MATTHEW VAUGHN INTERVIEW 22 MAY 2011 THE DORCHESTER HOTEL, LONDON PART 2 (of 3... Part 1 still
HERE) of the roundtable interview OWF took part in with
X-Men: First Class director and one of this website's favourites,
Matthew Vaughn. Speaking as candidly and informative as ever, Vaughn goes in-depth on the pressures of delivering an X-prequel/reboot to a popular film trilogy, his fascination with Magneto, the decision to set the story into a real historical time and place, his thoughts about returning to make
Kick-Ass 2 and what he would have done with
X-Men 3: The Last Stand had he not exited weeks before filming. Q: You did a great job of juggling the characters but were there any that you had to sacrifice?
MV: We cut out a whole love story between Moira (Agent Moira MacTaggart played by Rose Byrne) and Professor X. Most of my movies I cut out one, I normally try and shoot too many things. Its better to be able to take it down than not be able to build it up.
Q: Youve got hundreds of characters to choose from, how did you go about choosing them?
MV: No, they were already chosen by Bryan and Fox. In the draft they gave me all the characters were in there. We cut Sunspot, because we didnt have the time or money. They couldnt make him work, it was a pain in the arse.
Q: Did you have a favourite from the ensemble in this movie?
MV: Favourite as in character wise? Well for me, its obvious, but Magneto. I sat down with Michael and said look Ive always wanted to do a Bond movie, imagine youre Bond but you dont have to have gadgets; you know Bond would have to use his watch and stuff, and you can do shit that other people cant, the ultimate assassin in a world that no-one knows about. Ive always loved Magneto. Its weird because his powers bloody odd if you think about it. Its not that great a power but theres something about Magneto Ive always loved.
Q: How much pressure did you allow yourself to have from the hardcore fan-base? Did you read a lot about what fans were saying?
MV: You read about it, but dont take it the wrong way, you have to ignore it at the same time. I remember talking to Daniel Craig about this when he was doing Bond - I was like, these fuckwits, they havent seen what youre doing, youre a good actor and just let your work do the talking. And I always knew that when people saw him in Bond theyd go hes great. But you read and you do want to hear what the concerns are, and see if you can address them but at the same time you dont who the hells writing it it could be an 8 year old kid. What, Im listening to an 8 year old on how to construct a film? But every now and then there will be some constructive points. I was amazed at the negativity though towards the X-Men world well perhaps not really after watching Wolverine But it was quite scary, am I going to be able to turn fanboys around and enjoy it and I though the best way to do it was try and make a good movie which is respectful to the other X-Men movies, but not reverential to them?
Q: You were originally slated to direct
X-Men 3: The Last Stand, how would that have differed, and looking back are you happy that it didnt come to be?
MV: X3 was a weird process. The reason I pulled out of it was I genuinely didnt think I had enough time to make the film though they gave me much more time on that than this one and that world was already created. So what was more satisfying was I loved the idea that I could recast every character, setup a new world and do my version of an X-movie. Because in X3 ultimately youre following a trend. I story-boarded the whole bloody film, did the script. I think my X3 would have been 40 minutes longer. They didnt let the emotions of the characters come through. I remember writing the scenes when Jean Grey turns around to Wolverine and says kill me, and the deaths at the end, Professor Xs death I remember writing all that shit. I just felt they didnt let the emotion and the drama play in that film. It became just wall-to-wall noise and action. How long was it, 90 minutes? I would have let it breathe and have more elements to it I think. But then they probably wouldnt have let me do that. Fox were great on this. Theyve got this really bad reputation, but they were real allies on this, they really let me get on with it.
Q: Its clearly a prequel, but is it a prequel in the same sense that the latest
Star Trek is a prequel, in that if you make sequels and its going to clash with the existing films are you going to just say bugger it, lets make a good movie?
