Last night, the Ender’s Game Exclusive Fan Experience opened, and a few people got to interview Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Gavin Hood and Bob Orci outside the Experience. Watch below what they had to say:
And just a couple of minutes ago, MoviesDotComOfficial released this brand new interview with Asa and Hailee!
Let us know what you think!
Source: Youtube (Beyond The Trailer, Perry Nemiroff, MoviesDotComOfficial)
Yesterday, The Digital Universe (Brigham Young University’s online news outlet) published a new interview with Orson Scott Card. None of the things he says about the book and the movie are entirely new, but the interview may clear up a few matters that people have been confused about. Here are a some excerpts:
About morality in Ender’s Game:
The novel doesn’t answer those questions, anyway — rather it raises them, and if anything it shows that the best you can do is muddle through, trying to do what’s right, as far as you can figure out what that is. That’s all that human beings can ever do. Even the great ones like Lincoln and Churchill are right only some of the time. Ender Wiggin, though fictional, is no better.
About his involvement in the movie:
My work as co-producer was all done in the early stages. Once Gavin Hood took over, my help was no longer required. […] The screenplay you see on the screen was 100 percent Gavin Hood. None of my writing was used. That was the decision that Odd Lot and Summit made; it was their money at risk, and they invested in the writer they believed in. I have no complaints.
Read the entire interview HERE.
Source: The Digital Universe
In an article on the “new wave of strong female-led sci-fi” published yesterday by the Los Angeles Times, Hailee Steinfeld speaks up about what attracted her to the role of Petra in Ender’s Game. According to the article, it wasn’t easy for her to find a challenging enough project after her highly acclaimed performance as Mattie Ross in True Grit (2010). The role of Petra Arkanian seems to have changed that.
When ‘Ender’s Game’ came along with Petra, I found that I’m really attracted to the strong female roles. Not only do you have to look harder for those parts but you have to fight for them. But fighting for what you want is the best part of the job. It’s what I love.”
The rest of the article focuses on other strong female characters in young adult franchises such as Divergent, The Mortal Instruments, and The Hunger Games. While many fans of Card’s novel are tired of Ender’s Game constantly being compared to The Hunger Games, Hailee nevertheless has something to say about which kind of impact the Hunger Games movie had on her and the rest of the young cast during the filming of Ender’s Game:
We all sat in the theater and we were all in awe. Most of us had read the book and we were excited. It was cool to see that ensemble cast just bring it 110%. It motivated us to really come together and make a great movie.
Check out the entire article HERE!
Source: LA Times
In their interview with Moises Arias at the Despicable Me 2 premiere, DesdeHollywood asked Moises about his experience filming Ender’s Game. Here is what he had to say:
Reporter: How was it to work on Ender’s Game with Harrison Ford, a movie that will catapult you into stardom in the entire world?
Moises: Ahm, I hope that people will really see the variety of roles that I’m doing, and that they’ll start to see the different kinds of acting that I can do. I liked it a lot, and Ender’s Game gave me a big opportunity – to be an antagonist. Kings of Summer is a comedy and Ender’s Game is solely drama. There is a very big chance that if people like it it will be one of the biggest things in my career.
Many thanks to Fernanda (@franiahs on Twitter) for the translation!
As usual, the young Ender’s Game cast has been really active on Twitter this week, with Abigail Breslin taking home the “Most Obsessive Tweeter” award with 33 original tweets since Monday.
Moises Arias has been busy promoting his new film The Kings of Summer, which was released this week. He attended a Q & A at the Landmark Theater in LA on Wednesday. Check out Twitter user Devan Abharis photograph of the event (as retweeted by Moises himself).
Moises also spoke to Papermag about The Kings of Summer. He briefly mentions Ender’s Game, saying:
It was honestly one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had. It was inspiring to see the professionalism. The cinematography! The special effects look amazing. I’m excited. I’ve gotten to work with the most amazing actors and the most amazing child actors right now.
Hailee Steinfeld has been spending her time filming the Civil War drama The Keeping Room (with Sam Worthington) and photographing cows in Romania.
Asa Butterfield has finished school and has left London for warmer pastures as well, spending his summer vacation in Greece.
Suraj Partha is still travelling the world. After France and England, he is rounding off his trip with a visit to Disneyland.
According to Vibe, Viola Davis, who will play Major Anderson in the upcoming Ender’s Game movie, is set to appear on next week’s Oprah’s Next Chapter. The show, which was launched in 2011 on the Oprah Winfrey Network, features Oprah travelling around the country meeting with and interviewing celebrities and other people of public interest. For next week’s installment, Oprah sits down to chat with not only Viola Davis, but also Alfre Woodard, Philicia Rashad, and Gabrielle Union about African American women in the entertainment industry.
The show will air on Sunday, June 23 at 9/8c. American viewers can check out a sneak peek on oprah.com and youtube.
Source: VIBE Vixen
Moises Arias talked with The Hollywood Reporter about The Kings of Summer and Ender’s Game, which is out on a wider release today and briefly talked about how to portray a character from a book. “You read the book, you read the script, they’re two different art forms.”
He also had great things to say about his time on set. “That was probably one of the most memorable experiences for me. I do believe that I’m going to be very different from what people were predicting, but I think it’s going to be a different flavor to what Bonzo is. I’m just happy that I got the opportunity.”
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Ender’s Game producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci spoke with Barbara Chai of the Wall Street Journal recently and mentioned their personal history with the popular sci fi novel.
What were some of the challenges you and director Gavin Hood faced in adapting Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” into a film?
