Shawn Levy Interview

Shawn Levy may not be the biggest name in directing yet – titles under his belt include Cheaper by the Dozen, Date Night and the Night at the Museum franchise – but that could all be about to change with the release of Real Steel this autumn. An underdog sports movie (is there any other kind?) with its focus on a father-son relationship, not to mention some good old fashioned robot-on-robot fighting action, Real Steel is set to entertain the bejesus out of you. Levy was in old London town recently performing promotional duties at Empire’s Big Screen event. Being the very special internet website that we are, Blogomatic3000 was one of the lucky few granted a one-on-one interview with Levy. Here we discuss Spielberg, robots and punching bulls.

So tell us where the concept for Real Steel came from. It’s based on a Richard Matheson short story is it not?

It was a Matheson story that became a Twilight Zone episode that Matheson wrote himself. Spielberg and Dreamworks had been developing a movie version for like, seven years and they never quite cracked it and brought it to life. But they sent it to me and I felt like I had a take on how to make it and things moved very quickly from that point.

You’ve got Hugh Jackman playing a real bastard in your film. How did you get that performance out of one of the nicest men in Hollywood?

I really, really pushed him to play that asshole! I told him what I believe which is that he has such audience goodwill as an actor – I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love the guy. He gives off such inherent likability that I felt strongly that he could play it as a hard-edged bastard and not risk alienating the audience. I think that it certainly works and it’s why the third act where his character really has a catharsis works to the extent that it does, because he’s earned, he’s spent so much of his life and so much of the movie playing hard and remote and angry so when we see the softening of that, it’s very satisfying.

In the film you create the robots using not only CGI, but animatronics which was fantastic to see – how was it working with that on set?

It was really interesting, I mean really almost with incident. I have to tell you, the first time I saw Atom, the first time Dakota saw Atom, it’s like you kind of fall in love with this thing because on the one hand he’s this hulking machine but there’s a simplicity and an innocence to his design. Those inscrutable LEDs for eyes behind the mesh of his face – he was really evocative and expressive. I felt that bringing those practical machines into the movie added a lot.

Speaking of Dakota, he plays a precocious young man in the film – is he as precocious and as much of a livewire in real life?

He’s definitely not at all lippy. In the movie he is a smartass, a punk kid with a lot of attitude. In real life he is a well-raised, super polite little Canadian boy. I fear that the fame that this movie will bring to him will forever corrupt him, but I certainly hope not!

Early on in the film, one of the robots fights a bull. Now obviously it’s not real, but the fight is very visceral – I was wondering if you anticipate upsetting anyone over animal cruelty?

I can tell you that we did not have robot punch a bull in the face!

I was hoping not!

We did have a real bull for a lot of the charging shots, we had animal treatment people on set, so the bulls were treated very very kindly and any violence for fun’s sake was absolutely only done to digital creations. So far we’ve had no one offended by the bull sequence.

Obviously the scene is there to demonstrate the brutality of robot boxing and I think the scene works in that way.

That’s right. I’m sure there’ll be some backlash somewhere!

Tell us about the design of the robots. Atom has a lot of charm, but the other robots are a lot more elaborate.

We spent about four months just designing the robots and we did eighteen, nineteen of them. And the mains ones, Ambush, Atom, Zeus, Metro, Midas and Noisy Boy, we wanted each to have distinct designs and colours and personalities. And Tom Meyer, the designer, oversaw different design teams of men and women working on one robot from one another so that the whole visual approach to them would feel individuated.

I really liked Noisy Boy, I was sorry to see him get merked so early on!

I know, Noisy Boy with his shogun helmet and his striated torso – it’s a great looking bot. Little known trivia fact – the LEDs on his fists say things in Japanese like ‘pain’, ‘oblivion’, ‘the end’ ‘doom’!

One film series I’m sure Real Steel will be compared to is the Transformers franchise. Personally, I don’t like them and one of the criticisms they get is that they’re just about a load of robots hitting each other. Now your film has a load of robots hitting each other, but I really liked it! It had charm and character… Did you have Transformers in your mind when making the film?

If you live in… the world, you’re aware of Transformers! Look, I would be grateful to have fifty per cent of the success that Michael Bay’s had with his franchise so I say this with respect to that, but our movie is really, thirty per cent robot action, the rest is a straightforward father-son sports drama, so I think the balance is very different. The other thing is that you only care about the outcome of the robot fights in Real Steel because you care about the people in the corners and that’s something that’s quite different I think from the Transformers movies.

There’s the Steven Spielberg connection there as well, how was working with him?

It was a dream mentorship. The truth is, when you’re super successful, you can be selflessly generous in your advice and support. I think when you’re in the earlier years of your career and you’re scraping it trying to make it, you’re running your own race in your head and you’re worried about getting where you want to get. Steven has gotten to where no one has ever gotten and I found him to be an incredibly available, forthcoming mentor.

The film is not going to be in 3D – was this a creative decision from day one?

Yes. I knew that Transformers was going to be in 3D and we wanted to distinguish. I think that choosing to do the movie in 2D sends a message, and this was important to Steven and I, that this was a father-son action-drama, not a robot fighting movie. It certainly has qualities of robot action, but we wanted the focus to be on the people.

Finally, what’s next on your plate?

Well I’m producing a movie right now called Neighbourhood Watch with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, so that’s got me quite busy. I’ve also been working for about six months on a movie called Fantastic Voyage with James Cameron which I’m going to produce and direct and Jim will be producing that’s going to be this crazy, immersive sci-fi action movie. As such, it’s really complex and really pricey but we’ll make that if and when we get the right star.