Watchmen premiered last week to tremendous critical response. The series is a sort of sequel to Alan Moore’s celebrated graphic novel of the same name. So in a way, it’s also a sequel to Zack Snyder’s 2009 film. The series is created by Damon Lindelof (The Leftovers, Lost) and has a stacked cast: Regina King, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Irons, etc.
Recently, HBO Asia, got the chance to have a chat with Jeremy Irons who plays Adrian Veidt AKA Ozymandias in the series. (The transcript of the interview was sent to me via email.) When asked what went through his mind when he was first approached about the project, Irons said he was kinda seduced and overwhelmed by Damon Lindelof’s presence.
“Well, I loved Damon’s enormous enthusiasm, which was very seductive, and the width of his imagination. He’s a very fast thinker, fast talker, and I was sort of overwhelmed by that. I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be I know not what, but will be interesting and I’d like to take the risk of coming on board.’
And I knew that my function was to have a parallel story for a lot of the time and I was interested to know how that way of storytelling would work – and of course won’t know until it completely goes out. I liked Nicki [Nicole Kassell], who I met, who was my first director on it, and, you know, you’ve just got to go with your gut on a lot of things.
Some things you win on, some things you lose on. But I thought we’d got as good a chance as any really with this. And, I thought, if Damon attracts me with his enthusiasm he’s going to attract other people and I think he’s got quite a good cast together. I mean, the people I worked with subsequently were really very impressive and the two actors I worked with a lot, Sara and Tom, were wonderful. We had a huge amount of fun. We shot in Wales.”
Irons also talked a little bit about the character he’s playing and how it differs slightly from the comics.
“I loved the way that Damon had sort of expanded him from the slightly two-dimensional character that he is in the graphic novel. I thought it was more satisfactory. I loved the fact that he gave him some humour and decided that his description as being the cleverest man in the world, or whatever, was probably ironic. He might have thought he was the cleverest man in the world.”
Catch Watchmen on HBO (Astro Ch 411 / 431 HD) OR HBO Go (the uncensored version) at 9 am every Monday.
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