“The Insider” is with Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Akerman and Patrick Wilson of the highly anticipated big-screen adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel ‘Watchmen,’ in theaters everywhere Friday, and one thing seemed to be very consistent on their minds: whether or not they were familiar at first with the source material, the actors quickly learned how important ‘Watchmen’ is to the fans, and they’d better not screw it up!
“You’re thrown into the fire with this one,” Jeffrey (who plays The Comedian) explains. “You learn rather fast that this is kind of the top of the pyramid of this genre. One Google search and you know that you’re doing the ‘Citizen Kane’ of graphic novels and it’s quite a humbling experience figuring that out and then having that pressure going into the film.”
“When you’re adapting such a great graphic novel, you want to be as faithful as you can,” says Patrick, aka Night Owl. “It became our bible; I studied it frequently.”
“I was never a real comic fan, so it’s an absolutely amazing book to read as your first graphic novel,” says Jackie, who plays Rorschach. “It’s kind of started me down that road of realizing, ‘Oh wow, this isn’t like a little kids’ medium; this is thought-provoking stuff.”
Malin, aka Silk Spectre II, says, “It’s sort of an exploration of humanity at its worst and at its best. It’s more a character-driven film than anything else.”
“I think the comic book itself is special because it’s so expansive — it tells I don’t know how different many stories all at once, but it also tries to explode the whole superhero myth and why we as a culture are interested in telling stories about superheroes again and again,” says Billy, who plays Dr. Manhattan, adding, “I’ll be digitally altered [for this interview], right? I’m used to that now.”
‘Watchmen’ takes place in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society. The plot of the film is set in motion when one of their own, The Comedian, is murdered. Soon a conspiracy to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes comes to light. Will it have devastating effects on the future of mankind?
From the Insider – Follow link to see video!
Malin Akerman plays Lori Jupiter, Silk Spectre II in Watchmen. Many of her most emotional scenes are with Dr. Manhattan, a big blue humanoid energy force played by Billy Crudup. It’s dramatic on screen, but behind the scene he was just a dude in spandex.
Malin Akerman is Silk Spectre II
“I have to say the first week it took a bit of adjusting to,” Akerman said. “We all must have laughed in his face so many times. He was such a good sport about it he was like, ‘Okay, go ahead.’”
There is even a Lori/Manhattan love scene, in which Manhattan uses his powers to create multiple forms of himself to pleasure his lady. “There were two guys in bed with me for the Billy scene and there ended up being three of them I believe. The thing is that they are in these white sort of pajamas with the blue LED lights so really I was more concerned with like, ‘Guys, are you sure he can put his finger in my mouth and it won’t electrocute me?’ It was really rough and I was like, ‘Billy just try not to touch my face’ because you get scratches. So it was just trying to piece it together and make it look right. It was almost like Raki massage where you aren’t really touching, you are just going through the motions. So the difference was that there was no touching in that scene where [the one with Dan] was more human and natural.”
There was risk of injury in her love scene with Night Owl too. “I had huge bruises on my legs actually because it was a tight chair and it was nice black and blues. Try explaining that to your husband. We had to get a bit closer. There is definitely a difference between trying to act with yourself and acting opposite someone.”
Sex isn’t the only kind of action Silk Spectre gets. She kicks some ass and rescues some pedestrians too. “The scene where Lori comes through the roof, the drop in was actually my stunt double. They wouldn’t allow me to do that but then they sent me in and the fire was in the back so they put fire gel all over my back to make sure the latex didn’t catch on fire because it is very flammable. There were many precautions taken. It was a hot day that day, but it was absolutely real fire, of course only at a distance, but Zack [Snyder] wants it as real as possible. We actually had the opportunity to do a lot more. The set was more tangible and real then he had in 300 where he had a lot more green screen. So that was nice about this whole thing. You really got the feeling of it.”
Watchmen opens to theaters March 6th.
From Can Mag
Thigh-high boots.
Stilettos.
Voluminous cleavage.
Skin-suffocating spandex.
No one ever accused a comic-book sexpot of dressing practically.
“If I was fighting crime, I’d wear sweats and a T-shirt — maybe a belt to fashion it up,” offers Malin Akerman, who has first-hand experience in this sort of thing.
For her role as Silk Spectre II in the graphic novel adaptation Watchmen, Akerman spent months encased in black-and-yellow latex.
Stunning, yes. But functional? Far from it.
The Toronto-raised former model remembers the first time she was shoe-horned into the rubber regalia and discovered that, after eight weeks of combat training with ex-Navy Seals, “I couldn’t even bend my elbows. It was so uncomfortable. I’m not going to develop a latex fetish at all after this.”
Whether it was all worth it, we’ll know shortly. Watchmen opens across the country late tomorrow, one minute after midnight. Odds are good, though, that it will mark yet another success for Akerman, who’s spent the past couple of years shuttling from one high-profile gig to the next.
