It’s finally here! Tonight at midnight, Captain America: Civil War finally hits theaters. To celebrate, I’ve been sharing my exclusive interviews with the stars- catch up with interview with Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, and Emily VanCamp! Today’s interview is with two people who make the magic happen behind the camera- the Russo Brothers!
Brothers Anthony and Joe Russo were the Directors for the newest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as Captain America: The Winter Soldier. They are also set to direct The Avengers: Infinity War Parts 1 and 2, and after seeing their work with the Captain America movies I am that much more excited for what’s to come! Below, find out what they love about the newest actor to play Spider-Man and what their vision was going into Captain America: Civil War!
On who they want the audience to cheer for:
Joe Russo: The intent with the film was that hopefully when you’re done watching the movie you leave the theater and you argue with your family and friends about your side. We didn’t want to make a declarative statement one way or the other. We just wanted to represent both as accurately and emotionally as we could.
It’s more fun that way. It’s not the kind of story where the Directors need to be too firm with their point of view because I think it would close off the opportunity to have a conversation after the movie.
Was there any rivalry between you two writing the script and thinking out the process of the movie between Captain and Ironman?
Anthony Russo: No, I don’t think there was rivalry because we both love both characters. We like very layered storytelling so often times when we’re breaking the story or prepping a movie we’ll sort of step through the story from different character’s points of view. We’ll take a pass where it’ll just be all about “this” character. And then we’ll take a pass where it’ll be all about “that” character. We work with ensembles a lot in our work, and so it’s become part of our process to really have moments where the whole movie belongs to somebody else, just one particular character for a moment as we’re thinking about the film from beginning to end. So, I think that’s the process we went through on this movie as well with the writers, Markus and McFeely and the Producer, Nate Moore from Marvel and Kevin Feige.
Look, they’re both very near and dear to our hearts. We love them both. The other thing I think about Joe and I is that we love characters who are exciting and fun and cool and all that but also are very human and vulnerable. We always look for that side of the character. So for us it was very important to find where is Steve Rogers vulnerable? Where is Tony Stark vulnerable? And sort of play to those in this movie in a way that would put them in conflict with one another.
Spider-Man in the movie- where did you find him and are you going to hold on to that kid?
Joe: Doing everything we can to hang onto him.
Anthony: Yeah, we’re more in love with him than anybody.
Joe: There was a really exhaustive audition process for that role. We saw him for the first time in our office in Atlanta, it was Anthony and I. We were doing work sessions with all the actors and he came in. Spider-Man was a very important character to me as a kid. I was a big comic book collector- I still have my collection in my closet to my wife’s dismay. That character was my favorite character growing up, so to be able to interpret him on screen was like a dream come true.
The things that I loved about him as a character when I was a kid were his vulnerability, his insecurity, his sense of humor- but I loved that his sense of humor in the books was a very self-aware. He was a smart a** kid but he was a kid. And we felt that with our interpretation of the character, we wanted to have an actor very close in age to Peter Parker, and Tom’s a young actor. We also wanted to make sure that the actor had both the vulnerability and a confidence at the same time- it made him accessible, but also would allow him to stand in contrast to all these other really experienced superheroes who are running around dealing with a very adult problem. And then you insert into that a kid who’s trying to improvise his way through the situation but doesn’t really understand the stakes and couldn’t understand the stakes because he’s a kid. Tom Holland just embodied all of that, he brought a real authenticity.
That was the other thing too- we really wanted him to feel like he was of New York today, right now and not about comic book New York. He was a kid living in Queens who had a certain energy to him and that feeling that you get or that the shift in your personality that happens when you do live in New York City. That was everything we were looking for and the kid just embodied it so well.
What was your vision going into this movie?
Anthony: Well, you can’t do a movie called Captain America without thinking about the politics of it. It’s at the center of the character, who the character is from his inception and obviously in his name. So while there are still elements of the political thriller that carries us forward and kind of maybe even launches us into this movie, we always thought about this movie as a psychological thriller. And that shift was very important to us because you know the heart of this movie for us is the relationship and the conflict between Captain America, Bucky Barnes, and Tony Stark.
One of the movies we talked about a lot was David Fincher’s “Seven”. We talked about Brian de Palma’s “Blow Out” a lot. These are movies that have had this similar trajectory where the characters are on this sort of road to something very awful. And what is going to happen to them when they get there? You know, how are they going to react as characters? How are they going to whether it as characters? So that was the heart of the film for us this time around.
When you’re taking stories that are from the comic books, and there are so many fans that are loyal to these comic books, how are you able to translate part of that story in keeping with the comic books but then deciding to kind of go away from that? What’s involved with deciding what you’re doing with that?
Joe: I was a huge comic book fan. I’m the first guy to line up to see the midnight showing of a movie I’m excited about, and I’ll drag my son out with me and sit there until 2:30 in the morning and watch the film just because I want to have that immediate response to the movie the same way that everybody wants to be part of the cultural conversation about that movie.
As a diehard comic book fan I’m not interested in seeing a straight interpretation of a comic book. I already know the story; so why would I go see the movie? The Marvel Cinematic Universe is also building its characters in a very specific way that is very different than the comic books. Film is a very different medium then comic books- we have two hours to tell a story, and we can only put out one of those movies once a year or every two years to move these characters forward. So we have to make choices that are servicing the storytelling that is built up in the Marvel cinematic universe.
Civil War in the Marvel cinematic universe is very different than Civil War in the comic books. We don’t have the same characters; we don’t have the same storytelling. For us, we borrowed the concept and applied it to our characters. But we also needed what we felt was a very emotional reason that would drive the story on both sides, because again we were really committed to making sure that when we got to the end we had a very difficult time deciding who was right.
Captain America: Civil War hits theaters TONIGHT at midnight {so really tomorrow, Friday, May 6th}! Whatever team you side with, be sure to follow Captain America: Civil War on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more updates! And don’t forget to tweet your allegiance using #TeamIronMan or #TeamCap– or if you aren’t into picking sides, you can just use #CaptainAmericaCivilWar!
Want more on Captain America: Civil War? Check out my interview with Chris Evans {Captain America}, interview with Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner {Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye}, interview with Paul Bettany {Vision}, and interview with Emily VanCamp {Agent 13}! You can also see more photos from the movie here, and be sure to come back tomorrow for my review!
