By: Juan Barquin/Columnist
There are few people left in this world who haven’t heard Joss Whedon’s name during their lifetime. As the beloved creator of shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” “Firefly” and “Dollhouse,” it’s hard not to have a large fan base.
Whedon’s latest project, Marvel Studios’ “The Avengers” is about to hit theaters everywhere on May 4. Based on the comic book series, “The Avengers” follows Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye as they are brought together by the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D. to fight in a war against an otherworldly threat.
Last Thursday, writer and director Joss Whedon held a college press conference call, allowing students from across the country to submit questions and listen in for their answers. What followed was a set of interesting questions and some pretty honest and amusing answers. Here’s what went down:
Question: What was your process in writing the film? Did you already have a directorial vision when you were penning the screenplay?
Joss Whedon: Yes, I did. Half of writing a script is writing visually, figuring out what you need it to look and feel like and what they’re gonna say. The process, therefore, was pretty organic, particularly because we had such a tight schedule. They needed some things to be worked on, set pieces and action sequences before I’d even written the script, so I was writing visual cues and action descriptions before I had finished structuring the story, since we knew where we were going.
Q: Is there something from your childhood experience with the Avengers that especially resonated with you and that you’re bringing to this movie?
JW: Well, the fact that the Avengers are all really, really messed up people, I think is a fine reflection of me. With “The Avengers” itself, the thing that I loved was that the comic books were a little bit steeped in science fiction and Marvel was known for its gritty realism. Spider-Man was sort of the template for, “Oh, they could just be people in New York.”
And even though the Avengers made their home in New York, they were so often out in that space, dealing with artificial intelligence, grand beings from another world, gods and monsters. I love that element. That’s definitely a part of the film.
Q: How did you mentally prepare yourself to carry on the stories of all these established superheroes with an already fervent backing?
JW: I am the fervent backing, so it wasn’t that hard to key in. I’ve done a lot of work for things that already exist. I’ve worked on X-Men, I wrote an alien movie— not necessarily the best one— and I am working as a script doctor. You come in after things have been established. Even on a TV show, even if you’re the one who established them, every time you write a script, you’re dealing with an established univers, so it’s not hard for me to fall into the cadences of these people. In fact, it’s a lot easier when you’ve already seen them being acted in the other movies.
Q: Because Marvel is attempting to create an interlocking film universe, did you feel the need to maintain a directing style, an aesthetic, similar to work of the other Marvel Studio directors?
JW: There’s no way you could make a movie that looked like a Jon Favreau, Kenneth Branagh, Joe Johnston or Louis Leterrier movie. You have to take from each of them the thing that is useful and will jive with the rest of them.
I tend to be a tiny bit florid with my camera work and my dialogue, but hopefully in a way that feels like a realistic version of a comic book universe. My own style is actually kind of smack dab in the middle of what all those guys do. Therefore, it plays.
Q: Why was Cleveland picked as a shooting location and what was it like shooting there?
JW: They were very, very accommodating in terms of letting us blow up their city. Filming there was actually a joy.
Q: The Avengers is based on S.H.I.E.L.D. director, Nick Fury, trying to unite heroes with extraordinary powers and egos. Did you feel like Nick Fury, trying to bring the actors into a team concept and how did you handle creative differences in this type of situation?
JW: I felt very much like Nick Fury. He’s the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., literally, and that puts him at a remove from everybody, even if he likes them. He knows he’s putting them in harm’s way. Hopefully I’m not putting my actors in harm’s way. Hopefully I’m not even making them uncomfortable, but I’m not nearly as intelligent or manipulative as Nick and I didn’t have as many problems because my actors actually wanted to be together. They enjoy each other.
But you do feel that responsibility that you’ve gotta get all of these people to give their best. For him it’s in battle and for me it’s when we’re rolling to really come up with the best stuff and play off each other as well as possible, and you have a great responsibility to service them with your camera at the same time. So,[I] definitely felt some of the pressure, but I can see out of my left eye.
Q: Did you have any particular combination of superheroes that you thought were the most interesting to see interact?
JW: The tragedy of the movie is that you don’t get to have scenes of everybody interacting because everybody is so interesting up against each other. I love the Bruce Banner, Tony Stark relationship. Bruce Banner is the first guy Tony Stark comes across, really, who operates on his level intellectually [and] who isn’t a villain, so the way Tony nudges him and Tony’s particular attitude about the Hulk is endearing and cool.
But I also love Tony and Steve and how much they can’t stand each other and I’m very invested in Natasha and Hawkeye and their deep, deep friendship. So, you know, I love them all. I hate this question.
Q: What advice would you give to any student with ambitions of one day sitting in the director’s chair?
JW: My advice would be to sit down. Now you’re in the director’s chair. We live in an age where anybody can make a movie. If you have a phone, you can make a movie. Okay, maybe not a huge movie, maybe phone-sized, but it’s there. When I came up, you wrote a script and you hoped and hoped. Or you raised enough money to make a short film. Things are different now and the best way is to get your work out there, not just as an offering to somebody else to hope they’ll make it, but to show yourself as a filmmaker and to learn as a filmmaker. You know, there’s no excuse not to now.
Q: Why should college students have “The Avengers” first on their list to see this summer?
JW: I think “The Avengers” is the kind of movie that I grew up wanting to make and thought they had stopped making. When I grew up, the summer movie was literally created as a concept and all my life I wanted to do something like that. Something like the first Indiana Jones, something that was steeped in character, in love of the genre that it was portraying, had intelligence, had real acting, had a story that unfolded and wasn’t just a sort of big premise that you already knew going on or[something that] isn’t based on, you know, Parcheesi or something, just because it has a name.
More and more, summer movies have felt a little cynical. There are very big expectations to that, but that has been the case when people throw so much money down. They’re not interested in a story, they’re interested in just barraging you with excitement and imagery and brand names. Marvel doesn’t operate that way. That’s why they hire some of the best actors in the business to play their heroes. This is an old-fashioned movie. It’s a little bit bigger than life, but it’s very human.
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