Apparently, in a new issue of
Wizard Magazine is a brief interview with Kenneth Branagh, who of course is directing the much-anticipated
THOR movie. And another interview included, is with the great Anthony Hopkins, who rules over Asgard as Odin. And now courtesy of my buddy
RealIronMan of Spidermedia who provided a transcript of the magazine, you can check it out below.
"I just grew a big beard, and they dressed me up and put me on the set", Hopkins says laughing. Though, he admits he wouldn't know Marvel's viking gods from the Minnesota Vikings, the actor flocked to Asgard (aka Marvel's Raleigh Manhattan Beach studios in California) for the chance to work with old friend & fellow acclaimed British actor, Kenneth Branagh.
Anthony said he also was drawn to a script that mixed Shakespearian themes-particularly the fractured relationship between Odin & his sons Thor & Loki-with big-budget excitement.
More than a year and a half later, he's still giddy over the sets and costume design, and comes across as plenty humble for a man who walked among the gods, even if it was only for three weeks on a set.
"I didn't have to do that much," says Hopkins. "I just had to walk around and look godly, I guess."
"It just seemed to me that the Thor comic itself was carved out of granite," says Branagh. "You had the color & swish of Superman, & you had the darkness & mystery of Batman...but there was something massive about Thor."
As much as he's a god-he can travel through space & he has these superpowers & this super-strength - I think what's very arresting in the story is, to be paradoxical & contrary about it, the human element," says Branagh of the Shakespearian themes that have been the bread & butter of his own career.
"The human-like qualities of these characters presented in the myths & in the Marvel stories as gods, & the family dynamics between fathers & sons, & sibling rivalry & the competition for parental affection."
"In rehearsals, he (Chris) would stop me talking to say, 'Ken, Ken, stop, I have to have something to eat," recounts Branagh. "I said, 'We're breaking in 20...' He said, 'You don't realize, I have to have something to eat now!"
"A quick couple digits on the phone, and in would come this enormous plate of food which he'd just wolf down because he had to. If you're Thor, you want to keep an eye on your blood sugar. You've got a hammer & an angry Thor-you really don't want to be in the room when he's not eating."
Prepare as the surly epic tale of
THOR hits the big-screen May 6, in 3D, in just five months!