Kick Ass
Out on Blu-ray and DVD from
August 19
Chris
Mintz-Plasse DVD Exclusive Interview:
I saw the
film yesterday and to use a phrase from the film it’s ‘awesome!’
Exactly. I
agree man. I was so honoured that they sent me the script because I’d
never really done an action movie before. I actually auditioned for the
lead of Kick-Ass but Matthew Vaughan said I had too much energy and too
much charisma for the role. He kind of wanted the lead to be more of an
everyday man, someone people can relate to; so he gave me the role of
Red Mist right there in the audition.
Had you
read any of the comics?
When I got
the script, issue one was only out because they wrote the script and the
comic at the same time. Mark Millar and Jane Goldman were working
together on that, I read issue one of the comic and it was brutal,
bloody and hilarious which is what I love in a comic and a movie. I read
the script and it was pretty much the same thing, so I had to be a part
of it.
How did
you feel wearing the suit?
At first
it was amazing, it was really fun to wear, I looked bad ass and it was
very cool. But then around week three it was very hot and you have to
wear it for 12 hours a day. You’re sweating into your suit and getting
rashes from the cape in like weird spots. Totally became a nuisance.
When we wrapped up that was the only thing I was happy about. I was very
sad to leave everybody but I was very happy that I didn’t have to wear
that suit anymore.
Even Tobey
Maguire hated his Spider-Man suit. It’s cool, of course...
Exactly.
It’s cool to see yourself wearing it on screen but not when you’re
actually doing it. I feel bad for Tobey because he had that whole face
thing on, right? That was one of the things with the movie as you can
see from Kick-Ass here [points to comic] he doesn’t have a mouth hole in
the comic and Matthew wanted to cut one in because if you talk without
one then it’s muffled and you have to do every line in ADR after; so
Aaron would have had to have been in ADR for like eight hours to do
every single line of the movie. So Matthew was like “Screw that we’ll
cut a mouth hole in”. Then comic book fans were like, “That’s an
outrage! How dare you change it from the comic.” They don’t get it, but
I think people are going to be happy with it now once they see the
movie.
The
outfits are not cool at all...
I think
mine’s cool! Give me that at least. I don’t do any action in the movie
and I don’t murder anybody so at least give me the cool costume. Aaron’s
character Dave wants to be a superhero but he’s not a sewer he doesn’t
make anything so he just orders a wetsuit. And it’s supposed to look
like a 17-year-old kid threw something together and it’s supposed to
look bad, which is good that you say that. My character has a rich
father so he has more money to spend so he can hire people to make it
for him so that’s why mine looks better.
Most
actors would have loved the car, but I understand that you don’t drive
stick?
I’ve never
driven stick before which out here is weird because everyone drives
stick.
Pretty
much, it’s fairly unusual to get an automatic car
Yeah,
we’re very lazy in America, we drive automatics, so I had to learn for
the first time to drive stick on that car – they taught me on the
Mustang. Matthew kept telling me I’m keeping this car after the movie,
if you wreck it you’re going to be in trouble, so I had that on my
shoulder when I was driving it. It was very stressful but thank God
nothing happened.
I’ve seen
a video interview with Matthew on the web where he said that you were
annoying but great. So what did you do to annoy him?
Matthew’s
very relaxed, he’s very straightforward and he’s into his work so I
found it fun to mess with him sometimes. And I do annoy him. And
whenever I annoy him he annoys me back so he calls me McLovin because he
knows that I don’t really like it when people call me that. So he just
throws that in my face all the time and I’m like, ‘Alright man, you won
I’m out of here’. We had a great relationship and he’s a great guy.
Do you
think that Red Mist will put McLovin to rest?
I don’t
know. I think McLovin will definitely be around for a while because it’s
that kind of role and that kind of name. I’m completely okay with that
because it was sort of my first movie and without that I would never
have worked on Role Models or done this so I’m very grateful for all of
that.
