Christopher Mintz-Plasse with a hilarious art piece I bought my sister after the interview
Now that Kick-Ass 2 is finally out in theaters, I thought it would be appropriate to post my second interview with a member of the film, Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Known form Superbad as McLovin’, Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays Chris D’Amico, formerly Red Mist and now known as The Motherfucker, the villain of Kick-Ass 2 and first super villain to emerge during the superhero/vigilante movement that began at the end of the first film.
In my interview with Chris, I walked in wearing a Kick-Ass mask, hat and then a pair of shorts, addressing myself as casual Kick-Ass and asking the questions mostly from Kick-Ass’ perspective to make things fun. During the interview we talk villain inspirations, working with Jim Carrey, what he would rather be called when people forget his name and what would happen if Kick-Ass became a villain. Check it out below to find out all the details.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse – Casual Kick-Ass, pleasure to meet ya. Just want to say, really love your work.
Alex DiGiovanna (dressed as Casual Kick-Ass): Ok, so be honest, how was it wearing that costume? It looked pretty hot and constricting.
CMP: It was terrible dude. I’m glad that you look at that and that you know, that people are gonna to know that that kid is uncomfortable. It was a nightmare, I mean it looks amazing and they did such a good job of making the costume look hilarious and so evil and dark looking, but it was a pain in the ass. It was like 30 minutes to get it on, 30 minutes to take it off. I literally, I don’t think I peed more than twice because I would just sweat all the liquids I was drinking out, it was crazy but it looked good and that’s all that matters.
AD: Yeah you pulled it off, scarily but you got it.
CMP: Thanks. Did you see the movie last night?
AD: I did.
CMP: What did you think of it?
AD: I had a blast watching it
CMP: Cool man.
AD: I love the whole universe of Kick-Ass.
CMP: Yeah, right on.
AD: And you guys knocked it out of the park.
CMP: Ah, thanks man.
AD: And I loved the soundtrack
CMP: Yeah, Jeff did a great job.
AD: They gave out the soundtrack here and there was a song in the credits that I wanted to rock out to and now I can.
CMP: Oh nice, right on.
AD: People of my generation will always know you as McLovin’, naturally it’s just a fact of life…
CMP: You got that written down at the bottom of a Snapple cap?
AD: Yup. But now you come in with this great new character named The Motherfucker. My question is, what would you rather be called if people didn’t know your name? McLovin’ or Motherfucker and why?
CMP: That’s a good question. I think the McLovin’ is too sexy. I think my girlfriend would not enjoy that and then if I get screamed the motherfucker it might scare me, it might seem like someone is trying to pick a fight with me always, I’ll always be on edge. I don’t know, that’s a tough one. I don’t think I want either. Just call me Chris.
AD: But it’s inevitable.
CMP: Yeah, it is inevitable.
AD: You know you could combine it,
CMP: McFucker
AD: Motherfucking McLovin
CMP: Oh, that’s so angry. It’s always angry with motherfucker in there.
AD: It is
CMP: Yeah, it’s hard.
AD: You could combine the two, you know, sexual deviant by day, leather clad villain by night.
CMP: Yeah, I like that.
AD: Being a super villain yourself, you must have some that you admire. Do you have a top 3 favorite villains?
CMP: Well for inspiration for this movie I watched Heath Ledger as the Joker because that’s what Mark Millar, when writing the comic, he liked how twisted Health Ledger had played the character so I watched the shit out of that and he’s so incredibly good and I studied the Punisher. He’s not a villain but in the sense that he lost his family and he had nowhere to turn but just revenge and murder and that’s exactly what happened to my character. He lost everybody and his family so that’s what he turns to, so that was a big inspiration.
AD: Going more into the film now, can you talk about the change in directors from the first film to the second? I feel like Jeff Wadlow and Matthew Vaughn have a lot of differences, at least stylistically, from the film and what they do? What was it like working with him versus Vaughn.
CMP: Right. You know it was awesome man. It’s always hard to take a film that’s not yours, there’s always a little bit of pressure, especially on Jeff ‘cause Matthew made such a good movie with the first one. You know he created this beautiful world of fake superheroes and to kind of take on someone’s project you don’t want to step on their toes and you don’t want to give a rinse and repeat, what Jeff likes to say, you don’t want to do the same thing we just saw. So Jeff did a really good job of writing a new script with new arcs for all of our characters, you know Hit Girl is now turning into a little lady and she’s starting to like boys and starting to have feelings and that’s something you hadn’t seen in the first one. And with myself, I ‘m just an asshole, a villain which you didn’t see in the first one. So I thought, with a lot of pressure, cause there’s a lot of producers on set, I thought Jeff handled himself really well.
AD: Cool and did you ever speak with Mark Millar with regards to your approach to becoming The Motherfucker and transitioning out of that Red Mist character?