Orci: “Ender’s Game” was a book that we both loved from teenagehood. It was published in 1985 and I think we read it in high school, maybe even earlier. The challenge with the book is it’s very internal in that a lot of the narrative that occurs is within the character’s head and the trick is, how do you dramatize that? The answer is both through having some of those internal struggles be dramatically shown as scenes, and second, we have an advantage that the book does not have, and that is actors. We have great actors who can not only say things, but play things and play reactions on their faces and actually convey a lot of the emotion of the book. Thankfully now we have the technology to make it the grand adventure that it deserves to be. We have the technology to render a Zero-G environment in a totally believable and incredible way.
Chai brought up the elephant in the room and asked them if they thought Card’s views would affect the film.
Orci: I was never aware of in the book – and we’ve read it three or four times during our lifetime before we got into this movie – I never saw any sign in “Ender’s Game” of anything that offended Alex or me. The book is beautiful. It’s about tolerance, it’s about responsibility, it’s about growing up. We just tend to judge a book on its own merits. Nothing that anyone could say is going to remove our original reaction of how we perceive this beautiful book. For us, it’s just about the book.
Kurtzman: Look, obviously it’s a First Amendment issue and Mr. Card is free to express whatever point-of-view he chooses to express, and we are free to disagree with him. At this point, that’s all I really want to say about it.
I have to admit, Orci’s answer touches on why I continue to do this site despite disagreeing with Card’s views. In all my readings of the book, I’d never picked up on his personal views either.
You can read the full interview at the WSJ.
Moises Arias, who plays Bonzo Madrid in Ender’s Game, talked with Backstage and revealed how he stayed in character all the time while doing Ender’s Game.
“I actually stayed in character the whole time I was on set. I heard the extras were scared of me. I wasn’t doing it on purpose, I was just trying to stay in the mindset. At the end they finally started talking to me and admitted to me that I had scared them.”
Fans of the book have noted the big height difference between Asa and Moises, asking why someone who is supposed to intimidate Ender is so much shorter. Moises addresses this as well.
“[W]ith ‘Ender’s Game,’ the character was described as dark-hair, light eyes, six foot tall, bigger than everyone. I’m 5’1”. I’m basically the opposite of that. But I guess it just depends on the vision of the director and how much heart you put into it.”
While I think a lot of us had assumed that his portrayal/audition had convinced director Gavin Hood about his Bonzo, it’s nice to hear it straight from him.
Source: Backstage
When Sir Ben Kingsley spoke recently to the Wall Street Journal’s Barbara Chai about his character the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, he also spoke briefly about his Ender’s Game role as Mazer Rackham and the facial tattoos, known in Maori tradition as “tā moko”.
He also mentions a bit of Mazer’s background story.
“I had the privilege of being advised and guided by a Maori who knows all about Ta Moko [Maori tattoo] and what each line and design means – its ancestry,” Kingsley said in an interview. “When it’s accurately and beautifully presented, it’s very empowering for the actor. To be able to put that on and allow it to tell its own story, and then you breathe life into it yourself.”
Kingsley said his key into Mazer was that the character loved his Maori father, a warrior whom he had lost in the Great Battle for the planet.
What do you guys think? Is it possible the pilot we’re seeing in the trailer isn’t Mazer, but Mazer’s father?
Source: WSJ
Asa Butterfield spoke with Hollywood.com recently and reiterated how tough his training was for Ender’s Game.
“It was painful,” he says. “There was all sorts of marching, running. ‘Left face, right face’ where you turn in different directions.” Butterfield admits that the rigorous boot camp helped him form a close bond with his fellow teenage costars — mostly because if they didn’t keep up with one another, they all suffered. “If one person in the group of about 100 extras, and 10 or so cast [members], made a mistake, everyone had to do 10 push-ups. And we’d be jogging and if one person fell behind, we’d have to do 10 push-ups. Then [the trainers would] extend it… because they’re a bit mean [laughs].”
I’d like to use that quote as another chance to say that this is why Ender isn’t 6 in the movie. You can’t really scoff at the ethics of the International Fleet’s practices and then demand that real little kids get put through this kind of an ordeal just for entertainment.
Anyone worried about Butterfield’s understanding of the complicated character Ender Wiggin may feel better about what he has to say about Ender’s moral complexity.
“One of the main ones Gavin and I talked about was leadership,” Butterfield says. “Ender’s way of leading and communicating with other people — not just children, but adults — is completely different. It’s one of the things that makes him shine in the school.” The actor sees Ender’s two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, as ends of a scale that the character drifts between over the course of the film. “One’s completely selfless and open, Peter is the epitome of the worst human being. Ender knows he doesn’t want to be Peter, but at times he can’t help having his dark side shine through.”
Asa also mentioned Ender’s dark side during the “Meet the Fleet” Google+ Hangout from earlier this week:
The interview is a great read, so be sure to head over to Hollywood.com to read the entire thing.
Ho, launchies! If you weren’t able to make it to the live Hangout, here’s a replay of it below!
Steve Weintraub of Collider got to talk to Sir Ben Kingsley about his role as the Mandarin in Iron Man 3 and his role as Mazer Rackham in Ender’s Game. And while it’s certainly not confirmation, it’s interesting that he refers to Ender’s Game as “a very exciting franchise“!
What do you think? Is he hinting about more Enderverse movies to come? Which direction do you want the storyline to go? Kelly and I talk about this on Episode 11 of EnderCast so be sure to give that a listen!
Source: Collider