Karl Urban on Riddick & Bourne Supremacy

Source: Chuck the Movieguy
Sunday, June 6, 2004


Karl Urban believes in learning as you go. On some jobs, that might be a hindrance, but as an actor, it's a plus. Fresh off showing his mastery of swordplay and horsemanship in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Karl will be seen showing off some new talents in two upcoming high-profile films, The Chronicles of Riddick and The Bourne Supremacy.

Although Urban has made his share of small independent features, he admits he really enjoys acting in big Hollywood blockbusters. "I love walking on the set and having the big toys and playing with the big boys. It's a lot of fun." Karl points out that the bigger budgets of studio films ensure that the very best actors for each part can be cast. For instance, his role in "Riddick" teams New Zealand native Urban with Australian actress Thandie Newton. Urban plays Vaako, a young commander in the evil Necromonger army,
while Newton as his wife, Dame Vaako, shows off all the manipulative skills of Lady Macbeth. "Working with Thandie was one of the better working relationships that I've ever had," Urban reports. "She is an A-class player and when she comes to the set, you better be ready. She comes with her A-game and quite often I'd be on the set and she'd just be weaving her way around me and I'm like, 'O.K., I give in.'"

Much harder were the days when Karl climbed into a harness for his first attempts at stunt flying on wires. "It's physically tough. You have to be fit and you're going to end up with bruises at the end of the day, but that's part of the gig."

Not part of the gig, but a challenge he was up for anyway, came during location shooting in Moscow during the making of The Bourne Supremacy. Urban plays a Russian assassin in the film, and surprisingly, he got to do his own stunt driving. But first he had to prove his mettle to the stunt coordinators. "I'm a Kiwi boy. I'm used to driving on dirt roads at crazy speeds to get to a surf break, so I hopped in the car and I'm just thrashing this thing around having a ball."

Urban is proudest of learning how to do a stunt called a reverse 180. "That's when your car is going at like 70 miles an hour in reverse and then you kind of flip it into neutral, tap the break, and just flick it around really fast and it's freaky because you are going at quite a horrendous speed and you're going sideways and then you sort of flick it into drive and go off in the opposite direction, and they let me do it!"


Karl feels taking some risks fit in with the general mood on The Bourne Supremacy set. He compares Moscow to the Wild West. Gun-toting mobsters were frequent visitors to the bar in his hotel, and one day the police even closed down the front entrance of the hotel because the manager had been gunned down there!

While Karl realizes his acting career doesn't often put him in danger, he's well aware of the tradeoffs of living the nomadic life of a film actor. "The great thing about this job is it offers you so much. It offers you exotic locations. It offers you the opportunity to work with people who you've admired and respected your whole life, and fame and fortune if those things interest you. The thing is while you're not looking, while you're so distracted with all these positive things, it just slowly takes away the
things that are most important from you. It takes away your family. It takes away your friends. It takes away the very place that you call home. I live out of a suitcase. I've been living out of a suitcase for the last year. Home is wherever my head hits the pillow at the end of the night. I spend a phenomenal amount of time in airplanes over the last year, but you know what? I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'm having the time of my life."

The Chronicles of Riddick opens this Friday, June 11 and The Bourne
Supremacy hits theaters on July 23.

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Wow... I didn't even realise he was gonna be in The Bourne Supremacy....

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All Viggo news, all the time 09 June 2004

It's been a good five minutes since we did a story touching on the cast or crew of The Lord of the Rings, so we thought it was time to bring you an update on their activities. Viggo Mortensen has
signed on to star in A History of Violence for director David Cronenberg, which sounds suspiciously like a match made in heaven from where we're sitting.

A History of Violence is based on the graphic novel of the same name by John Wagner, about a small-town family man leading a quiet and blameless life. When he thwarts a robbery and is feted by the
press, some highly unsavoury types see him and suspect that he is a former colleague who disappeared underground years before.

The film will be Cronenberg's first since 2002's Spider, and he certainly seems like the ideal person to take on the famously violent book. Mortensen, fresh from plenty of ass kicking in that
obscure little trilogy he starred in, should fit in nicely as the quiet man with a dark side.

Mortensen will follow this film with another interesting project - Alatriste for Spanish director Agustin Diaz Yanes. It's the story of Captain Alatriste, a Spanish solider-turned-mercenary and a
heroic figure from the country's 16th century imperial wars. Mortensen will be starring there with Spanish actress Elena Anaya, with the badly educated (but only in his films) Gael Garcia Bernal in talks to join them.

Meanwhile, there is a slight hiccup for Lord of the Rings fans, with reports that the Extended Edition has been delayed until early December, rather than the November release slot occupied by the
other two extended versions. Apparently, it has been rather harder to reassemble the cast for commentaries this year, since they no longer have summer reshoots to do and are scattered across the
globe, working on other projects. Still, it should still arrive in time for our Christmas stockings, so there's no need to worry too much.

