New HITCHCOCK Featurette, International Trailer And Photos Includes Director Sacha Gervasi, Actors Anthony Hopkins And Helen Mirren

Photo By Suzanne Tenner/Fox Searchlight

Lurking behind Alfred Hitchcock, cinema’s “master of suspense” — the extraordinary film icon known for orchestrating some of the most intense experiences of menace and intrigue audiences have ever seen, was a hidden side: his creatively explosive romance with his steadfast wife and filmmaking collaborator, Alma Reville.

Now, for the first time, Sacha Gervasi’s HITCHCOCK lays bare their captivating and complex love story. It does so through the sly, shadowy lens of their most daring filmmaking adventure: the making of the spine-tingling 1960 thriller, PSYCHO, which would become the director’s most controversial and legendary film. When the tumultuous, against-the-odds production was over, nothing about movies would ever be the same – but few realized that it took two to pull it off.

Director Sacha Gervasi on the set of HITCHCOCK

Gervasi and a cast that includes Academy Award® winners Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren starring as Alfred and Alma spin a story rife with surprises, comic ironies and dark twists in the Hitchockian tradition. But at the heart of the film lies not only the obsessions and fears of two people but the distinctively tenacious love that drove Hitchcock’s art behind the curtain.

For HITCHCOCK director Sacha Gervasi, the answer lay in a woman. Not one of the notorious “Hitchcock Blondes” whose cool, aloof beauty and power graced and haunted his films, but a woman who has been largely unknown to the world: his talented wife, Alma, who from behind the scenes deeply influenced Hitchcock’s work, penetrated his defenses and became his silent modest co-creator.

“I always felt the core of HITCHCOCK had to be the love story between Alfred and Alma,” Gervasi comments. “They had this dynamic, complex, contradictory, beautiful, painful relationship that was not just a marriage but a real creative collaboration. I was really interested in how these two very strong-minded people lived with each other and created together and that brought a whole new perspective to the story of how PSYCHO was made. Without Alma at his side, Hitchcock would not have been as brilliant, or would not have pulled off PSYCHO.”

Catch a glimpse of Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Jessica Biel, Michael Stuhlbarg, Toni Collette, James D’Arcy and Scarlett Johansson in action in the latest images from Fox Searchlight’s upcoming film, HITCHCOCK.

The origins of HITCHCOCK go back to Stephen Rebello’s 1990 book Alfred Hitchcock and The Making of Psycho, which followed every twist and turn in the classic film’s roller-coaster creation: Hitchcock’s interest in real-life murderer, Ed Gein, the adaptation of Robert Bloch’s incendiary novel, the casting of Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins, the infamous shower scene that gave birth to the graphic modern thriller, and the ensuing battle with Hollywood censors and its lasting legacy. Not surprisingly, it all came together not only through Alfred’s will, but because of Alma’s significant contributions.

Helen Mirren as “Alma Reville” on the set of HITCHCOCK. Photo By Suzanne Tenner

Jessica Biel as “Vera Miles,” Scarlett Johansson as “Janet Leigh” and James D’Arcy as “Anthony Perkins” on the set of HITCHCOCK

Michael Stuhlbarg as “Lew Wasserman,” Toni Collette as “Peggy Robertson” and Anthony Hopkins as “Alfred Hitchcock”

When Hitchcock set out to make PSYCHO, he had pretty much done it all in his 46 features that ran the gamut from light-hearted comedy to technical tour-de-forces to haunting, seductive psycho-dramas. He’d even had a top-rated television series with “Alfred Hitchcock Presents . . .” But he still insisted upon “recharging the batteries,” as he put it, and doing something completely different.

As Hitchcock put it, “style is self-plagiarism.” Hitchcock wanted to surprise and shock the audience in ways they didn’t see coming – and he wanted to shake up a film world that was now full of young up and coming directors. PSYCHO would take Hitchcock to the limit. It would push him to explore new depths of psychological terror, to self-finance, to fight the censors and to re-think the standard release patterns. And yet, with Alma’s help writing and editing, it would accomplish all that.

Says Gervasi of PSYCHO’s legacy: “The film deals with primal, preternatural things that exist in all human beings. We all have parent issues, we all struggle with good and bad, we all fear death. The film explores this darker side of human nature. Add into that Anthony Perkins stabbing people in a dress and you’ve got matinee idols, transvestitism, murder and mysterious hotels. All those things combined just make it a bloody entertaining film. 52 years later, it’s still electrifying people. “

Fox Searchlight Pictures presents, in association with Cold Spring Pictures, a Montecito Picture Company and Barnette/Thayer production, HITCHCOCK directed by Sacha Gervasi with a screenplay by John J. McLaughlin based on the book Alfred Hitchcock and The Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello. The film also stars Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, Toni Collette as Peggy Robertson, Danny Huston as Whitfield Cook, Jessica Biel as Vera Miles, Michael Stuhlbarg as agent Lew Wasserman, James D’Arcy as Anthony Perkins, Michael Wincott as Ed Gein, Kurtwood Smith as Geoffrey Shurlock and Richard Portnow as Barney Balaban. The film is produced by Ivan Reitman, Tom Pollock, Joe Medjuck, Tom Thayer and Alan Barnette, with Ali Bell and Richard Middleton as executive producers.

The creative team includes two-time Academy Award-nominated director of photography Jeff Cronenweth, ASC (THE SOCIAL NETWORK, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO), Academy Award-nominated film editor Pamela Martin, A.C.E (THE FIGHTER), production designer Judy Becker (THE FIGHTER), two-time Academy Award-nominated costume designer Julie Weiss (FRIDA, TWELVE MONKEYS), music by four-time Academy Award-nominated Danny Elfman (GOOD WILL HUNTING, MILK), and special makeup effects by Academy Award winner Howard Berger (THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA) & Gregory Nicotero.

HITCHCOCK opens in select theaters beginning November 23rd.

http://www.hitchcockthemovie.com/