The stars were out for the premiere of Peter Berg's Saudi Arabia set FBI drama The Kingdom in Leicester Square last night. While leading man Jamie Foxx was needed inside the screening after signing autographs for fans, producer Michael Mann and co-star Jennifer Garner stayed a while to chat with Empire, with Garner in particular enthusing over being back in an action film.
“It was delightful,” she said. “Such a nice break from the girlie stuff. It took no time at all to get ready until we got further into the shoot and had to have all the blood and sweat. I could never get the two days off to go to premieres when I was in Alias so it’s so nice to go. Ben’s at home babysitting. I can’t wait to have him as my date again but right now there’s a lot of passing off!”
Low points for Garner were the heat – “I ended up getting heat stroke and going to the hospital” – and shooting an intense fight scene for the end of the film. “The Kevlar vest would protect me from a man’s punch but a) it only protects you from the impact and b) it’s a costume, so it knocked the wind out of me!”
Producer Michael Mann and director Peter Berg have become quite a team as Mann enthused. “It’s great, we’re actually in the middle of making something else together so we took two days off to come over here (that film would be Will Smith superhero flick Hancock). I don’t really have a vocation as a producer it’s just being an enthusiastic supporter, like when I see something, like Wonderland (the TV show directed by Berg) which I loved. I rang Peter up to say I loved it, one director to another, and he said, ‘Hey, you want to produce something?’ and I said sure, and that’s how The Kingdom began.”