I'm a sociable guy. And when I'm in a small screening facility at a film set in New Orleans with eight or so of my colleagues in the online movie world, I'll get up and do a little gabbing as we're waiting for the next item on our agenda.
As such, I was stretching my legs as well as my jaws, facing the seats and yapping to my cohorts, telling an anecdote that they at least pretended held their interest. In the midst of my yarn I realized I'd completely lost my audience. All eyes were over my shoulder. I turned around to see what they saw.
Holy sh*t.
It was Sinestro.
Sinestro, the Korugarian Lantern and puppetmaster of the Qwardians was standing right behind me. No. It was not Mark Strong in full makeup. IT WAS SINESTRO.
Below are highlights from our conversation. Edited out is the sound of me hyperventilating the whole time.
Q: How much do the boots weigh?
Mark Strong: My disco boots? They were actually quite light. These are to make him 6’7’’. The reason they’re wide and staggard is because when we do the fight scene, we need to be running all over. So these glorious disco boots and the suit are what I wear.
Q: Where does your real head start?
Mark Strong: There’s two pieces of prosthetic. One sits on top like a hat, and the other is at the front to make the brow, and it comes 'round the side here. My real head is in there somewhere, a little bit lower than this.
Q: How long does it take you to put on that makeup?
Mark Strong: Four and a half hours. We’re down to four now.
Q: Are you excited this is your last day?
Mark Strong: Yeah. No, I’ve had a relatively easy ride of it. This is day 102, and I’ve only been here for four weeks. So I’ve had a pretty simple run. I’m also sad to be going. But it would be difficult to sustain day after day after day of getting in and out of this.
Q: Have you tried to escape set [in that makeup] and go to Starbucks, or something like that?
Mark Strong: I’ve actually had to have an umbrella the whole time to hide, so that we don’t get photographed. I think a couple of shots got out of Ryan [Reynolds] in his suit and Peter [Sarsgaard] in his head, so we’ve tried to keep Sinestro as secret as possible so that the effect is maximized. But I’d love to get out there and just see what happened.
Q: What did you know about this mythology and character before you came onto the project? What have you learned since then?
Mark Strong: I didn’t really know Green Lantern. Growing up in England, Marvel and DC weren’t really our kind of comic, we had a very different kind of comic. But I started to read it. I emailed Geoff Johns and asked about it, and he put me in the right direction for it, you know, Rebirth and Secret Origins, and I started there. And I got slightly addicted to it, I have to say. I mean, I know my Sector is Sector 1417, for example, which I wowed Geoff with the other day. He couldn’t quite believe it. I didn’t know very much, but it’s such rich source material that once you start, it’s hard to pull out.
Q: So fans of the comics know that Sinestro goes down a different path in the comics. Is there any foreshadowing in the film that Sinestro could go to a yellower side?
Mark Strong: He’s an alien. In the movie, you have to decide as an actor how you are going to give a character like that presence. You can’t really move and walk and talk like yourself. This creates something, so you have to find something other. Any backstory and stuff like that is always useful. The knowledge that Sinestro goes to where he goes to is useful, but I’m trying not to foreshadow it. But, having said all of that, he has a presence which is undeniably strong. He goes to the dark side not because he’s inherently evil, but because he’s kind of a control freak – a dictatorial, militaristic guy who wants to keep order. For him, it’s like a revolving circle. It just tips over into him keeping the people in his sector under his thumb and deciding that even the people in the Lantern corps aren’t worthy. So he goes off and forms his own corps in order to perversely attack the Lanterns and make them better then they are, but he loves the Corps, and he is the greatest Green Lantern. I’m just trying to give him a presence and a weight that is worthy of that. And I think that probably prefigures, and you will see in there that he’s a guy that you don’t mess with, that could easily go the other way.
Q: What kind of voice do you use for the character?
