Set Visit: Fantastic Four 2

Back
in November, I was granted with the privilege to visit the set of FANTASTIC
FOUR: THE RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER amidst production in
Vancouver (check out some cool new pictures from the film HERE).
Needless to say, I was thrilled to play witness in some real
butt-kicking action by the comic book superheroes. Uniting their
extraordinary powers, the Fan Four are coming back in an effort to
continue fighting Dr. Doom and other evil forces attempting to cause
havoc in the world. Congregated in a gigantic green screen studio,
we sat with eager anticipation as the Fan Four joined us for an
entertaining press conference.

The
all-star cast was as attractive as I presumed. Each actor blessed
with his own unique blend of good looks and charm, and if
imaginable, Jessica Alba even more beautiful in person than
on-camera. Based upon the ongoing, funny chitchat among the cast, it
became apparent that the actors shared the type of camaraderie,
which would never result in a dull day on the set.
‘Dr. Doom’ led the press conference with his amusing and
sometimes distracting banter, which remained dominant throughout the
interesting interview process.

Check
out what Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Julian McMahon, Ioan Gruffudd
and Michael Chiklis had to say about their upcoming sequel FANTASTIC
FOUR: THE RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER.

Julian, can you tell us about the new and improved you? Will you have the
pleasure of being more evil this time?

Julian
McMahon (JM): I didn’t know I was.
I think that’s just part of my personality and after doing
the movie the first time, I just became a bit of an asshole.
I portrayed that in the evilness of this character.
He’s just a little bit more evil because he’s coming back
for revenge, I think and then we have the new suit, which is pretty
kind of extraordinary. I
just wore it for the first time last week.
It looks amazing. I
can’t tell you too much about it but it’s very evil, but at the
same time it’s not that evil.

I
always pictured this movie as kind of a kid’s movie, so you
don’t want to be that evil that the little kiddies can’t be
watching it, but it’s been fun. I
haven’t been here the whole time like these guys have.
I’ve been footing in and out, because I’ve been shooting
my TV show at the same time, so I haven’t been as immersed in it
this time around as I was the last time around, but it’s been good
fun and it’s been evil.

Can each cast member talk about what’s new or different with your
characters this time around?

Chris
Evans (CE): I think everyone has a pretty good art.
They make sure everyone has a journey and I think in the
first one Johnny was kind of a one man show and wanted centre stage
and I think the reason the Fantastic Four have always succeeded as a
group of superheroes and as a comic book is that they’re a family,
they’re a unit, they’re a group.
I think Johnny has to know and respect that and I think in
this movie he learns to appreciate the relationships around him.

Jessica
Alba (JA): Nothing’s changed
[laughs]. No, I have
longer hair, kidding, and we’re much more mature in our characters
as superheroes, and so this definitely is a product of that, this
movie. We’re all very
much a family. We all live together and we’re getting married
[Reed and I]. That’s
sort of the centrepiece for my character in this movie.
It’s all about the wedding.
She’s sort of ‘Bridezilla’ in the best way.
She’s stressed and it has nothing to do with you Julian.
Yeah, getting married, not you [speaking to Julian], to him
[pointing at Ioan].

Ioan
Gruffudd (IG): Yes, finally Reed Richards has taken centre stage and
about time too really. He’s
come more to the forefront. He’s
much more comfortable with his role as the leader and as the sort of
father figure really of the family and I’m delighted about that.
It’s an lot more interesting character to play, compared to
the first one where he was a little bit more nerdy or dorkish.

Now
this time I’m stepping up to the plate and becoming the leader,
and of course our relationship between Sue and I is much more
intimate and much more real. It’s
more three- dimensional. It’s
more developed and evolved and an interesting point that Jessica
brought up about the fact that we’re much more comfortable now at
being superheroes. We
are actors and people watch us do our work, and we’re commodities.
Fantastic Four appreciate themselves to be commodities and
are able to sell themselves as commodities as well as being
superheroes. So that’s
an interesting aspect of it.

