Blumhouse's Fantasy Island arrives in UK Cinemas on March 6th, and we recently had the opportunity to talk to the cast of Sony and Blumhouse's new horror movie. In this big screen reimagining of the classic TV series, the enigmatic Mr. Roarke (this time played by
Ant-Man star Michael Peña) makes the secret dreams of his lucky guests come true at a luxurious but remote tropical resort.
However, when the fantasies turn into nightmares, the guests are forced to solve the island's mystery in order to escape with their lives. As we mentioned above, the man in charge of this strange setting is Mr. Roarke,
and as our review of the film points out, Peña ends up stealing the show.
We were recently lucky enough to get the opportunity to talk to the actor about his role in
Blumhouse's Fantasy Island, and as well as delving into how he brought the iconic character back to life, we also discuss what it was like to follow in the footsteps of Ricardo Montalbán. Finally, Peña weighs in on his future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe following 2018's
Ant-Man and The Wasp.
Needless to say, we want to extend a huge thank you to Michael for taking the time to talk to us!
Was there anything you specifically anything you wanted to do in Fantasy Island to make this version of Mr. Rourke your own, or were you happy with what was in the script when you signed on?
One of the things that's attractive with a project like this, and working with a person like Jeff Wadlow, is that he says he basically writes the shell of the character, and it's not fully realised until he starts working with the actor. He takes different stories or different elements where you're most like the character or most unlike the character, and he tries to shape it in a way as to make it entertaining. I guess the other word that was tossed around, especially in a movie like this is 'deliberate.' You do have a movie that's filled with scares and surprises and plot points that are turned on their heads, so you have to be as deliberate as possible. It's different from a drama where sometimes you don't know what parts people are going to react to. You just have to be true to the moment and try to ride the wave home from there. In this case, you have to be somewhat more deliberate than you would in say a Marvel movie or a comedy, or a higher budget comedy, like one of the ones they want to play to the masses.
So you wouldn't say you had any reservations about playing the character even though you were following in the iconic footsteps of Ricardo Montalbán?
No, because I almost came into it with the expectation that I was going to play this character as myself, meaning my own voice and movement. I wasn't going to deviate from that too much, but then early on in rehearsals, I realised there was something missing. I went back to the drawing board so to speak and I loved that what he did, especially as so much of the charm has to do with the accent in my mind. Getting away with certain things like even the line, 'You only get one fantasy, and every fantasy has to reach its natural conclusion.' The way he says that is really hard to say emphatically with just a modern way of American speaking and language because it's filled with slang and somewhat of a lazy way of approaching language, so this one gives you a not aggressive, but affirmative way of speaking.
I loved how you made Rourke both a charming and sinister presence at times, so how challenging was it for you to get those different sides across when he's clearly quite a conflicted person?
Well, thank you very much for saying that the character was charming! I was basically trying to handle the language, and it was a bit more difficult than I care to admit, but it's also something I kind of want to do a little bit more of and I wouldn't mind maybe doing some Shakespeare later...or Shakespeare in the Park. I wanted to serve the movie as best I can and sometimes, it meant staying out of the way of the story which means not bringing too much attention to myself and offering ideas and having them land on the characters and also showing a side of indifference. I knew that he's been on the island for a very long time, and I'm sure he's dealt with all kinds of problems, and people agreeing to certain things and then not liking it and trying to negotiate with him. There's only two rules and he wants to stand by those rules.
On a different note, with a lot of supporting characters in the MCU now stepping up, do you think we could see Luis suiting up alongside Scott, Hope and Cassie in Ant-Man 3, and is that something you would like to see?
That was the whole second movie where I was begging for a suit and then he said no, so it was 'How about a suit with limited powers?' and he said no, so I said, 'How about a suit with no powers?' and they said no again, so I think it's a "no" so far! But, you never know with these guys. Most of the actors don't know what's going to come about and what's going to happen in these movies. If we did, we would all be Kevin Feiges, you know?
Were you disappointed not to be part of Infinity War and Endgame or were you told early on that Luis was one of Thanos' victims?
No, I'm kind of happy with where I was, you know? We were part of Ant-Man, the original one, where no one had really heard of that character and I was able to create, alongside with the help of Marvel, another character I've really enjoyed playing. That one was really tough as well because I don't normally speak that quickly or with that high-pitched accent so that one was quite a challenge. For Fantasy Island, and that one, there was a little bit of nervousness as there was quite a bit expected from it and a lot of it was put out by me.
By the time all is said and done, it feels like Fantasy Island is something that could continue either with sequels or a TV series, so would you be interested in revisiting the character on the small screen as well as the big one?
I don't know about the small screen because for me, I took a pretty big gamble to do movies...if it was a limited series, then that would be kind of cool and might be kind of fun. I really love making movies and when I did Narcos: Mexico, that felt like I was making movies just because you have all these different directors in that series, but it's almost like doing an indie film every month, and that was a great experience. If it's like that, then yeah, but if not, I would probably just hand it over to someone who really wanted to do it.
So, if Marvel calls on you for Disney+, that's a maybe?
I don't know. I have no idea, but I would like to keep on doing movies. I think they're doing eight episodes, am I not correct?
Yeah, the plan is for them to feel like movies, I believe.
That would be different. On network television, they do like 22 episodes and it's like a week and a half on each which is different than four weeks. Over four weeks, you're doing two episodes in one month but it's not like you're spending two weeks on one episode as you have two different crews filming at the same time so, in essence, you are doing an episode per months and that's the difference. You can spend a lot of time with those 120 pages. I did End of Watch in 22 days which is just a little under four weeks and I was quite happy with that movie.