by Christina Radish Posted:July 24th, 2011 at 11:02 am
After the Hall H panel presentation at Comic-Con, the cast of Immortals did press roundtables to further discuss the unique film from visionary director Tarsem Singh. The story follows the brutal and bloodthirsty King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), who is looking to overthrow the Gods of Olympus and become the undisputed master of his world. As village after village is obliterated, the Gods summon a stonemason named Theseus (Henry Cavill) to fight this power-mad menace and embrace his destiny in a battle for the future of humanity.
During the interview, actors Luke Evans (who plays Zeus) and Kellan Lutz (who plays Poseidon) talked about why they wanted to be a part of Tarsem’s vision, the training they had to go through for the film, finding the balance between playing Gods and making them relatable, what they think about 3D, and how the film far surpasses what they imagined it would look like. Evans also talked about heading out in a week to start work on The Hobbit for a year and how excited he is to be a part of cinematic history. Check out what they had to say after the jump:
Click here for the audio.
Question: Kellan, what attracted you to the role of Poseidon?
KELLAN LUTZ: It’s a dream role for me. I just love my character. And, I love that Tarsem made them young Gods, so we can have more fun with it, like we all did in our 20′s or 30′s. We’re youthful. If you’re a God, you might as well be at your physical and mental peak. I have a Trident, and the Trident is pretty cool to fight with, especially with our battle scene. I play Zeus’ brother, so it’s that brotherly love. I feel like I’m the fun uncle when Zeus is making all the rules and he’s not so fun. I break them, but I can. The sea is my domain, and I can go for a swim.
Is it a traditional looking Trident?
LUTZ: Everything that Tarsem does has to be unique, in its own way. The first Trident we had was heavy. I was trying to fight with it and was hitting myself and giving myself bruises, and that wasn’t fun. But, we found a great method and the Trident is definitely very unique.
Was there special Trident training?
LUTZ: There was staff training, yes. That was fun. I’ve done a lot of training. I love action movies and I’ve been trained in a lot of mixed martial arts, but nothing with the staff. We had really great trainers.
Luke, did you have training as well?
LUKE EVANS: I had chain and whip and hammer training. The whip was great. It was very, very loud and very noisy.
LUTZ: And you’re experienced in that, right?
EVANS: Yes, I have many at home.
Who are you whipping in the film?
EVANS: My son, Ares (Daniel Sharman). He has defied me too many times, and so he has to go. I kill him. He dies. He turns into a fossil.
How was it to work with Tarsem and bring his vision of the film to life?
EVANS: The guy has energy in full measure, and it never really goes below 100%. So, when you come on set with him, you basically feel that you either have to match it, or go away and have a word with yourself and come back and match it. You feel that you’re short-changing him otherwise because he comes with so much passion. He’s developed such a beautiful world that we ended up working on, that you want to just have integrity for what he’s done. It’s a blast, working with him, and he’s also a lovely guy. We hung out with him when he wasn’t on set. On his days off, we’d go to the park, dancing to all the drummers. It was great.
Was it hard to find the right balance between playing the Gods as these powerful beings while also making them relatable, in some way?
LUTZ: You don’t look at them as Gods. You make layers. I’m a brother and I’m like an uncle, so for my characters, I loved playing the uncle role. I have a funny uncle, and he’s just who I go to when I’m in trouble and I can’t talk to my mom. He’s just always there to give me advice, but to also make jokes with you. He’s just always been there for me. That’s what I drew from. You’re just made into a God by the costume you’re wearing and the cool weapons and just being around the scenario that you’re in.
EVANS: I think that Gods could easily be boring, if you just think of them as a God. In the films we’ve seen with the Gods, they’ve always been sitting in thrones with big beards. They don’t do anything. They talk about stuff. They look in this people where they can see a reflection of Earth, and then they go, “Oh, we’ll send someone down to deal with that, but we’re not leaving,” whereas Tarsem wanted the Gods to be prime physical specimens that went and did the action and did the fighting. They can go down and be human-looking and do all that stuff. That’s what makes it interesting. That’s the bits you hang onto, so that you make sure that they have human qualities and they’re interesting.
Kellan, what sets the action in this film apart from other action that you’ve done?
LUTZ: We’re Gods, so we’ve got to move fast. Playing a vampire is great, but we move faster than that.
EVANS: You move fast in that, right?
LUTZ: Yeah, we do, but not in a godly manner. We’re undead, so it’s in an undeadly manner. That was my first time seeing everything we trained for, at the panel. We shot that three different ways, with having actors in it, not having actors in it, and then having the stunt guys fighting us. It was really great to see them overlap it. And then, all the choreography that we did with our staffs and our weapons, it was just brilliant to see it, especially in the world that Tarsem created.
Does what you saw look like what you imagined it would?
LUTZ: It looks way better, and I already had it way up here. I can’t fathom even having a dream as vivid as what Tarsem creates. It’s spectacular, it really is.
Did the 3D aspect of it affect you guys at all? Did you have to do anything different in your preparation?
EVANS: Most of it was 3D ready, so they could adapt it to 3D. It was shot so it could be changed to 3D. It wasn’t shot in 3D.
Did Tarsem make you do anything, taking that into consideration?
EVANS: For me, he did, yeah. There was a scene that I don’t even think is in the final cut, where there was just a turn of my cloak when I turn from the old man – from John Hurt – into myself, and that literally took a day to do a turn. That’s what you have to do sometimes, if you want special effects or certain 3D effects. It does take much longer.
Are you a fan of 3D movies? Do you go see 3D in theaters?
EVANS: I’m not that bothered. If a film is not in 3D, I would never choose not to see it. To be honest, I’ve never seen Clash of the Titans in 3D. I’ve only seen it in 2D. It doesn’t bother me that much. To me, it’s about the story and it’s about the film and about the director. That’s it, really. If it’s in 3D, then fine. If it’s not, I don’t care. It’s not a problem. It doesn’t draw me to go and see a 3D film.
Do you have more swords and sandals films in you?
EVANS: Yes. I’m just about to start a very, very big one – The Hobbit. There are no sandals, though. I don’t know what we’re in, but I don’t think there will be any sandals.
You haven’t started working on the film yet?
EVANS: No, I fly down next week. I start in a week’s time, and I’m there for a year.
It seems like Peter Jackson just keeps adding to that cast.
EVANS: No more. No, that’s it. Me, Barry Humphries, Evangeline Lilly and Benedict Cumberbatch were the final four. Everything else was cast.
How overwhelming is it to take on something of that scope?
EVANS: Yeah, it’s big. It’s really big. It’s not overwhelming to the point of being terrifying, but it is quite a big thing. I’m about to become part of a piece of cinematic history, whether I like it or not. This is a big movie and I’m working with a director that is probably one of the best directors around today. He’s the most respected director in the world. He’s carrying these two movies and shooting them straight after each other. It’s taking him two years to shoot. The whole thing is epic, and I’m going to be part of it. I’m really excited. I can’t wait. I’ve got to just finish this film, and then go and sort it out and be real focused.
Kellan, do you have any advice for Luke, about being in a huge franchise?
LUTZ: What’s that? A Nightmare on Elm Street? I don’t know how he’s going to do it. Twilight has been three months of work. The last movie was seven months and that was a little more difficult to do, but a year away, half-way around the world? We can Skype. I’ll let him Skype with me. It’s fun.
Source: collider.com, Henry Cavill Facebook page.
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