Interview with Catherine Mary Stewart

Interview with Lance Guest

Check out the video of Lance Guest talking about Million Dollar Quartet as discussed in the interview.

Interview with Catherine Mary Stewart

Interview with Alaina Huffman

Check out some event photos, as I went out on the event floor and cosplayed! I present to you Marcey as Rose Tyler from Dr Who who stole Tom Baker’s scarf!

Marcey with the Delorean

Nicholas Brendon

Amanda Tapping

Robin Dunne

Marcey with Han Solo frozen in carbonite

Some of the 501st Legion

The Joker, part of DC’s huge booth

The Dr’s companion found the TARDIS

EPIC posing

The companion finds a Dr, in scarf wars!

Straight from the Grid!

Local legend Colin Wilson sketching away

International comic artist guest Frank Cho with the best sketch of the show!

For Kristen Stewart, the next role is playing Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman. In fact, she can see some similarities between Bella and Snow White.

“They really both are, in different ways, matriarchs – very strong, strong matriarchs.”

Even though she’s moved on from the role, there are parts of Bella that will stay with her.

“If you’re the type of girl to identify with Bella, then you just kind of are her. You’re not playing yourself all the time, but, for her, somehow I could not disagree with her, ever. I think we’re pretty similar at times,” she said.

Her key to avoiding being typecast is simply choosing projects that she’s interested in doing.

“The movies that I’ve done in between the Twilight films – I’ve just been really lucky that they’ve been very different. Not because I’ve meant them to be, but literally because the things that I was drawn to happen to be different from the Twilight movies,” she said.

Robert Pattinson’s next film, Cosmopolis, is in post-production, and it was a completely different experience from working on a popular franchise.

“I just worked with David Cronenberg [on Cosmopolis], and just to see him … he’s left alone by everyone because, I mean, obviously he’s proved himself time and time again. It’s really strange; I’ve never really worked with someone with absolutely no pressure from anywhere else but from themselves and from the environment in which they’ve chosen to work in, and it’s kind of nice to know that the pressure is not caused by compromises or anything like that. They’ve taken the responsibility on themselves, and it’s really up to them to make it what they want,” he said.

Taylor Lautner may or may not be working with director Gus Van Sant on his next project.

“It’s very premature, so I really don’t have much to say now other than the fact that I really, really respect him and would love the opportunity to work with him,” he said.

In the meantime, Lautner says that there are parts of Jacob that will stick with him.

“After playing the same character for five movies and for years, you grow close to him. There are many things I look up to Jacob for. Jacob is one of the most loyal people, one of the most persistent people. He has amazing qualities to him that I hope I can learn from him and implement into my own life,” he said.

Should it be one film or two?

And how do we film the birth of Edward Cullen (played by Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan (played by Kristen Stewart)’s daughter, Renesmee?

Producer Wyck Godfrey says the decision to split Breaking Dawn into two films happened organically.

“There were discussions for a long time about doing both, and I initially was very resistant about splitting it into two. We came to the conclusion that they both merited enough story to be told,” he said.

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg agrees.

“I initially thought it was one movie but fairly early on realized that we would just be leaving so much out that it was better to let the two movies breathe a little bit than cram everything into one,” she added.

And director Bill Condon filmed it as one, big movie. He said that there were times when Kristen Stewart would have to portray Bella as a happy teenager, a pregnant newlywed and a newborn vampire all in the same day.

“Movie 2 opens the moment that Movie 1 ends. It is from one book; it’s one story. I think we found the right place to stop the first one,” he said.

The birth of Renesmee, as described in the book, is rather gruesome. So how does that translate to film?

“Obviously it’s very, very powerfully described in the book, and you want it to be true to that experience but have it show some of those things. I think the key to doing it and being able to have that experience is to tell it from Bella’s point of view. Once Bella is on that slab, we’re only going to see what she can see as these things are happening to her, and we’re only going to see it through her eyes as she gets weaker and as the morphine takes over – all that stuff. It is kind of intense,” Condon said.

Author and producer Stephenie Meyer was impressed by the emotion of it.

“It was so emotional. It wasn’t about that this is gory, and we’re slathering you up with cream cheese and raspberry jelly. Edward is losing Bella. And Rob’s performance was so, you know, heartbreaking, that I am going to admit – yes, I teared up. A lot people were feeling it because you looked at the idea of losing the most important thing to you, and he made you think about it in that moment. Bill pulled such a human experience out of it,” she said.

Seven hundred and fifty-four pages.

Bill Condon had a tall order and a lot of content to cover when he signed on to direct The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2, the fourth and fifth films based on Stephenie Meyer’s novels. But he was up for the challenge.

“Well, I think the biggest challenge is that these books are so beloved by so many people that you want to make sure that obviously it’s your take on the material but that it doesn’t betray people’s expectations and yet still becomes a full cinematic experience,” Condon said.

The cast was a big help to Condon. Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward Cullen; Kristen Stewart, who plays Bella Swan; and Taylor Lautner, who plays Jacob Black; have been in these roles for several years and helped Condon get a better understanding of these characters. In fact, the four of them spent two weeks before filming began talking through what had happened in the previous films and what was coming for their characters.

“At a certain point, when an actor starts to embody a role, they know it better than you ever will. And certainly that was true here,” Condon said.

After working together for so long, the cast has become close – particularly Pattinson and Stewart – and Condon was happy to work with their chemistry.

“It’s crazy, you know, just how close they are. It’s wonderful. I feel as though, because they’re more relaxed with that, it added something to the movie because obviously this is the part where they are together, and that’s something they didn’t have to act,” he said.

Of course, with that much content, some of it had to be cut, even with two films.

“It’s all about the rules of visual storytelling,” he said.

In this case, the visual storytelling initially did not hit a PG-13 rating. Scenes from Edward and Bella’s honeymoon were changed to achieve that rating, but Condon says that “it’s not very different from what you see now.”

Breaking Dawn does take on adult topics – marriage and motherhood – and Condon feels that fans are ready for that.

“I think they’ve gotten older, too,” he said. “I think that it’s important that the series grow with them. These concerns are not the same concerns Bella had when she moved from Arizona.”

For the most part, these stories were filmed in Vancouver, Canada. But for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2, the cast and crew traveled to Brazil to film honeymoon scenes and spent four months filming in Baton Rouge, La.

“We know that we have to be in the Pacific Northwest and Canada for Forks, Wash., and all the exteriors. We knew we had to go to Brazil for the honeymoon. It just worked out that we could shoot all of our stage work in Baton Rouge and then go up to Vancouver when it came time to shoot all of the exteriors,” producer Wyck Godfrey said.

Now that the film is finished, Condon is looking forward to the reaction of fans.

“It’s exciting to be able to work on something where every decision is going to be studied and reacted to by a large group of people. It’s something that means so much to people,” Condon said.

