James Spader Describes The Motion-Capture Process For AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
We've heard Spader (Sex Lies And Videotape, Secretary, Stargate) describe the character of the titular Avengers 2 villain, and now in another excerpt from his interview with Total Film he provides a few details on the technology used to bring him to life.
In the latest issue of Total Film, James Spader talks about being suited up for a mo-cap performance for the first time in his career. He describes being covered from face to fingertips in dots as being a "fantastic" experience because he felt he was able to fine-tune his performance and play around with the details a bit more than usual. Spader says he shot all of his scenes with the other actors, and most of his dialogue was recorded live, with very little added later on.
"When you first meet Ultron, his physicality is very different to what he evolves to. It was in the script but we arrived at the metamorphosis of him on the set. In practice, in rehearsals ... We were able to create the physicality of the character on the motion-capture stage. They would dot me up and I was wearing a helmet that had two cameras on my face, and they could live stream it to a monitor so we could try different things. Then I'd go and shoot the scene with the other actors and they're recording all of it, including my voice. 9 times out of 10 they were not using ADR (additional dialogue recording) after the fact."
A notoriously "detail orientated" (his words) actor, Spader says he found the whole experience a joy. "If you he wanted to add something, or change something, you had the opportunity to do that. I just loved it." For the rest of the interview, pick up this month's issue of Total Film which is available now.
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.