Public Servant Lifestyle

Penelope Cruz, Steve Zahn and Matthew McConaughey bring novelist Clive Cussler’s ‘Dirk Pitt’ characters to the big screen.

Sahara

Matthew McConaughey (Sweet Home Alabama) stars, alongside Penelope Cruz, as Dirk Pitt, the charismatic, modern hero of Clive Cussler’s internationally best-selling adventure novels, in Paramount Pictures’ Sahara, which will explode on to cinema screens across the United Kingdom in April.

Sahara also brings to life other favourite characters from the 17-novel series, including Dirk’s wise-cracking buddy Al Giordino, played in the film by Steve Zahn, his irascible boss Admiral Sandecker – played by William H. Macy (Fargo) and technical wizard Rudi – played by Rainn Wilson.

Matthew McConaughey enthuses when describing Dirk Pitt, a character equal parts adventurer, sophisticated Don Juan, and man with a plan: “Sometimes he’s a scientist, sometimes he’s an inventor, sometimes he’s an adventurer,” he says. “He’s a guy who’s got plans, but those plans are always changing; he’s ready for the unexpected. He’s a great adapter. He’s been a Navy SEAL, but he’s also part pirate. He’s definitely a lover before a fighter, but if he’s got to fight, he handles his own.”

Civil War Ironclad

McConaughey believes that this mix of characteristics make up the perfect action hero for our times. “Even though Dirk comes from a privileged background – he’s the son of a senator – he’s got his own idea about how to spend his life, which is to chase his treasures,” he says. “He chases the unknown – he says we can know the unknown. You can call him a dreamer, and I guess he is, but he’s also got the history, the training, and the scientific facts to back it up.”

In the film, that means tracking down a Civil War Ironclad battleship in the middle of the African desert.

“The fun of Dirk Pitt is that while he always has a plan, he also plans on the plan never going as he planned it,” McConaughey laughs. “Dirk Pitt is the luckiest man alive. Dirk’s an action hero, but in a way that we haven’t seen in a lot of movies,” says Breck Eisner. “Dirk’s a regular guy. He’s highly trained, of course, but when he gets into a scrape, he loves to wing it. He’s always thinking eight steps ahead and sometimes can forget about what’s happening at the moment. He’s been on every kind of adventure you can imagine, and that ability to wing it is what gets him through it.”

Shady Diplomats

Various shady diplomats, undercover agents and out-and-out villains are portrayed by an international cast, including Lambert Wilson, Delroy Lindo, Glynn Turman, Lennie James and Patrick Malahide.

Directed by Breck Eisner, Sahara involves Dirk Pitt’s search for a gold-laden Civil War ironclad in the upper reaches of the River Niger, a potentially devastating epidemic discovered by World Health Organisation (WHO) doctor Eva Rojas – played by Penelope Cruz (Vanilla Sky, Jamón, Jamón, La Rebelde, Por Amor, Solo Por Amor, El Amor Perjudica Seriam, Carne Trémula and Abre Los Ojos and countless other Spanish and English language films. Penelope Cruz is soon to be seen in the film Noel, with Chazz Palminteri, as well as Bandidas and Chromophobia, later on this year. International intrigue, explosive boat chases, breakneck camel rides and hair-raising escapes by sand yacht and an unbelievably rare 1936 Voisin C28.

Sahara is produced by Howard Baldwin, Karen Baldwin, Mace Neufeld and Stephanie Austin, with a screenplay by Thomas Dean Donelly & Joshua Oppenheimer and John C. Richards and James V. Hart.

Sahara is available now on DVD.

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