Stephenie Meyer

Stephenie Meyer has been involved in the adaptation of her Twilight saga books to film from the very beginning. But on The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2, she has taken on an even bigger role – producer.

“With the first part of the movie coming out, it doesn’t feel like an ending yet. It feels like we’re still going, and I’m not quite sure how it will be when we get to the-end, the-end,” Meyer said.

Even though the Twilight saga films are based on Meyer’s work, Melissa Rosenberg actually wrote the screenplays for all five films. The two worked hand-in-hand to bring Meyer’s books to the big screen. Meyer even says that there were things Rosenberg added in the scripts that she wished she’d thought of for her books.

“To take on these beloved books was quite intimidating. My objective always was that if Stephenie liked it and if Stephenie believed it and approved it – that’s my job, because we’re all just visitors in her universe,” Rosenberg said.

That universe can be expanded in film. The books are written, for the most part, from Bella’s point of view. But one of the advantages of adapting it to film is the opportunity to include other points of view. For example, heroine Bella Swan might hear about something secondhand in the book, but in the movie, the audience sees it as it happens.

Melissa Rosenberg

“Little by little, each movie, we were able to go a little bit further with that. It’s really liberating to do that,” Rosenberg said.

Meyer says that working on the films hasn’t changed her as a writer and storyteller. Instead, she says it’s given her fodder for it.

“It’s all experiences I’ve never had before – new things and different circumstances. So, I think I’ve grown a lot just from the experience. I’ve jumped a lot of hurdles, but I have a lot of new ones. I like feeling like I’ve grown,” she said.

With all the work she put into The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, her expectations of the film were bound to be high. Did director Bill Condon’s work live up to them? Absolutely, she says.

“For me, it was emotional the first time I saw it. You know, you worry. You see good stuff being filmed. You know it’s there. When a movie makes you forget that, and by halfway through, you’re just enjoying the movie and thinking, ‘Wow; what’s next,” then you know it’s really going to be successful. And I think Bill was very successful,” Meyer said.

Donny Broussard: First off I want to say that I think the concept for this film is brilliant. How did you get involved with it?

Nick Hamm: I read Neil McCormick’s book, Killing Bono: I Was Bono’s Doppelgänger, and became fascinated by the story of a failure. He presented an everyman character, whose journey I felt a lot of people could identify with. It was also refreshing to approach to a music film from the point of view of a band not succeeding.

DB: I really enjoyed the way the real U2 advertisements were used in the film, what lead you to use those instead of just photoshopping Martin McCann into them?

NH: I like the idea of mixing both historical fact and dramatic fiction. Some of the incidents in the film are part of rock history. U2 really did do their first audition in Larry’s mom’s kitchen, they really did put a notice on their school’s board inviting people to sign up- these events I wanted to record and show with a level of authenticity. We also made the decision early on to use the original U2 artwork and as Bono was such a famous figure it seemed ridiculous to try to Photoshop an alternative of him into that artwork. We are happy this paid off.

DB: I’m a huge fan of Robert Sheehan. I think he was fantastic in THE MISFITS. Was he your first choice for the role of Ivan?

NH: Yes. Robert was most definitely my first choice for the role of Ivan. His audition blew me away. He is a burst of raw talent combining humor with emotion.

DB: I was so drawn to the story of the brothers that I found them to be extremely endearing. Was it difficult to create that love hate relationship they felt for one another, or did it come naturally for Ben and Robert?

NH: The guys worked a lot together on establishing a very easy brotherly rapport. They spent many months in the recording studio prior to filming and so by the time we began shooting were already close friends. The level of trust that the younger brother gives to his older brother is a very important element in the film and we worked strongly on it.

DB: How long did it take from the time you optioned the book to actually make the movie?

NH: 5 years.

DB: How much say did you have in the development of the script?

NH: Total say.

DB: The visual style of the film works well. I was excited to see a picture that wasn’t filled with flash-cuts. Did you spend a lot of time developing the look of the film or did you let cinematographer Kieran McGuian take the reigns?

NH: Both Kieran and I worked closely on finding a look that would work for the 80s London music scene- brash, colorful but real. The movie both begins and ends in Ireland so the journey of the photography went from a slightly muted realism towards the more theatrical as the brothers moved to London. As far as the rock concerts were concerned we spent a long time telling the story of the brothers inside the music. We were determined that the narrative of the film didn’t stop as the music started.

DB: Part of why this film works so well in my opinion is that it speaks to the inner rockstar in all of us. The struggle of the everyman trying his best to become bigger than life. Did you ever, even if just for a moment during shooting want to jump up on that stage and rock with the cast?

NH: The entire crew rocked with the cast on a regular basis. The amount of time we spent telling people to drop random guitar-like objects and start doing their actual jobs was astronomical. The whole movie is based on the premise that every one of us has, at some point, wanted to be a rock star or at least thought about it. Most of us give up on that ambition, either because we posses no discernable talent or have no stomach for the fight- the interesting element of this story is that he never gave up.

DB: How difficult was it to get the necessary clearances for the U2 music and images?

NH: We had a very friendly and cordial relationship with the Band throughout the production process, they were immensely supportive of the project and helped us out in all kinds of areas. One of my producers on the film was their ex-agent so a level of trust was established early on. We never abused that relationship and never asked for something that we didn’t need. Everybody involved in making the film was a big fan of the band so it worked out well.

DB: Finally, is there anything you’d like to say to the filmgoing public about Killing Bono?

NH: Go see it, enjoy yourself, and relish the pain of someone else’s journey.

Mike Morrissey, director of the much talked about movie BOY WONDER, was at New York Comic Con. After screening his film, I was lucky enough to speak with the director about his film and what’s next in store for him.

Brad Reiter: When watching this film [BOY WONDER] the one thing that stands out is it’s grounded in reality. There have been a lot of made at home super hero movies recently that are more fantastical, like KICK-ASS and even James Gunn’s SUPER to an extent. What made you want to ground the movie more in reality?

Mike Morrissey: I just kind of wanted to have that feeling like I want to believe this stuff. When I read DAREDEVIL, I want to believe that it’s real. I feel like sometimes, even with something like KICK-ASS, they were kind of making fun of us a little bit. You know, “You guys are geeks to believe this.” I wanted to treat it seriously, the audience, how I wanted to be treated. That’s kind of my goal for that.

BR: With movies like KICK-ASS, James Gunn’s SUPER and DEFENDOR, do you feel that with the overabundance of these types of movies coming out, that yours might get lost in the shuffle? Is that something that you’re worried about?

MM: I’m worried about everything [laughs]. Yeah, I’m worried about that. I’m worried about getting compared to them and people not giving it [BOY WONDER] a chance. I even feel like the new trailer feels very commercial, and I think it might turn off some people. But I feel like the fans might get it and they might say, “Hey man, take a look at this film.” I’m hoping that. That’s my goal. But yes, I’m worried about everything.