CMP: That was all him man. I mean we didn’t talk that much. He would email me the comic books and then after we filmed he would email me really nice emails but he put it down on the paper and Jeff wrote it really well in the script and he gave it to me. I worked with an acting coach actually for a month prior to shooting and she was on set with me and she really gave me the confidence to feel like I could go to a really dark place and I thought we did a good job, it was hard and challenging and exciting.
AD: Well you nailed it. You really did.
CMP: Oh thanks man
AD: I’m going to get to that dark place area in a minute but can you tell me a little bit about working with Jim Carrey and his presence on set? What was it like working with him and basically owning him at one point?
CMP: Haha yeah! That was pretty surreal. I only had one day with him which almost makes it even more special. Like when I was younger in the 90s those movies were the reasons I love comedy, you know Liar Liar and Dumb and Dumber, The Truman Show is one of my favorite movies so to be opposite him is really surreal. To be able to grab him and punch him and choke him and hear him and I didn’t want to hurt him but he’s like “dude, go harder” and he kept telling me to give more, it was so exciting, so inspirational man, it was crazy, he’s one of my favorite actors of all time.
AD: I agree with you man, I was very upset he wasn’t going to be doing this, literally two years prior to the Kick-Ass thing I dressed up as the ballet character in Ace Ventura, so I was like ahhhh!
CMP: Hahah that’s awesome. Nice.
AD: I know you’re not much of a fighter, especially in this movie, but how did it feel to insult Chuck Lidell and then get away with it.
CMP: I felt like, I don’t know if he actually knew I was going to do it until the day of, and I came in and said listen man, I’m going to say you have a small penis. In a situation like that you always feel bad because he’s doing us a favor by coming in and I’ve actually known him, we have mutual friends, and I’ve met him multiple times and he’s the sweetest guy and you’re like, he’s doing us this favor and I have to insult him, you always kind of feel bad about it but he was a great sport.
AD: Well that’s good. So one of my favorite scenes in the film was the interaction between you and Uncle Ralph.
CMP: Oh thanks man.
AD: It was a really powerful one. That was the point where you basically become The Motherfucker.
CMP: Yeah, that’s the last turning point.
AD: And there was no mourning, all you could see was the switch in your face. It was brilliant. Can you talk about your and Jeff Wadlow’s approach to that scene because you could see the click, I thought that was one of your best moments I’ve seen in your films.
CMP: Yeah! Oh thanks man, I really appreciate that. Yeah, that was one of the moments that I was nervous for when I read the script and excited since I hadn’t done something like that and Jeff trusted me, I worked with my acting coach a lot on that scene cause that’s literally the turning point for The Motherfucker. He lost his dad, then he lost his mom but he still had Javier and then he lost Javier, he just had no one left in this world to turn on and that was the turning point. That’s very nice of you to say, it was challenging and it was emotional and it was really fun to do.
AD: spoiler So hypothetical question, somewhat spoilerish, if I Kick-Ass, ever wanted to switch to the dark side and join up with The Motherfucker because, really by now we’re on the same level, you lost your father, I lost my father, would I have to change my name because you became The Motherfucker you got this upgrade, would I have to downgrade? What kind of name should I have? It can’t be buttkicker or something.
CMP: No it can’t be that. I feel like it’s, does Spider-Man have an alter-ego when he took the venom, you know the alien, and he became evil for a little bit?
AD: I don’t think so.
CMP: He was still Spider-Man, I think so. I think Kick-Ass has gotta be Kick-Ass, I mean that’s the name of the movie you know?
AD: Do I have to change my colors?
CMP: Yeah. You have to change your colors.
AD: I can’t reverse them that already happened.
CMP: Yeah, I know, no you can’t reverse them, you gotta go darker.
AD: Like black and green?
CMP: Maybe like Black and red with me, for a team, you never know.
AD: That’s a good idea.
CMP: Yeah.
AD: What was your favorite scene to shoot or watch?
CMP: Hmmm, my favorite scene to watch, I love the funeral scene, I thought that was an emotional point, especially when all of his Justice Forever friends came and then to turn into the crazy action scene with Hit-Girl and the van. Just spectacular, I thought that was amazing. To work on was the scene with Jim Carrey. Yeah, for sure.
AD: What about working with Olga, Mother Russia?
CMP: AMAZING.
AD: What a presence, I heard she was really nice too.
CMP: She was super nice, the sweetest woman and she didn’t speak English so she had a translator on set, she had to learn all her lines through her translator but she was fantastic. She’s intimidating but super nice at the same time.
AD: Totally worth the 50 grand a week.
CMP: Haha yeah.
AD: Now randomly going off on a tangent here, if you were offered and there was a script there would you ever reprise your role as McLovin’?
CMP: I don’t know, I feel like Superbad is kind of one of those things that’s special to some people and you don’t want to ruin that ‘cause you can ruin movies with a sequel sometimes, yeah I don’t know, that’s a good question.
Recent Comments