Note to any actor considering a role where he or she must hang out on a window ledge 21 stories up: Get over your fear of heights.
Sam Worthington (“Avatar”) had to for “Man on a Ledge,” in which his character threatens to jump from Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hotel.
“I have more a fear of falling and landing, that’s the primary fear,” Worthington said at L.A.’s Four Seasons Hotel.
“I think at 200-odd feet in the air everyone is going to get some sense of vertigo.”
Studio sets and green-screen effect had been discussed — “Just in case I was crippled (with fear) when you get out there, that kind of thing” — and quickly rejected, knowing the audience wouldn’t buy the thriller’s premise if it wasn’t real.
Of course all the actors and cameramen were wearing harnesses and sus-pended by a cable that was digitally removed.
Still, Worthington’s first time going out on the ledge is “the scene in the film. He said, ‘Roll the cameras and we’ll see what happens,’ and that’s the first time that I ever went out on the ledge. I was happy that I didn’t burst into tears and curl up in a ball. Like, ‘I don’t want to do this movie. It’s stupid.’”
But soon “my confidence started to build — and also the camera guy’s confidence grew,” he said.
“We were able to do moments and scenes and stunts that we never in our wildest dreams thought we’d get on the actual ledge.”
Elizabeth Banks, who plays the police department’s suicide prevention negotiator, thought it “interesting to see Sam overcome his fear.
“He’s clearly a physical person but confined to this ledge,” she said, “it was like watching a caged animal. His engine was running hot the whole time. I was inside and got to take breaks and be hot with Ed Burns,” who plays another cop.
For Worthing-ton, this, like his upcoming “Clash of the Titans” sequel, is unabashedly a good-time movie.
“Sometimes it’s OK to make a movie where people just come and have a good time. You know what it is going in,” he said, smiling.
“It’s ‘Man on a Ledge,’ so you know what you’re (expletive) going to see. It’s about how we got on it and how he gets off it. It’s as simple as that.”
