In new crime thriller Exposed, New York City Detective Scotty Galban (Keanu Reeves: John Wick, The Matrix Trilogy) investigates the brutal murder of his partner. Among the limited evidence, he finds a photograph of young teacher Isabel De La Cruz (Ana de Armas: Knock Knock, Arms and the Dudes) who he believes may also be a witness. As Galban gets closer to solving the case and finding the killer’s motives, Isabel may hold secrets of her own.
To mark the release of the Exposed, we hear about this compelling story from the stars of the film…
Keanu Reeves: It’s architecture is in parallel stories in the shape of a mystery. You follow Ana de Armas’ character, Isabel, who is descending into madness through trauma, and then the character I play, Scotty Galban, is a homicide detective in Manhattan.
Mira Sorvino: There’s a combination of gritty detective drama, thriller and a kind of fantasy world related to a young girl’s spiritual visions.
Ana de Armas: Two parallel stories in two different worlds that at the end of the movie are going to intersect and connect in a very unexpected way.
Mira Sorvino: There’s a whole, almost kind of fantasia element to half of the film which is surreal and fluid and not necessarily grounded in absolute reality. I love that about it because it’s combined with this very gritty world of this police drama. I play the role of Janine, a Staten Island girl who was the wife of the murdered cop.
Keanu Reeves: The character I play is trying to find out who killed his partner. As we follow him through the story, we come to realise he’s a really lonely, damaged kind of guy.
Christopher McDonald: Gee Linton’s script was what attracted me. I found it was old school, and new at the same time. It had a very interesting twist to it, and I like to be surprised when I watch a movie and get really brought into it; how are they going to make this happen? And that’s what happened when I did the first read through, I thought “Wow, this is good!”
Ana de Armas: So, one story is about a detective who’s investigating the murder of his partner, and the other one is a surreal world, almost like a
fairy-tale story created by Isabel’s mind.
Keanu Reeves: There’s a bit of a mystery in it, there’s mysterious characters. The character that we follow is trying to protect this girl. There’s this multilayered aspect of story telling, and whodunit, so the audience is catching up with the character but involved with the character so there’s something enjoyable about what is revealed.
Mira Sorvino: The script is really beautiful. It’s just beautiful. There’s something about it that’s very haunting, I have always particularly loved projects that dealt with people who have visions of saints or angels and the young girl in the story has those.
Michael Rispoli: Everybody should do a Keanu Reeves movie, he’s great. He’s very thorough in his research and what he goes for. He’s very deep in
his choices and he’s easy to play off of, very generous. It’s an exchange between the actors, Keanu’s terrific with all that.
Mira Sorvino: Keanu is such a lovely person, he’s so generous and thoughtful and a terrific actor. This is a wonderful role for him and maybe a departure for him of sorts. He’s very restrained in it, very bound by ties that we can’t really see but we sense, he’s trying to keep it all together. He’s a man of few words with a lot of pain and I think he’s doing such a beautiful job of it.
Keanu Reeves: Mira Sorvino – I’d really enjoyed her work for such a long time – and I was really excited about to have the chance to work with her.
She’s playing my dead partner’s wife, and we ultimately have this affair, an affair of grief in a way. What she brought to the role, the emotional intelligence, the technique was just really inspiring.
Ana de Armas: Keanu’s a great partner, a great actor, a great producer in this case and a great friend. It’s always very easy on set to be with him, he always wants your work to be better.
Keanu Reeves: When we approached Ana with the script I was like, please say yes! And she did. It’s a great role and she’s remarkable. I only have one scene with her at the end of the picture, which was great, I wish we had more, but in the story she’s bringing such emotion, depth, comedy, warmth, love, energy and tragedy. It’s such a great role and Ana is the actress for it because she can produce all those colours and bring that to the screen.
Big Daddy Kane: I must say this – it’s truly an honour to work with Keanu because he’s an artist that I have a lot of respect for. Being able to be on set with him and have conversations, just before they say ‘two minutes to film’ or something like that he just cuts the conversation off and goes into character and gets into this mode, I think it’s beautiful. I’ve actually learned a few things working with the brother and I have a lot of respect for him.
Christopher McDonald: What’s interesting about this film, it’s a real throwback to the energy of the ’70s and ’80s and those great cop films that happen in the streets of New York. This has got a lot of that going on with it’s own new twists which I haven’t seen before, which makes it intriguing.
Mira Sorvino: The twist to this movie, when I got to the end of the script I said to myself, ‘Wow, I did not see that coming’. And then I think viewers are going to have that same experience, I don’t think their going to know what this is and they’re going to get to the end and going to be blown away by it. Then they’re going to want to watch it again to see the signs they could have picked up on and they’ll find them all, it’s all there throughout. But, I do think it’ll be a big surprise for most people, you’d be hard pressed to guess beforehand.
Keanu Reeves: Hopefully what that can bring for us is to think about how we’ve dealt with trauma or the trauma’s of life and it’s circumstances and ultimately to think about healing.
Signature Entertainment Presents Exposed at Cinemas and On Demand 26th February 2016
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