As you may have noticed from my social media, I have been busy with my #AntManEvent recaps and interview posts. I recently posted my Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly EXCLUSIVE Interview post and now I am excited to write about the experience of being in the same room as MICHAEL DOUGLAS! I know. I am swooning just remembering about it. Especially since I almost got sick while I was interviewing him. I had super bad sinuses that day (it always happens to me a couple days into my LA trips) because LA weather is SO different than Alabama’s. That would have made the trip memorable. You should definitely check out all the other interview posts by searching for the hashtag #ANTMANEVENT on Facebook and Twitter!
So first off we asked Michael Douglas what he did to research to be Hank Pym. Hank Pym is a huge part of the Marvel Avengers universe if you are not a fan of the comics. He is a pretty amazing character and its about time he was introduced.
Michael Douglas – “Historically I’m not a comic book guy. I was not as a kid. There was one I kind of followed, but it’s not in the Marvel world. But when they sent me this script, they also sent me a lovely leather bound book with about two years of the Ant-Man comics. So before I read the script, I opened that up and sort of familiarized myself with the different characters and a little of the back story.
And ironically for these kind of super comic books, there’s more character background than you get in most parts. Like in terms of the loss of your wife, the relationship with your daughter. So there was a whole bunch of stuff to actually play once I read it.”
He is big on gestures. I like to talk with my hands so I really liked how he was so expressive with his. He walked by us when we first walked in the studio and I was like AHHH. Its Michael Douglas. Be cool. Be cool. In the movie we get to see a young version of Hank Pym which was digitally altered. There is also tons of special effects throughout the movie. Well of course there is. This is a Marvel movie. We asked how it was different for him since he hasnt done many movies like this.
Michael Douglas – One of the exciting things for me about doing this picture is I have never done a special effects movie before. My entire career has been all contemporary story lines except for one movie out of I think 50. It was a World War 2 movie. Everything else was contemporary and there weren’t any kind of effects in them, there’s no green screen. So I was fascinated by that.
We were the first unit, then you had the second unit which was your stunt unit. Your third unit, which was your special effects and your green screen. Then your fourth unit was the macro unit shooting the perspective ant shots from all over. It was fascinating. I was just dealing with the first unit.
In the first unit – we were doing stunts and this and that – but to see how they put four units together using the story boards was inspirational. I mean, how often do you get to do a movie where you get to see yourself 30 years younger? I mean, it was wild.
Little bit of a spoiler: Michael Douglas spoke with us at length on when he thought about Corey Stoll’s character Darren Cross. We asked about who the best person to work with and he said that Corey Stoll was a huge surprise.
Michael Douglas – I think the biggest surprise was Corey. He was a great, great villain and he brought – in the scenes I had with him – he brought much more strength and dynamo than I ever had anticipated. He was great and he had this whole subplot of kind of me being his father figure and reaching out for my acceptance, which was like, haunting… he played this and it had real depth to it.
He also mentioned the other cast members. I love how he talked about Kevin Feige’s leadership and all the aspects of the movie. He said that everyone was amazing to work with. Michael Douglas was just so warm to talk with and I think he was probably a pleasure for the rest of the cast to work with day in and day out. Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly did mention how hilarious he is. The difference between his interaction with Darren Cross and Scott Lang in the movie is moving. You can literally feel the emotions rolling off the screen.
Michael Douglas – I certainly saw Kevin Feige and the great production team that they had, saw the job that they had been working on with the screenplay, and was really happy with Peyton as a director. So those are all elements that you want to love going in; strong producing background, script, and your director.
Paul, I knew from the beginning and he’s just as easy and wonderful as could be. He’s lovely. And then Evangeline – I did not know her range, and so you go ‘Wow!’ There’s no weak spots here. Everybody’s solid. So I felt really optimistic about this whole project, you know, right from the get-go, because I did not see a weak link anywhere.
It was just so amazing to be in the room with him. Just hearing his voice in person. He was so amazing as Hank Pym. I wish I could tell you about one thing we talked about but its a huge spoiler so I will just tell you about some other questions we asked him. Like we asked him about his favorite scenes to shoot during the filming. Most characters I have asked have always mentioned a funny scene. He went the opposite way and mentioned ones that he liked least. But he said it laughing.
Michael Douglas – I know the ones I liked least! Those were the heavy exposition. I had to carry a lot of the exposition of plot in terms of explaining how things worked and everything and there’s no rhyme or reason for those, you know. You just got to kind of get a momentum going and try to articulate them. The fact that Peyton, besides being such a good director, was an actor earlier in his life and knew my lines better than I did was a little intimidating, you know, because if I stumbled or flubbed he actually knew these technical names where they got the ants names. But I enjoyed the Pym Technology scenes. I enjoyed seeing this huge picture of me up there on the wall, you know.
I will update with a few spoiler questions once the movie comes out but before he left, he was nice enough to take a photo with all of us. I was like AHHH! again because I got to stand near him. He shook my hand as he was leaving. I was next to Hollywood royalty.
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I don’t think there is any role that Michael Douglas could not do. He is a great actor. I’m sure he is great in this movie.