Dog days

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This article was published 19/01/2017 (3524 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Actress Britt Robertson’s experience filming A Dog’s Purpose was entirely different from one depicted in disturbing behind-the-scenes footage shown on the website TMZ.

The star of the movie, which opens on Jan. 27, took part in a phone interview with the Winnipeg Free Press a week prior to the posting of the TMZ story, which showed footage of a German shepherd skittish about jumping into a pool of water stirred up to look like a raging river.

Robertson asserts her own experience on the film, shot throughout southern Manitoba in the latter half of 2015, was without such incident.

“The trainers that we had were really incredible and so gentle and so kind, and never aggressive and never frustrated and always patient,” she says. 

The footage in question, which has spawned a boycott of the film among outraged animal lovers, shows a dog unprepared to do the stunt required of it. More footage of the second-unit shoot shows the dog in the pool going under water before a crew member yells, “Cut it.”

That shot was to have been used in a sequence in which a police dog, the reincarnation of a pup named Bailey, rescues a girl thrown into a river. (The setting of the scene is Chicago but the actual location shots were filmed using the bridge at Lockport.)

Lasse Hallstrom, the director of A Dog’s Purpose, said he was not present for the shoot. The vegan animal-lover, whose previous dog movie experience includes My Life as a Dog and Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, tweeted Wednesday that he was “very disturbed” by the footage.

“We were all committed to providing a loving and safe environment for all the animals in the film,” he said.

Robertson echoed that sentiment in her interview with the Free Press.

“I’ve never worked with such a pure-of-heart, sweet gentle man,” she says of Hallstrom. “Talk about never getting frustrated. He really conveyed a lot of kindness and patience and he was so good at working with animals, but also humans.”

Robertson herself is the owner of two rescue dogs, Buddy and Clyde. She has been doing leading roles in films such as Tomorrowland, The Longest Ride and the upcoming sci-fi film The Space Between Us. She is also front and centre in the upcoming Netflix series Girlboss, playing the title role of a shoplifter-turned fashion CEO. Her decision to do a relatively small part in A Dog’s Purpose was, she explains, motivated by love.

“I’m a real dog person, that’s why I did the movie,” she says.

“When I read the script, I thought it was a really beautiful story. I love dogs, and I thought it would be a really cool experience to make this movie as a tribute to these precious creatures that have literally changed my life.”

That sentiment illuminates the crushing irony of the controversy surrounding the botched stunt: the movie was made with loving intention toward canines. Adapted from W. Bruce Cameron’s novel of the same name, the movie follows different incarnations of the same dog through four lives. That means, before the closing credits, you can expect a few scenes in which the dog heroes die. And even though Robertson was around to watch the story get put together, she was duly wrenched by it all when she saw the finished film.

“I was only in a small part of the film, in one storyline, so it would have been easy for me to disconnect,” she says. “But yes, I wept throughout the entire movie. 

“Both my agent and I were sobbing and I could not stop sobbing. I never cried at a movie like that in my life. I can’t see it again. It was too traumatizing. It’s not good for my heart.”

During her month-long stint in Manitoba, Robertson was comfortable in the small-town environs of her storyline, including farm locations near Brandon and Virden, which are not unlike the South Carolina communities where she was raised, Greenville and Chester, “which is like a six-stoplight town. I’m used to the small-town life. It was just like being home.”

“It was a really fun set to be on. We were basically in pastures or in fields out in this gorgeous farmland, and we could ride bikes and play ball,” she says. “It was just really fun to do and it was never difficult. I don’t recall ever having a difficult moment.”

Also, transportation was rarely hindered by the kinds of L.A. traffic jams she was enduring through the interview.

“But there was a lot of deer and fog, and it could be very difficult to drive,” she says. “We were shooting a lot in Brandon and there were many times where I had to drive in to Winnipeg for a flight or whatever and I would call my boyfriend and say: ‘I don’t think I’m going to make it. I can’t see in front of me!’”

A Dog’s Purpose opens in Winnipeg this Friday, Jan. 27. 

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca 

Twitter: @FreepKing

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