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| Source: ComicBook.com |
Several weeks ago, Blue Jasmine and Boardwalk Empire actor Bobby Cannavale revealed that he would be playing someone new in Marvel’s Ant-Man, and would only say that he shared a lot of scenes with Judy Greer and his real-life buddy Paul Rudd. But now we have some more details about his role.
“Judy Greer is in it and she plays my wife,” Cannavale divulged in an Esquire interview. Greer is playing Scott Lang’s (Rudd) ex-wife. That should lead to some awkward dialogue between Cannavale and Rudd, who have “a lot of scenes together.”
The character was included in the original Ant-Man script that was written by Edgar Wright, but when he left the project Rudd and Adam McKay did some major rewrites. “They sort of pumped the part up a bit in the new version and they both called me and said, ‘You’ve got to do this.’,” Cannavale recalled.
And does Cannavle feel any pressure now that he is apart of the Marvel cinematic universe? “You know, look, I’m not playing the guy in the suit,” Cannavale said. “So I don’t have that kind of pressure. But if you know Paul, you know he’s a pretty down-to-earth guy. I have to say, the whole thing, for as big as it was, felt like an indie film. With the exception of all the blue screen and the ridiculous suit that he’s in. And the fact that I’ve got to look at something that’s not there and react to something like an explosion when there’s no explosion. Aside from that, the actual scenes themselves were really fun and funny and we improvised a lot. It almost felt like an Adam McKay film. Since Guardians of the Galaxy, I think Marvel’s sort of taken a different approach to their films and have injected them with a lot of levity. It’s a great choice to have Paul play that role, sort of in the same vein as having Chris Pratt do Guardians. It still has the totemic idea of the hero, but the sense of humor is what’s different in comparison to something like Thor.”
Bobby Cannavale talked in-depth with CBR about seeing Paul Rudd costumed on set, and how it was difficult imagining Rudd shrinking and growing, among other things. . “It was [still] a trip because I’ve known Paul for so long, since before he was famous like this, and it’s just a trip to see one of your best friends in ridiculous leather suit with dots all over him and you’re not supposed to laugh,” said Cannavale. “We just laughed. He’s supposed to be this big [pinches fingers together]. Then I’m supposed to see him growing in front of me. But what I’m really seeing is Paul off-camera standing on an apple box. Then he jumps off the apple box. And I’m supposed to act like he’s growing in front of me and then lands with this really heroic pose, but he’s jumping of a box with green dots on him. He’s supposed to have a mask that they CGI in. so I’ve never seen the mask. Every time I see him to talk, he goes like this [hits a pretend button] because there’s a button there that isn’t really there. I wasn’t used to that. He’d start to talk and he’d be like, [pretends to push button]. I’d ask ridiculous questions all the time. Peyton Reed, he just kept saying, ‘Dude, just do it.’ But I’d say, ‘I don’t understand. Does the mask go up this way or this way?’ And there’s a visual effects guy there and I want an answer. They got so tired of my questions: ‘So I don’t understand — If I was just over there, how did I get over here so quick?’ Reed would be like, ‘Cannavale, it’s a superhero movie, dude. Just do it!’ But I’d say, ‘Yeah, but do I have superhuman speed, because I was just three blocks away and now I’m here and I’m not even out of breath. Should I be out of breath?’ He’d be like, ‘Dude, it’s not the Unbearable Lightness of Being. It’s just [frick]ing Ant-Man. Just say the line.’ Then it just became a joke. I had a blast. We laughed so much on that thing.”
Bobby Cannavle then explained how the cast of Ant-Man made it easier to wrap his head around everything. “Guys like Corey Stoll and Rudd, Judy Greer and Michael Pena, Martin Donovan — really, really good actors,” he said. “And so I looked around and thought, ‘You know, if these guys are doing it, I’m okay.’ There were no wrestlers or anything. We had T.I., but T.I. was great. But definitely very different from the movies that I’m used to making, for sure.” Finally, Cannavale was asked if he did a movie post-Ant-Man to help get back to filming the way he’s used to. “It was actually the reverse,” he replied. “I literally wrapped with [Martin] Scorsese — I worked with Scorsese all summer on the rock and roll pilot, and it was literally the longest pilot ever. It was like a 38-day pilot, so we shot all summer. I literally wrapped with Marty at like one o’clock in the morning, an intense scene, this intense, dark scene, and wrapped with him, big hug. And then I got onto a plane in Atlanta for a blue screen test of me fighting with a 50-foot ant. And I wrote Marty right away — I was like, ‘This business is weird.” [Laughs] “I can’t believe I was just with you, and now I’m reacting to an ant I can’t see.'”
Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, con-man Scott Lang must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym, protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.
Marvel’s Ant-Man hits theaters July 17, 2015.
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