When the film was launched and the casting was announced there was a lot of criticism – a lot of it racist. If you were talking to these people who complained, what would you say to convince them that they should go see this film?
I think everyone is entitled to their opinion. I have very strong opinions on a lot of things. If it’s something that people love and they’re read since they were a kid they’re going to have very passionate feelings. The truth of the matter is, I don’t think this film strays too wildly away from what the comic book was and is. This is very much a Fantastic Four movie, and people deserve a good movie.
There’s been lots of reporting around Josh Trank’s role in this film. Famously he’s been let go, or fired, or quit, depending on who you ask, from Star Wars, which shares a producer with Fantastic Four. Even 20th Century themselves have said that there were bumps in the road, so - could you set the record straight? What were the bumps in the road?
I think that’s probably something you have to ask 20th Century about; my job as an actor is to turn up and play the character I’ve been asked to play and in that regard I had no issues with Josh Trank. Josh was someone who was very committed. He steered this massive ship it, and was very available to all of us actors I consider him a close friend of mine, so my experience was fantastic.
Traditionally with these sorts of computer generated characters, you act in your body suit and then it’s completely animated. I read they kept your actual eyes. Is that right?
I think they’ve tried to maintain something about my face. Josh always felt the windows into any character was the eyes, so maintaining my eyes, or at least a resemblance of my own eyes, would be moving and something the audience would be able to connect with and remember that there was something under all that rock.
Because this is the second time you’ve acted underneath digital makeup, for lack of a better term. If you could go back and talk to yourself before you had done Tin Tin what would you say to yourself about that process of getting a great performance in that environment?
It’s a very immersive thing; there’s something about the technology that have to break through so they can actually pick up what it is you’re doing, what kind of articulations you’re using; what feelings you’re really feeling. On Tin Tin I was just getting used to the technology. And there was the Spielberg effect as well; you’re just so in awe every day you turn up on set that you’re nervous. But on this I took all those lessons and threw myself in 100 per cent.