And if
there’s a sequel you’re going to be the lead...
Yeah. I
hope so. Hopefully the first one does well and that’s all we really want
right now, we’ll talk about a sequel after that.
When your
character first shows on screen everyone thinks he’s a nerd without any
friends. But actually he’s not...
No he’s
just a little rich preppy kid. I really like that, it’s cool that you
think that because then when he becomes Red Mist you see him in the car
listening to Gnarls Barkley, smoking a joint and relaxing. He’s not
really a nerdy guy, he’s kind of like a regular kid who wants to be a
superhero.
People end
up hating your character...
Good. You
should hate him, he’s a son of a villain and he betrays Kick-Ass and
then he betrays Hit Girl and Big Daddy. Without him, Hit Girl and Big
Daddy would have murdered my dad and so he betrays all of them and it’s
good that you hate my character. Just don’t hate me; I’m a nice guy I
swear.
Do you
relate to the character, not being a bad guy or a criminal but being a
spoiled kid and the son of a rich father?
No, my
dad’s a postal worker and my mom’s a school councillor so we’re not rich
by any means. They never spoiled me and I always had to do chores when I
was growing up and so I couldn’t relate to that at all.
And are
you a very social guy?
Yeah, I
like to go out. People always think I’m a nerdy guy because I resemble
one of my characters. But I like to go out, play sports, play drums and
go out with my friends and stuff.
What do
you think it is about the Judd Apatow school of comedy that makes it
very vulgar but also very good, very funny and better than a lot of
other comedies?
Judd
Apatow’s movies tend to have a lot of heart in them, which is great. So
you laugh with the vulgarness but you really feel for the characters.
And he does a really good thing – he gets a bunch of really talented
improv actors and he’ll let a scene go for like 10 or 15 minutes extra
and just let the actors riff off each other. That gets a lot of
naturalness from the people and you get a lot of jokes that weren’t in
the script, which makes it funnier.
And how
different was it dressing up as this character as it was dressing up as
Kissmyanthia character in Role Models?
[Laughs]
Man, Kissmyanthia was a pain in the ass. Because you had to wake up and
my whole face was made up – so you had to get to set two hours earlier
and at 4.30am you’d have cold make-up sprayed on your face. It was very
uncomfortable and with Red Mist it was only just the black eyes. So it
was much easier.
He looks
very cool when he’s sitting there watching the video with his dad...
I like
that he takes the mask and wig off ‘cause when you’re in your house
you’re not going to wear that,’ I like that.
And what
was it like working with Mark Strong?
I’m a big
fan of his. He’s probably the most talented actor I’ve worked with so
far to date, just so sweet and welcoming. I was very intimidated at
first because he has a threatening look to him. The character too is
very threatening so you see him act very intimidating but he was just so
welcoming and he treated me very nicely so I learnt a lot from him.
I
understand it was very difficult for him to hit Chloe?
Yeah,
because he has two kids, so you’re punching an 11-year-old girl it’s
almost like you’re watching you punch your own kids which was very hard
for him. I remember Matthew wanted that last fight scene to even get
more intense, he wanted him to stomp on her face which is very brutal,
and Mark said, ‘That’s where I draw the line. I can’t do that it just
makes me too uncomfortable’. So good for him. It’s hard to stand up to
Matthew, he’s a very intimidating guy.
Are we
going to see you buff up at any point to break out of the geeky roles?
I think
I’d be a very weird looking guy if I was massively ripped. I don’t think
I could work with a huge body but I’ve been running on the treadmill and
getting in shape a little bit. If there’s a sequel I think it’d be fun
to work out a little bit because I become evil and whatnot. So
definitely in the future I want to try it all and get a little muscle.
Do you
think that political correctness has gone too far? We were talking to
Matthew about how Pippi Longstocking wouldn’t be allowed today because
she was a rebel who talked back...