BR: With a title like BOY WONDER, a lot of people might think, “This is a very super hero-ish movie.” When I saw it, it seemed almost like BATMAN meets Charles Bronson in DEATH WISH. When bringing a movie like this to someplace like a Comic Con or to fans of comic books, are you worried people might think this is some big super hero movie, and walk out thinking, “This is not what I expected” and might turn on it for not being a true super hero movie?

MM: I almost want that. I want them to go in and think. That’s what it is, kind of a misdirection. This is what a super hero would be like, what it would really be like. Everybody says, “Wow, I didn’t expect that.” And I love that. When I go to the movies, I want to see something that I didn’t expect to happen. It’s intentional. If you look at the character Sean, he’s going after bad guys, he’s got a costume, so for all intents and purposes, he is a super hero. But if you watch the movie, you realize, he’s not that. So, I don’t mind that. I don’t mind people getting a little surprise.

BR: Can you speak a little bit about how you came up with the idea for the movie?

MM: I’ve been a fan [of comics] since I was 10 years old. Still, every Wednesday, I pick up my books. When I was younger, I thought I was going to be a super hero. And I remember back to that. I thought that was possible. And I thought this kid who had his mother ripped from him at 10 years old, what if he just stayed there? With that idea in his head. That’s what I’m going to do, and I just kept working on it from there. It’s got to be a twisted process. The kid needs something to focus on. He doesn’t want to focus on his real life, because his real life sucks. So, that’s where it came from. And I was definitely inspired by Frank Miller, I’m a big fan of the comics from the 80s and early 90s. A lot of it came from there.

(left to right: Mike Morrissey, Me)

BR: You had mentioned to me how Caleb Steinmeyer (Sean) and Bill Sage (Terry, Sean’s dad) ended up having a father-son like relationship on the set. Can you talk about the other relationships on the set. Were they able to form similar relationships?

MM: We had such a good cast, and it really has been like a family. We had been together since 2009 when we started casting. We tried to get this movie seen by people and no one picked us up. Zulay Henao (Det. Teresa Aimes), she’s been in a lot of things, she comes to Comic Con and sits here for 3 days and signs all day long. Not for 2 hours at a time, all day long, she sat here and talked to fans and signed because she believes in the movie. Bill Sage, he’s got a role in [HBO's] BOARDWALK EMPIRE now, but I see him all the time, doing interviews for this movie because he believes in it. And Danny Sherman (Det. Gary Stenson), he plays the cop that everybody loved [in the movie], he’s doing stuff on Broadway, he was here last night [at the screening] in the back, and nobody recognized him, because he lost about 100 pounds. But, it’s been a really tight family, it’s been great.

BR: Has there been a release date announced? Were you able to get picked up for a theatrical run? A limited run?

MM: AMC’s taking a shot with us and giving us a theater in New York and a theater in Chicago. It’s kind of like, “Ok, let’s see what you can do.” And that’s for the week of October 21, 5 shows a day. And then October 28, we start and it’s another 5 shows a day for the whole week. And let’s give it up to the fans, we have already sold out October 21 at 8pm. I don’t know where that came from [laughs]. And then we’ll be on Hulu, Video on Demand, all that by November 8th. So, we’ll be available all over the place.

BR: On a personal level, what’s next for you?

MM: I got to go back to paying the bills a little bit [laughs]. Probably doing some tv, but I am working on a movie called MOTHER. That’s more of a horror/thriller, and it’s going to be a pretty creepy film.

After being blown away by Captain America over the summer, I was thrilled to discuss the film’s genesis with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

Adam Cray: I just want to start by saying that I grew up in the 1980s as a fan of the Captain America comics so I thought you both did justice to the character onscreen.

Stephen McFeely: Thank you!

Christopher Markus: Great! Good to hear!

Adam Cray: How did you both initially get involved with the Captain America film?

Stephen McFeely: We chased it! In Spring 2008 we heard they were going to make it. Iron Man had done well and they said we’re going to do these movies leading up to The Avengers and going to make Cap and going to make him “World War II” and we thought that was pretty fabulous! It would solve a lot of problems we had with superhero movies in terms of how earnest the character could be and we chased it down. And it took about six months to convince them but we got the job in late 2008 and got going on it.

Adam Cray: How did the script evolve as you were both working on it? How did the earlier drafts compare to what we saw in the final film?

Christopher Markus: Structurally, it was quite similar beacuse we all agreed that we wanted a long first act so you get to know Steve [Rogers] prior to the Super Soldier Experiment. So you really get a nice long time with just the human so you can understand who’s inside that guy.

Adam Cray: That’s great because you can sympathize with him more.

Christopher Markus: Yeah, exactly!

Stephen McFeely: Because you don’t want to send the message that we should only love people when they get muscles (laughs).

Christopher Markus: “You’re Worthless. I’m Joe!” (laughs) I think at various times we had several outlines where it was more of a two-handed chase for the Cosmic Cube as opposed to the Red Skull having it right from the beginning of the movie. So it was more of a “quest movie” than an “exterminate this threat movie”. I think it shaped out pretty early to what you see.

Stephen McFeely: As far as the end, we knew we had to get to The Avengers so that sort of dictated the third act in a way. We knew Cap had to sacrifice himself and go into the ice and all of that.

Adam Cray: At any stage of the script, was he [Captain America] in the present day for a longer period of time? Was it more “half and half” at any point?

Christopher Markus: I know they’d considered it at one point but by the time we arrived, they were really committed to going full World War II. That’s really what attracted us to it because this is a guy who is only explainable through the prism of WWII. You can’t make Captain America “now”. That would seem to undermine his believability. You have to really be grounded in that [1940’s] period.

Adam Cray: That’s what I love about it, that the majority of the movie is in the 1940’s. My father is also a big fan of the film and a fan of the character and he loves that time period. That all worked out very well!

Stephen McFeely: How old’s your dad?

Adam Cray: He’s 64.

Stephen McFeely: God bless him! That’s great! I don’t get a lot of feedback from older folks. I hear mostly from kids and people my age tell me they liked it, but none saying that my father or grandfather liked it.

Christopher Markus: (Laughs) Grandfathers universally hate it.

Adam Cray: It’d be interesting to hear from someone who read the comic back in the 1940s.

Christopher Markus: It would! Exactly!

Adam Cray: Speaking of that, Cap has 60-70some years’ worth of stories. What were the biggest challenges for you as writers bringing this character to life?

Christopher Markus: It was pretty clear we were going to need to spend a long time on that origin, on him prior. Weirdly, a tough challenge was he’s not a guy who has many faults. He’s not a very conflicted person. He really wants to go fight in the war, he gets a chance to fight in the war and then he goes to fight in the war (laughs) When you see it like that, you ask yourself “Who and where is this character? “ He’s a patriotic boy scout. It was finding the nuances within that very straightforward path took a lot of rewriting.

