Aaron Taylor-Johnson talks working with Elizabeth Olsen on ‘Godzilla’ and ‘Avengers’

“How can you tame the beast… how do you go head-to-head with nature?”

That is a question with which humanity has wrestled for a long time.  According to Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who stars in the new “Godzilla,” it is also one of the questions that the film attempts to answer.  We caught up with the actor last week to discuss his role in the monster movie and also about what he has coming up next.

In “Godzilla,” Taylor-Johnson stars as Ford Brody, the son of Bryan Cranston's Joe Brody.  It is Ford who finds himself in the unenviable position of having to take down the monster before it winds up sending us back to the stone age.

That, however, is really just one half of the story, the other is the family angle.  Taylor-Johnson said that the question of going head-to-head with nature also resonates in his character's life, in no small part because he has a wife (played by Elizabeth Olsen) and child he is trying to protect and, in order to do that, he needs to face his fears.  Ford also has to deal with his estranged father reentering his life, which provides its own set of issues.

My discussion with Taylor-Johnson didn't solely focus on this new film as his co-star Olsen is also in another movie with him, “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”  There, rather than playing his wife, Olsen plays his sister.   Of his time with her, Taylor-Johnson told us, “She's fantastic in this, and really moving.  Love working with her, she's a very cool girl, and we're having a lot of fun on the next one.”

You can watch the combined video of Olsen and Taylor-Johnson discussing the new “Avengers” below, or above you can see the full talk I had with him about both that movie and “Godzilla.”

Directed by Gareth Edwards and also starring Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, Juliette Binoche, and David Straitharn, “Godzilla” smashes into theaters on May 16th.

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