That was
the whole reason why most studios wouldn’t buy the movie in the first
place. Matthew had the script and pitched it to all the studios out
there and nobody wanted to touch it because of Hit Girl. They were too
scared. They were just too afraid and they wanted to get rid of Hit
Girl. Matthew’s like that’s the reason to go see the movie so he kind of
just went ‘I’m going to make the movie the way I want to make it’. So he
got Brad Pitt and a couple of his other friends to fund the movie and he
made it exactly the way he wanted to make it and it came out amazingly.
The
studios often go with political correctness. Does that limit the
artists?
There’s
been some movies where you have the studio execs over the director’s
back when you’re filming, and if there is they erase it from the movie
in the editing room. But we had none of that on Kick-Ass, it’s just
Matthew and Tarquin one of the producers and a couple of the other
producers just saying, ‘Dude yeah the more violence the better. Keep it
coming’.
And did
you escape having to do any kind of training? Chloe did months and
months of work...
Yeah. She
had three or four months of battle work and my character has one fight
scene at the end so I only had to work about a week and a half, which I
was a little bummed out about at first because I wanted to do some
action. But then once I saw Chloe coming home she was very exhausted at
the end of the day, her face was red and she was sweating and I’m just
chilling out with a coke I’m like, ‘Alright, this isn’t so bad’.
Aaron said
he was told to keep out of the gym and not to do anything...
The thing
is when Aaron got cast he’s such a stud, such a good looking guy and he
already had a six pack and like pecs. And Matthew was like, Yeah, don’t
work out ‘cause that’s not what the character needs. He should be a
little fat and a little flimsy and nerdy.
He does
still look quite good...
He’s
supposed to be the nerdy guy, yeah, but he does. Women are going to love
him.
What’s up
next for you?
I have
another movie coming out next month called How To Train Your Dragon
which I did the voice for, a DreamWorks movie that will be very
entertaining; I think the kids will really enjoy it. When I get back to
LA I have a few scripts that I’m pretty certain I’m attached to but I
can’t talk about it right now because its way too early and I’ll get in
trouble for speaking about it.
How did
you start in acting?
I’ve been
acting since I was six-years-old, I’ve been in theatre since I was very
young. I was in an improv group in my high school. I was always in the
plays and then Superbad was my first movie and my friend heard
about the audition through his uncle so I went and did a headshot, took
a picture on my cameraphone and sent it in. I went in and beat out six
hundred kids for the role and they cast me. That was my first movie.
It’s cool
that Hollywood is using young actors to play young roles. It wasn’t
always like that
No, that’s
funny. I watched a movie last night called Miss March and they’re
like 25 or 26-year-olds playing 18-year-olds and you just don’t believe
it. They’re like, I’m going to the prom and you’re like but you have a
moustache and you’re 29, that’s very bizarre. The way to do it and make
it very realistic is to cast someone that age or that at least looks
that age. I’m glad because it gets me more roles.
In real
life are you guys into that whole internet language, which is a huge
part of this movie?
Yeah, they
have MySpace in there and YouTube so people can relate and it’s more
realistic.
Do you use
all that?
I don’t. I
had a MySpace profile once when I was 14 or 15-years-old, so years back
when it was like hip to do it. But I kind of got over it and erased it a
few years back so I don’t have any of that stuff.
Do you do
any social networking?
I Twitter
a little bit every now and then. I like to follow some of my friends on
there. So sometimes I’ll post a little Twitter and I have a Facebook
page but I rarely go on it, it’s kind of dead now. I used to have it to
keep in contact with friends from like London and Canada and stuff. But
I rarely go on it anymore.
How did
you feel when you read the script for Superbad because it’s still one of
the most vulgar films?
Yeah, once
again that’s my kind of stuff. I loved it when I read it and I said,
this is a movie that I would want to see in theatres. That’s really how
I pick my movies – if it’s something I’d want to see then I want to do
it. Superbad was definitely one of those.