Stephen McFeely: We gave ourselves permission to not feel obliged to dirty him up and have him learn about the darkness within himself or something. That’s a lot of what, not just modern superheroes, but what modern storytelling is. It wasn’t quite right for Cap or that era.

Adam Cray: You’re working on the Captain America sequel now, correct?

Stephen McFeely: Yes! We are knee deep in it.

Christopher Markus: Knee deep outline!

Adam Cray: Can you give us any tidbits on the sequel?

Stephen McFeely: Hmmmm…Captain America will star! (laughs) I can say that it takes place primarily in modern day.

Christopher Markus: We’re going to expand the world and you’re going to see more things from somewhere in the 70-year palette (laughs) .There’s almost nothing it in that won’t be sourceable to a comic somewhere. So you’ll have to plow through 70 years worth of comics to guess what happens! (laughs)

Adam Cray: (Laughs) Oh, okay. So I have my mission!

Stephen McFeely: (Laughs) “Honey, my Sunday is booked.”

Adam Cray: (laughs) Thank you both so much. I’m psyched for The Avengers and Captain America 2. I wish you guys well!

Both: Cool! Thank you!

Captain America makes its Blu-ray/DVD Premiere on October 25!

Adam Cray: How did you become involved with Julia X 3D?

P.J. Pettiette: My producing partner Claudie Viguerie and I did a picture in Argentina, then a picture I produced in Ireland, so I was looking for something to direct. I had this story idea and I thought “Well, what’s scary to me? Not supernatural.” There are a lot of films and I thought “I’ve done that” so with this one I thought: “If I were a woman and I was on an internet date and I got abducted, I’d be kind of scared…What if I was the woman that got abducted and I turned out to be a serial killer too?” Then we bring the sister into it and she’s crazy. Really, it’s just an internet date that goes from bad to worse to crazy. So, I worked on the story and helped Matt Cunningham write the script and from there we went to production with another producing partner Greg Hall down in Louisiana which is where it was shot. I’m originally from Louisiana so it was good for me to be bringing it home.

Adam Cray: Did the story change much from the early drafts to the final shooting script?

P.J. Pettiette: Not in story structure. I made the decision [to shoot in 3D] not as a gag effect but to immerse you into the story. We don’t use a lot of gags.  It’s more about the tonal use of the 3D and that you get immersed into it. We figured we’re going to be in Louisiana where I’m from so let’s put the Bayou in! Let’s put these other locations in that give you more depth: a foreground, mid-ground, background experience! I really felt that the 3D filled in the blanks. I didn’t want to have a story that had a lot of devices in it or that had a lot of dialogue. So I tried to strip everything out. I don’t know if that always works. I just tried to make it a 3D film that’s a visual experience and that you’re immersed into it.

Adam Cray: Were there any challenges that you had working with 3D?

P.J. Pettiette: We did. We brought everybody down with us because we knew that the 3D had limitations and because the rig is huge. I never shot 3D before. Nobody really knew what the medium was really about. So we brought the editor Rob Neal with us. We had Light Iron in for our post-production. We brought the whole 21st Century 3D crew and I made the stereographer Jason Goodman the D.P.. I think that was one of our smartest moves. We had some other big name director of photography’s but combining those two made it easy for me as a first time director. I felt really comfortable with Jason because he was from NYU and also I knew to check everything with the editor that day to see if we were shooting everything correctly. Also Jeff Gatesman our lighting designer had done My Bloody Valentine so we just tried to put as many people around us (and me) that knew what they were doing. And the actors Kevin Sorbo knows how to take punches and give punches so it was a lot of fun to work with him. There were challenges that led to a lot of great things because it was purely collaborative.

For more info on Julia X 3D, check out the film’s website here.

Killer Film sat in on roundtable interviews for The Thing that took place on the Universal Studios Hollywood lot in Los Angeles, California. The below interviews are with director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., and actors Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Eric Christian Olsen and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.

“I said yes because I love John Carpenter’s version so much. I love the unit paranoia. I watched the Carpenter version to get the layout of the base. When I came aboard it was already a prequel, where you already knew who the thing was. We based our story around all the evidence. We had to stay away from a male lead like MacCready, and we went for a female lead. I like the idea of strong women in films because they have to solve their problems mentally, not physically. The Thing is a physical presence, and she counteracts it with brains. I think it is great to do a movie where you know everyone’s going to die. I like the universal paranoia in Carpenter’s version, like you have a disease inside you. As for practical effects, they only gave us three to four months of prep. In the original they had a year to prep. We were a little rushed, to be honest.  Some things looked good and some thing’s didn’t. As a virus it wants to infect more people. This virus can take over any organism. In my opinion it chose to freeze itself. It is a tiny organism that has no form. It kills the beauty of it if it has an original form. It thrives on the fact it can take any form.”

“Because I’m the leader in the film doesn’t mean I have to have the same traits as MacCready had in the original film. He is a blue collar guy, and I am an intellectual paleontologist. They are very different kinds of people. I accepted the fact that this is a woman is is very serious about what she does. She’s strong. She’s smart. She’s just trying to survive when all this stuff goes down.Ripley is one of the best examples of a smart, badass woman who knows what’s going on and is trying to convince everyone else there is something bad happening. In that sense, Kate is similar. I didn’t try to copy her performance in any way, but it is such an iconic character that you can’t help but have it in the back of your mind. If it was just a straight up remake , it probably wouldn’t have a female lead. The people at Strike Entertainment, who did Dawn of the Dead, they have a way of taking something old and making it new and interesting and being respectful of the material. They were passionate about making it a companion piece, rather than a retread.They did a good job of blending practical and CGI effects.”

“I had seen the original and it scared the crap out of me. My dad has seen the very first one with the claw. He asked my grandpa if he could go and he said, “no!” My dad snuck into this little theater in Minnesota watching the movie behind the chair because he was so scared. He couldn’t sleep for a week. When I told him about this movie he said, “you have to do it.” My favorite version of this genre is thrillers. When they do the blood test in the ’82 version, that is a perfect scene. It’s man versus man. It’s paranoia. It’s about trust and nothing’s happening. All relationships are about who we can trust. When shit falls apart, it’s about what those alliances are and which one’s are going to fail us.That’s why I was so attracted to the ’82 movie and why I was attracted to the prequel we are doing now. My character is not strong enough to exist on his own. There is no flamethrower for me. There is no knife for me. It is making alliances with a stronger character. If you remake The Thing you have a target on your back. I think this movie stands on its own because it’s a prequel. It is more fulfilling if you have seen the original. It pays homage to what Carpenter did.”

