Jan de Bont on Flying Cows, Philip Seymour Hoffman and the Enduring Appeal of ‘Twister’ | Interviews

When you made “Twister,” how concerned were you about the science being accurate? You didn’t stress out about that since you wanted to create a fun, escapist summer movie.

It is supposed to be fun, absolutely. But viewers have seen tornadoes on TV, so I felt that I have to make them look real. Otherwise, [it] would distract from the reality of the terror that they create—if you don't make them real, then you don’t believe the rest. 

We worked a lot with not only storm chasers but Severe Storms Lab in Oklahoma, and they gave me so many movies and photographs of all different [storm] events. I ended up using a lot of that: If they happened for real, then they would be good for the movie. We had scientists on the set all the time—we had two storm chasers, we had two weather forecasters—for safety for the whole crew. It was nice talking to them—they became part of the crew. They knew all the lingo that exists about weather and storm-chasing.

I didn’t want to invent things—although, the cow is invented. Well, halfway-invented, because I saw a picture of [a] cow in a tree, which I thought was fake—and then they said, “No, it’s real.” I said, “Okay, we have to put it in the movie.” I started thinking, “Wow, wouldn’t it be great to see that cow flying through the air?” But I said, “Yeah, but just flying through the air, that’s kind of meaningless. If you see it from a car and you suddenly see [it] flying by, that’s much funnier because then there are people to react to it. Otherwise, if you see an abstract shot—‘Oh, cows flying’—that’s definitely not funny. You’re saying, ‘Oh, poor cow.’” Now, nobody says, “Poor cow.” They are saying, “Oh, funny cow.”

Back when “Twister” came out, storm chasers weren’t as big in the culture as they are now. What were the real-life storm chasers like that you met?

We got to understand their addiction to adrenaline and danger. But, also, those guys are weather nuts—they really photograph everything, film everything, and a lot of this stuff goes to the Severe Storms Lab. What they have fun doing, they want others to profit from it—I had no idea. 

There are a lot more of them now. I think there are tour groups now for storm chasers, which is kind of silly to do as a tourist, but they do happen. But I think it’s also that, despite all the incredible improvements they have made in depicting tornadoes, they’re still deadly and they still come every year and destroy towns, farms, and trees. Nothing has really changed. So I think the chasers will be more visible, and I think that people [in tornado areas] will be more interested in weather than they ever were before because their life depends on it.