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Billy Boyd Q&A at the SFX Awardsweetanya @ 11:51 am EST 6-9-2004

Ringer Marysia wrote this excellent report about Billy Boyd's Q&A at the SFX Awards.

Billy Boyd was a very last minute addition to the SFX Awards Event
lineup after several major guests dropped out at the last minute. He was also the only LotR guest, the other guests being Dominic Keating from Enterprise, Chris Barrie from Red Dwarf, Dean Haguland from X-Files, David Palffy from Stargate, Kristen Dalton from The Dead Zone and SuAnn Braun from Stargate. Andy Serkis appeared at the Awards ceremony only.

Billy made a flying visit in between filming in Glasgow for his new
movie On A Clear Day, arriving in London in the afternoon on
Saturday and departing half way through the awards ceremony on Sunday evening.

He did two question and answer sessions of about 45 mins in length
to an audience of about 150 at the extremely under-attended event as well as signing autographs and posing for photos. The low numbers meant he could really take his time in the autograph sessions and everyone who wanted to got to have a nice chat and some extremely lengthy personalisations. Among the presents he was given at the session were two diving toys (referring to the script he and Dom are working on), 4 plastic dinosaurs (see the Q&A info below) and a framed sketch of he, Dom and Elijah at the SAG Awards.

The Q&A was a little awkward at first, there can't have been more
than about 150 people there (far fewer than the room could hold) and the audience was a little reticent on the asking questions front. As a result Billy decided to ask the audience questions. He started off asking trivia questions about the cast and including Dom's birthday and Elijah's sisters name.

He answered a few questions about Master & Commander and then told
us about "Instant Credit", the short film he has just completed work on. It will be screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in August and also on ITV (though I suspect Scottish ITV only). The plot concerns a Scottish chef who meets an obnoxious rich man and accidentally ends up with his credit card. Knowing the man will be in transit for the next day he takes advantage of his good luck. The film was shot in Glasgow and Paris and is made by the same people behind Sniper 470.

Billy has no theatre work planned at the moment and when asked about pantomime said that he had done a lot of it before he became well known and hadn't forgotten how tiring it was yet. So maybe in the future but not this year. His current interest is computers and as well as trying to learn how to use them properly he also hopes to make his official site the worlds first smell-o-vision website. He plans to start with the smells of different cheeses. Another personal project is to sail round the west coast of Scotland with friends on a surfing tour of the islands.

When asked what the most extreme thing a fan had done to get his
attention was he replied that hadn't always used false names at
hotels, but he found people would phone him at 7am and ask him to
come down into the lobby and sign stuff. He thought it was weird how some people didn't consider that you might have something else to do, like sleep, rather than sit and wait for their call. Someone then asked if he'd ever been flashed as a followup. He said no but if the girls on the phone had proferred that he might have gone downstairs.

When asked about his music he said he was getting distracted a lot
by trying to learn more about computers, but he was hoping to arrange a gig soon with the musicians he's been working with. The gig will most likely be in Glasgow and the band are currently doing cover songs. The gig may be announced on his website but he's not sure yet. In a related question he said the most star-struck he's ever been was meeting Prince as he is a huge fan of his music.

When asked what his most embarassing moment on set was he couldn't
think of one, but then remembered something from primary school and
decided to use that instead. At assembly when he was about seven,
the headmaster/mistress (I forget which) was telling the girls off for not flushing the toilets and he started wonder if the boys should flush them or not since she just seemed to be singling out the girls. He didn't actually put up his hand and ask but he came incredibly close to doing it and still feels embarassed today thinking about what would have happened if he had asked.

He would love to see Crime and Punishment, a favourite book of his,
as a movie and said there was an adaptation floating about he'd like to be in.

At his second Q&A on Sunday he talked a little about how much he
liked Robert Burns and that he wouldn't mind playing Burns, unfortunately the role has already gone to Gerard Butler (a fellow Glaswegian). He then proceeded to lead the audience in a complex discussion of the functioning of light sabres, having them vote on whether they worked using the force, or by a button, or by pressing a button using the force and whether the colour was dependant on the morality of the user or pre-programmed.

When asked about his current movie, On a Clear Day (directed by Gaby Dellal) he gave us two possible options as to the plot. Either it was about a couple of young guys who want to swim the English Channel or it was about a dinosaur detective trying to teach another dinosaur how to use the internet. I suspect the truth may be that it's about a dinosaur who wants to swim the English Channel.

When asked about the script he and and Dom have been working on he
seemed a little frustrated that it wasn't proceeding as fast as he
liked, but he said they were still working on it and it would get
made.

At the Awards ceremony he arranged for the organisers to move him to the same table as Andy Serkis so they could have some more time to talk before Billy left. The ceremony was hosted by Chris Barrie and LotR won several awards including Best Director and Best Film. Billy and Andy went up together to accept the Best Director Award and claimed that together they weighed the same as Peter Jackson. Andy accepted the Best Film award alone as Billy had already left.