“Growing up in England the 80′s, there weren’t a lot of actors that you could aspire to. In Carpenter’s original, you saw a black character living to the end of the movie. Also, they were portrayed as individuals. The casting was great because it was diverse and they were real characters. You remember them because they were real guys. This guy is not dying and he actually has an opinion. It was a huge influence seeing that. I wasn’t stepping in to the Keith David role. I am representing the demographic for African-Americans. You always try to put your own stamp on things. I was very respectful of what was done before. You work with the material you got, as well. It is a very different kind of character. I play a pilot. Being British it was nice to play an American character. With the original producer involved, you knew this movie would be steered in the right direction. With Matthijs directing he makes more of an intellectual with his European influence. You get more vested in the characters as opposed to big bang. The star of the movie is “The Thing”, and we were servicing that. It really was an ensemble and we were making a drama. He wanted to be real with the horror and suspense”

Ben Snow

When producing the mermaids-scenes, what where your inspirations for their movement and the general “look” of the mermaids?

Ben Snow: We wanted to avoid the classic ‘woman in a mono-fin’ that has been seen in past mermaid films so we studied a variety of marine mammals and fish for the motion of the mermaids. We also had synchronized swimmers and professional athletes that we filmed on set to help guide the animation. As for the look, we were trying to create something different than what you’ve seen before but keep it rooted in reality. We used reference of sea life, human skin, etc. and also bought some fish at the fish market and photographed the heck out of them. In the end, the mermaids had a scaly body with a membrane of sheer, almost jelly-fish like, tendrils.

How much influence did filming in 3D have on your workflow, and which problems / possibilities did you have with that?

Ben Snow: We were excited by the prospect of 3D. ILM’s 3D pipeline was fairly solid after our work on Disney’s Star Tours 3D and Avatar, and we did some initial work to make sure the 3D set-up for visual effects was rock solid. Creatively we played with the concept of adding more depth for the underwater scenes. We also made sure we were viewing our work in the largest theater at ILM because with 3D the size of the image is important when reviewing work – we always want to see it as an audience would.

When you are working on an animated character, what is most important to you?

Ben Snow: We want the character to be something unique and fantastic but also rooted enough in reality that it is believable. For the mermaids having the footage of marine animals and the swimmers and actors for reference in the filmed material helped make this possible.

If you compare your work on Pirates of the Caribbean to Iron Man, and before that to The Mummy (for example), what are the most notable differences in your workflow and in the tools you use?

Ben Snow: Pirates had more organic creatures rather than the metallic hard surfaces of Iron Man, so it had some of the challenges of The Mummy. However today’s tools have advanced a long way since I worked on that film. We were still experimenting with facial motion capture on that film and since then it has become a useful and reliable technique. Our abilities to capture the motions of performers on real sets or locations is far more advanced now than what we had for The Mummy. We were able to leverage improvements we had made to those techniques for Iron Man and other films and push them even further to get a seamless blend between the actresses’ bodies and the mermaid tails.

If you compare Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to the other parts of the franchise, where do you think are the main visual differences?

Ben Snow: We were conscious of fitting into the world of the Pirates films and to live up to the quality of the effects that had been established in previous entries. However, Rob Marshall brought his own visual sense to the series. He wanted to be sure that the most fantastical elements also were rooted in reality, and brought a grittiness to the film. He also emphasized the story and characters in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and the visuals, though still high quality, are in more of a supporting role this time ’round – it’s more about the adventure and the story.

What’s the most fun part of your job?

Ben Snow: The best part of my job is coming up with what something is going to look and move like, and then how on earth we’re going to execute it. And the mermaids represented a tremendous opportunity in that way. I’ve been a fan of mermaids for years and particularly liked the fact these were predatory rather than the friendly mermaids. The biggest challenge was maintaining their beauty while making them scary. Working with Rob Marshall, Charlie Gibson and the team to come up with the look was a lot of fun, and the enthusiasm of Astrid Berges-Frisby, who came to ILM and let us photograph and scan her and have her do motion tests to help us make a better mermaid, was infectious. Working out how to best capture the performances on set and apply them to our CG mermaid was very cool because it involved using all our latest motion tracking tools and some new ones we invented as well.

Ben, you have a wonderful career in working with a good number of popular blockbusters but what are your favorite films that you have worked on in your career?

Ben Snow: I loved working on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Even with the challenges of finding the right look for the mermaids. I also had a lot of fun on Galaxy Quest, which is a film I still enjoy watching. The Iron Man films were also a blast because we got to collaborate with Jon Favreau and Marvel in coming up with the filmic persona of a new hero and helped launch a franchise. And my work on Star Wars Episode 2 was both a great opportunity in terms of career and also gave me a lot of freedom to come up with new ways of doing effects because of the sheer amount of the work and the collaborative relationship George Lucas fostered.

Where did you get the ideas for the look of the mermaids from?

Ben Snow: The look of the mermaids followed a lengthy discussion process with Rob Marshall and a lot of concept art exploration. In talking to Rob he showed us some previous design work that had been done as well as some classic paintings of mermaids, underwater fashion photography and even a couple of mermaid pinups. He told Aaron McBride, our VFX art director, and myself what he liked and didn’t like about this material. One image he liked had a woman in a sheer fabric tail that you could still see the outline of her legs through. He also talked a lot about the beauty of Astrid Berges-Frisby and how some of the previous concepts had been too creature-like. At the same time we had been looking at different types of marine life, and trying to tie the mermaid into the marine life feel of previous Pirates characters we wanted to integrate, and also discussed how she might actually transform. So we came up with a slightly scaly body covered with a sheer membrane. The idea was that when she was wet the membrane was transparent and you could see flashes of scales, but as she dried it became more like human skin. It was a fun process to invent the science behind these characters.

During the planning of the scenes, what were your major concerns for the final product?

Ben Snow: Our major concerns were to deliver the best mermaids we could – to try and create definitive filmic mermaids, and to live up to the quality of work that we’ve seen in previous Pirates of the Caribbean films.

Please describe how you used 3D in the effects process. Was it a mixture of conversion and shot-for-3D, and how did you resolve any 3D challenges?

Ben Snow: We made the decision to shoot in 3D early on, so the only conversion we really had was for underwater shots (which all heavily involved digital effects anyway). Something that helped simplify our lives a little bit in dealing with 3D was the decision to shoot with parallel cameras which made it possible to play with the 3D more during the editing process than has ever been possible on previous films. We had several 3D experts on our crew (ILM has been doing 3D projects dating back to Captain EO in the ’80s, and we had one of our senior crew members who’d been at ILM when they were doing that project) and there was a lot of expertise on the Disney/client side.

What kind of education did you get to get where you are today?

Ben Snow: I studied computing in college with a major in film (which was somewhat unusual back then and I had to get special permission). But after a couple of years of working in computing and doing film as a hobby, I actually started in the industry as a runner – delivering parcels and making cups of tea. So it was kind of the school of hard knocks. Luckily for me this was 1988 and The Abyss and Terminator 2 came out within a couple of years of each other and the industry exploded with a need for computer skilled filmmakers.

Normally, ILM works on single characters or effects, but with ”Rango” they did their first complete movie. Would you be tempted to work on such a movie?