MV: Totally, I dont give a shit about the other ones. In the sense that I wanted to do my version that was sort of similar to the comics in the beginning, you know they came out in the 60s. I really enjoyed X1 and X2, I think Bryan did a great job, but with X3 and Wolverine, and the whole superhero genre its all been fucked up. Hollywood just trying big explosions and being all glossy, corny costumes and outfits. I was very inspired by what Nolan did in Batman Begins, and Im a big Burton fan, then Schumacher took over and you were just like what the fuck is going on?, and they got worse and they kept making them. I really enjoyed Batman Begins, a lot more than I thought I would, especially the first half, and I thought why not try and do the same thing, putting in a realism and try and make the characters and the genre of X-Men relevant to a modern audience. Superhero movies need to change, Ive said this before but I think theyre on the verge as a genre of dying. I love superhero films so I want more to be made, but they need to be taken seriously as a genre. I think the difference between Iron Man and Iron Man 2 shows that if you dont really nail it you can suddenly go 'what is this?'
Q: This is the third film written with
Jane Goldman (Stardust, Kick-Ass) you seem to have great working relationship..
MV: Four actually, weve got another one coming out next month
Q: And of course youre going to be working on
Kick-Ass 2 together
MV: Maybe, everyone says were doing that. I dont know yet. The weird thing about Kick-Ass 2 is Id love to do it because I enjoyed the first one so much but Im a big believer in that if youre gonna do a sequel its got to be as good as the first one, if not better. The business brain of mine says lets just do Kick-Ass 2, shoot it and get it out there and well make a lot of money, but I really do love that movie, it was a very special moment to me making that film and I dont want to spoil it. Im not saying its as good as Pulp Fiction but Id think itd be weird if Tarantino did Pulp Fiction 2. And everything that made Kick-Ass original and fun, I think if you do it again it could be crass. So not saying it wont happen but it would have to have something that made me comfortable that the audience would enjoy it as much.
Q: How do you and Jane actually work together?
MV: I normally bang out a very rough draft and send it over to her, she then rewrites it and then when shes rewritten it we get in a room together and do the final coming together of the sript, and then we give it to people.
Q: Shes suggested before that your speciality is very structural, and hers might be more the fine points, would that be a fair distinction to make?
MV: Yeah, as I say, I build the whole universe, the characters and all that. Im anal about structure.
Q: One of the really impressive things about this film is the way the structure leads us to something thats inevitable but in an unexpected way. At what point in the process did you come up with these end moments, did you get everything you wanted, and did you effectively build backwards?
MV: Yeah.. Well actually the first scene I wrote was the Auschwitz, or concentration camp scene with the little kid. I thought whats the best way of doing a prequel so I had the idea of starting it with a shot for shot beginning of the X-Men world and then lets see what happens after he pulls the gate. And that scene for me is the crux of the movie. It makes you feel sorry for Magneto, makes you want to see him kick some fucking Nazi arse. And the whole thing with the Nazi obsession with genetic mutation and the blue eyes / blonde haired shit and all the experiments they did I just thought it was a very natural way of starting, then flipping to Professor X. Youve got Magneto in a fucking concentration camp and youve got Professor X wandering around this huge mansion. So they were the first things I wrote, and then I was always imagining you have to figure out how do they become friends, how do they then fall out, and then how does he get crippled and how does Magneto become Magneto was the end goal. It was hard because Fox were saying this is all about the friendship, I was like guys they only get to see each other for three fucking weeks or something, so I had to somehow make it believable and that you care. And Bryan came up with the Cuban Missile Crisis I didnt know much about, I didnt learn about it in school, so when I read about it I thought our version made more sense in history than the real version. The idea that we nearly went to nuclear war, you just go I cant believe that happened, where ultimately if there was a bad super-villain making all that shit happen it makes more sense. It was Magneto I was obsessed with, when he puts on the helmet, and what I loved about Shaw (Kevin Bacon) as the villain was then seeing all those elements of Shaw going in to Magneto. That to me was the far more interesting arc. But with Professor X you know Professor X is a bit of a pious, sanctimonious, boring character, and you know hes got too much fucking power. Its very hard writing when youve got some guy that can freeze people and read everyones mind. How do you handle this guy? So I did like the idea of James McAvoy and I of making him more of a rogue, make him more fun, and then how he slowly starts realising that there are other mutants out there and gets far more responsible. But for me Magneto was the driving force. That was the character I most related to.
Check back soon for Part III of the generous 40 minutes he spent chatting with us. In the mean time, dont forget to check out
Ed Whitfield and
Mark Clarks reviews of X-Men: First Class out June 1st (UK) and June 3rd (US).