WonderCon: Ryan Reynolds on Green Lantern
Q: You said you weren't too familiar with the character of Green Lantern going in. As you got familiar with Hal Jordan, what was it about him that made him stand out to you as opposed to Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne?
Ryan Reynolds: Never heard of those other guys! (laughs) But for me, it was that transformation. It was having this guy who is arrogant, cocky and reckless and could be given a higher calling and really rise to that purpose and, in that process, find it humbling. I though that was really, really interesting. That transformation that happens early on in the film is really great. This guy that really has to make the effort. He has to do something with his life in a huge way and, in turn, saves countless other people's lives.
Q: Does it make much of a difference how thoroughly everything is scrutinized on a film like this?
Reynolds: Oh, it's huge. I mean, I'm also a fan. I want it to be good just primarily from that level. It's a huge weight. It buoys you in a really big way. It's a totally different experience, seeing it with an audience that it's designed for. Seeing it with that group of people out there was just electrifying. If it had gone the other way, it would have been a huge disaster. So it's really great to see that they're getting it right.
Q: How hard is it to weather that? When the Entertainment Weekly cover came out, people were very mixed in their reactions to the costume.
Reynolds: Well, it's twofold. I mean, I'm already two movies away from "Green Lantern," so I forget some of those little things. But I also expect all that. I didn't think that an average audience would know that the suit, in the mythology of the film, is made of energy. It's not made of spandex or luge-wear. So it's a whole different kind of approach that we have to have to it. I always knew it was going to be CGI from the first time I met the entire gang. I think you just have to remind the audience that this is what it is. This is what's actually happening. But part of that is that the audience wants to see themselves in that role. So when you have a suit that's made of energy, it's not something that they can go pick up at Target. It's a different thing. It requires a little bit of time.
Q: Can you talk about the balance of comedy with the more serious elements?
Reynolds: In terms of the overall film, I would say that Hal is far more aggressive in the movie than he is funny. Once we get in to the middle of that second act, everything is pretty serious. It's just tough, when you're dealing with so much exposition of an origin story, to service an audience with it in a very analytical way. It's sort of dangerous. You have to find a way to make that entertaining and palatable. They did such a great job with doing that and allowing the movie to start in the first act instead of it starting in the third act like it does in a lot of origin stories. That will oftentimes leave an audience unsatisfied. But that's all in there. You feel this guy's rage and purpose halfway through the second act. That's what drew me to the movie to begin with.
Q: How dark is it?
Reynolds: It never goes super dark or anything like that. But it has its moments. I would say that it sort of walks that tight-rope in terms of maybe "The Dark Knight" tones and some of the other recent iterations of stories from the comic book world. Tony Stark and those kind of things. It sort of walks that tight-rope somewhere in the middle of those things.
Q: There's a lot of talk of CGI as a hindrance, but it's interesting that it's the story of a guy whose world is built out of willpower and imagination and the film literally does just that. Did having to imagine this world help you click into that mindset?
Reynolds: Yeah. I mean, some actors just can't do it. They need to have that world in front of them in order to do it. But I would have felt like an assh*le asking them to build a lifesize version of Oa with an 18-story power battery in the middle of it. And there's the budget. So you really have to embrace the make-believe and pretend. It's really like being a kid again and actually having that power manifest itself is really pretty exciting and would be for anybody. We get to experience that through Hal. Working with a greenscreen stage for six months, you're literally in the world of make-believe and pretend. In a typical drama movie where you have all this elements right in front of you, all you're doing is believing. In this, you're having to do both. You're having to believe and you're having to pretend. It's like a muscle that has atrophied and once it's back, it's there and it's exciting and fun. You invent things. When you invent things -- when I turn my head and look at something -- Martin [Campbell] doesn't question what I'm doing. When I watch the film, suddenly the character Bzzt is cruising by. It's so great to see that.
Q: If the film spawns sequels, is there anything specific from the mythology that you'd like to see? Would you want to explore the dark side of Hal?
Reynolds: Yeah, I'm game for that. If we were to do a second film, I know where that's going. But a third, I have no idea. That would be very exciting. I'd love to maybe hand it over to one of the others. Guy Gardner or John Stewart or something.
Q: This is your first 3D film. Have you seen any of the footage in 3D yet?
Reynolds: I haven't seen anything in 3D yet, but I think that a movie like this really lends itself to being a 3D film. The constructions and the alien worlds and all the stuff on Oa really lends itself to the format.