“When they say you can come to L.A. and have your dreams come true, they really mean it. It’s not without some really hard work and a lot of disappointments, but once it happens — I still can’t believe it. It’s a bit surreal. I still haven’t gotten used to it yet.”
Before “Watchmen,” when was the last time you saw superheroes in a big-screen movie get naked in love scenes? Chances are: never, because most superhero flicks aren’t rated R. But “Watchmen” changed all that with the romance between Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II (played by Patrick Wilson) and Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II (played by Malin Akerman), who steam up the screen with their nude scenes as the two superhero characters who fall for each other.
This isn’t your parents’ superhero love story. “Watchmen,” based on the graphic novel co-created by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore, is an intense tale filled with morally ambiguous characters and explicit scenes not meant for very young kids. For versatile actor Wilson, “Watchmen” was a chance for him to take on a role that’s very different from the husbands or hunky good guys he usually plays on the theater stage and on the big screen. Watchmen” is also a departure for Akerman, who was in danger of being typecast as flaky types in romantic comedies such as 2008’s “27 Dresses” and 2007’s “The Heartbreak Kid.” At the Los Angeles press junket for “Watchmen,” Wilson and Akerman revealed how the vulnerabilities they exposed while playing these superheroes weren’t just physical but also emotional.
Were either of you “Watchmen” fans before signing up for this movie?
Akerman: No, we were not. My first experience with the novel was the script. It was script that threw me for a loop, and I had no idea what I had just read and what had happened to me. So I ran out and got the graphic novel and was blown away. It’s an amazing novel and the thing that was so nice about it was the script was so faithful to the source material, which made it even more exciting to have the thought of doing a film that will be appreciated because it’s keeping the allegiance — which is hard sometimes when you’re making a film out of a novel.
Wilson: My first experience was with the script. I had heard of it, but like most comic-based scripts that I had read over the past few years, I always call my one of best friends, who’s a huge comic-book fan, and I always ask him … Then I said, “I got ‘Watchmen.’” And he said, “Oh, God!” And I knew it came with a great excitement and fear. And he said, “If you are ever to do a comic-book movie, this is the one to do.” So I knew I was getting into something pretty special, and so when I read this … What, he [Dan Dreiberg] is impotent? And he’s a flabby failure? What kind of a book is this? I was really blown away by how complex the characters are.
Then once I got the absolute edition and saw all the details and where it came from, I think ignorance was bliss. I looked at it like I would … study Arthur Miller: every picture, every word, every pose, every line, everything over ns dove and over. Let’s face it: The book is so dense and there’s stuff you don’t notice until four or five times through. It really became an obsession for a lot of us to really be as faithful as you could. You can only have one chance to read it for the first time. I’m actually grateful that it came with the role, because I felt like I was reading the entire thing through Dan [Dreiberg’s] eyes.
How scary is it to tackle a movie that has such high expectations?
Akerman: I think it’s more an excitement. For sure, the pressure is intense. But once we started shooting, all that went away. And it became team work. We all became fans, so we were pressure on ourselves … Zack Snyder [director of "Watchmen"] is one of the biggest fans, so to have him leading us through it, we let go of all the pressure and just said, “We have the best man at the helm who’s leading through this journey.” And because of that, we were able — at least while we were filming — to let go of the bigger picture, and just concentrate on the characters and the roles and making it the best film that we can make it. And, of course, once it was a wrap on the film, we go, “Oh, God! Let’s see what happens now. This is the moment of truth.”
I think it would’ve been a lot different if it had been a different director who wasn’t as confident as Zack. Then you start to get nervous, because it is a fantastic piece of material, and all you to do is do it justice. It really deserves it. Yes, the pressure is on, but I have faith and confidence that people will be pleasantly surprised.
How did you prepare for the relationship and the nude scenes between your two “Watchmen” characters?
Wilson: When you have source material like this … everything is answered in the comic. So you constantly go back to that. If you’re adding lines, 95 percent of the time, they’ve lifted straight from the comic. There’s little said about the relationship, what it was before, but you get the impression that they met, had a brief moment or a look or two, and of course the blue guy [Dr. Manhattan] shows up and Dreiberg goes away.
Luckily, the intimate scenes we shot late in the movie, so we had gotten to know each other quite a bit. But truthfully, the script was so detailed that you felt like every question you had about these characters was answered. So you didn’t have to go digging around … It’s all right there. Specifically with these two characters — Dan and Laurie — it’s probably the most human struggle of the film. That they were costumed superheroes is almost a by-product, an after-thought, because this struggle that they have as people is very human and very relatable. So you never felt like you had to cut any corners for the genre or add in any emotion that wasn’t there, because it’s all there.