INTERVIEW: Alfred Molina on Playing Doc Ock!
Source: Chuck the Movieguy
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Coming soon... June 30th... a new villain. What's it like? Alfred Molina, Doctor Otto Octavius (aka Doc Ock) tells us. "There's a certain degree of detective work you have to do because the character has already existed in another media, so you're not during in pure fiction. It's not something that's completely brand new. So there's a certain amount of attention to what a character looks like or what sort of character he or she may have been in their original manifestation. In the end, because it's a movie version of a comic book character, it has to change. It has to evolve in some way. With a certain nod to what went before and with due respect to all the work the comic book writers and artists did, you try and approach it with as much freshness and invention as you can."
When asked about motivation behind being Doc Ock, Molina commented, "Why? Well the money was great, and it was a chance to make a big film. I've never done a movie quite this big before. The last time I did a really big film was when I did 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' which 24 years ago was a state-of-the-art movie. But in comparison to what's available technically now, it seems almost crude."
Speaking of motivation, Molina had this to say about Sam Raimi, the director of Spider-Man 2. "Fantastic. Sam's a real gentleman. He's very courteous, very respectful, gives everyone the room to work. He creates a fantastic atmosphere on the set. Never raises his voice. Not a shouter. Some directors are real screamers. They get abusive. But Sam, and we worked hard. We worked long days, but because he treats people with courtesy, everyone is willing to put the hours in for him. He has a fantastic eye for storytelling. He's got a great sensibility - particularly for this material, which he quite clearly loves. He's just got a very intelligent and sophisticated way of telling a story which doesn't talk down to anybody."
Raimi's love for the story of his movie became clear when helping Molina craft his character. "Well he was very interested in finding a way to tell the story that was both fresh and inventive, but at the same time capturing the essence that was already there in the comic book character. We both started looking through old back copies of the comic, and I think Doc Ock first appeared around the mid 60s. When he was first drawn, he was like a big, sort of brutish-looking character. Then he became a bit more sleek, a bit more sophisticated, and then he kind of became more athletic. But the one thing that was constant through all the different manifestations of them was this rather sardonic, almost crude sense of humor. We both felt that was quite an important thing to hang onto."
As far as the expectations for a big movie like Spider-Man 2, "There's an amazing amount of special effects and technology, the actor's role in a sense is really not quite as crucial. You have a different relationship to the material, somehow. In a way you have to surrender to that. You're suspended 50 feet up in the air. You've been there for three hours and all the shot requires is that you have to react to being punched in the head. It's not a good time to then suddenly say, 'Can I discuss the inner-most I'm a bit worried about my motivation.' You've gotta kind of go with the flow a little bit. Overall, making a movie like this is a completely different beast. It's a different, you have to approach it differently. The analogy I always use is that it's like the plumber's tool box. It's the same tool box, but one day you might be fixing a showerhead, the next day you're working on some drains. But the tools come out of the same box."
When we spoke to James Franco (Harry Osborn) about Doc Ock's tentacles, he mentioned how difficult it seemed. Molina helped explain how they worked. "The tentacles and all that stuff was partly CGI, it was partly animation, and partly what we call practical. I had them strapped on and puppeteers were operating them, and so on. It was sort of a mixture of all three really. We tried to use the practical tentacles as much as we could when we were in either close or medium shots, because then the guys operating them could be out of shot and could actually give them some life. But obviously the big set pieces like climbing up buildings, that was obviously all computer generated.
Sounds like it would pretty constricting huh? Well, "It was constricting in the sense that, you have to think about a certain amount of weight you were carrying and so on. Like everything else, one always just tries to incorporate that into what you're doing. The first couple of days of rehearsal, we were just rehearsing with them, I discovered very quickly that I would have to adopt my own body language to this new circumstance. I couldn't sort of bend and turn and move in quite the same way, so I had to find a way that Doc Ock could move with all that stuff on. The tentacles were attached to a big sort of, it's like a big girdle that gets fused to Doc Ock's spine and they were attached to that, so the idea is that they were actually physically fused with his spinal column."
