ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS: 1. PRODUCTION INFORMATION Everyone has experienced the unsettling mystery of déjà vu – that flash of memory when you meet someone new you feel you’ve known all your life or recognize a place even though you’ve never been there before. But what if these strange, spooky feelings were actually warnings sent from the past or clues to an unfolding future?... 2. DÉJÀ VU : THE STORY BEGINS The spine-tingling sensation of déjà vu has mystified humankind for centuries. The feeling hits at the strangest moments – when we fall instantly and madly in love with a total stranger, when we arrive at a brand new place we know like the back of our hand.... 3. THE CAST OF DEJA VU From the beginning, Jerry Bruckheimer knew exactly who he wanted to cast in DÉJÀ VU’s lead role of ATF agent Doug Carlin – the tough-minded investigator who is forced to look in wildly unexpected directions for the answers to a heartbreaking crime.... 4. AN EXPLOSIVE CAREER: DENZEL WASHINGTON TRAINS AS AN ATF AGENT To keep the emphasis on realistic action at the core of DEJA VU, Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott brought in a number of consultants from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the agency that in real-life is charged with the investigation of all federal bombings – including such infamous events as the tragic explosion of the Alfred E. Murrah building in Oklahoma City and the 1993 car bombing of the World Trade Center.... 5. THE MYSTERY OF DÉJÀ VU: WHAT DO WE KNOW? While the action elements of DÉJÀ VU are all about realism, the unconventional underpinning of the thriller is an inquiry into just what the feeling of déjà vu really is – and what it might reveal about the workings of the universe... 6. THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE NEW ORLEANS: THE PRODUCTION OF DEJA VU Production of DÉJÀ VU was set to begin in Fall of 2005 amidst the watery beauty and inimitably soulful atmosphere of New Orleans. But in August of 2005, the unprecedented power of Hurricane Katrina struck, devastating the city and rocking the nation. While recovery efforts began, the film was put on indefinite hold.... 7. CHASES THROUGH TIME: CREATING DÉJÀ VU’S INVENTIVE ACTION SEQUENCES Beginning with the ferry explosion, the tension in DÉJÀ VU builds on both a psychological level and a physical level. As the story crescendos, so too does the action, with innovative chase scenes that not only travel the roads – but also travel through time.... 8. SECRETS OF SURVEILLANCE : CREATING THE TIME WINDOW LAB Doug Carlin’s search to understand what happened at the moment the ferry bomb exploded and what it has to do with his past and future ultimately takes him to one of DÉJÀ VU’s most intriguing locations: the secret time window lab in which Doug can view surveillance footage of past events.... 9. HIGH SPEED AND HIGH DEFINITION: THE VISUAL DESIGN OF DEJA VU The look of DÉJÀ VU is as innovative as its storyline. Says Jerry Bruckheimer, “Tony Scott’s films have a signature look with fast cuts and unusual camera angles. In DÉJÀ VU, he uses many unique visual techniques to enhance the storytelling.”....

THE MYSTERY OF DÉJÀ VU: WHAT DO WE KNOW?

While the action elements of DÉJÀ VU are all about realism, the unconventional underpinning of the thriller is an inquiry into just what the feeling of déjà vu really is – and what it might reveal about the workings of the universe.

Déjà vu, though a common phenomenon, has defied easy explanations by biologists, psychiatrists, neurologists and physicists. Current theories, as the filmmakers discovered, range from the psychological to the downright fantastical and include:

- Some neurologists believe that déjà vu happens when the brain latches onto a single detail – a smell, sight or sound – the familiarity of which causes it to confuse the past and present for a split second

- Doctors point out that many patients with temporal lobe seizures experience the feeling of déjà vu so it may originate from unexpected stimulation to that part of the brain

- Some psychoanalysts believe déjà vu is a form of “wish fulfillment” – in which deep-seated psychological desires come to the fore, as they usually do in dreams, but in waking life

- Those who subscribe to the theory of reincarnation believe detailed episodes of déjà vu are evidence of memories of previous lives

- Scientists on the fringes of new discoveries in quantum physics have suggested that déjà vu could be the result of parallel universes that accidentally intersect when the fabric of spacetime is disrupted

It is the latter theory that plays a vital role in the development of DÉJÀ VU’s suspenseful and thought-provoking twists. In order to get a better handle on what pioneering physicists believe about how time really operates, Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott went right to the source: they picked the mega-sized brains of several world-class physicists including Dr. Brian Greene, an expert on String Theory and a professor of physics at Columbia University who has written such popular explorations of general relativity and quantum mechanics as The Fabric of the Cosmos and The Elegant Universe.

