The following interviews are taken from this months Empire Magazine.
Nicolas Cage on Big Daddy (Damon Macready)
For a man who almost played Superman, was it nice to play a thinly veiled take on Batman?
I liked it because I always fantasised about what would happen if you could become a superhero. As a child I was Kick-Ass. I would call myself The Spirit and I had a white t-shirt with a black ‘S’ on it. I strapped a boomerang to my chest and I would prowl the alley at the back of my house between one and two in the morning. When I got the script, I loved the concept because I think it’s something that speaks to all of us.
You don’t do it anymore, right?
No, clearly not lately. I’m a little old for that!
When Big Daddy speaks, there’s a real Adam West thing going on…
Well, it came out of a rehearsal, when Matthew wanted me to have a yellow belt. And it looked so much like the belt from the Batman TV show that I thought, “Well, why don’t we just go the whole way and have Damon be channelling Adam West?” Because that’s his Jungian muse, to help him accomplish the things he accomplishes. Adam West, is for me, the only Batman. He found the humour in the character and found the charm that the original Batman comics always had.
There’s such a contrast between Big Daddy, who’s a brutal killer, and Damon.
I wanted Damon to be the nicest father in the world. I once dated a girl many, many years ago whose father was a cop. He had a moustache and glasses and he’d always refer to my then-girlfriend as “child”. He was the last guy you’d ever expect could break someone’s nose in a fist-fight but he was indeed a bad-ass police officer. I liked that tonality.
Chloe Moretz on Hit Girl (Mindy Macready)
How would you describe Hit-Girl?
She’s a purple, crazy assassin girl! It’s funny; she acts so tough, but underneath everything she’s just this little 11 year-old girl. I was amazed that I got this part. No joke. About a month before I got this script, Wanted came out, with Angelina Jolie, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, Mom, I really want a role just like that - y’know, like, a take-charge action hero.” And when she read Kick-Ass, my mom was like, “Chloe, you’ll never believe this…” I read it and I was like, “I have to be Hit-Girl!|
How much work did you have to do for the role?
When I accepted it, I realised I was going to be doing a lot of action stuff. It was really fun, but at the same time it was insanely hard. I worked for four months, with two months of combat training, learning how to load a gun, take apart a gun, how to clean a gun, how to kick, how to do tumbling, everything. And the last two months of it I spent at the Toronto Circus School! They took me there because they wanted me to get really flexible for the role.
Can you do, for real, any of the things that Hit-Girl does in the movie?
Yes, definitely. Now, I can’t run up a wall, but I can do everything else. It’s pretty awesome. I mean, what I learned on that movie I will probably never forget. But it is a role. It’s not me. In real life, I’ve never cussed. I’d be grounded for a year if I said half the stuff I say in that movie! I like doing roles that are different to me because it stretches my acting ability. I would never want to see that kind of violence in everyday life. I’m a huge chicken. I’m scared of spiders! Y’know, I like romantic comedies. I’m totally a chick-flick girl.
Kick-Ass is released later this year on April 16th. For more on the movie, the March 2010 issue of Empire Magazine is on sale now!