The Immortals Ladies Live it Up: Freida Pinto and Isabel Lucas Go Greek

Freida Pinto and Isabel Lucas are The Immortals’ leading ladies. Pinto portrays the Virgin Oracle at the center of The Immortals story while Lucas shines as Athena, the favorite daughter of Zeus.

Pinto and Lucas are at their glamorous best as they meet Movie Fanatic at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. Pinto is fresh from her blockbuster film Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Lucas recently caused waves with her turn in The Wedding Party. Both extol the virtues of working for such a visionary director in Tarsem Singh and report that was the main reason they headed into the world of gods and men and the battle between them.

Movie Fanatic: Now that you’ve seen the film and witnessed Tarsem’s vision brought to life, what do you think?

Frieda Pinto: Well, in many ways when you’re working on a film like this and especially when you’re not in every scene, you don’t know how the different parts would be pieced together. When you do certain scenes which are in the script and it says, “This is a big cliff,” and you ask him how big, and he says, “Big,” you’re trying to imagine how big this cliff is. When you finally see what big means in Tarsem’s head, you know that that kind of big was never in your head in the first place because it’s like massive [laughs]. So every time he says to control your voice because you’re going to need a lot of volume for this scene, you almost didn’t understand where you are headed with it, but Tarsem knows well and that’s the important thing. It feels great to know that you are in good hands throughout, and the way it’s all shaped up, it’s brilliant. I’m super happy with the film — super happy.

Movie Fanatic: Isabel, did you feel like Athena after doing all those moves and was it hard to do that in those sandal boots?

Isabel Lucas: Yeah, I think that training was pretty intensive, but Tarsem will tell you that it wasn’t all me. I did learn the whole choreographed fight sequence, but we did have a stunt double and she was incredible. It was all martial arts and fighting. It was actually quite difficult in that tight costume. While the costumes were amazing and helped one really embody the character it was also limiting physically, restrictive.

Movie Fanatic: Freida, did you ever think you’d be a Virgin Oracle?

Freida Pinto: No [laughs]. I don’t think you think of these things when you enter this massive entertainment industry. There are loads of characters, like, when you watch a film like 300 or Gladiator for that matter, there are loads of characters that you wish you could play. But the way that they all come to you, I don’t think that plan is in your hands unless you’re the one making the film and casting yourself in it. When I met Tarsem for the first time I had no idea what we were going to do. Tarsem is amazing in what he does. I told Tarsem, like, “How do you want me to roll my eyes back? How am I going to do that? It sounds a bit strange as written in the script.” He said, “When we come to set we’re going to put the script aside and we’re just going to let the visuals take over.” So, even though I play the Virgin Oracle, it’s not like in 300 where it’s all dreamy and dancey and then she dies. It’s really not like that. It feels more human in a way.

Movie Fanatic: So, fun question now. What’s on your iPods?

Isabel Lucas: I’ve just been listening to the Graceland album a lot as well recently. I love that. I love all different sorts of music. A lot of my favorite artists are African Americans like Billie Holiday and Stevie Wonder and things like that.

Frieda Pinto: I’ve been listening to a couple of different things. What I have noticed over the many years, I like different music, not things that you have heard over and over again. Adele is very soulful. I love Adele.