Coming Soon was honored with the opportunity of visiting the set of Kong: Skull Island, asking numerous actors for details about the characters they play, along with questioning director Jordan Vogt-Roberts about what is to be expected from the monsters in the film. Below is what each actor had to say about their character, and some information Vogt-Roberts gave out on the mythological beings of destruction.
Tom Hiddleston on Captain James Conrad: “He’s a survivalist. He’s a tracker. Army lost and found. He’s the guy you send in to find missing persons if a plane or a helicopter has crashed in the jungle, because he has a special tracking ability.”
Samuel L. Jackson on Lieutenant Colonel Packard: “He’s been in the army for a long time, he’s a lifer. He believes in his men’s lives and sanctity. God and country. My character is that standard for people seeing something that they don’t understand and identifying it as the enemy and not realizing their part in antagonizing that particular thing and that you’re responsible for making that thing do what it does. I mean the thing was doing nothing until you got here and here you are and now the thing’s doing something, so what do you think you did to annoy it? Other than show up in its house and decide to disturb everything.”
Brie Larson on Weaver: “She has a point of view that’s different from a lot of the people that she’s surrounded by. Because of the period – she’s not seen as a valuable team member at first. But she’s incredibly strong-willed and has had to be in an all-male environment for so long, and she has to learn how to blend in– that’s a huge part of her job. So you see at the beginning of the movie a sense that she’s very capable of taking control of the situation and creating boundaries – because she’s just there to get a job done.”
SEE ALSO: Jordan Vogt-Roberts on building “a new mythology” with Kong: Skull Island
Jordan Vogt-Roberts on the monsters: “If Kong is the God of this island, we wanted each of the creatures to feel like individual Gods of their own domain. We want to show audiences new things and so having the creatures not feel derivative of Jurassic World, or they’re too alien like, or too H.P. Lovecraft. Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke was actually a big reference in the way that the spirit creatures sort of fit within that. The big thing was trying to design creatures that felt realistic and could exist in an ecosystem that feels sort of wild and out there. Design things that simultaneously felt beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Where if you look at this giant spider or this water buffalo, you stare at it and part of you says ‘That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!’ and ‘Oh my god that’s gonna kill me right now and I need to run for my life!’”
Jordan Vogt-Roberts on Kong: “We want to find something that feels real but that sort of pays homage to the fact that Kong is not just a big monkey to us. He’s not just a big gorilla. He’s his own thing and therefore we have liberties with what we do with that. I think the Godzilla design was really, really, well received because it paid homage to what came before but also felt like something fresh. So we’ve just been doing everything to really get that to a place where you can look at it and you feel like it could be standing there with those people but have it feel like Kong.”
SEE ALSO: Kong: Skull Island producer reveals Godzilla vs. Kong connections
When a scientific expedition to an uncharted island awakens titanic forces of nature, a mission of discovery becomes an explosive war between monster and man. Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John Goodman and John C. Reilly star in a thrilling and original new adventure that reveals the untold story of how Kong became King.
Kong: Skull Island is set for release on March 10th, 2017 with Jordan Vogt-Roberts directing a cast that includes Tom Hiddleston (High-Rise), Brie Larson (Room), John Goodman (10 Cloverfield Lane), John C. Reilly (The Lobster), Thomas Mann (Me and Girl and the Dying Girl), Corey Hawkins (The Walking Dead), Toby Kebbell (Fantastic Four), Jason Mitchell (Straight Outta Compton), Samuel L. Jackson (Avengers: Age of Ultron), John Ortiz (Silver Linings Playbook) and Shea Whigham (Cop Car).
Originally published February 3, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
