By Christina Radish

A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, the Warner Bros. film Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America, in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the Doomsday Clock that charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union, moves closer to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the outlawed but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion -- a disbanded group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers -- Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past, and catastrophic consequences for the future.

The world of Watchmen is the big-screen adaptation of the most celebrated graphic novel of all time, brought to life for the first time by visionary director Zack Snyder (300). When it was released, the story introduced a handful of characters that have been called “more human than super” because they were real people who deal with ethical and personal issues, who struggle with neuroses and failings and who, aside from Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), are without superpowers. The original team of heroes, the Minutemen, was comprised of The Silhouette, Silk Spectre (Carla Gugino), The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Hooded Justice, Captain Metropolis, Nite Owl, Mothman and Dollar Bill. The next generation of masked adventurers -- those at the heart of the graphic novel’s mystery -- are Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), and The Comedian, who is the only holdover from the Minutemen. Each is a symbol of a different kind of power, obsession and psychopathology, and a different kind of superhero.                                

Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman & Carla Gugino at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con held at the Convention Center in San Diego, Calif.

CARLA GUGINO (Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre), MALIN AKERMAN (Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II) & PATRICK WILSON (Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II)

MediaBlvd Magazine> Carla, you don’t seem old enough to play Malin’s mother. How is that possible?

Carla Gugino> I’m not, thankfully. When Zack first said, “I would love to talk to you about playing this character,” I thought, “This sounds amazing, but in the graphic novel, there’s so much more of Sally Jupiter, when she was older.” We have the flashback to the rape, and a couple of brief moments, so I thought that was interesting, but I thought he’d want a much older actress. Ultimately, he added in a way sort of showing the passage of time, and how we come from the 40's to the 80's. He ended up adding in a lot more images of her as a young woman because you need to see Sally Jupiter shine, in her own right, so that you can understand why she tries to transpose that on Laurie. So, I was in full prosthetics when we were doing this, otherwise it never would have worked.

MediaBlvd> Carla and Malin, did your mother-daughter relationship come naturally for you?

Carla> It was a really natural connection for us, in our lives.

Malin Akerman> We probably had about three weeks to just hang out together and get to know each other, and we definitely got along, right away. We have a lot of similarities, in our lives and in our families, that brought us even closer. We could relate these characters to things that have happened in our lives, and share those with each other, so that we knew where that was coming from, when we were doing our scenes. You can just feel a lot more, that way. We really had an advantage because we had that time.

Carla> I feel so grateful for that.

Malin> Because of the magnitude of this film and what it’s about, we all had a bit of time to actually get to know and understand each other, through the rehearsals and the fight training. It was just a really amazing process.

Carla> There wasn’t that much screen time to really establish that relationship, but any daughter who says that their relationship with their mother isn’t complicated, on some level, is lying, probably like with any son and his father. It’s just an intense, complex thing, so it was great to be able to have the chance for us to talk about all of those elements, in our own lives, because that brings things to light.

MediaBlvd> Are you fans of the graphic novel now?

Carla> Absolutely!                 

MediaBlvd> Patrick, one of the interesting things about the graphic novel is that when Dan and Laurie meet, you would never see them together, but the minute they put on those costumes and pursue their personas, it’s really sexy. How was that on set?

Patrick Wilson> It was funny. We wanted to be very specific about Dan and Laurie because we knew where it was going, so it was important to show what the relationship like, at those first few meetings. We did the picture at the meeting with the crime busters that we call the Watchmen, and then her look is swayed by Manhattan. Dan gets sad, and you feel like they had very little time. I don’t think it’s any surprise that, when Rorschach comes in, Laurie says “You know, I was just going to give Dan a call.” She’s the one who reaches out, and Dan is very willing. All these questions were really answered in the graphic novel, which was super exciting because, anytime we had a question about a character or a relationship, it was all there.                                                                                                                                                   

MediaBlvd> There’s so much in the graphic novel that you could make 5-hour Watchmen movie. Do you recall any scenes that were combined to advance the story?

Patrick> I would always go back to the graphic novel and, if there was some line that I felt was really super-important, I’d want to throw it in. I remember thinking that there were so many times in the graphic novel, where either Dan or Laurie would say, “Well, this is getting heavy,” and I loved that because it’s so 70's, but it wasn’t in the script. They meet on this very 70's level because that’s when they were really cool, so I threw that in there. There were just little lines like that. To me, all that language was really important. That dialogue is so specific.

MediaBlvd> Each character has a different reaction to the over-arcing climate at the end of the book. Did you guys find your characters’ stances different from your own stances, when you read the story?

Malin> I’m still undecided on the ending because there are so many arguments, for both ways. It sounds awful to agree with one or the other. Personally, I love the way the novel ends. I love that it’s possible that the audience is going to walk out of the theater and think about that specific ending and go, “Is it right? Is it wrong?” That’s so brilliant!