Q: Since you never wore the suit on-set, does it only now feel like it's paying off all the work you did, getting to see yourself on-screen?
Reynolds: Yeah, but what's weird is that when I found out how they were doing the suit, I said, "So why do I have to be in shape? You're putting the thing over my damned body! What am I doing, killing myself every morning?" But then I found out that they bodyscan you every two weeks. They laser-scan you. Which is something. You think, "I look pretty good!" and then you see the three-dimensional views and go, "I have work to do." So it was kind of a weird experience to see that. But yeah, I was kind of wondering if, for the next movie, they could just use the old scans. Then I could eat human food instead of, you know, dog kibble.
Q: How does Oa and Earth balance out in the film?
Reynolds: You're after ratios? I'd say 50/50. 50 on Earth, 50 on Oa. 50 on other stuff. My math's terrible. I'm an actor.
WonderCon: Blake Lively on Green Lantern
Q: You keep mentioning Star Sapphire, are you convinced or are you gonna try to push for you to be her in the sequel, if there is one?
Lively: If this movie is successful and we did a few more films, I'm pretty confident that Star Sapphire would show up. All the conversations are very guarded and protected -- even with us -- because nobody wants to commit to anything, but I can't imagine Star Sapphire not showing up if we made more films.
Q: Would you want that same Star Sapphire costume?
Lively: Well, I mean, a little more material would be nice (laughs). And by ?a little? I mean a lot.
Q: When you were in the audition process, did they look for that? Thinking that you could play a villain somewhere down the line?
Lively: The way that this movies came to me was that I had made "The Town" with Warner Bros. and they saw the footage of that and they said to me, ?We want you to look at 'Green Lantern.'? I still had to audition for it. It was really nice for me that this was a studio that wasn?t looking for some girl to have her legs greased up and her boobs out and that?s all that mattered. They saw a pain-riddled, drug-addicted, drug mule mother from Boston and said, ?Oh, we want her to be the female face of our next franchise film.? Those are the people I want to work for. That?s the kind of story that I want to tell, where the art and the craft means something to them. I think they saw from my role in "The Town" that I was able to be dark and angry and be a villain. All I did was screentest with Ryan once and it was more about seeing the chemistry between Hal and Carol and to see if we could spar against each other and have that rivalry and that tension, but also that kindness and care.
Q: What do you think this film would do for your career? With Chris Evans on "Captain America" he said it was great because it would bring great attention but bad because it would bring great attention.
Lively: I don't think there's anything negative that you can say about being a part of a film that has such a strong fan base and people that are so supportive. Just sitting in there and showing those ten minutes of footage and hearing the reaction, I grabbed Ryan and said, ?If that doesn't make you feel good then I don't know what does!? You know? So to do something that brings people happiness and excitement you only feed off of that energy. Hopefully people will like it. I don't think about jobs and how they're gonna affect my career or my path or this, you know? If I connect with a role, with a character, with a story, with the filmmakers that to me is the reward. That to me is the success and if receive it well then terrific and if they don't then at least I had a good time making it. That's how I feel.
Q: What would you say to those who don't already have "Green Lantern" on their radar? What's so special that they should see it?
Lively: Like I was saying earlier, it's really exciting to introduce a superhero to a generation that's not aware of him yet. I'm such a fan of "Harry Potter," it's not healthy (laughs). It's so not right, but when the books were over I thought, "I may as well end my life and now that the movies are ending, I don't know how I'm going to continue on." I sometimes fantasize about the idea of, "What if there was another J.K. Rowling who could create another character like Harry Potter?"
(Ryan Reynolds comes up behind Blake and shakes his head.)
Lively: Go away, I?m talking about Harry Potter!
Ryan Reynolds: Harry Potter? Yeah, they need the money!
Lively: I'm just saying it's that same sort of thing. It's a character that not everybody is aware of and that's exciting and also the fact that it take place on Earth as well as space. The world we get to explore is just so much more vast and, I don't know, it's so exciting. Just watch that. That will make you want to see it!
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I'm still not really sold. Getting tired of green screen back drops look so fake. wish they would go back to just building sets but I know that would be time consuming and costly. Example look at the original stars wars trilogy vs. the New trilogy. Almost every scene was shot on green screen. to me it just made the film look cheesy.
