Willem Dafoe Talks about JOHN CARTER FROM MARS and Playing a 9-foot tall Alien

tarstarkas

As we have reported before Willem Dafoe has been cast in the upcoming live-action Disney/Pixar film, John Carter From Mars, which is being directed by Andrew Stanton. Dafoe plays Tars Tarkas in the story who befriends Carter who is played by Taylor Kitsch after he gets mysteriously transported from Civil War-era America to Mars. Dafoe recently did interview with AICN and offered up a few little goodies.

The film is going to be a hybrid of live action and CGI animation. Dafoe has seen the renderings of the film but didn't go into any crazy details about it, but it sounds like they are going to get into the nitty gritty details of it all, which is great! James Cameron did the exact same think with Avatar, and I'm sure each film and story will be equally as awesome. John Carter From Mars was one of Cameron's inspiration for Avatar. He related to AICN how excited he was to be involved with the project and what he is currently doing in getting ready for the role.

I've seen a lot of the designs and things, and I’ve just started to do prep work now. I'm doing a play in New York, so I’m kind of preoccupied by that, but I'm starting doing scans and things like that, but it's going to be a real full-on… Well, I'm nine feet tall with four arms, but, just from the scheduling, I'm going to do the stuff.


If you know the story and read the books then it's no surprise that they character he is playing is tall and has four arms. I'm kind of shocked that some of the other movie blogs were surprised by this bit of news. Dafoe goes on the say regarding the CGI animation,

They'll use my face, but they'll enhance it in a way--both after and before--in a way that I may not be recognizable. But, I'm good with that. It's particularly cool, because he's a creature, but he's got this huge range of character. And, he does cool things in the movies.

There’s a whole period where we're going to work with the language and the movement, and find out how I'm going to be nine feet tall, and all that stuff…like, a long period of time where we're going to go to Thark school, you know what I mean? We're going to create our culture. So, it's going to be very cool. These guys know how to do this, and they've got great people. And, the designs and things are just mind-blowing.


Sounds great to me! I'm really looking forward to seeing how this film ends up. I'm actually more excited for this one than I am for Avatar. It sounds like they are going to go all out on the visual effects though. Should be interesting to see how it will compare to Cameron's work. Dafoe is a freakin great actor and I can't wait to see what he brings to the character. What do you all think?

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