Mark Strong is one busy actor. He recently attended the London premiere of his new movie, Sherlock Holmes, in which he plays the evil Lord Blackwood opposite Robert Downey, Jr.'s Holmes. He will appear as mobster Frank D’Amico in Kick-Ass, one of the most highly-anticipated "low budget" comic book movies in recent memory, and he is preparing to star in Andrew Stanton's live action/CGI hybrid film, John Carter of Mars.
In a recent interview with Collider, Strong described his character in John Carter of Mars:
Strong said that his character will figure prominently in the
John Carter trilogy of films:
"He’s integral. He is, over the course of the 3 movies that they’re envisioning making and I’ve seen the synopsis of the 2nd and 3rd, basically and in the novels, Princess of Mars that [creator Edgar] Rice Burroughs wrote, Matai Shang is basically John Carter’s nemesis. So he comes into his own during the 2nd half of the current movie and then just basically gets bigger and bigger in the 2nd and 3rd."
When asked if he thinks the visuals will be able to compete against other effects-driven films like
Avatar, Strong said:
"Oh, my God, yeah. I mean, it looks phenomenal. I mean, [Stanton's] conception of it is extraordinary. I mean it’s Avatar-type territory and I think the point I was making before about these Pixar’s guys are always wanting to be in the vanguard. They want to be leading from the front. They’re giving the public stories that the public don’t even know they want. I mean a story about a fish? A story about an old guy keeping his house? On paper, these must seem like, you know, how on earth are you going to carry those things off. Talking toys? Come on. But they I think Andrew said they’re in the business of giving the public what they want before they know they want it. So I can totally imagine he’s gone to see Avatar and that’ll just set the cogs whirring in his brain and the twinkle in his eye because he’ll just want to surpass it, no question."