Pitch Black2001

A:
"A little bit of both. Certain shots in the film, like if [my character] Riddick...turned a certain way, they would accent a moment in that sequence and punch up the effect a little bit--add a little light in the eyes. For the most part, it was just contacts. The contacts were prototypes, they had never been tested or worn before. So it felt like--imagine going to your father's 1960 Plymouth, taking the hubcaps off, painting them blue and sticking them in your eyes. They had to fly out an optometrist from three hours away on the first day because they couldn't get 'em out. And they were like, 'What the--?' And at the end of that, I had to go to the hospital. They were like, 'We should take you to the hospital.' I was like, 'Why? What are you--?' 'Because there's a little scratch, we have to make sure everything's okay, we have to go to the hospital.' It was a grueling experience having to wear those contacts. Because as an actor, you rely so heavily on your eyes. Your eyes are a great sort of resource for communication of thoughts and emotion, and you're stripped of that, you have to use other things you haven't used before. You develop mannerisms, and you really rely on creating that inner emotion and hoping that comes through. And the contacts did that, the goggles did that. I think a large decision was made in creating this character in terms of the process and that was to rely on not showing his emotion and hoping that somehow showed his emotions, that that would somehow give you an idea of what's going on."