Ben Snow: A lot of my friends at ILM had wanted to do an animated film for years, and I’m very happy they got a chance to do so and I am very impressed by the result. I’m more interested in the magic trick aspect of visual effects, in trying to get the audience caught up in the fantasy and wondering later on how we did it. While I prefer effects for live action, I do love animated films and I hope ILM gets to work on another one.

Do you involve the actors in your work and if so, how?

Ben Snow: Yes, we depend upon the collaboration of the actors in our work. One of the sequences we worked on had Jack Sparrow playing with a droplet of water and I had to draw dots on Johnny Depp’s fingers with a sharpie. He was very helpful and tolerant. Johnny and several of the other actors went through an elaborate photographic and scanning process so we could make digital versions of them if needed. For the mermaids, it was even more elaborate but they were great about it. We’d put them in these psychedelic bathing suits we had designed to make tracking them easier and blending the tails with their bodies, and painted dots all over their faces. Astrid Berges-Frisbey (the key mermaid) was a little concerned when we had to paint dots on her face for a key emotional scene (she was originally going to transform at the end of it) but I promised her they’d be painted out and no one would know. Thank goodness for our talented roto and paint crew who were able to paint out every single dot, and in 3D no less.

When you look at all the films you have made, has post production and Visual effects changed its role in film making in general? Has the perception of “those FX-guys” changed to a more creative part in the production, or does it slowly develop into something that is “sourced out and forgotten”?

Ben Snow: We’re still a creative part of production and in some ways have more respect afforded to us in recent years since the visual effects are such a big part of the process now. Of course our credits are still way down in the end of the film and I’m hoping that will change. It’s certainly never outsourced and forgotten because on a project like Pirates the visual effects are such a key part of the film.

In your opinion: when James Cameron and Peter Jackson can convince the industry to go up to 60 frames per second: will this benefit the experience of visual effects, or just make it that much harder for the post-production?

Ben Snow: It will certainly make it harder for post-production. The faster frame rate should make for something that feels more real to the audience but that could make it harder to fool them with our visual effects magic. I’m excited to see the results.

What initially got you interested in visual effects?

Ben Snow: My dad was a film fanatic and we went to the drive-in a lot when I was growing up. But I pin my initial interest in visual effects to finding a book called “Monsters from the Movies” in my high school library and then later in high school reading an American cinematographer article by Dennis Muren about his visual effects photography for The Empire Strikes Back. So I’d say it was a combination of that and an interest in stage magicians of the golden age.

If you have to decide on one single shot that represents the film’s visual effects work, which one would it be and why?

Ben Snow: I’m cheating with two shots. I love the shot where the Queen Anne’s Revenge comes chasing the mermaids belching fire. CG ship, CG fire, CG water and CG mermaids and then panning onto real pirates on a set with a digital extension. It was an exciting shot that used a lot of different techniques. My other favorite is panning down from Syrena to her tail just after Phillip immobilizes her with his sword. Astrid looks great in the shot. The lighting on the tail is lovely and the blend is seamless, so I think it’s a beautiful shot that showcases the mermaid tails nicely.

You have been nominated a few times for an Oscar. Do you feel any pressure to uphold or improve that level of “perfection” in future projects?

Ben Snow: Absolutely. We always try and top ourselves with each project.

Besides the mermaids, you also were involved in the shrinking ships in bottles. What could you explain to us about this?

Ben Snow: This was a fun sequence that was done by our Singapore ILM studio under my supervision. We shot some ships in bottle props on set and then replaced the ships in the closer shots with a full environment with the Black Pearl, stormy CG water, lightning and so on. In one shot we used a real monkey and in others it was a digital monkey.

Did Disney give you any guidelines as to how scary or dark you could go with the mermaids?

Ben Snow: Yes, they actually encouraged us to really explore the scary side. In the end, Rob Marshall decided to reign back a little on the more creaturesque aspects and go for something which preserved more of the beauty of the original actresses. And I think this was the right decision – they still seem plenty scary enough.

When putting the different scenes together – at what point did you switch between the actresses and the swimmer athletes, and how did you comp it together?

Ben Snow: The swimmers were used as a reference guide for our animators adding CG mermaids to shots. We used the actresses when we were closer to the mermaids and added scales, tendrils and tails.

You said that in 3D size is important – concerning that, what are your opinions towards mobile TV / Movies on handheld devices?

Ben Snow: I had a lot of fun playing with the small screens of 3D portable players but I’m not sure how a 3D film would play on them. I think it’s fun but I’d prefer Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides be seen in a theater or on a large 3D television screen and in Blu-ray 3D. That said, I did recently see the film on a plane in 2D and equally enjoyed the story and characters…so it works in any format.

Did a fluid medium (something the normal watcher of a movie doesn’t experience on a daily basis, compared to moving on land) give you a bigger range of possible actions, or do you think that when switching mediums you have to be more constricted to physical possibilities?

Ben Snow: We tried to keep things as physically real as possible but definitely exploited the underwater medium to play with depth and perspective with the mermaids – so it was quite freeing in that way.

Who are your mentors and do you confer with them frequently?

Ben Snow: For Pirates it was great to have John Knoll and Hal Hickel who worked on the previous films at ILM close by. John has been a mentor over the years – he was a supervisor on Star Trek: Generations, which was the first film I did at ILM. Dennis Muren has long been an inspiration and a mentor – he was a big collaborator on Star Wars, Episode II and is someone I can always bounce ideas off of or ask for an opinion.

Its one thing to use ILM’s tracking suits on dry land / on the deck of a ship in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” but quite another to use this kind of technology in a water-filled environment. Can you talk about how you and your team worked around / dealt with these production challenges on “On Stranger Tides”?

Ben Snow: We definitely had to up the ante. While we utilized our patented Imocap suits and technology, we also developed some new tracking approaches for getting a match to the surface (since we had to seamlessly blend skin to skin) and tools for trying to cancel out the refraction of the water.

How much input do directors have in your work? Are some more “hands on” while others give you more freedom to work?

Ben Snow: Some directors are more hands on than others but all have lots of input and the final say. I’ve been lucky that most directors I’ve worked with are very collaborative, inviting us to contribute ideas, using some and rejecting others. It’s all part of the creative process.

What makes a visual effect stunning and memorable?

Ben Snow: For me it’s when the effect is wonderful and fantastical and something that you haven’t seen before. When you either don’t realize it’s an effect or are scratching your head because you know it can’t be real but can’t work out how it was done.

Did you have any conversations with Astrid in regards to the CG component of her character? What she could expect to see in the finished film, etc?

Ben Snow: Astrid came to Industrial Light & Magic for scanning and photography her first day on the film and right from the get go, discussed her character and how we could make the mermaid work well. She was conscious of helping us do our job and even let us re-photograph her later on to help with one of the trickier shots once the filming was done and she happened to be visiting San Francisco and came to say hello. She was a terrific collaborator and making her character Syrena work was something she was passionate about.

