KICK-ASS 2, the ultra-violent, ultra-graphic sequel to Matthew Vaughn’s super successful superhero film is about to hit cinemas, with newbie writer and director Jeff Wadlow doing his promotional rounds. Last Monday THN had the chance to attend a roundtable interview with Wadlow to pick his brain and get the answers to some of our most pressing questions…
As Jeff has taken over from KICK-ASS director Vaughn (who acts as producer on the sequel), the first question asked focused on whether Matthew gave him any advice, or did he just let Jeff get on with it?
“No, he was fantastic. I think it’s because Matthew started his career as a producer…he just knew exactly what you need as a filmmaker from your producing partner and he delivered it for me in spades, and that took the form of allowing me to make my movie. He didn’t come to the set once, he said ‘do your thing’. At the same time, I talked to him almost every day, often for an hour at a time, just getting advice and getting his input on decisions I was making, so for me to know I had that kind of backup – but also knowing that I’d been given that kind of freedom – was just like the perfect mix. I couldn’t have asked for more from him”.
If you didn’t already know, the KICK-ASS story has been adapted from a series of comics created by Mark Millar. How was Jeff’s relationship with Mark, considering he’s adapting his ‘baby’?
“I was quite nervous about it at first but Mark is such a great guy. He’s such an odd mix of this polite, thoughtful nice guy who writes the most horrible things. I was a little bit nervous about how he was going to feel about me adapting his work and the first thing he said to me was ‘It will serve me [Mark] much better if you make a hit movie than if you just make a slavish adaptation. So do what you’ve got to do to make the best movie you can'”.
Moving on to Hit-Girl, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, who had some harsh but memorable dialogue in the first film. Is Jeff ready for the furore this time around?
“She’s older now. I mean, Chloe’s 15; I joke that when they made the first film, Chloe was 11 but she looked like she was about 9. When we made our movie she was 15 but she looks like she’s about 19. I don’t really know if there’s going to be the same sort of response”.
Comedy legend Jim Carrey features in the film as Colonel Stars and Stripes and stated on Twitter that he didn’t support the violence portrayed in the final film. What was Jeff’s reaction to Jim’s response?
“Shocked. Look, here’s the thing about Jim Carrey. We love him in his movies because we never know what he’s going to do or say and I’m here to tell you in the real world – you never know what he’s going to do or say! I was quite surprised because he loved the first film, he read the script for the second film, he invested in it, he paid for the prosthetics…Jim is an artist and he’s certainly entitled to his opinion and his right to change his mind. If you actually examine his tweets he’s not denigrating the movie, you know, he just says ‘This level of violence is not something I’m comfortable talking about'”.
So how careful were you about mixing the comedy and the violence?
“You’ve kind of got to go with your gut. It’s a tightrope act and the way I approached it was I just shot a lot of different options and always knew I could cut away from things. We did all the blood in post [production], I knew we could always adjust the levels…by shooting different options and doing all the blood in post, you give yourself the flexibility to kind of find it”.
It’s expected of the KICK-ASS films to be full of over-the-top violence and swearing, but also have an element of heart. Was there a difficult balance to find when writing it?
“I think what was special about the first KICK-ASS is it’s ability to balance humour, action and genuine emotion. I think that’s what defines that movie, it’s not a parody, like the stakes are real. It’s very funny, it’s an outrageous comedy and it’s got big action moments, as big as any action movie. So I felt my mandate for the sequel was to balance those three things equally but to push them further”.
Did Jeff go out of his way to break genre conventions, much like Vaughn did in the original KICK-ASS outing?
“Yeah, I think it’s not so much breaking them as it’s that sort of active story-telling. You’re saying to the audience ‘I understand the genre. I understand that YOU understand the genre, so let’s have some fun!’ Let’s embrace certain aspects of it and let’s break some rules”.
KICK-ASS 2 hits UK cinemas from 14th August.
