Latest / Brighter Path: Data, Marketing, Entertainment, and Storytelling / Masters of the Universe Interview | Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Idris Elba & Travis Knight

Transcript

Masters of the Universe Interview | Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Idris Elba & Travis Knight · Brighter Path: Data, Marketing, Entertainment, and Storytelling

• 0:00
  You know, it's, it's an iconic line.
• 0:03
  You're doing it in front of about 405 hundred crew as well.
• 0:07
  So there's there's the immediate judgement if you get it wrong.
• 0:10
  But really the line is his essence in a lot of ways.
• 0:16
  I mean, he is someone who has consistently been counted out in
• 0:20
  his life. He finds it hard to believe in
• 0:24
  himself. A lot of people don't believe in
• 0:26
  him and so it's he's really trying to shed all these years
• 0:32
  of of feeling outcast and rejected.
• 0:37
  And I've mentioned this before, but for me, and I don't think
• 0:41
  for Travis as well, it was a very emotional day and a very
• 0:44
  emotional scene and it felt good to just kind of get it out.
• 0:48
  The physical component of it is difficult because there's a
• 0:52
  whole time consuming process that kind of goes into it.
• 0:56
  But really kind of, as you say, I think that the superheroes who
• 1:01
  have this really soft underbelly of, of, of vulnerability and
• 1:05
  emotion are always the most interesting certainly to play.
• 1:08
  And you know, there are, there are a couple of scenes where I
• 1:12
  have to be vulnerable and emotional as he man.
• 1:16
  And those are quite difficult because you know, you have to
• 1:18
  cry, but you're also dehydrated and you've been working out all
• 1:22
  day and, and so that's probably the most difficult.
• 1:25
  I've definitely. Played characters that lean into
• 1:28
  their emotions. I've played fathers before, but
• 1:29
  this one was definitely, you know, it's a cartoon character,
• 1:33
  some larger than the larger than big world.
• 1:38
  But being able to have that grounded relationship between
• 1:40
  father and daughter and really exposed vulnerabilities, you
• 1:43
  know, most men won't tell you they they messed up, you know
• 1:47
  what I mean? They just want to hold that in
• 1:49
  and I really enjoyed exploring that.
• 1:51
  My guy gets to kick ass over here and the same time shed a
• 1:54
  tear because, you know, he feels like like he could do better for
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  his kid. So I really enjoyed that
• 1:58
  spectrum, you know? Yeah, I feel like she really
• 2:00
  holds her own, and a huge part of that is because she was
• 2:03
  raised by a man at arms, and so she's a very skilled fighter.
• 2:07
  But I do think that so much about their storyline has
• 2:11
  informed who she is. When we find her as an adult, I
• 2:16
  think she's like had to assume a lot of responsibility in her
• 2:20
  life, like you said, and had to become sort of her own caretaker
• 2:24
  and carries a lot of resentment about Duncan and their
• 2:28
  relationship. Resentment.
• 2:30
  Really. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:30
  We should impact that later. But yeah.
• 2:35
  And I think that that has their dynamic has had a huge effect on
• 2:40
  her. And I think that's the reason
• 2:42
  why I think she's such a good leader, because she's always
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  kind of had to, or she's had to take care of herself from a very
• 2:48
  early age. Like you have to lean into the
• 2:50
  humour. Of grace it, yeah.
• 2:51
  Yeah, because it is a very stylized world.
• 2:55
  And I think Travis did such a beautiful job with his vision of
• 2:58
  the film, of balancing all those different tonal elements, like
• 3:01
  being able to have moments of real sincerity and heart, but
• 3:05
  also a lot of humour, making fun of itself a bit, and then, yeah,
• 3:09
  self-awareness, yeah. I I don't get a chance to play
• 3:12
  goofy characters as much as I would and I really enjoyed
• 3:15
  leaning into that. You know, he didn't look great
• 3:17
  with his little Afro and his big almost starts, you know?
• 3:20
  But I just enjoyed the special. For me as a fan and as a
• 3:22
  director as well, I, you know, we were developing the story and
• 3:27
  you know, where we were getting ready to shoot.
• 3:28
  And I really, I desperately wanted Dolph in the movie.
• 3:31
  I wanted him in the movie so bad.
• 3:33
  And so we, we kept reaching out to him and finally, you know, I
• 3:35
  was able to to chat with him about, you know, what I would
• 3:37
  hope that that his character would represent in the film.
• 3:40
  And, and, you know, we talked about and he had some thoughts
• 3:43
  about like what we can do with the character.
• 3:45
  And so I took all that on board and we, we rework the character
• 3:48
  to something that was closer to kind of hit how he imagined it
• 3:51
  could, it could be. And in that way, it was just, it
• 3:53
  was a really lovely collaboration between actor and
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  and director And, and ultimately, you know, on the day
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  there he is being Dolph Lundgren being awesome.
• 4:01
  And just to see the two he men on screen at the same time, it
• 4:05
  was really quite touching for me.
• 4:06
  And, and to see those guys interact with one another.
• 4:09
  I think it's a very, very sweet moment.
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  And then see how that face off later in the movie.
• 4:13
  It's it was, it was a joy. Well, there were there were a
• 4:16
  number of characters that I wanted to fit into the movie
• 4:18
  that I couldn't because they were too complicated.
• 4:20
  And you know, there are, you know, this is a, this is a, a
• 4:24
  world that goes back over 40 years.
• 4:26
  And so there are so many stories, there are so many
• 4:28
  characters to draw from. To start with, I just put my
• 4:31
  favorite, my favorite toys in the movie.
• 4:35
  And but they're at some point you're not really doing service
• 4:37
  to the film if you're just stuffing it with all these
• 4:39
  different characters. You have to make sure you're
• 4:41
  balancing that thing. You know, film is a time based
• 4:43
  art. So we only have so much time to
• 4:45
  tell the story, which means it has to be disciplined.
• 4:47
  But even still, I try to get every all of my favorite
• 4:50
  characters in the movie. There were a few I wasn't able
• 4:51
  to get like Merman. I wanted to get Merman in the
• 4:53
  film. There wasn't space for Merman
• 4:55
  because I wanted to do him, you know, no, you know, look,
• 4:57
  Skeletor was always one of my favorite villains.
• 4:59
  He really chew the scenery. He was very fun.
• 5:01
  He was very theatrical. He looked cool, he was funny and
• 5:05
  he was underneath it all. He was deeply insecure.
• 5:08
  And I thought that was just a really fun combination of
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  flavours for for our character to play with.
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  And and Jared did a wonderful job in bringing the character to
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  life. It's he's, I mean, he's
• 5:17
  literally recognizable as Skeletor, but he he's just, he
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  embraced what the character needed to be, which is kind of
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  big. It's over the top.
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  It's scary and menacing where he needs to be, but also funny
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  because of how insecure he is and how petulant he can be.
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  I just, I think it's so much fun to watch.
• 5:32
  So many of these people, these heroes that that he's
• 5:36
  addressing, you know, we very much think of heroes in a lot of
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  ways as, you know, people who are completely self reliant and
• 5:45
  don't need the help of, of anyone else around them.
• 5:49
  But what that leads to a lot of the time is, is hubris, you
• 5:53
  know, pride before the fall. And Adam is someone who sees the
• 5:58
  best in people. He helps people collaborate with
• 6:00
  each other. He, he believes in the, the
• 6:04
  power of the collective. And it's really, it's kind of
• 6:09
  the the lesson of the day for a lot of these people who all find
• 6:12
  themselves in this precarious position from working just by
• 6:15
  themselves. And he has to kind of imbue them
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  with that sense of being able to work with each other and
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  collaborate.