Following
Yahoo Movies' big revelation of character
banners for Marvel's
The Avengers, they also managed to score a lengthy chat with the writer and director of the highly-anticipated superhero ensemble flick, Joss Whedon. Discussing many aspects of the film including coping with Robert Downey Jr., the expansion of Samuel L. Jackson's 'Nick Fury,' a fresh take on Mark Ruffalo's 'Bruce Banner,' and challenges, among other big things, take a gander at the lengthy interview down below.
On the process of earning the trust of the talented ensemble cast:
Well, first of all, because they've played parts and because in some way we were creating a new vision of the part, I sat down with every one of them to talk about my ideas and their desires before I wrote the script, and that's very useful too. So they knew from the ground-up that they were collaborating on it. And the things that didn't make sense to them or didn't work to them, they were like, "Well, I don't want to stress that part of my character. We have done that before." All of that stuff I could honor. And then it's a question of making them heard, and then ultimately making them understand that there are things you are not going to budge on that are your vision. And once they know they are part of it, but you actually have a vision, and you are not just trying to tell them what they want to hear -- that it's all working towards one purpose, one story, one idea -- then I feel, yeah, you are doing fine.
On how his and Robert Downey Jr.'s method of working fit into each other:
Well, we have very different methods. But working as a showrunner, working as a script doctor, working in sitcoms -- a lot of my work has been coming up with stuff on the fly. Like fixing as we go, improvising, being open to a new idea. So Robert and I would spend -- we worked specifically towards both of our processes, so that we would beat out a scene so that he was very comfortable with where it was going or what was being said and very aware of where it would fit in the whole. And I would give him stuff to say, and by and large, he would say it. But then there were always pockets where we had some wiggle room for him to play, or ask for options, and if he said, "Can we do something else here?" I could give him four or five options by the time he had his makeup on. Because that's actually fun for me, that frantic scramble. We would try different things. He is very collaborative. He loves notes. He loves to be guided and worked with. He is not trying to steamroller over me. He is really trying to create it side-by-side with me. So it ended up being a really healthy and delightful collaboration.
On whether there was an aspect of Tony Stark that Robert brought up that he hadn't considered before:
I think the conversations were largely about "Where is Tony now?" Like, "Who is he now? Where is he [going] from 'Iron Man 2' towards 'Iron Man 3'?" He is such a well-delineated character, so it was really a question of, "What do we want to stress and what do we want to say? We have said that, we have done that, so let's not go there." He felt a sort of isolated man who is -- even though there is an element of that, just because that's sort of what any team movie is about.
He didn't want to be the sort of just, "I am totally wrapped up in one thing and I am not thinking about everybody else." He didn't want to be the tortured lonely man, which I totally get. And it was easy to make him as delightful and gregarious as he can be and still go, well, there is a piece missing and it's the piece that makes him an Avenger.
On adapting his writing style to the Chris Evans' straightforward Captain America:
I love a straightforward character. I am the guy who loves Cyclops on the 'X-Men', because he is square. [Captain America] is a little square, and he is aware that he is a little square, and he is aware that the world is a beat ahead of him, or in his case, 70 beats. I think that's very disarming and very charming. I relate to that guy. I also don't know who the popular singers are right now, so he is actually really easy for me to write. There were some lines where [Chris] would be like, "Okay, now I just sound like an idiot." And in context, I was like, "Yeah, actually, now that it's all laid out that is a bit much." But he is very aware of his dignity, but at the same time understood why I wanted to find the humor in somebody who was so out of touch.
On the freedom of somewhat starting fresh with Mark Ruffalo's Incredible Hulk:
Yeah, he and I did the most character work of anyone, because we really were starting fresh, but we were starting with something that had been embodied several times. And both of us agreed upfront that the template for who we wanted this guy to be in his life was Bill Bixby, the TV [show character] who was busy helping other people. That was more interesting to us than the Banner in the first two movies who was always fixated on curing himself. We spent a lot of time talking about what makes us Hulk out, the nature of anger, how it feels. We even fought some. I mean literally we actually got some pads out and did some tussling. Just to talk about the physicality, and also the physicality of somebody who has to control this thing, and the way he moves in space and the way he relates to the people and the objects around him. It was extremely fun. What we found was that he could be very bumbling and kind of awkward, but at the same time very graceful and in this almost transcendent control of himself.
On whether he wanted to keep that edge of mystery to Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury, or further have his background explored:
Well, he is not going to be talking about his childhood, and you do want to keep a certain mystery. Also -- and this is something that I was very pleased that Marvel actually mandated -- they were very interested in keeping him, not just in the sort of a mystery of how the organization operates, but a real moral gray area where you really have to decide, "Is Nick Fury the most manipulative guy in the world? Is he a good guy? Is he completely Machiavellian or is it a bit of both?" And that was really fun to tweak. I felt that in the other movies, they had been cameos and he had been called upon to come in and be Sam Jackson and bluster a little bit. And I told Sam upfront that my big agenda was to see the weight on someone who is supposed to be in control of the most powerful beings on the planet. The weight on somebody who has to run the organization and the gravity of it. Not that we don't have any fun with Nick, but he definitely -- it's, I feel like a much more textured performance and at times really moving.
I had one week where we shot basically the entire team arguing. I was like, "If I can get through this week, no bullet can harm me." And that week actually was complex, but went off really, really well. Then we got to the cars exploding, and I realized, "Well, this is actually much harder." And what's harder about it was that, trying to keep action from being generic -- from being the same gag over and over and over -- it's extremely tough. Because we have a go-to, and it's the cars flip over and blow up. And to take that and go, "Okay, well, how do I contextualize this? How do I make it matter, and how do I make it different, and how do I differentiate all their powers and their actions?" I ended up spending as much time writing the stunts as I did writing the dialogue. Just trying to keep track of who everybody was, what they were capable of, and keeping it from being repetitive. So the thing that I feared was, it's never the bullet that you see coming.
On suspected hard part of balancing someone Godly with a bow and arrow guy, and giving them both the action that brings out the best in them.:
Yeah. Well, I feel like we pulled that off. At the end of the day, the guy with the bow and arrow is a lot easier to write gags for than the God. But we created a situation where everybody can be useful, and everybody can be in jeopardy, and they really can act as a team, even though -- as we have known from the first issue of 'The Avengers' comic -- there's no reason for these people to be on the same team.
Head over to
Yahoo Movies to find out what Whedon says regarding writing pre-established characters.
Marvel's The Avengers is the Super Hero team up of a lifetime, featuring iconic Marvel Super Heroes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner with Samuel L. Jackson and Tom Hiddleston, directed by Joss Whedon, Marvel's The Avengers will be released May 4, 2012.