AVENGERS (Whedon Speaks)

• THE AVENGERS

Joss Whedon talks Avengers

The guys over at MovieTalk were able to get Joss Whedon outof his busy schedule and get him to shed some light on the Avengers that willbe releasing on May 4^th in USA and April 27^th in SouthAfrica next year.

Avengers Assembled

 MovieTalk: Sowhat was that process like of earning the trust of these reallywell-established actors?

JW: Well, firstof all, because they've played parts and because in some way we were creating anew vision of the part, I sat down with every one of them to talk about myideas and their desires before I wrote the script, and that's very useful too.

So they knew from the ground-up that they were collaboratingon it. And the things that didn't make sense to them or didn't work to them,they were like, "Well, I don't want to stress that part of my character.We have done that before." All of that stuff I could honor.

Tony & Bruce

And then it's a question of making them heard, and thenultimately making them understand that there are things you are not going tobudge on that are your vision. And once they know they are part of it, but youactually have a vision, and you are not just trying to tell them what they wantto hear -- that it's all working towards one purpose, one story, one idea --then I feel, yeah, you are doing fine.

MT: I have heardfrom people who have worked with him before that Robert Downey Jr. likes tokeep things sort of fresh and fast. How did your two methods of working fitinto each others'?

JW: Well, we havevery different methods. But working as a showrunner, working as a scriptdoctor, working in sitcoms -- a lot of my work has been coming up with stuff onthe fly.  Like fixing as we go,improvising, being open to a new idea. So Robert and I would spend -- we workedspecifically towards both of our processes, so that we would beat out a sceneso that he was very comfortable with where it was going or what was being saidand very aware of where it would fit in the whole. And I would give him stuffto say, and by and large, he would say it.

But then there were always pockets where we had some wiggleroom for him to play, or ask for options, and if he said, "Can we dosomething else here?" I could give him four or five options by the time hehad his makeup on. Because that's actually fun for me, that frantic scramble.

We would try different things. He is very collaborative. Heloves notes. He loves to be guided and worked with. He is not trying tosteamroller over me. He is really trying to create it side-by-side with me. Soit ended up being a really healthy and delightful collaboration.

MT: Now, you saidyou talked to everybody sort of about their character, was there sort of anaspect or facet of Tony Stark that Robert brought up that you hadn't consideredbefore?

Captain America, Hawkeye & Black Widow

JW:I think theconversations were largely about "Where is Tony now?" Like, "Whois he now? Where is he [going] from 'Iron Man 2' towards 'Iron Man 3'?" Heis such a well-delineated character, so it was really a question of, "Whatdo we want to stress and what do we want to say? We have said that, we havedone that, so let's not go there."

He felt a sort of isolated man who is -- even though thereis an element of that, just because that's sort of what any team movie isabout. He didn't want to be the sort of just, "I am totally wrapped up inone thing and I am not thinking about everybody else." He didn't want tobe the tortured lonely man, which I totally get. And it was easy to make him asdelightful and gregarious as he can be and still go, well, there is a piecemissing and it's the piece that makes him an Avenger.

MT:I was reallyimpressed by Chris Evans in "Captain America" because his performancewas so different than what you usually see from him. There was no snark, nosarcastic edge to him. How did you have to adapt your sort of writing style tofit that sort of straightforward character?

JW:I love astraightforward character. I am the guy who loves Cyclops on the 'X-

Men', because he is square. [Captain America] is a littlesquare, and he is aware that he is a little square, and he is aware that theworld is a beat ahead of him, or in his case, 70 beats. I think that's verydisarming and very charming. I relate to that guy. I also don't know who thepopular singers are right now, so he is actually really easy for me to write.

There were some lines where [Chris] would be like,"Okay, now I just sound like an idiot." And in context, I was like,"Yeah, actually, now that it's all laid out that is a bit much." Buthe is very aware of his dignity, but at the same time understood why I wantedto find the humor in somebody who was so out of touch.

MT: You have MarkRuffalo stepping in for the first time playing the character of Bruce Banner.So did you feel more freedom to kind of create your own take on the character?

JW: Yeah, he andI did the most character work of anyone, because we really were starting fresh,but we were starting with something that had been embodied several times.

And both of us agreed upfront that the template for who wewanted this guy to be in his life was Bill Bixby, the TV [show character] whowas busy helping other people. That was more interesting to us than the Bannerin the first two movies who was always fixated on curing himself. We spent alot of time talking about what makes us Hulk out, the nature of anger, how itfeels.

We even fought some. I mean literally we actually got somepads out and did some tussling. Just to talk about the physicality, and alsothe physicality of somebody who has to control this thing, and the way he movesin space and the way he relates to the people and the objects around him. Itwas extremely fun. What we found was that he could be very bumbling and kind ofawkward, but at the same time very graceful and in this almost transcendentcontrol of himself.

Nick Fury in Action

MT: Personally, Iam excited for the movie just to see the character of Nick Fury come into hisown, because we have just gotten these little glimpses of his function in thisworld. Did you want to keep that edge of mystery to him, or explore who he isunderneath the patch?

JW: Well, he isnot going to be talking about his childhood, and you do want to keep a certainmystery. Also -- and this is something that I was very pleased that Marvelactually mandated -- they were very interested in keeping him, not just in thesort of a mystery of how the organization operates, but a real moral gray areawhere you really have to decide, "Is Nick Fury the most manipulative guyin the world? Is he a good guy? Is he completely Machiavellian or is it a bitof both?" And that was really fun to tweak.

Loki & Thor

I felt that in the other movies, they had been cameos and hehad been called upon to come in and be Sam Jackson and bluster a little bit.And I told Sam upfront that my big agenda was to see the weight on someone whois supposed to be in control of the most powerful beings on the planet. Theweight on somebody who has to run the organization and the gravity of it. Notthat we don't have any fun with Nick, but he definitely -- it's, I feel like amuch more textured performance and at times really moving.

MT: I imagine theother hard part about that is balancing a God and who can create lightning, anda guy with a bow and arrow, and giving them both the action that brings out thebest in them.

JW: Yeah. Well, Ifeel like we pulled that off. At the end of the day, the guy with the bow andarrow is a lot easier to write gags for than the God. But we created asituation where everybody can be useful, and everybody can be in jeopardy, andthey really can act as a team, even though -- as we have known from the firstissue of 'The Avengers' comic -- there's no reason for these people to be onthe same team.