We heard
Matthew say that Mark Millar’s got a lot of ideas for a sequel. What
would you want to see your character do?
It’s still
way too early to talk about it but I would like to be very, very evil
and dark. I think that would be a very fun role to play and it would be
something very different to what I’ve done. And actually I’ve talked to
Mark and he agrees, he wants Red Mist to be a very evil guy.
Take over
his father’s empire?
Exactly.
Take over his father’s empire and get revenge for his father. He wants
to have another evil guy too that I team up with, like an older man. So
we’ll see.
Will you
have a love interest?
That would
be fun to have an evil girl to team up with. That would be very
interesting.
What do
you think about the fact that in the comics Kick-Ass doesn’t get the
girl, but in the film he does?
You know
why, because it’s funnier in a comic. Mark Millar’s got a twisted mind
so he thought it’d be funnier if the girl said, ‘What, you’re not gay?!’
and punches him. But in a movie sense you need that happiness so the
crowd leaves the theatre going, ‘OK, he gets the girl, that’s fine.’ And
the battle with the jetpack, that’s not in the comic but you need that
epic last battle scene. You’ve already had so many intense Hit Girl
scenes and you have to top that. So at the end he added in the jetpack
and I think it fits really well.
You talk
about the way movies are put together, do you have any aspirations to
direct or write?
I’ve never
directed or written anything in my life. Maybe in the future eventually,
yeah. But right now I’m happy where I’m at.
How do you
think the film would have looked if it had been made by one of the big
studios?
Definitely
would have been PG-13. No blood, very few people dying. No swearing. It
would not have been true to the comic and it would have annoyed
everybody. So I’m very glad that Matthew did it.
If it’s
successful do you think that could push the big companies to do more
risky stuff?
I’m going
to say no just because everyone in Hollywood wants to make money and
they don’t think things like this will sell. They just want to make the
easy PG-13 kind of stuff. I would love it if I could say yes. Hopefully
they’ll see this and they’ll open up doors to do other things but I’m
not too sure that’s going to happen.
What can
this do for your career if Kick-Ass is a big hit?
I think
it’s kind of a different role than I’ve played before, it’s not really a
nerdy character so I think hopefully directors and other writers will
see it and see that I can do something different and hopefully I’ll get
some more fun roles.
Would you
accept a big Hollywood role?
With
Martin Scorsese or something? [Laughs] Yeah, that would be incredible.
I’m not against doing a huge budget Hollywood movie like a PG-13 if it’s
good and the script is good. But Superbad was such a low-budget
movie that it was my kind of movie and it made so much money. Kick-Ass
was my kind of movie and it was low budget but could make so much money.
So I’m really thinking I’m going to stick to my gut right now and do
what I want.
Are you
more drawn to the comedy side of things?
Yeah.
That’s what I used to do in high school; I did a bunch of improv and
comedy stuff so that’s what I was most natural with. And I did
Superbad, Role Models and Year One and those were all
really funny movies. But I’m up for anything really.
Have you
ever done stand-up?
I’ve never
done stand-up, I’ve never written anything. I’m always down to try but
that seems the hardest for me, stand-up is so nerve-wracking, to get up
there and pour your heart out through comedy. It’s very difficult.
Will
movies like Superbad continue to be made or will the money people
eventually interfere?
Well
definitely right now the money people they trust Judd Apatow. They trust
him 100 per cent because he’s directed three hit movies and he’s
produced like 10 hit movies. So I think really they’d be idiots not to
do anything that he has his name on.
What was
the toughest bit to film in Kick-Ass? From an audience point of view it
looks like the fire, but actually that could just be CGI...
It was, a
lot of that fire was CGI. But that was actually very tough because there
was fire in it and we’d be doing that scene for maybe five minutes so
the warehouse would get really, really smoky. I have asthma, which
didn’t help. So after each take they’d have to open up this huge gate
and I’d go outside to chill for a few minutes and then come back in and
do another take. That was very exhausting.
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