What were the visual effects created by Industrial Light & Magic besides the amazing mermaids?

Ben Snow: We did the ships in bottles, the fountain of youth scenes, Blackbeard’s death, a bunch of digital matte paintings for the island and the mermaid cove. We also supervised work done at Scanline VFX in Germany on the sequences when Jack Sparrow had drops of water dancing on his fingers and the animated water as they enter the fountain.

What proved to be the biggest challenge in the making of the mermaid scenes?

Ben Snow: The biggest challenge was the creative one of how much to play them as creatures and how much as human. Ultimately, Rob Marshall decided to keep them as human as possible, and that was itself a huge challenge because of a phenomenon that they call “The Uncanny Valley” in robotics. The more human something artificial starts looking, the creepier it looks. So it was a lot of work to make the CG mermaids more and more human looking, changing their seaweed hair to human hair and their faces to matching the actresses more exactly.

What do you do when you want to create a certain effect in a film and you don’t have the technology to obtain that effect? Was there ever the case?

Ben Snow: A big part of the fun of my job is coming up with the technology to achieve a certain effect. Luckily I work with an amazing group of people here at ILM and I don’t think we would ever turn down a challenge.

Do you have any anecdotes that you can share about the Mermaid Lagoon shoot on the back lot of Universal Studios Hollywood?

Ben Snow: We had a great time working on the mermaid lagoon, surrounded by the lovely mermaid actresses and swimmers. My colleagues who got to apply our motion tracking bands to the mermaid costumes told me I’d given them the greatest job of their careers. The mermaids all knew their names and would call out friendly greetings as they were working around the set, arousing the envy of the rest of the crew. It was also a blast working at Falls Lake in the middle of Universal Studios and being part of the studio tour as we were setting up for the evenings work.

What advice would you give to someone who dreams about wanting to get a job in the visual effects industry?

Ben Snow: Don’t give up! I was a dreamer for many years. I started in the industry at the bottom as a runner and then worked my way up. Try and get the skills you think would help but most importantly, grab a video camera and make movies with your friends, at school, etc. You really have to love this job because of the hours and the stress but it is immensely rewarding.

After working in the ‘Iron Man’ franchise, with cold technological armors, you had to deal with mermaids in ‘Pirates’. How it was the experience? Where did you find the main challenges in a first approach?

Ben Snow: It was great to work on an organic creature again after all the metal of Iron Man and Terminator. But like Iron Man, we had to use the best of our existing on-set tracking tools and invent a few new ones to match the bodies to the performers but in this case it was the surface of their skin. We also had to create skin, hair and everything else that goes into an organic creature, which is a different set of challenges to a metal suit.

You used a hybrid approach for the mermaids, with CG and real action performance. Was it particularly complicated to find the right balance? How did you create these mermaids?

Ben Snow: It was complicated, and a big creative question we struggled with. Ultimately Rob Marshall decided to go with more human mermaids and we used the actresses when we had them, got a couple of the mermaids back to film them for a couple of shots that had been more creaturesque, and put all our skills with creating digital doubles to use. We used every trick in the book – match-animation, facial motion capture, digital skin and a lot of compositing techniques with splashes and fog to make it all hang together.

Ben, any final thoughts that you’d like to share on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides?

Ben Snow: I’ve really enjoyed the questions in this roundtable session, so thank you all. I loved the chance to create our version of the mermaids for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. There were definitely some big challenges but I’m happy with the results and am very glad that audiences around the world have embraced the film, and the mermaids. Although I’d warn people to be careful about embracing mermaids as the movie shows.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides arrives on DVD/Blu-ray/3D Blu-ray on October 18th.

Martin Scorsese was about to unleash his brutal, psychological crime film in Taxi Driver upon the world, a shining symbol of great auteur film-making during the independent renaissance America experienced during this decade. Yet, Taxi Driver would be just another tale of the underbelly of the Big Apple, a city drenched in rising crime for the next 20 years, and the source of many dark tales. New York films laced with crime kept popping up in theaters from Scorsese, Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon), Bill Lustig (Maniac), Michael Winner (Death Wish), and of course, 1981′s Ms. 45, a film that has become a modern underground classic, and highly influential to this day.

While we will always associate NYC with Scorsese, Lumet, and Woody Allen, why not add indie director Abel Ferrara to that list, with his brilliant tales of New York City in Ms. 45, Bad Lieutenant, and King of New York? Killer Film catches up with the director for a special look back at Ms. 45 in the latest edition of Action Packed Flashback.

“Nick [St. John] and I grew up together, since we were kids, like 14 or 15,” Abel Ferrara says about the origin of the film. “After we finished Driller Killer we started the script and finished it. It’s pretty much the movie you saw.” Of course, keen cinema fans back then had Abel Ferrara on their radar, since his debut film; 1979′s Driller Killer went on to become one of the first video nasties in the UK, and the teaming of St. John and Ferrara on Ms. 45 would prove to be another violent collaboration. The film centers on Thana, a mute girl who while walking home one sunny day in the Garmet District is horribly raped twice by two random, unrelated strangers. Thana’s mental stability wanes, as she has repeated nightmares of her attackers. Much like the spree killings of Aileen Wuornos a few years later, when Thana fears another would-be attack (mostly created out of fear), she keeps her second assailant’s .45 caliber M1911A1 pistol and acts out a vengeance spree against all men, creating a fine line between her quest for vengeance and herself becoming worst than her attackers. What Ferrara had to do now, was cast his Thana. “The tough thing about it now was to find the right girl. Imagine that movie with the wrong actress? Forget get about it.”

“Zoe [Lund] at that time was a 17-year-old going to Columbia University on a scholarship,” Ferrara recalls on his young actress. “The guys who did Saturday Night Fever did this world search for girls, when we were starting our movie. I knew some of the guys doing the casting, and they said: Listen, we met a really interesting chick, but she’s too wacky for us. So she was found through a million dollar casting call, I didn’t have to pay for.” Zoe had the sweet, young cherub appeal needed to act out her vengeance in disguise. “Back then, she was young and wasn’t into drugs yet. She was very talented. She also wrote Bad Lieutenant with me later down the road. It was too bad that drugs sidetracked her. She had a very bad heroin habit, where she died from it. Very brilliant, talented writer, and that killed her. She thought she was tougher than the drug, you know what I mean? Heroin is not a drug to play around with.” Zoe died in Paris from heart failure on April 16th, 1999.

Despite Ferrara’s past in pornography, he handled the two rape scenes with grace and respect, something some of the other rape/revenge films like I Spit on Your Grave didn’t do so well. “The rape scenes? She was young, and handled it well. We protected her. It’s a movie. What, are we gonna really rape her? She was just cool on set.” The film concludes with a climatic Halloween party shoot-out, where Thana is hit on by her boss and takes her pain out on him, and every other man at the party, only to be stabbed and taken down by a woman, in a cleverly handled bit of thematic reversal. “It was an era of feminism too, using the word “Ms.” in the title. Why was there a difference in Mister vs. Miss? There’s no differentiators when you use Mister. He could be married or not, so why with a women is she married or not?” asks Ferrara.

