Chris Pine, Denzel Washington and Rosario Dawson are “Unstoppable”!

TeenHollywood is in Beverly Hills again [we hang there a lot] to chat with the stars of the fast-paced, exciting action flick Unstoppable about a runaway train and the people who risked their lives to stop it! The movie is based on a real life incident in which a train carrying dangerous, toxic chemicals was rushing unmanned through populated areas.

Star Trek’s Chris Pine and the great Denzel Washington play a young conductor on his first real run paired with the way more experienced engineer [actual driver]. The two are on another train which becomes instrumental in the struggle to stop the dangerous runaway choo-choo.

It’s tons of action for the two guys but hot actress Rosario Dawson plays a female “Yard Master”; the woman in charge of routing all the trains in a specific area and she is just as involved as the guys but from a distance.

Talking to the trio, we are getting a lot from Rosario about creating her strong, in charge, yet vulnerable female character and the guys are talking about stunts, how dangerous trains really are and being attacked by cereal! We’ll explain. Read on….

TeenHollywood: It’s amazing how many technical terms go into running a railroad. Rosario, you play a woman who runs a rail yard. How did you learn that “lingo” your character Connie was spouting with ease?

Rosario Dawson: I spent a lot of time talking to the [person we chose to be] the background person for Connie. So we drilled her. She was constantly talking to [director] Tony [Scott] and she talked to me and then we would go over the transcripts. A lot of the time I would ask her, ‘What does this mean? Time off the air-brakes, what does it mean?’ At least I knew what I was talking about, which was really helpful. But also then just the energy behind it. All of it sounds really huge, but she’d be like, ‘No, that’s something pretty simple, don’t emphasize that.’ It was very helpful.

TeenHollywood: Chris and Denzel, what was the most interesting or helpful thing you learned from the real railroad workers that you talked to? And did you actually get to drive a train?

Chris Pine: It was interesting and frightening. I remember when we went to the rail yard in L.A. and they said that the most dangerous place for trains is actually not out on the track, it’s almost in the yard, because the trains can be so quiet and so seemingly innocuous, but of course they’re 1000 ton beasts.

TeenHollywood: That sounds scary!

Chris Pine: I remember this one guy telling the story [about someone who] got surprised on the track in the yard, and the train was only going three or four miles an hour, and it pinned the guy. And then they had to call the family up because the guy was still alive and they said their goodbyes and the train separated from the guy and then the guy passed away. But that’s how dangerous these things are. Pretty much everyone we talked to had an experience, whether it be a conductor or an engineer, with life and death stuff, people trying to cross the tracks and there’s no life emergency stop button on the train. A lot of people experience traumatic events, so there were counselors and stuff like that.

Denzel Washington: It was great to get the drive the train. Everything on them hurts! You step on it, you hit your knee. It was dangerous all the time. I was always more nervous because Chris and I were looking forward and you had all these [people] around on the platform and you’re going fifty miles an hour, so we could see what’s coming and they couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine making this movie on green screen. It wouldn’t have worked. Chris knows real well that you wouldn’t know what getting hit by puffed wheat [felt like]. [Note: a seal breaks on a grain-carrying car and grain pelts poor Chris while he is outside trying to save the train].

Chris Pine: [laughs] [Hit by Sugar Puffs] cereal. ‘And then cue cereal action sequence.’ Who knew that cereal could be such a pain in the ass!? It’s a credit to Tony really too, that everything was practical so we were we on trains, on tracks, moving. We had two trains, one train looked like a train, and another was chopped up so that cab [Denzel and I were in] could be circled by this camera, so that we could run scenes over and over and over again and feel like we were driving the train and not be hindered by worrying about a master shot and [lots of] coverage. We could just run the scene. It was such a freedom and a liberty to be able to do that.

TeenHollywood: Denzel, you’ve said that it was actually you running up on top of the train. It looked like both of you did all your own stunts but you didn’t, right?

Chris Pine: I didn’t have a stunt man. [Denzel roars with laughter].

Denzel Washington: I had seven.

Chris Pine: For every day of the week.

Denzel Washington: I remember early on I was reading the script [and wondering] why does the other guy get to jump on the train and be the hero? I want to be the guy, and as we kept working on the material, I started [thinking] ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be the guy that jumps on the train. Chris should be the guy, I can see why he’s the guy that jumps’. [we laugh]. We had very experienced stunt men. They were those guys that did /Casino Royale/ where they knew how to jump from thing to thing, but Chris pissed me off because he was doing a lot of his own stunts…the punk [Chris laughs].