Michael
Chiklis (MC): I don’t know
how much I have to add. They’ve
covered pretty much everything but as far as The Thing is concerned,
he’s taken another step in his relationship with Alicia in this
picture and he’s a more lovable curmudgeon.
If Reed Richards is the leader and the brain of this outfit,
I would think that Ben Grimm would be the heart.
He’s a lovable curmudgeon.
He’s come to grips much more with his malady of being a
superhero and he’s also a lot of the conscience and strength of
the group, and as a complement to everybody else’s function.
I’ve always thought like Chris said, the Four separately
are fantastic, but together they’re obviously they’re much more
powerful as a group.

Michael,
can you talk about the changes and improvements that have been made
to your suit? What can
we expect from The Thing this time around?

MC:
In the first film, I talked a lot about ad nauseam actually, to the
point where I couldn’t even stand to hear my own voice about it.
It was a pretty uncomfortable situation and it was a main concern
for me coming into this one that it not be the same, because it was
very experimental and there wasn’t enough time to really look into
it. The last [suit]
didn’t have a pant zipper, so it just made it into a 45 minute
ordeal to urinate, frankly sorry.

JA:
Make sure you put that into print.

MC:
Yeah that’s lovely, so there were things, like the heat,
the heaviness. Although the hero suit itself isn’t much improved,
meaning when I’m dressed in the Fantastic Four garb, that you
really can’t fake because he is bare chested and that one
fortunately I’m only in about 25% of the movie in that one, but in
the rest of the movie, and it’s quite really cute I think when you
see him in the tuxedo for instance.
So when I’m dressed in wardrobe.
It just creates the appearance of bulk without the intense
discomfort and it’s able to come off and on very, very quickly.
So this has been a markedly more comfortable experience and
much more helpful frankly.

Can each
of you discuss what this movie means to you?

JM:
I feel a bit repetitive because this is obviously the second
time around and I’m going to repeat myself, but I was a big fan of
the comic book and the cartoon.
So I always thought Dr. Doom was the most evil guy on the
planet until Darth Vader came along and then I thought Darth Vader
was. Then they were kind of one and the same in a way, and so to be
able to play that character and to play in that genre and it’s a
superhero genre. I mean
it’s ridiculous, you know, it’s just fun and as an actor, and
particularly playing the evil guy you get to just do silly fun
stuff.

MC:
It’s about a dysfunctional family and their relation to it.
People relate to it because they all have their own
dysfunction in their own families, so it would be hard to find a
family that isn’t dysfunctional.

JM:
It’s also comic book.

MC:
Yeah it is, so it is fun.

CE:
Yeah I agree with that. I
think this was a great opportunity to play a superhero.
It’s kind of every boy’s dream, so in that regard it was
a great character to land, but any film that’s this big and this
exposed, it’s good to kind of get your face out there and have
with meetings like this, a lot of things.
It’s just a good opportunity.
It enables future work. It
helps prolong any potential career that you might be able to have.

JA:
Which he might be able to have…God forbid ‘cause you just
have nothing going for you [joking.]
Just good looks. He’s
actually a really good actor, in case you guys were wondering.
For me, I think just being part of a comic book movie that
appeals to family is kind of a big deal, and being able to play a
female character that is so strong and so dominant, and doesn’t
use her sex appeal to get ahead and she’s not a villain, she’s
not nasty, she’s quite a noble character to play and that’s
great. I think it’s a
great female icon.

IG:
Personally it’s sort of seeing myself, the image of myself
that I would desire to have when I was watching these sort of movies
as a kid. It literally
is a dream come true to play a heroic part and to play a superhero
was just a little extra bonus I think.
So it’s just seeing that childhood dream come true.

JA:
We laid the carpet for you guys.
Rolled out the best [laughs].

MC:
The Fantasticar is pretty fantastic and I’d love to have
one of those, but this breaks up into parts; into individuals which
is pretty awesome. This is mine right behind me and they all come
together into one. Yeah,
it’s kind of macho actually. Put
together, it’s going to look phenomenal.
The first time I looked at it, I was excited.
I’m a car guy. I
like cars and this one flies. I’d
like to cruise around in this if they can get it to work.

