NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By: Jim Hodges

It was a Monday in late January of 2008, and the roar overhead brought Cameron Diaz out of the Full Scale Tunnel and onto the street on the East Side of NASA's Langley Research Center.

Diaz was impressed with the F-22 Raptor that was taking off from Langley Air Force Base.

She still is.

"It was unbelievable," said Diaz on Wednesday, hours before her newest film, "The Box," was to premiere in New York. "They just go straight up. They were flying right over our heads. We were screaming at the top of our lungs. We got kind of giddy that day. It was amazing."

The last week of filming for "The Box" was done at NASA Langley, which employed Lane Kelly during the 1970s. Kelly is the father of "The Box" director and screenwriter Richard Kelly, who based the attributes of the lead characters of his film – Norma and Arthur Lewis -- on his father and mother, Ennis, and some of the setting on the NASA Langley Kelly knew as a boy.

A scene from "The Box," shot from above in the Full Scale Tunnel in January of 2008. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

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Diaz's co-star, James Marsden, was equally impressed with the entire NASA experience.

"Sadly, our trip to Langley was sort of toward the end of the shoot," Marsden said. "I sort of wish we had gone earlier because it was so impactful just to be there, see it, walk through the corridors. We felt like this big as actors. Wow!"

The Full Scale Tunnel, which dates back to 1933, is scheduled to be demolished later this year or early in 2010. Still, it impressed both.

"To film in there, the history behind all of that, you couldn't be in there long enough," Marsden said.

Diaz was even impressed by not being treated like a Hollywood star in getting onto NASA Langley.

"It was fun to have to be cleared by security," Diaz said. "It was, like, you had to give your social security. I was like, what?"

Added Marsden: "There was something about Richard's not being able to shoot in a certain direction because there would be some kind of security breach. It was like, that's cool.

"The Box" was set in the 1970s, with a Mars Viking background to establish the period.

"There was a gentleman, Gentry Lee," Marsden said. "He worked on the Viking mission in 1976. He was acting as a consultant and actor in the film. He helped a lot with what was going on at the time, what was going on with the mission. It was great having him on board."

Lee works at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The story is a morality play in which the Lewis family is in financial straits, and "Arlington," played by Frank Langella, offer them a remedy in which they can push a button on "The Box" within 24 hours and reap a fortune. But somebody they don't know will die.

Do they push or not?

It's a morality play.

"It's a thriller, although it's more psychological," Diaz said. "It's not like a jump-out-of-your seat thriller. We have a few of those moments. … It gets inside of your head more than anything."

Director/screenwriter Richard Kelly used his parents, Lane and Ennis Kelly, as models for characters in The Box. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

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Its intent seems to make the viewer wonder what he or she would do in the same situation?

"There's something that Richard eluded to about whether or not the human race deserves to continue within the cosmic journey, or I forget how he put it," Marsden said. "It was really interesting to sit and give pause and think about that. Would we, giving everybody on Earth one of these boxes, would we survive as a race? Or would we vanish? And do we deserve to if we fail this morality test?"

Playing the director's parents was a novel approach to movie-making for both Marsden and Diaz. Both parents attended part of the filming, and Lane Kelly has a role in the movie.

"It's an honor for Richard to select me to play his father," Marsden said. "That's a big deal, to incorporate that into the screenplay. It was great to pick his brain about what Lane's involvement was in the design of the camera on the Viking Mission.

"That's stuff I couldn't get enough information on. It was fascinating. It was educating. It was so interesting, and to be able to incorporate that into the script, it was pretty exciting. We learned a lot about all of that and have a newfound respect for all of it."

Diaz spoke with both parents before playing the role of Norma Lewis.

"I was a little nervous, because although it's not an exact portrayal, it was sort of the essence of his mother, Richard's mother, that he wanted to capture in this film," she said.

Both were wary of giving away the finale of "The Box," but Diaz put the film in a different scenario than the standard Hollywood movie.

"In Hollywood, what we've been able to do and why Hollywood is so successful is that we are able to do the happy ending," she said. "We sort of sum it up the way everybody would love it to be.

"What I love about this film is that it doesn't give you that answer. It does exactly what life is. It perpetuates more questions."

And some of the answers are offered Wednesday with the premiere, and Friday, when "The Box" is released nationwide.


 
NASA Langley Research Center
Managing Editor: Jim Hodges
Executive Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
Editor and Curator: Denise Lineberry