Director Matthew Vaughn Talks about KICK-ASS Kicking Ass

Director Matthew Vaughn recently sat down with AICN, and gave a little pre-Comic-Con Kick-Ass interview, in which he talks about a ton of different things regarding the movie, such as the characters, style, blood, and actually filming it. I have highlighted a few parts of the interview that you can read below.

I can't wait to see this movie!

What Vaughn thought of the rough cut:

Well, the good news is I think we pulled it off. I don't want to sound too arrogant about the thing because there's nothing worse than someone saying, "I made the best damn movie of all time!", then you watch it, and you go, "Yeah..." I can say this... not that it means much... but it's definitely the best movie I've ever made. That doesn't mean it's a great film. But, for me, I think I punched above my weight.

As far as the violence in the film goes in the film, he say's:

There's nothing in this film that couldn't happen. Some of the actions sequences are... you know, we're making a movie, so I pushed the boundaries as far as I could. There are a few moments you'd maybe pull off one in a million times if you were doing it for real. But I tried to ground this as much in reality without it being a documentary.

On finding his Kick-Ass actor, Aaron Johnson.

I nearly postponed the movie for a year because I couldn't find Dave. I just couldn't find Kick-Ass. It was a Friday morning, and I said to the guys, "We're going back to London tonight, and we're postponing the movie until we figure out who's playing Dave." Then Mr. Aaron Johnson came in, who, mark my words, is going to be a huge movie star. I just saw NOWHERE BOY, where he plays John Lennon, and it is a ten-out-of-ten performance. The whole film is fantastic, but he is phenomenal in it. I actually feel like a juvenile moron for what I did to that kid compared to what he does in that film.

He has that charisma where you believe every word he says. He can also stand in front of the camera and say nothing, but you still want to watch him. He's fun. The actor I think he'll become is Robert Downey, Jr. He's very similar to him.

His thoughts on Chloe Mortiz as Hit Girl.

Okay. When you watch it... I will bet you any amount of money you want... anything at any odds... I'll give you a million-to-one odds if you want... that you will a) fall in love with her, b) buy her, and c) think, "My god, I just saw the Jodie Foster/Natalie Portman of this generation... I really mean that. That's the one thing. If this movie was STAR WARS, she'd be Han Solo."

The style of the film.

I've actually gone for a high, glossy, colorful palette. I said this needs to look like SPIDER-MAN. It needs to look like this big, glossy American movie, even though we haven't got $200 million. We made sure we used these new anamorphic lenses. I think they're the G series. They're unbelievable. For me, that makes the movie more like... "What the fuck is going on?" It's what the characters are doing and what the action is, but shot in a style of the big Hollywood films that you're used to. For me, I thought that if I shot it grittily, you'd then expect gritty shit to happen. So I thought let's do the opposite; let's make it glossy, so you could easily see these characters in SPIDER-MAN. but it's like "What would happen if Spider-Man were in the real world?"

The difference between Watchmen and Kick-Ass in term of violence.

The test scores... I'm not even going to tell you what they were because you wouldn't believe me. They were just phenomenal. And two of the things that were singled out for praise was that it was unique - it was like nothing anyone had seen before - and that it was fun. I think the difference between WATCHMEN and KICK-ASS is... I mean, I thought WATCHMEN as a piece of filmmaking was exquisite; I thought Zack Snyder did stuff that was jaw-droppingly brilliant. My only criticism of it was that I thought it was a little too faithful to the structure of the comic. It just felt episodic; the narrative drive wasn't working. That's the one thing I would've changed.

But it was very serious, WATCHMEN, and [KICK-ASS] isn't. It hasn't got a serious bone in its body, to be frank. But it ain't a spoof or a comedy either. When I say it's not serious, I mean it's meant to be fun. Someone described it as "Teenage Tarantino". And as much as I'd love to think I could walk on that man's coattails, that a description that made me smile.

How they plan on incorporating the Animated scenes.

Basically, there's a scene where it's the backstory of how Mindy and Damon become Big Daddy and Hit Girl. I was just looking at it, and I was like, "Fuck, I'm going to have to get someone who looks like a young Cage, and then a two-year-old and a four-year-old Mindy. And then I'm going to have to shoot in fifteen or sixteen different locations. This is going to cost a fortune!" And then we came up with this premise where Big Daddy is brainwashing Hit Girl into thinking all of this is fine [by drawing] all of the gangsters as comic books. That's her life: reading comic books. And Big Daddy is also a comic book artist; he makes his money drawing comic books. So Mark and I had this idea where... he draws the Big Daddy and Hit Girl comic, which he gives to her to read. And what happens is another character finds this comic and reads it. It's not going to be animated like a cartoon or a manga. John has drawn the comic which the character would've drawn, and we're just going to give it a 3-D look with a little movement. It should look cool. I haven't seen it yet. We're working on it at the moment. But we're not trying to do a KILL BILL moment. It should have a very different feel to it. I hope.

Head on over to AICN, to read the full interview.