LMGI COMPASS
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Spring 2021
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designer Nathan Crowley, who has worked with him since Insomnia in
2002, begin to conceptualize each film. For Tenet, executive producer
Thomas Hayslip was also present.
Polley was working at the time but couldn't pass up the chance to
meet the groundbreaking filmmaker. "I showed up and was given the
script to read," she recalls. "You just sit there in his house and they
leave you alone to read. It was a very complicated story so I read it
twice, once to grasp the mechanics of it all and the second to really
focus on what the locations were."
She also knew she wouldn't be allowed to keep the script.
Written by Nolan, Tenet follows a nameless agent known only as
'The Protagonist' (rising star John David Washington) who, along with
his mysterious partner, Neil (Robert Pattinson), works for a covert
group trying to prevent a Russian oligarch named Sator (Kenneth
Branagh) from starting World War III and bringing about the end of
the world as we know it.
It's a dizzyingly complex, globetrotting adventure involving heists,
fist fights, gunfights and car chases—often in reverse—as well as one
of the biggest practical effects ever created for a film—all wrapped up
in the idea of time inversion.
Actually, "dizzyingly complex" doesn't quite do the film justice. It is
an absolute brain-breaker of a narrative.
After reading the draft, she met with Nolan, Crowley and Hayslip
and the rumors she'd heard about Nolan were confirmed: He wanted
to shoot the film almost entirely on location and he wanted to use
practical effects as much as possible. For Polley, that sounded great.
"I'd worked with Janice before.
She's top notch at holding a big team
together and finding great locations."
–Executive Producer Thomas Hayslip