Patrick> What do you do when your villain is outwardly striving for world peace?

Malin> I know. It’s out of control. It throws you for a loop.

Carla> It turns everything on its head, which is what was so cool about the script.

MediaBlvd> How challenging was it to figure out this whole story, since it’s so complex?

Patrick> I don’t know. We lived this for so long. If anything, we just needed little sparks to reignite it. The script is very faithful to the graphic novel.

Malin> I’m speaking just for myself, but I absolutely am very aware of the pressure of how huge this graphic novel is, for so many people, and now for us, too. We’ve all become fans of it. When you live and breathe it for six months straight, you can’t forget. There’s just no way. We’ve gotten to live it, which not a lot of people have had the opportunity to do. Someone else who’s read the novels for 10 years straight, has so many different views and insights. It’ll take me another 10 years to figure it out because you have to read it about 20 times to get every single moment, since it’s so dense. But, we can all come out of it and just give our opinion, and talk about how we felt and how we can relate to it.

Patrick> We’re fans first now. 

Matthew Goode & Billy Crudup at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con held at the Convention Center in San Diego, Calif.

BILLY CRUDUP (Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan) & MATTHEW GOODE (Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias)

MediaBlvd Magazine> Billy, how did Zack get you involved?

Billy Crudup> They sent me the script, and I had never heard of it. I recognized the cover because my younger brother is a big graphic novel fan, and I remembered him having it in his apartment. But, I was shocked by the  script. They told me it was basically about superheroes, and that it was based on a graphic novel, so I had all of my superficial expectations for what a movie about superheroes from a graphic novel would be like because I read a lot of those scripts. And, this subverted a lot of those expectations, from the first page, so that made me so excited. That was a pretty thrilling experience to have. And then, when I met Zack, I just sat back and let him operate. He showed me every single frame of what he was going to try to do. His charisma was just infectious.

MediaBlvd> How did you perceive your character?

Billy> The graphic novel and the screenplay attempt to ask that question and answer it, at the same time, so the experience of making it was the experience of asking that question, every day. Does he have any more humanity left?  Mostly, he is an entity that is distracted by what are a higher order of problems for him. How does the universe operate? He was being asked to be a dutiful man by his government, so he was trying to attend to both of those issues, while trying to carry on a relationship. Ultimately, he discovered, through his own journey, that he was no longer as interested in people, as he was in the universe at large.    

MediaBlvd> What was it like to be the only guy in the motion capture suit and the goggles?

Billy> It was a burden for the first day, until I saw what these guys were in. Then, I was as happy as a clam. Basically, I came in, put on my pajamas, stood on my apple box and tried to figure out Dr. Manhattan.                                              

MediaBlvd> How does it feel to be in an intelligent superhero movie?

Matthew Goode> It’s a first time for me. I’m in a movie that’s quite good. It was an amazing experience!                                

MediaBlvd> Matthew, Zack has said that they put nipples on your suit as an homage to Joel Schumacher. Is that true?

Matthew> Yeah, and what’s funny is that I never even noticed them. I swear to God! That’s my attention to detail, showing up right there. Or, maybe it was because, once you had the thing on, it was very hard to look down.

MediaBlvd> With what Adrian does at the end of the story, did you find yourself liking your character or not liking your character?

Matthew> I did like him. You could say he’s much maligned. Everyone has their own arguments about it, and quite rightly, because there are only grey areas. Nothing is black and white with Adrian. One of the things I’ve always loved is the idea of a public persona and a private persona, and the intense isolation that he has around him. There is only one real friend for him, and that’s Dr. Manhattan. But, that’s also someone who he doesn’t really think twice about killing. That’s how he is. He’s just a very, very practical man. There’s no great plan about how we’re going to save the world. It’s cold and it’s real, and it’s an equation. It’s quite mathematical to him. 

Jeffrey Dean Morgan & Jackie Earle Haley at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con held at the Convention Center in San Diego, Calif.

JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN (Edward Blake/The Comedian) & JACKIE EARLE HALEY (Walter Kovacs/Rorschach)

MediaBlvd Magazine> Some actors say that they don’t play villains as villains, but as people who have certain motivations. Jeffrey, was that the case with Edward Blake, even though he is a really bad guy?

Jeffrey Dean Morgan> Yeah, and I wondered what his motivations were sometimes. I was constantly trying to find out what Edward Blake’s motivations were, just because of the way he is. He’s just built that way. It’s a fine line. You don’t hate The Comedian, no matter what he does. When I read the graphic novel, I was like, “Why don’t I hate this guy? What is it about him?” You almost feel sympathetic to him, at a certain point. So, trying to find that razor’s edge, and being able to walk that, was a great deal of work, as an actor. Some of the actions of The Comedian, especially that scene with Sally Jupiter, in particular, will stay with me for a little while.

