Chatting With The Cast and Filmmakers of Marvel’s Ant-Man!

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Written By Jesse Delia:

Hey All!

A few weeks ago we were invited to the Marvel Ant-Man press conference. We had the opportunity to chat with the cast and film makers about this latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In addendance were Paul Rudd (“Scott Lang/Ant–Man”), Michael Douglas (“Hank Pym”),  Evangeline Lilly (“Hope Van Dyne”), Corey Stoll (“Darren Cross/Yellowjacket”),  Michael Pena (“Luis Pena”), T.I. (“Dave”), David Dastmalchian (“Kurt”), Peyton Reed (Director), and Kevin Feige (Producer). It was a fun filled session with lots of great info on the new film and lots of laughter. Here is a little about what was covered during the Q&A session.

Photo By Stacy Molter-Fancy Shanty

The panel started with Kevin Feige and his thoughts on what was it about the character of Ant-Man that he thought would be an excellent addition to the MCU?

KEVIN FEIGE:

Well, clearly Ant-Man in the comics is a founding member of the Avengers. I’ve said that we have a big, giant poster of Avengers #1 that has been in all of the various offices we’ve had over the years, and I love looking at that and checking off, yep that person’s been in a movie now, we’ve made a movie about that person, made a movie about that person. Ant-Man and Wasp were the two that had been the longest that we haven’t done anything with, so it was always clear that we were going to assemble all the Avengers eventually. It also was interesting to do a movie that plays with scale and that plays with action in a very different way than we’ve ever done before. I’m sure you all have heard me say many, many times, I like it when all of our films are unique and all of them are different. I want all of them to surprise people. Now, this is our 12^th film in the Marvel cinematic universe, so it felt time to do something even more unique and even more different, which I think these people have.

Photo By Stacy Molter-Fancy Shanty

Next up was, Peyton Reed! He spoke about how intimidating it is to make a film that is a break from the traditional Marvel mode with this project?

PEYTON REED:

I had no idea what Kevin was talking about, nothing.  There’s a high bar with these Marvel movies, and one of the things that I really discovered working with Marvel which I loved was they have a creative hunger. I’m putting words in your mouth, Kevin – but they really don’t want to repeat themselves and they encourage these movies to be really idiosyncratic. One of the things I love about Ant-Man is that it’s a pretty weird movie in a great way. It was allowed to be weird, and that was fantastic. So you know, there was a high bar there. So it kind of energizes everybody.

Photo By Stacy Molter-Fancy Shanty

Ant-Man himself (Paul Rudd) chatted about why he wanted to play Ant-Man.

PAUL RUDD:

The fact that it was different than anything that I’d ever done. I liked the challenge! I thought it would be an exciting adventure and I enjoyed the fact that when I was cast people went, huh, really – that you wouldn’t necessarily think that? I think that Marvel likes to do that and I was thrilled to have the opportunity.

Photo By Stacy Molter-Fancy Shanty

Evangeline Lilly has a great line in the film. She says, “It’s about damn time!” She chatted about the significance of that line and also about strong female characters.

EVANGELINE LILLY:

Amen and touché, sister. I think that there is a lot of excitement in the focus groups that we’ve seen already, with the female audiences, about this character in general. The fact that Marvel is really taking female characters very seriously and looking at their lineup you can see that they have great intentions. As a woman who came into a predominantly male film, I had a great time working with Peyton and with the producers, on this character, because I could see a hunger in them to really, really do right by Hope. They want to do right by their female fans and the female audience. When I pick a role, one of the things that I aspire to is that somebody’s parent will come up to me after the film has come out and say, “My daughter idealizes that character. You’re her hero.” And that’s what we aim for, especially in this brand, right? We’re in the business of making heroes.

Photo By Stacy Molter-Fancy Shanty

The legendary Michael Douglas talked about being a hero for his kids, now being Ant-Man and what his family thought of him in the movie.

MICHAEL DOUGLAS:

My 14 year old’s reaction was like an agent. He said, “You know, Dad, this could be a whole new audience for you.” So I took that to heart and here I am.

Photo By Stacy Molter-Fancy Shanty

Michael Pena is hilarious in the film. We of course wanted to know if it was all that on the page or did he improvise his lines?

MICHAEL PENA:

I basically wouldn’t shut up. You know, Peyton and Paul, they were fantastic. One the first day of shooting I was like scared out of my pants. I’d been reading Marvel comics, there’s a one stage, you know, for my kid that was one years old, and then all of a sudden like it gets more sophisticated as time goes on. And so my son is like, “Don’t mess this up there, Dad.” And so I was like thoroughly really nervous ‘cause like I want to be the cool dad, but it was really loose on set and it was actually great because I was a nervous wreck. Paul, he’s like, “You know, just do what you want, man. Let’s do things. Let’s do things. Let’s explore and let’s have fun.” And after the first week, it got to be a lot of fun. When it’s too much fun you don’t know what kind of movie it was. Thank god, you know, Peyton, you did all right.

Photo By Stacy Molter-Fancy Shanty

Corey Stoll shared his thoughts on if he was nervous or anxious about the character of Yellowjacket.

COREY STOLL:

Yeah, I would have moments of terror, you know, realizing what a huge audience there was. It’s a huge, incredibly passionate and well-informed audience, but it was just too much fun. Every day I came onto set there was some new piece of art that Peyton would show me. I would step onto the Pym-tech set and see the size of it. It was just all these dreams of, you know, the 15 year old Corey being realized. And even the civilian costumes that he wears are so outrageously villainous. I had to stop myself grinning from ear to ear every day. It really was, it was awesome.

I can totally agree with Corey that the sets were awesome if you remember I visited the sets he’s referring to! It’s always fun to hear the cast and film makers talk about a film they put so much hard work into.

Stay tuned for my thoughts on the film. Check out all the rest of my Ant-Man coverage HERE!

ANT-MAN opens in theaters everywhere on July 17th!

For more information on the film…

Like ANT-MAN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/antman

Follow ANT-MAN on Twitter: https://twitter.com/antman

And visit the official ANT-MAN site: http://marvel.com/antman

Thanks to Stacy Molter-Fancy Shanty and Disney for the photos!