JA:
It made me a little sick actually when we were shooting.
I got a little nauseous in all honesty.
We actually spent a lot of time in the car and filmed full
days in the car, doing a lot of the virtual stuff, or CGI stuff.
What is it like a Back to the Future ride?
It’s similar to Universal Studios Back to the Future ride
really, going down, going up…

Ioan,
what’s it like being a British actor in a big budget Hollywood
movie but not being the villain?

IG:
Well, I’m delighted to be able to break that tradition
really of having a Brit or a person who isn’t American playing the
bad part. I’m very
proud of the fact that I’ve immersed myself into an 100% American
character, and that was a major desire of mine as an actor moving to
Hollywood, that I was to be believable as an American.
I didn’t want any attention brought to me to the fact that
I was a British actor. I’m
an actor period. So I am
very proud to have this opportunity and I’m Welsh.

JM:
Does that mean that I haven’t broken any moulds?
Is that what you’re trying to say by that? [joking]

IG:
No, I was just saying…

JM:
No, no that’s fine. I’m
cool with that. I’m
just the standard round the mill whack job who just got a job
because you came from another country.
Okey dokey big smokie.

IG:
No, but you’ve had your chance on your own show, haven’t
you? You’ve proven
yourself as an American on your show.

JM:
[Pretends to whisper] Let’s not talk about my show. It’s
got nothing to do with what we’re doing here.

In regards
to the Silver Surfer, how do you work with an invisible actor on set
and how that’s played out?

JM:
We can’t talk too much about the Silver Surfer, but he does
look really good. That’s
just what we do on green screen.

CE:
No, there’s somebody there.
Doug Jones just wears the body suit.
That cat’s been out of the bag for a while so if I wasn’t
supposed to say it, someone should have told me that a while ago.

IG:
It’s the same essence as what Andy Serkis did with Gollum.
He was there for the off camera work, and Doug is there for
our off camera work. So
we just have a physical presence there to work with.
He has dialogue and it’s good to bounce off a real person,
rather than a tennis ball with an X on it.

JM:
And sometimes though I’ve done some scenes where he
hasn’t been there, and I like the tennis ball.
I do. It’s so
good having no other actors. There
are no arguments. You
can do what you want.

JA:
You get to be the centre of attention Julian.

JM:
With all those fight scenes, you guys have no idea what I did
huh? Just one tennis
ball there, another tennis ball over there.
That’s Ioan, that little tennis ball over there.
I’m going to burn that one.

Speaking
of special effects, has it gotten any easier to work with effects
the second time around, or is it just as challenging?

MC:
No, I think we’ve all gotten better at it.
It’s moving more smoothly.
There’s more of [CGI] than there was in the first one.

IG:
There’s certainly a lot more green screen this time around
and to be perfectly honest the preparation for that sort of process
is to get yourself a lot of DVD’s and a lot of Playstation games,
because you’re going to spend a lot of time in your trailer.
But that’s just the nature of green screen, because it’s
so precise and it’s such an art in that sense, that it takes so
long for them to set it up, just for one particular shot and then
you come onto the set, and you’re quite literally working for two
or three takes, which took about maybe ten minutes, and they’ve
set it up for the last hour and a half.
So I tell you what, my hat goes off to those guys who did all
the Star Wars movies totally against the green screen, because at
least we have the organic nature of working with sets and tangible
things, compared to just a green canvas.

JM:
It’s also a different type of performance.

MC:
This isn’t what I would refer to as an actor’s piece.

JM:
Speak for yourself buddy. I’ve
done some of my best work being evil.

MC:
It requires skills as an actor, absolutely.
That’s not what I’m saying.

JM:
I think it’s a different type of skill.
If you have to work on green screen, it’s a different type
of skill as if you have to work in a house, in a kitchen with other
people. Actually I think that
it’s very developmental in regards to the way you start to think
about things. Once
you’re working on green screen, you are looking at tennis balls,
you are looking at an X marks, you have to create it all in your
head. And like [Ioan]
said, take your hats off to all these Star Wars guys and Harrison
Ford is flying down with Chewbacca behind him and I mean that’s
pretty good effort. It
definitely creates another part of your brain…

MC:
You have to be in touch with your child.