In talking about the Doc Ock action figure, Molina made a funny. He said, "I have seen the action figure, and I'm glad to say they've been very flattering. I've never had pecs like that. I have middle-age man-breasts. I can definitely say no that I did not model for the action figure. I think Brad Pitt modeled for that action figure. When my wife saw it, she said, 'Honey, why can't you look more like that?'"
Molina may not have modeled for the action figure, but he did do the voice in the video game. "We did two versions, I think. We did one version, I know nothing about video games. But my friends who have got 10 and 11 and 12 year old daughters were terribly impressed."
Will we see Doc Ock again? "There's no way of knowing. I think that really depends on the audiences. If the audiences come back and say 'I love Doc Ock', then I'm sure the way things are in comic books, in this particular Marvel Comic universe, you don't die, you just disappear for a while. He may well come back. If audiences say, 'who was the weird guy with the tentacles, we could've done without him,' then he probably won't come back. I always loved the character. I always thought it was a really interesting character. I remember Doc Ock from when I was a kid collecting Marvel Comics. I hope audiences dig it."
Watch Doc Ock and Spidey battle it out in Spider-Man 2, opening Wednesday, June 30th.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
SPIDER-MANIA! DOC OCK, HIMSELF, TALKS ABOUT - UH, PLAYING DOC OCK!
- Thread starter Willco
- Start date
- Status
The Bookerman
Member
As Much as I love Otto, I love Venom this much more.... WHY SAM, WHY?
http://www.ifilm.com/bigpicture/spiderman
For Doc Ock goodness, check out clips:
Clocktower(awesome)
Train Overpass
Bank Robbery
For Doc Ock goodness, check out clips:
Clocktower(awesome)
Train Overpass
Bank Robbery
Killbin said:
I can confirm this about Venom:
He is NOT in the sequel.
And The Shocker? No way. He couldn't even carry more than a scene. He'd be fodder for an opening sequence, maybe.
Also, and this is major spoils, this is likely to be the villain(s) of the sequel:
Green Goblin II/Hobgoblin and The Lizard.
Escape Goat
Member
Willco: blah blah Spider Man 2 blah blah Spider Man 2 blah blah Spider Man 2 blah blah
DJ Demon J
Banned
Willco said:
If this happens, watch Spidey 3 box office take tank miserably.
Movie audiences do not want the same bad guy, unless that bad guy was incredibly charismatic and there is a good enough reason for him to return. Although GG may have the latter (Norman and Harry being GG in the comics), I just don't think it works on the big screen, at least not without one of Spidey's other main archnemesis. I really think Venom could carry over well, and frankly I'm shocked that Raimi wouldn't want to explore the character of Eddie Brock and how Spidey got rid of the alien but Eddie embraced it. Hell, the 3rd Spidey movie would be better if the only brought in Affleck and Jane as DD and Punisher for quick cameos!! ANYTHING but GG again (and the LAME-ASS Lizard).
DJ Demon J said:
You're a bit wrong. They'll probably market it as the last Spider-Man movie or at the very least, the end of the Spider-Man trilogy.
And The Lizard has a bigger following than you think.
Regardless, Spider-Man could fight a Teletubbie and it'd make $200 million.
Escape Goat
Member
I'm glad they didn't go with Electro. What an incredibly generic villain.
And, this is the very ending of Spider-Man 2 (DON'T CLICK IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW!):
Venom probably won't happen. And if Sony relaunches Spider-Man with a new cast and crew a few years after Spidey 3, don't be surprised to see it without Venom, as well. I've been told there are rights issues to be resolved with Venom.
Harry finds his father's gear. There's actually a shot of him holding his father's Green Goblin helmet floating the web. Raimi promises that when the Goblin returns, it will be nothing like the one from the original. The Lizard has been something Raimi wants to do for awhile and he said awhile back he didn't think another Goblin could carry a single film, nor could the Lizard, so the third and final Raimi film is the perfect opportunity for both. Doc Conners, who becomes the Lizard in the comics, is actually in Spider-Man 2.