Mark Strong: I’m just keeping it rooted. I’m doing an English accent, because we can all communicate through the ring, so theoretically it doesn’t matter how you speak. But that’s another thing I was trying to get across in my very long answer, which is the idea that I’m trying to create a guy that’s worthy of this look. You can’t sort of walk around in a normal way or talk in a normal way, it’s not quite as effective as giving it some weight, so I’m trying to just use my own bass tones and give him a strong voice.
Q: Are you committed to a second or a third film?
Mark Strong: Yeah. Very much so. I think that was always the deal, that if it was successful, there’s such a vast amount of source material that there’s plenty of storylines that they can investigate.
Q: Is this the most blue screen that you’ve ever done?
Mark Strong: Yeah.
Q: Do you have any scenes that are practical?
Mark Strong: They’re all in space, so they’re all in a big blue room. But, what’s really interesting about that is that you would think it would be unusual. But it’s not. For me, I don’t know, coming from the theatre, you know it’s not real. You can see the first couple of rows of the audience, you can see the lights. You walk offstage and there’s a props table, and one of the stage managers standing there with a clipboard. You know it’s not real. So what you’re doing is creating an illusion, and walking out on stage and encouraging people to believe, that by the nature of the story and your characterization, that something’s taking place that they can lose themselves in. It works in the theatre, and for me, it’s the same in here. I don’t need the stuff there to imagine it. What’s really useful though, is there are the drawings around and models that you can always go and refer to, and that gives you a sense of the space – if you’re making a speech to the Lanterns – the space that you’re in. It’s all imagination, so ironically, it’s not that different.
Q: How was filming the battle scene with Ryan?
Mark Strong: Well, it’s fascinating, because you can’t just rely on the traditional methods of weapon fighting, like you do in most movies. You’ve now got imagination coming into play. The fight with Hal is really interesting because of the constructs. I think, originally, Sinestro, because he’s so evolved, used constructs for the whole fight, but there was a decision taken that we wanted to get physical, to just get in there and get physical. Ironically, Hal’s constructs are very bound. They’re very naïve, very "new Lantern." He could create anything, but he just comes up with swords and guns. It’s fascinating – they have this fight, which is a mixture of physical fighting and also involving constructs, and we rehearsed that as you would a normal fight. You just imagine those constructs when you’re throwing them at each other.
Q: What’s your favorite construct that you use in the film?
Mark Strong: Probably the simplest, which is the blade I choose to fight him with. There’s a line we put in, because he throws out this sword as the first thing that he can think of to defend himself. I say, “Swords, how human.” And I get two of them, and you can see Hal thinking, “I didn’t think to get two!”
Q: Is yours shaped like some alien weapon?
Mark Strong: No. I fight on his terms. And then I show him a thing or two.
Q: What were some of the Science Fiction elements you discovered during filming that struck you as particularly weird?
Mark Strong: All of it. You see all of that production art, and all of it is mind-blowing. The Citadel with the Guardians is just an incredible idea. They’re all around you, like some sort of upside down spider. Where the central battery is located, in that big cave where the Lanterns are all called for the meeting, just looks amazing. I’ve seen little bits of footage of constructs being thrown – early ideas for jet engines and things. Or the way, for example, that Tomar-Re lands. He lands in an individual way that has to do with the way he looks. The way that I fly, or Hal flies, is slightly different. That whole world of space and getting your head around how you’re going to use it has been really fascinating.
Q: Did you have any hesitancy taking this role, having played so many villains in a row?
Mark Strong: No. I have to say, all these villains, they’re all great parts. I just want to play them. I can’t imagine myself sitting there going, “No, that’s too many villains now. I’m going to sit at home and wait for a musical or something.” No, they’re just too interesting to play. And anyway, I love Sinestro in this first one because what you get is as sense of a man who is in control of this incredible Corps, has an immense amount of strength and confidence and arrogance, but nevertheless has a grudging respect, by the end of the movie, for this new Lantern.
So - are you ready to take the GREEN LANTERN OATH? If so, check out this link and join Geoff Johns, me and a bunch of other enthusiasts pledging ourselves to the Guardians.
