really in-depth characters.

He has, Andrew, you know, Gattaca,

you know, he wrote The Truman Show,

directed Gattaca, Lord of War,

he has the uncanny ability to take a thrilling concept

and also show you, you know,

a little, you know,

there's a little irony to what he does with his films,

because he's the king of the socio,

of the social commentary thriller.

You know, to be able to thrill you with an intimate story,

like my story, we go on the run,

and it's, you know, it's an action movie the whole time,

and you're constantly,

you're trying to keep up,

but at the same time,

I feel like you walk out of this movie going, huh.

You know, is that kind of a reflection,

if time really is money in this world that we've created,

that Andrew's created,

is that sort of like a roundabout reflection,

in a way, of perhaps our economy?

You know, you take this world that we live in,

it immediately gets split up, you know,

with the way, with the situation we're in,

it immediately gets split up into two classes,

very rich and very poor.

And so there's no middle class.

You don't, yeah, you don't really ever see a middle class.

But that's what I love about Andrew's movie.

I mean, that's what got me invested as well,

is it's so many things.

I mean, my favorite action movies

were always about ordinary guys,

Die Hard and The Fugitive,

and there are elements of, you know,

there are themes in those movies

that I really felt like I tried

to carry with me on this film,

and, you know, they're totally original characters.

It's exciting to be at Comic Con,

talking about original characters.

I actually tore my calf on set.

That sucked. That was very painful.

And so that sucked.

There were a lot of falls.

We had a lot of spills.

We, it was really exhausting.

We got tossed around in a car a little bit, yeah.

Yeah, banged my head and I thought I was gonna die.

But I didn't.

It wasn't even close. No, this movie hurt to make.

There was a lot of injuries.

There was a lot of, like,

I'd go home, and you know,

you're working, you're in it,

and you're constantly blocking out all,

you know, physical pain.

Yeah, I'd get home and I'd have these scratches

and bruises and bloody knuckles,

and I was like, how did I get that?

I wasn't in a fight, you know.

So apparently Andrew Niccol's movies

will physically harm you.

But it looks good.

(laughing)

But we saw it recently and it looks cool.

Yeah, and we have Roger.

Roger Deakins shooting us, yeah.

Shot it, and he's an amazing DP.

He really brings out all the elements of,

like, Andrew's world, like, physically.

Just the aesthetics are just amazing,

so in tune with the tone of it.

It's great.

Yeah, it's actually really,

I haven't seen a film within this genre

that I've felt like has been

this intimate and performance-driven,

because, I mean,

honestly, we want people to love our characters, too.

We want them to follow our characters,

and that's the biggest part of getting the audience

in any genre, and I feel like

that's what we were able to do

with sort of working with Andrew on the characters,

was make them, you put,

everything I just described is such a fantastical idea,

but it doesn't work unless you take,

unless the actors and, you know, Cillian,

and Olivia Wilde, and everyone who,

Vincent Kartheiser, everyone who's in the movie,

they brought such a real, grounded approach

to their characters-- Yeah, has to be realistic.

And so you feel like you're really there with 'em,

and it's actually way more intimate

than I even thought it was going to be.