Venom probably won't happen. And if Sony relaunches Spider-Man with a new cast and crew a few years after Spidey 3, don't be surprised to see it without Venom, as well. I've been told there are rights issues to be resolved with Venom.
.jpg)
.jpg)
DJ Demon J
Banned
Odd to hear that there could be IPR issues holding up Venom. But Marvel did sue Sony over Sony's alleged move to make Spider-Man a Sony IP through tie-ins and marketing, so... *shrug*
I very strongly disagree with your perception of Lizard as having a "large following." The Lizard will not appeal to movie audiences, plain and simple. Nor will a rehash of GG. And the combination of the two will turn Spidey 3 into another Batman Returns/Batman and Robin. It's funny how Raimi blasts the direction of the latter Batman films for focusing on the villain-of-the-week and not going for overall story arc, yet he wants to put two ho-hum low-rank villains as the focus of Spidey 3?? FUCK THAT. Bring someone else if you can't bring Venom, but please, please don't fuck it up by doing Lizard/GG.
I very strongly disagree with your perception of Lizard as having a "large following." The Lizard will not appeal to movie audiences, plain and simple. Nor will a rehash of GG. And the combination of the two will turn Spidey 3 into another Batman Returns/Batman and Robin. It's funny how Raimi blasts the direction of the latter Batman films for focusing on the villain-of-the-week and not going for overall story arc, yet he wants to put two ho-hum low-rank villains as the focus of Spidey 3?? FUCK THAT. Bring someone else if you can't bring Venom, but please, please don't fuck it up by doing Lizard/GG.
Just because you don't care for the Lizard, don't make that a general statement. The Lizard is probably one of Spidey's most popular villains from the rogue gallery and many a fan would love to see him in a sequel (in fact, many of have been waiting since the original when Peter dropped the line that he lost his job with Dr. Connors).
I've heard that Venom had been licensed as to another studio for his own film, awhile back. Now I doubt a Venom film will see the light of day, it might just be a matter of the rights to expire.
I've heard that Venom had been licensed as to another studio for his own film, awhile back. Now I doubt a Venom film will see the light of day, it might just be a matter of the rights to expire.
Bob White said:
I didn't say because he was mentioned in the first means he should be in the third. I just said he was. There's a STORY ARC FLOWING throughout the trilogy. It's the interaction between Peter and MJ and Harry. Putting Venom in there, now that the Harry and Peter interaction has escalated is stupid.
Bob White said:Fuck it, Vemon should be in the movie.
That would be a retarded movie. In the final installment of Raimi's trilogy, Peter and Harry reconcile, Peter and MJ smooth their relationship over, Peter meets and somewhat ruins Eddie Brock's career, Peter gets the black suit from outerspace or SECRET WARS, gets the suit off of him, suit merges with Brock, becomes Venom, hunts down Spider-Man and such all in the span of two hours.
That's a disaster waiting to happen.
Baron Aloha
A Shining Example
Willco said:
IAWTP.
I know I'm in the minority here when I say this, but I wouldn't mind seeing Hydroman at some point. I think it would be cool to see a liquified villain on screen. There are a lot of effects they could do with that. Obviously he couldn't carry his own movie so you would have to pair him up with someone. The Shocker seems like an obvious choice, imo since water and electricity don't mix (could be an easy way to kill them both). But I still don't think it that would make a good movie.
That's the problem with a lot of Spidey villains. Very few of them could carry a movie. I think Venom would be the obvious choice for a 4th film with Venom & Carnage in the 5th (and last one).
So who could carry Spiderman 3? Either Kingping & GG2 (so we can see the Harry/Kingpin dynamic) or Mysterio. Yes.... I believe that Mysterio could carry a movie... but it's obvious they are going with GG2. They might be able to cover the symbiote suit story in part 3 as well (up to the part with Peter getting rid of it).
- Status