The film was also known as Angel of Vengeance. “In Europe, they just throw those titles on. I guess it was too hard for the guys in Europe to figure why we used Miss in the title. And this Angel of Vengeance is kind of a wacky title,” laughs Ferrara. “I don’t even know what it means. An angel seeking vengeance is like an oxymoron to me.”

“In 1975, New York almost went bankrupt. The police weren’t there to protect. New York was a much more dangerous place and that was the reality we where working with at the time. The cops didn’t need you and you better have not needed them. It was the wild, wild West,” explains Ferrara on what was going on culturally in New York that became the source of inspirations for the many dark crime films like Taxi Driver, Death Wish, and his Ms. 45. “There just wasn’t enough support for the police, even though in reality, they needed to handle the crime. Everyone had to handle their own personal safety, you know vigilantes, so you better knew how to protect yourself. From a filmmakers point-of-view, this was a fantasy we played with. Imagine someone hurting your family? What would you do? And you had to come to terms with some of its themes, what’s it about. In this film, obviously, she comes under the power of the gun.”

Since its release, Ms. 45 has had a rough ride on home video. Being bounced around from U.S.A. Home Video to Warner Bros. (who own the rights to the film), to the now out-of-print Imagine Entertainment DVD release, most of these are the edited version. “I wasn’t aware of some of [its home video edits],” recalls Ferrara. “There’s an X-rated version out there that we edited. We have the original cut. With the censor boards back then, it was a real nightmare for an independent to get an X. We couldn’t advertise it with an X. You know, we couldn’t advertise Ms. 45 in the Sports section with an X. Can you imagine that? An X was also used for studios to keeps us independents out of the marketplace. No studio films ever got an X.”

While Ms. 45 might have been forgotten by most mainstream movie fans, Neil Jordan’s 2007 film, The Brave One, heavily borrows elements from Ms. 45, an idea stemming back to 1972′s Death Wish. “It’s like in Death Wish with Charlie Bronson. So this is like a female Death Wish.” The film premiered on April 24th, 1981.

Until the next flashback…

Jon: You’ve played villains before in Chronicles of Riddick as Lord Marshall and in Nuremberg as Rudolf Hoess. What appealed to you to play King Laufey of the Frost Giants?

Colm Feore: Bottom line: It’s my face. I got to make my peace with this, as it’s what gets me cast. When I got cast as Lord Marshall for Riddick, David Twohy cast me, as I believe, from Storm of the Century, even though I was in old aged make-up. That’s part of it. I look like this, either severe or serious. I hope there’s a humanity and an understanding that goes farther for the character than they imagined. For me, it’s fun because you have to ask yourself darker questions. Playing the bad guys are so much more darker and interesting, don’t you agree?

Jon: Lord Marshall was just pure evil, plain and simple, yet Laufey is more subtle in his evilness…

Colm Feore: He’s damaged. His people have been overrun, defeated, what they cherish the most has been stolen. It’s easy to look at Odin because it’s Anthony Hopkins, who’s warm, fuzzy, and heroic, a grandfather type of figure. But in fact, he was making war, raging and pillaging. The Asgardians ran amok in our world, and we’ve had enough! I lost a son and all kinds of power has been taken away. If you understand Laufey as a damaged character, then suddenly from an actor’s point-of-view, it’s more fun to play as you mentioned, much more subtle.

Jon: Defiantly is. Was the make-up restricting? I’m sure you had to rely on your theater background to show these subtle gestures that speaks volumes.

Colm Feore: Those guys at Legacy FX are geniuses. The material they made allowed what I was doing underneath to register. It was 5 1/2 hours to get into it. Once I was in, it was very manipulable. These 17 facial pieces are glued on, so if I move, they moved too. It probably wasn’t as easy as I’m making it out to be, but it wasn’t impossible like a rubber bag over my head. You’re right, I did rely a lot on my theatrical background, and also relied on Kenneth Branagh. I trusted him to tell him to try more, try less. We had a great relationship. He was enormously careful putting me into the make-up, only if we needed me to be. He was very militant about it. I could work really, really hard and have it not wasted.

Jon: Laufey is a lot like the Frankenstein Monster. Evil on a surface level, yet there’s more depth than that. Can you talk about working with director Kenneth Branagh to create this fantastic character, even though the script seemed like it must have be great to begin with?

Colm Feore: Oh, he kept working on the script to get it right. He used the scars on Laufey’s chest to help tell the story of this wonderful creature. It was designed into this mold of me, along with the inspiration of a naked Iggy Pop. If you take a half-naked Iggy Pop and start slashing across his body, so all of those scars you see on me are relics of battles he’s won and lost. He wears his history on his skin. Ken and I were talking about this in grand Shakespearean terms, so we had this short-hand. Go to this place. Play it like this character. Yes. Yes. So this gave us the flexibility to get this depth. Let’s be honest, you don’t have all the time in the world to shoot these things. I trusted him enormously. He build this cinematic vocabulary that only we knew to create Laufey.

Jon: I’m glad you brought up these Shakespearean elements. I think it gets thrown around too often in reviews, but there was in Thor...

Colm Feore: Don’t get me wrong. Tony Hopkins, myself, and Branagh have got about 130 years of Shakespeare between us. We all played Macbeth, Romeo, Hamlet, so we could talk about these big ideas, these poetic, huge ideas, and easily come to an understanding because of this familiarity. All Kenneth had to do was to say Hamlet Act II, Scene I and I knew what he was talking about. Hopefully, the audience simply understands there’s something deeper going on with the characters. It’s not a cartoon by any stretch of the imagination. It can be exciting and a thrill ride, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be grounded into something deeper.

Jon: Was it fun to have your 10 year reunion of Titus with Anthony Hopkins in Thor?

Colm Feore: It was fantastic, even though he’s a lot older now than then. He’s a wonderful actor and a really nice man, on top of the brilliance of who he is. He’s a lovely guy. He has a reputation of being rather good, but he’s keen to make everyone else around him comfortable.

Jon: Speaking of good, to us audience members he was an unknown, Tom Hiddleston was a surprise as Loki. You had some great scene of verbal chess with Loki. Talk about working with him and why has he just exploded onto the scene?

Colm Feore: Well, as Ken said, he landed a part in War Horse for Spielberg, he’s gone galactic. He’s smart, and charming. It’s not rocket science: if you’re smart, ready to work, and an agreeable person, you can go along way. Ken first bumped into him in London on a play and told him he thought he was perfect as Loki. You talked about our battle of wits, Tom was ready to play that, especially when his character learns his origins and blood ties to the Frost Giants. Tom made my job easier, being on top of his game.

Thor is out on 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD on September 13th.