Here’s an odd trio of interviews, but that sort of sums up the casting of “Transformers: Dark Of The Moon” perfectly. Michael Bay has repeatedly spoken in interviews about how much he loves the films of the Coen Brothers, and looking at his cast here, which includes John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, and John Turturro, it certainly seems like he at least loves the same actors they do.
But Bay makes crazy-ass action movies, so he needs guys like Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as well, and one of the things that makes a movie like this so surreal is the way you’ve got such wildly different actors going head-to-head with giant robots kicking the crap out of each other to tie the whole thing together.
I find John Malkovich fascinating. Here’s a classically trained stage actor who has become a pop culture icon thanks to Spike Jones, Charlie Kaufman, and his own innate oddity. He is urbane, charming, and if you want to talk about the craft of acting, he will absolutely meet you halfway. It helps that my first question to him as we were sitting down was about his new clothing line, Technobohemian, an example of which he was wearing at the press day.
I regret that I didn’t ask Tyrese about the inevitable moment where they fold the “Fast Five” and “Transformers” franchises into one big crazy singularity where kind-hearted bandits travel the world in cars that can also beat the hell out of you. I’ll say this about the guy… he has even worse insomnia than I do. Didn’t matter what hour of the day I was up, I’d see his Macbook listed in my “shared files”. When I asked him about it, he copped to the fact that he never sleeps.
And Josh Duhamel? Well, he handsome.
This wraps up our coverage of the “Transformers: Dark Of The Moon” press event in Moscow. It was a crazy trip, and I’m still wrestling with the way I got my sleep all turned around with the 11 hour time difference. God only knows if I’ll ever end up in Moscow again, so I did appreciate the opportunity. My thanks to the cast and to Michael Bay for sitting down with us to talk about the film, which is in theaters now. My advice if you’re heading out this weekend? IMAX 3D. Biggest theater you can find.
And enjoy the fireworks.