Says Bruckheimer, “We wanted to do our best to really explore what the various characters do in DÉJÀ VU, including the scientists in our time window lab. I’ve made a career of telling stories that take you inside a world you’d never be a part of, yet, we make you part of it through this movie. Balancing science fiction and science fact can be tricky and complex, but we wanted to start this dialogue in DÉJÀ VU and open our eyes to possibilities that perhaps are not as far fetched as they seem.”

To get inside the surprising world of quantum physics, Bruckheimer and Scott sat down with Dr. Greene and asked him to explain some of theories behind time travel and parallel universes to them as simply as possible. Greene, in turn, simplified the concepts on a blackboard for Bruckheimer and Scott. He explained that we live in a world in which we are not always aware of the tricks our minds play on us when it comes to the medium of time. For example, he noted that when you look at yourself in a mirror that is 8 feet away, you might think you’re seeing yourself right now, but you are actually looking at yourself as you existed 16 nanoseconds ago! (That 16 nanoseconds is the time it takes for light to reflect off your face at the mirror and come back.) So, in a sense, you are actually looking into the past. We do it all the time. It happens whenever you look up in the night sky to admire the North Star – even though it appears to be twinkling right at you, in fact you are actually peering at the star as it was 630 years ago. So one thing we know for sure is that time isn’t always what it seems to be.

Getting into even more mind-bending concepts, Green explained how some physicists now believe, based on the latest evidence, that there exist an infinite number of parallel universes in the cosmos -- and that we just happen to lead our lives in one of them, unaware of the others. Once considered pure science fiction, the theory of parallel universes has now been directly implicated by recent cosmological observations. Though there are many different views of how parallel universes might operate, one of the most elegant explanations comes from an exciting new frontier in contemporary physics: String Theory. String Theory posits that the universe consists of tiny strings or membranes that vibrate in 11 dimensions. In this theory of a multi-dimensional cosmos, parallel universes could be separated from our own by as little as a fraction of a millimeter. Greene uses the analogy that our universe and everything in it might be just one thin slice of bread in an inconceivably vast loaf.

Though most of these theories still leave many questions unanswered, the potential they suggest for time travel and manipulation of the past or future is mind-boggling. As Dr. Greene says, “The realization there’s more to the universe than we are directly aware of helps us appreciate our place in the cosmos.”

Continues Bruckheimer, “Understanding parallel universes was one of our biggest challenges in developing the DÉJÀ VU story. We wanted to know by consulting the experts in this area how we could convince audiences that there really are parallel universe – that, even as I am sitting here right now, there might be yet another Jerry talking somewhere else saying something completely different. An then how do you bridge these parallel universes? That’s another area we explore in DÉJÀ VU.”

At the time window lab, things become more peculiar as the scientists utilize “wormholes” to journey across the gap between past and future. Wormholes, also known as “Einstein-Rosen bridges” (based on a paper by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen in which they proposed a bridge that could travel between a black hole and white hole at a speed faster than light) and “space tunnels,” are a hypothetical feature of space-time that could provide a shortcut between one point in time and another. Wormholes, similar to black holes, are created by sources of intense gravity that cause the space-time fabric to fold or distort. Just as a worm can get to the other side of an apple by journeying through its center, wormholes could provide a quick path to an alternate place in this or other universes.

So can we alter events that have already happened? Can our future really change our past? The answers are very much open to debate – and that just adds to the fun of DÉJÀ VU.

Says Tony Scott, “I want audiences to leave the theater thinking this type of travel through time is really possible. If they haven’t quite perfected this technology today, scientists will do it tomorrow. When the audience takes that leap with us, they’ll be swept up in the story.”