TeenHollywood: Denzel and Rosario, haven’t you two worked together before?

Denzel Washington: Rosario and I have worked together so we have a shorthand.

Rosario Dawson: [in a fake fancy voice] Yes, I’d have to say I agree on that but I’m still learning from you, Denzel. And, by the way, I also did my own stunts [her character doesn’t have any]. I know you guys could tell. [Denzel is laughing beside her]. In the one scene we had together, [we were] brilliant.

TeenHollywood: Well, at least you guys kissed at the end.

Rosario Dawson: It was interesting because the last movie we’d done together we also only had one scene. Maybe on the next movie we can have a couple more scenes together because that would be really, really nice.

TeenHollywood: As an audience member you feel like you know and care about these characters who are facing horrible challenges.

Rosario Dawson: You’re having a great, fun ride in an action film but you actually care about everybody. The time is taken to establish the different types of personalities. It’s deeply connecting you to caring about these characters as the story goes along which is very unusual for an action film of this kind.

There’s a chemistry between Frank [Denzel’s character] and Connie which is there [despite the fact that] we were in different cities. It’s magical to me in that one moment at the end of the movie you can see a chemistry and a camaraderie of spirit. I think they’re [made] of the same cloth. They’re people of the same stock. They would appreciate each other and get each other’s deep connection to life. So you can see a hereafter after that. I think that’s really amazing, but I’d like to flesh that out onscreen a little more.

TeenHollywood: Chris your character Will is based on a real guy as is Denzel’s. How much time did you get to spend with the real person?

Chris Pine: [The guys] came out here and we went to the Pig N’ Whistle and had a couple of beers and talked. They’re dynamic in real life. In the sense that they were conductor and engineer together, they were a couple. What I also learned from them is that hierarchy in the train is very real.

The guys who are old hands and have been around for a long time demand a certain level of respect. Just because the newbie’s gone to school and learned the job doesn’t mean he knows the ins and outs of the job itself and the practicality. They told a lot of stories about when [the younger guy] came in he was pressing his luck when he tried to show the old guys how it was done. He was in for a world of hurt.

TeenHollywood: So there was a lot of real-life research done then?

Rosario Dawson: That’s how Hooters came into the script [we laugh].

Denzel Washington: [Like in the movie], Jessie [Denzel’s real life counterpart]’sdaughters really worked at Hooters. That’s a big one! It’s very good working at Hooters [more laughter].

TeenHollywood: Rosario, Connie is a strong and feminine woman; a good role model. How did you accomplish that?

Rosario Dawson: There were a lot of choices of how we were going to express Connie and there were clichés about a woman in a man’s world, and a woman in a high position of power and how she should behave. And I think we walked that fine line really well. She’s very capable and very sensible and at the end of the film you’re not thinking about her in a man’s world but just the right person for a very stressful situation. Someone who doesn’t get hysterical.

TeenHollywood: And she did little things like put her hair up or down. It made her human.

Rosario Dawson: We had whole conversations about which scenes we should have her hair up and which scenes we should have it down. Every single beat was to express the frustration of being in the control room miles away from where the action is. We just wanted to show that, as calm and collected as she is, if she could physically propel herself out a window to go into that train and pull the lever herself she would. That’s what makes her get on every phone and do everything she possibly could to make those blinking lights go the way she wanted them to.

That was something we really played with. [We wanted] to show how her levels of emotions were and how much of them she showed to other people because it’s a high stress situation and she’s in charge. You can’t freak everybody out and panic them. Your options only disappear as time goes by. You don’t have time to freak out. You have to do the next protocol to save lives.

TeenHollywood: Chris, you’re probably dealing with film offers on a different scale after doing the Star Trek movie. Has it been a whirlwind for you?

Chris Pine: I’ve just been very blessed and it’s a shock to me that [people] are interested in who I am and what I do. And I get to sit next to people [he looks over at Denzel] that I’ve watched since I was a kid. It’s afforded me the luxury of choice. Star Trek has afforded me the opportunity to cherry pick, I don’t know for how long, but at least for now I can say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to certain things. The guiding principle for me, because I don’t know how long it’s going to last, is to seize the moment and work with people I …

Denzel Washington: [finishing for him] Wanna work with.

Chris Pine: Wanna work with. And that’s Tony [Scott] and Denzel and Rosario, people like this.