Chatting With The Director Of Marvel’s Ant-Man Peyton Reed!

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Hey All!

I hope you enjoyed checking out my interview with Ant-Man himself Paul Rudd from the upcoming cinematic adventure Marvel’s Ant-Man. If you didn’t check it out, you need to as there is some fun behind the scenes images and details that Paul shared through out the interview. If you’re looking forward to this movie as much as I am, you’ll definitely want to check out all my Ant-Man interview posts this week as I was lucky to be invited to the set of the film last November. We toured the built sets like the one you see above for “Pym Technologies”! Yes folks this is where Hank Pym (Played by Michael Douglas) creates those Pym particles that allow Ant-Man to become the mini and huge versions of himself. Sorry to geek out there for a minute. Comic book nerd alert! It was so cool to see this amazing laboratory come to life on this spectacular set.

From this set we moved on to the real life “HOUSE” set I mentioned yesterday. This is where they were filming a birthday scene where Paul Rudd as Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man) is trying to visit his daughter for her birthday. It’s on this set where we also got to chat with the Director of the film Peyton Reed about taking on such an action packed superhero movie.

Peyton Reed (Peyton interview)

We started off our interview reminiscing about when he was announced as the new Director of the film back in San Diego Comic Con. We joked about how one does not just walk into Hall H and you have to essentially survive to just get in. It’s worth it every year as we get to see amazing announcements like Peyton being announced as the Director of Ant-Man before anyone else in the world.

It was fun to joke around with a Director who essentially loves Ant-Man just as much as the fans do. You could really get a sense that he really wants to bring Ant-Man to life in the best way possible. This of course led us to ask him about how much of Ant-Man father and how much of that is a part of this film. In the comics a lot of why Scott Lang becomes Ant-Man is because of his daughter.

Peyton & Abby (Peyton interview)

He had a great response:

“Well it’s one of the things that I really was attracted to about the movie because I think he’s the only super hero in the Marvel Universe that’s a parent. We’ve changed some of the specifics from the comic, but he still definitely has the relationship with his daughter Cassie.

It is a driving force as to why he sort of embraces his heroic side. That was really appealing to me to sort of do a movie that has all these weird elements to it. The shrinking, the controlling ants, and all the sort of super heroics, but it also has this really grounded domestic side you know. It’s this guy who is making really poor decisions in his life and is now trying to get some kind of redemption. And a big part of that is to really be a part of his daughter’s life and also to kind of make the world a better place for his daughter to grow up in. There’s a great thematic between Paul and his daughter and also Michael Douglas and his daughter, in the movie, Evangeline Lily. I think that in terms of the script and the story, it is one of the great things that they both, Paul and Michael, are very flawed characters who have things to learn about parenting and about being there for your kids. I think is a different thing from a lot of the other Marvel movies.”

This will truly be one of the most family themed Marvel film to have been made to date. It will surely be great for families to see because of this focus on wanting to be a good dad. By the way how cute is this picture above of Abby Ryder Fortson (Cassie Ant-Man’s daughter in the film) with Director Peyton Reed? She’s beyond adorable!

Being the comic book nerd that we are, we of course wanted to know how much from the comics actually makes it into the film?

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“I mean I think all the comic to movie translations change because you kind of want to keep them fresh and relevant to the world around them. And even like in the original Stan Lee, Jack Kirby Comics they were all about sort of pop culture references. It was all about really being relevant to young readership and I think the same is with movie. So there’s a lot of discussion about what changes and what stays the same, but I think everybody’s united on the fact that you want to keep it fresh because there’s so many super hero movies. And there’s all this talk about super hero fatigue and I think no one is more aware of that than Kevin Feige and the people at Marvel.

It’s like you know you have to stay 5 steps ahead of the audience because ultimately you just want the audience to be surprised and entertained and not bored and not like “Oh I’ve seen that before.”

And again, one of the things about Ant Man that I love is like the powers are really, really different and the style of story’s very different. He’s very grounded. It’s a grounded story.”

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Lastly we of course wanted to know what it’s like to work with Paul Rudd and little about the casting process. He joked about how he inherited Paul Rudd since he was already attached to the movie when he came on.

“Well I sort of inherited Paul Rudd. He was my inheritance. No Paul is great. Paul was on the movie before me. We havean [DOG amazing cast. I mean I certainly cast a lot of the other roles around, but you know Michael and Paul and Evangeline were on the movie before. I didn’t have to do much casting. We actually only have 2 weeks left of shooting in the movie so we’re really far along and the cast in this movie is bonkers. In terms of the performance and the performance all around, they’re incredible. I was saying before I think Paul was probably, I don’t know is there’s an official award, but he’s gotta’ be the most liked and most likeable guy in Hollywood. I was very happy to find that out.

I knew Paul a little bit before the movie, but you kind of find that out when you’re watching a Paul Rudd movie. It’s like, “Oh I can hang out with that guy.” And you actually do feel that way when you work with Paul  because he’s great. He’s the kind of Actor that I wanted to work with when I decided I wanted to be a Director. I always hoped that Actors would be that way and Paul is that way.  Obviously he’s an incredibly gifted Comedic Actor, but if you look at his dramatic work he’s equally amazing in movies and on stage. And this movie definitely asks him to exercise all those muscles you know.

This story of Ant-Man is kind of a different. We introduce him in a different context and you first see him in the movie he’s in prison. He’s getting out of prison and it’s like a rougher, more rugged version of Paul. That’s been really fun. To kind of see him work out and he’s been doing all this fight training and um and he’s amazing. You know my wife for example, who’s always loved Paul Rudd, saw him from the first day and she’s like, “Ohhhh impressive.”  I said, “Calm down”. I’m never letting her come to set again.  He’s amazing in the movie and he and Michael Douglas together are fantastic.”

I’m very much looking forward to see what direction Peyton Reed takes to bring the story of Ant-Man to life on the big screen!

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Stay tuned for all the rest of my Ant-Man set visit experience posts this week which will include interviews with  the Costume Department, and stars Judy Greer and the adorable Abby Ryder Fortson!

Lots more Ant-Man fun coming your way folks!

For more info on Ant-Man:

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

ANT-MAN opens in theaters everywhere on July 17th! Can’t wait!

 

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