On October 9 – 11 I attended a Disney Press Event for Thor: Ragnarok. My hotel and airfare and meals were taken care of while I was in L.A. Opinions and observations as well as recaps and such are all my own. This post will also contain some affiliate links to Amazon.com.
I am still reeling a bit from leaving my Zoom H1 recorder under the seat in front of me at this press conference. I never recovered it, no one turned it in and so all my audio from the trip was lost. I’ve been relying on the kindness of the other bloggers to help me out with audio files for these posts. I also should have brought my real camera and longer lens. Even though my friend Stacy let me sit with her in the second row the photos I took were with my cell phone. All these photos are mine. That being said this was a fun event.
I had never been at a full cast press conference before and so the experience was brand new for me. The people who were there as part of the cast and creators were: Kevin Feige (Marvel Studios President), Karl Urban (Skurge), Rachel House (Topaz), Jeff Goldblum (Grandmaster), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Cate Blanchett (Hela), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok Director and Korg). We got right into it with the questions from the moderator.
the first questions was for Chris. What makes this Thor different from the others? Chris said, “Taika Waititi, basically. I think we all had a vision, an idea, a want to do something vastly different than what we’d done before, and take it to a different place. That meant doing away with what we knew, and just reinventing it. It all came from his crazy, wonderful brain, and his inspiration, and him pushing us every day on set, and constantly encouraging us to improvise, and explore, and take risks. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve ever had on a set, and a film that I feel the most proud of, just because of this whole team, and the collaboration, and fun we had.“
The next question was asked of Taika – And Taika, you kind of brought an independent sensibility to this monstrous film, and gave it fun, and a little heart, too. What was the process like for you?
Taika replied with an answer that he gave us a little of in our interview with him individually which you can read on yesterday’s post. He said, “Well, when they first asked me to come and to them about making this film, obviously I thought that Marvel had lost their minds, so they’re just hiring anyone now. But I came in, and I guess I thought that – I knew my strengths were just like tone, character, relationships, and things. I had to ignore the scale of this monster, this beast. It’s a huge, huge film. And what can be distracting on set is if you look over your shoulder, and you see 300 people standing there. I just had to keep reminding myself what’s more important is what’s inside the rectangle. Usually, it’s two or three people trying to remember their lines. So it doesn’t matter the scale of the film – that’s always the same. So, I just focused down on what I was used to, which was what’s in front of the camera.“
Talking more about the process of the film Kevin Feige was asked – So what made Taika and everybody else here the right fit? Kevin stated, “Well, I mean, Chris sort of said it. We wanted a new sensibility. We wanted to take Thor – and if you look at everything Chris has done as this character, there have been moments of humor throughout. We wanted to build on that. If you look at the movie, it’s got the epic action. It’s got Thor arguably more powerful than he’s ever been in any of the films, with his powers going up against the Hulk, but at the same time embracing what Mr. Hemsworth does better than anyone up until now has ever been able to see, which is his acting chops expands to comedy in an amazing way. And Taika giving them the confidence to explore that, and to try things. Most of that is in the movie, because it was on story, and yet at the same time expanded each of their characters.“
Questions from the crowd were then asked and the first was a question that was on my mind which was “Where was Lady Sif?”
Here is the exchange that took place with that question.
PRESS: My question is for Taika, and possibly Kevin. Where is Lady Sif? Is she alive? Did she just – not make the cuts?
TAIKA WAITITI: Kevin.
[LAUGHTER]
PRESS: What’s going on?
KEVIN FEIGE: If she had been on Asgard, she might not be alive, so that’s one of the advantages.
TAIKA WAITITI: Lady Sif is an actor in New York, on a TV show at the moment.
KEVIN FEIGE: Oh, that’s true.
TAIKA WAITITI: She was busy.
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: That’s right.
KEVIN FEIGE: I’ve been using ‘A Force Awakens’ quote today when people ask me that, and to say, ‘That’s a good question for another time.’
I think that when you see this movie you are going to want a stand alone Hulk movie. I think many people want one but me personally, I like seeing Hulk play off other characters and Hulk and Thor work so well together in this movie. I don’t want to see another stand alone Hulk movie, I want to see Avengers working together in their movies. But, here is what the cast and Taika and Kevin had to say on that.
