Actor Mark Strong is currently out making the rounds in support of his new movie, the Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes, but he's also been talking a great deal about his role in Matthew Vaughn's adaptation of the Kick-Ass comic book created by Mark Millar. In Kick-Ass, Strong plays the villain, mafia boss Frank D’Amico, a role that required him to "beat up" on young Chloe Moretz, who plays Hit Girl. Strong said that it was "an extremely strange way to go to work," and that the experience "really twisted" his head.
Strong went on to say that the humorous tone set by Vaughn will help the film from seeming too dark:
"[Vaughn's tone] allows a little more humor. It's so violent all the studios turned it down. People who love graphic novels tend to be disappointed by the films that are made of them, and Matthew I think felt a real responsibility to make this as close in tone as he possibly could to the graphic novels, which he has done. Consequently it's extremely violent. What he's done to make it accessible and great fun is to inject a very humorous note using the soundtrack. The scenes play very wryly humorous, and there's just enough wit and humor in there to allow this world to exist in another place. Even though it's violent, it's not the real violence that you encounter every day. It's on another plane. I can play with [Frank, my character] a little more, because the tone of the film is very witty, very funny and very dark. I can allow Frank to be that as well."
Kick-Ass also stars
Aaron Johnson as Dave "Kick-Ass" Lizewski,
Nicolas Cage as Damon "Big Daddy" Macready, and
Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Chris "Red Mist" D'Amico.
Kick-Ass opens April 16, 2010!