MediaBlvd> Edward Blake has that rape scene with Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino). What is that type of scene like to do? Does that stay with you?

Jeffrey> My character is screwed up. As an actor, I had a lot of challenges to go through, and that scene, in particular, was just really vicious. I don’t how else to describe it. And, I knew that, going in. I read the graphic novel and saw what the character was, but in shooting it, I made the mistake of going back and looking at a little bit of playback on the monitor, which was maybe the biggest mistake I’ve made, in the course of my acting career. It was repulsive. I don’t claim to be a big method actor, or anything. I do my work, and I enjoy it. But, shooting that scene was a rough couple days, and it stuck with me. I still have it in my head. Some of the stuff that The Comedian does are things that you can’t make excuses for, as an actor. Even deciding, “Oh, I’m going to play this guy as a complete bastard,” that stuff doesn’t go away, sometimes.

MediaBlvd> How did you shoot that scene where The Comedian is thrown out the window?

Jeffrey> It was cool! I got thrown out the window. I did wire work for it, and that was actually the first thing I shot in the movie. That was the first thing, period, that we shot for the film, and we did it with wires and stuff. It was a lot of fun!

MediaBlvd> That was really you then?

Jeffrey> Yeah, that’s me, in every frame of that. I actually had a great time doing it! As a matter of fact, the first couple times I went out the window, Zack was like, “Okay, can you do one without smiling?” It was just a free-fall, for seven stories, on these wires. It was just like being at Disneyland. I had to get it in my head that, “No, I’m falling to my death,” because it was a really cool deal. And, the guy who shot it, Larry Fong, was amazing.

MediaBlvd> Jackie, are you prepared for the fan response from playing Rorschach?

Jackie Earle Haley> It’s wonderfully exciting. Through the process, I’ve become a fan of the source material, so I’m excited to be part of this movie. It’s incredible! Zack Snyder rocks.

MediaBlvd> Did you find Rorschach’s mind-set kind of troubling, or do you find it really easy to immerse yourself?

Jackie> Usually, I can leave a character on the set. You do your thing, and then you leave the character. Even when I was playing that guy in Little Children, who was a pretty real, messed-up guy, I could leave him on the set. And, for the most part, I did that with Rorschach, but there were some things that just stuck with me. How Rorschach dealt with the child-molester, and the way we shot that, really stuck with me. There was just something about it that got to me. It didn’t keep me from sleeping, but it was kind of weird.

MediaBlvd> Jeffrey, was there anything specific that you had to bring to The Comedian to make him live on screen?

Director Zack Snyder at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con held at the Convention Center in San Diego, Calif.

MediaBlvd Magazine> In transferring a graphic novel to the screen, how do you decide what to keep and what to lose?

Zack Snyder> In the end, if the movie is a three-hour advertisement for the graphic novel, so be it. That means that I succeeded. When you decide to make a movie out of a graphic novel, the movie has to  try to get at the ideas. When we talk about mass culture embracing superhero movies, it’s crazy. That’s part of the language of cinema now. So, we definitely tried to reference as much of the superhero movie cliches as we could, without it becoming self-aware. That’s a fine line.

MediaBlvd> Do you feel like the fans trust you to adapt this much-loved graphic novel because you did it so well with 300?

Zack> A little bit. But, I also feel like I want to make the best movie I can. I put pressure on myself, just as a filmmaker, to make the coolest movie. If the coolest movie is three hours long, then that’s the movie. I understand and respect my partners at Warner Bros., and I want them to have financial success with the film because they invested a lot of money in it and they want it to be good. But, on the other hand, the very things that they thought were too long, too hard to understand, too violent or too sexy, are the very reasons to go to the movie. I can go in a room and say, “Watchmen should be at least 15 minutes longer than Batman,” just from the amount of footage we have.

MediaBlvd> With 300, you made a movie that was, basically, completely CGI created, but with Watchmen, a lot of it actually existed. How tough was it to make these drawings actually exist in the world?

Zack> We built them into the sets. That’s basically how we did it. Everything that we designed and built, we planned from the beginning.

MediaBlvd> How much CGI was put into this film? Is it the practical look, with CGI enhancing everything?

Zack> Not with everything. The problem was that we had Dr. Manhattan in a lot of shots, and he’s just CGI. That shot of Manhattan walking through Vietnam, he’s 30 feet tall, which is a superhero thing. To me, the revelation is watching him just talking and doing nothing, and just emoting in the subtlest way, which is something I haven’t really seen from a CG character. All he’s doing is acting. He’s not blowing stuff up, or jumping off the walls. He’s just being sad. That was pretty cool.