PRESS: Are you interested in all in doing a full Hulk movie? This is the first time we’ve seen the Hulk this much. And if so, what aspect of the character would be most interested in exploring?
MARK RUFFALO: I would love to do a Hulk movie, and I think we all would love to do one. But about a year ago, before I even had this part, or were talking about doing this – it was well over a year ago, Kevin had asked me to come over and have a script meeting. Basically he sat me down and he said, ‘What would you like to do if you had a stand-alone Hulk movie?’ And I said, ‘I’d like to do this, this, and this; and this and this – and then this. And then this, and this, and this, and then it would end like this.’ And he’s like, ‘I love that. Let’s do that over the next three movies, starting with Thor 3 and carry it on through Avengers 3 and Avengers 4.’ And so that’s my stand-alone Hulk movie.
MARK RUFFALO: And Taika is gonna take all three of those movies and cut it into one movie.
MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.
RACHEL HOUSE: Probably.
MARK RUFFALO: Will you do that?
KEVIN FEIGE: Yeah.
MARK RUFFALO: And that’ll be on the DVD. And me and Taika can own that, right? No.
HOST: Have you thought about that?
KEVIN FEIGE: No, that’s exactly what happened. And it’s – someday, a stand-alone I think would be great, but for the time being, Hulk’s presence in these movies, and certainly now, as Mark has talked about, what we’re going to be able to do with his character arc over these three movies is super exciting.
A question was asked of Tessa Thompson about playing a character that was canonically White in the comics. She said,”No, I didn’t feel any pressure with that specifically. The things that I thought about the particulars of Valkyrie had more to do with, like mass and size. For example, I thought, like ‘Oh, I’m short, you know. Or like, ‘I’m not buff enough.’ She’s arguably as strong as Thor. ‘How do I stand next to a person like Chris Hemsworth and feel like that’s true” So I didn’t think so much about satisfying Norse mythology, it’s mystifying, and fantastical, and glorious, and also very confusing and doesn’t make a lot of sense, you know. I just figured this thing that I’m tasked to do with any character that has its own iconography is to capture the spirit of the character, and I think the spirit of all of us, at the risk of sounding, you know, cheesy, has very little to do with what color we are. So I just didn’t really invest in that.”
There was a question asked of Jeff Goldblum. You’ve been in so many iconic films – what was it like to come into the Marvel universe? Jeff said, “Fantastic. Fantastic. I like the character, of course, and the opportunities in the character. Joining a group like this, a cast like this is a dream come true. Taika – working with Taika, that was my first, you know, connection point to the movie. We had a meeting, and hit it off, and he said what we were gonna do, and improvise, and have fun. But then, you know, Kevin Feige and Louis D’Espesito, and Victoria Alonso, and Brad Winderbaum – the whole upper tier of creative leaders, do something unique. They know how to make these epic productions, and popular movies, but they want to make good movies. And they somehow uniquely know how to do them, that feels to me like an actorly, workshop-y, character-y, improvisatory, delightful experience – and make a movie that I think skins the cat like this is just – I’m grateful, overwhelmingly grateful.” And I bet you totally read that last paragraph in Jeff’s cadence and voice.
There is a lot of great information in the press conference. I just found a recording on YouTube by people who were right behind me professionally recording the event. You can see my head in the shot a bunch of times as I took the photos that are in this post. The video is about 33 minutes and you can watch it in it’s entirety below. Warning. There may be SPOILERS in the content because it is the full press conference. The outlet that made the video was MouseSteps Weekly.
The press conference was a very interesting thing to be present for. I liked seeing everyone play off each other and the way that everyone had good insight into the characters and the production of the film. It also seemed like everyone was having a good time. Afterwards, we received an additional Thor: Ragnarok Funko Pop figure. The cast was also out in the lobby while everyone exited the event. Some of my fellow bloggers even got photos with the cast. I kept a respectful distance because, again, not that confident and didn’t want to bother anyone. But, I had such a fun time.
Like THOR: RAGNAROK on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thor/
Follow THOR: RAGNAROK on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thorofficial
Follow Marvel on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marvelstudios/
THOR: RAGNAROK opens in theaters everywhere November 3rd!