JM:
Yeah, and the fantasy of the whole thing, flying through
space or flying through the air or in a car like this and there’s
an imagination that goes along with that.

IG:
It heightens your concentration.
I think that’s what it does, because you are searching for
things that aren’t physically there.
It really somehow weirdly gives you a real focus, because you
have to focus on things that aren’t there and it really
concentrates your mind and I think it will add to all these
sequences when you see us so concentrated and so involved that we
believe that we are flying this car and being tossed around by Doom.
If we don’t believe it then the audience won’t believe
it.

Michael,
going back to the suit and the Fantasticar, what kind of a
challenge do you find when getting inside the car in your suit?

MC:
I guess these movies from a lot of the questions I’ve
fielded, and I guess part of it is my own fault.
I brought it on myself and it’s been about discomfort.
But I have to say, last week I got to work with a ten foot
tall, 1650 pound Kodiak bear and that’s one of the reasons why I
love this business, is because that’s something you don’t get to
do in life, to stand in front of a predator six feet away like that.
In spite of whatever discomfort I’ve had to go through,
it’s been quite exhilarating sometimes and getting into the
Fantasticar is just a matter of they’ve made a huge bucket seat
for me. I fit in there
fine, so they’ve accommodated me in whatever ways they’ve been
able to, to make it livable. So
it’s been fine.

This is a
sequel and the first time around is an adventure.
The second time around, how do you as an actor find the
seriousness in the part, when you’re doing a sequel with all the
visual effects and the comic book storyline?

MC:
Frankly in the first one I had a much more serious story line
totally. I was a guy trapped
in a body he didn’t want to be in and I had much more of a
conflict in that way. In
this one it’s very light for me, so you can probably do better for
one of the other guys to answer that.

IG:
I think there’s a practicality of it.
Because we have done the first movie, we’re setting up the
story in the first movie. There
wasn’t much scope for adventure. We
were explaining to everybody who we were, introducing ourselves.
Now we start the movie. Everybody
knows who we are. We
start the adventure almost immediately, so in that sense it’s a
massive step forward but as far as the acting and I think to go back
to your question, it’s a pleasure to come back to a character,
having played it once. It’s
a luxury. You don’t
get to do that unless you’re in a show or in a series, and to do
that on screen in a movie like this, it’s a great feeling.
It gives you a lot of confidence and I’ve evolved over the
last two years, and that will in turn feed and bleed into the
character of Reed Richards.

JA:
To be honest, as silly, big, comicbookie and CGI everything
is, we really play it for real and with as much conviction and
sincerity as anybody would be in those circumstances.
Like Ioan said, there’s been a two year gap where I’ve
been able to do a few things as well and I think where you’re
growing as a person, as an actor will definitely help you in doing
the next movie and if we get to do a third one, we’ll be even more
evolved hopefully as people and as actors.

CE:
I agree. I think that
I’ve never had an opportunity to work on a sequel, even working on
television, playing character and having an opportunity to see the
way you portray it, see the way it came to life and refine your
approach. This has been
a great opportunity, regardless of the genre, whether you have a
children’s movie or an action film or a deep thinking piece.
It’s exciting to get back in the saddle, to try and adjust
what you don’t think worked and make better what you think did.
So regardless of whether the script is directed towards
children or adults or silly or whatever, I was excited to get back
in the saddle.

MC:
I’m regressing. I’m
not evolving. (laughs)

JM:
What was the question? Oh
yeah, yeah, that’s our job, to take it seriously.
I know it’s a kid’s movie and it’s a popcorn movie and
all that kind of stuff but to make it bad you have to take the job
seriously. So if I’m
in a situation where it’s funny, then you have to make it funny.
If I’m in a situation where it’s dramatic, you have to
make it dramatic, an dramatic can be funny sometimes and all that
kind of stuff. So it’s
just like any other job. You
just have to take a script, work with it any way you can, work with
your other actors, you work with the director and you come up with
something that’s hopefully plausible and hopefully something
sticks to the screen, and everybody goes, ‘Well I believe that
we’re in that moment in time.’

All of you
have specific powers. Can you
discuss if they will be different in this film?

IG:
I don’t think the powers are the same.
They are limited in that sense, to our own individual powers.
What’s interesting is the psychological aspect of it that
we are presented with the character of the Silver Surfer who is
rather ambiguous. We are
not sure whether he is good or evil, so that’s more of a challenge
this time I think for the characters.
Of course there’ll be lots of Fantastic special effects and
myself stretching and catapulting objects and Sue protecting us in
her invisible sphere and Johnny flying and chasing the Silver Surfer
and all sorts, and Ben scaring away bears.
The interesting part is that psychological element.
How do we work as a team against this other force, coupled
with Dr. Doom. So the challenge is twice as much this time.

JM:
We have to be pretty specific to the original comic in a way,
so it’s not like we can just come up with powers that weren’t
already there. So it’s
an enhancing of the story line and an enhancing of all the powers.
I do come back and try to get more power, which I do get for
a period of time, and at the end of the movie I kill them all
[laughing.]. Aww, I’m
sorry. Take that back!
[joking]

JM:
So they already are what they are and they can just be
enhanced by certain things and the Silver Surfer obviously everybody
knows about that and so he comes in and he throws things into the
mix, and I don’t know if you know the comic book very well, but
the Silver Surfer’s got some pretty extraordinary powers and
it’s something to behold and something to reckon with if I get
hold of it, and something different if they do, so it’s that kind
of battle to a certain extent.

MC:
We never really touched on it.
The fact of the matter is in the first piece, it’s an
origin piece. We can
jump right in now and the stakes are raised.
Now we’re introduced to another character, the Silver
Surfer, his powers are enhanced and now we have a bigger challenge
on our hands and we can jump right into it.
So it’s bigger. It’s
better.

JA:
I think the difference as far as the powers go.
We all like they were saying have the same powers, it’s
just integrated into our day to day life, so it may have been a big
deal if Johnny can toast his own toast, now it isn’t.
We don’t care anymore.
Or if I turn things invisible, it’s like, ‘make it
reappear Sue’ or whatever, ‘well listen to me then.’
It’s just a bit
more integrated I guess.

CE:
Jess took my answer. There’s
just more of a practical approach of the powers, more comfortable
than with the first one. We
were clunking around and figuring it out, but now we’ve got it
down.

You said
that the script references celebrity in some way and that the
superheroes are now really famous.
Jessica, what are your feelings on the celebrity status of
these characters in the script and are they accurate in terms of
what celebrity status has done for or to you?

JA:
Well, I hate everyone now and I don’t know my family
anymore and I just live in a cage really.
I only walk out when I’m in full hair and make up and I’m
ready to do press conferences, really.
Yeah, okay, next [kidding around].
No, really it just shows that they still want to be human
beings. They still want
a very regular family life and unfortunately when you’re under a
microscope, everyone’s very critical of your version of what that
means, and so people are picking them apart and putting them on
pedestals and lifting them up and tearing them down for newsworthy
sound bites and they’re like, “But we’re still human beings.

We
just want a family. We
just want to be married.” Unfortunately
they can’t because they are superheroes and they have to sacrifice
their regular life for that. In
turn, in wanting to be an actor and losing your anonymity a bit, but
it only means as much as you want to give them.
If it really matters that much whether someone’s hair is
messed up or not or whether you’re wearing the right boots for the
season, or whether you’re out partying too much…who cares.
And I think it just really depends on how much weight you put
on it.

IG:
That was very eloquently put. I
think also for the Fantastic Four there was no choice in the matter,
with these guys. These powers were thrust upon them.
There’s a certain element of choice of being an actor.
You are going to be in the public eye and therefore you have
to take on that responsibility and I think the Fantastic Four, as
much as they’ve capitalised on their fame, their marketing
themselves, there’s a certain amount of responsibility and you
can’t have your cake and eat it.
So that is actually brought up in the movie and it’s a very
interesting subject.