He may be a comic book character, but Jonah Hex, the title character of this week’s big Hollywood release, is nothing like Superman. He’s probably best described as something between The Punisher and Batman mixed with a little bit of Clint Eastwood.
A Western comic book antihero from the DC Comics stable, Hex is a surly and cynical bounty hunter whose face is horribly scarred on the right side. Despite his poor reputation and personality, Hex is bound by a personal code of honor to protect and avenge the innocent.
Josh Brolin stars as the titular character, who is out for revenge after his arch enemy Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) murdered his wife and child right before his eyes. Turnbull then branded Hex’s face giving him that distinctive, half-melted face look. Hex is a loner to be sure and doesn’t have many friends outside of a whore named Lilah (Megan Fox) who he occasionally spends a relaxing evening with.
With the film in cinemas now, we put some questions to the cast and crew, including director Jimmy Hayward and producer Andrew Lazar.
Megan, what was it like making a different kind of action film with Jonah Hex?
MEGAN FOX (Lilah): I like working on action films and I like working on movies that are comic book-based, or that have sort of this theme because they’re things that I watched or I loved when I was a kid.
Josh, can you talk about doing Jonah Hex make-up practically, as opposed to doing it later with visual effects? And what was that process like for you?
JOSH BROLIN (Jonah Hex): We did three hours of make up a day. It was very tough. There were many different layers. I had a mouth-piece that held my mouth all the way back and that was attached to the back of my neck. Then I walked around with half a mustache and half a beard in New Orleans for three months. So, there was nothing attractive about it.
JIMMY HAYWARD: We actually talked him out of going further with the eye, which would have been even worse. He would have a raisin for an eyeball.
JOSH BROLIN: With a lot of movies, you say, ‘I went fourteen hours a day,’ but really only worked six and you were in trailer playing Nintendo the rest of the time and we actually worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day on this film. I couldn’t eat that whole time. So, I would stuff myself in the morning and then just drink water throughout the whole day and it was a hundred degrees. So, it was a pain. But now I look at the end result and I go, that’s pretty cool. (LAUGHTER)
Can you talk about the casting of these guys because it takes a lot to turn a comic book character into a full-blooded on-screen persona?
ANDREW LAZAR: We actually did get our first choice. Josh Brolin was our first choice for Jonah Hex. With the amazing run that he has had in his career, we really wanted him for this film. And with Megan, this is not just an action movie. There are dramatic scenes and we really felt that there’s an edge that Megan has as an actress where she can play both tough and show that longing of someone who wants to get out of her life. She wants to connect to Jonah and we just felt it was a really good match. And I have to say, while we were thinking of Megan, Josh sent me an email saying, ‘Megan Fox is a really good idea for Lilah, what do you think of Megan Fox?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that’s a really good idea.’ [Laughs]
JOSH BROLIN: There actually was a lot of thought put into it because however Megan was perceived, even though this is kind of absurd, fun, escapist film, I like the idea of giving somebody the opportunity like somebody gave me in saying, ‘Hey, we can go a little further with the acting here.’ And even though we made it fun, we did a lot of different takes where she was crying and she’s not crying. And it was amazing how real that was in a twenty-two year old. So, when we met, I just wanted to make sure she could go head-to-head with John and she could really hold her own.
Megan, do you have something to say about that?
MEGAN FOX: No, I think it’s wonderful what they’re saying and appreciate it and I’m humbled by their comments.
Megan, having done other action movies in the past, what was more challenging for you, doing the action scenes in this movie or squeezing into that corset every day?
MEGAN FOX: Actually, there was one gunfight scene which stunts had been choreographed for for, I think, a couple of weeks, and I showed up and I had like minutes to get it down and to rehearse it, and it was really difficult for me to shoot the old style like the gunslinger guns because I have tiny little baby hands and the guns are really large and heavy. And, so, just the physicality of actually having to pull that off was really difficult. This was more action-heavy for me. It was more intricate, the action in this movie, than in previous movies that I’ve done.
I loved the corset. When I showed up for camera tests, everyone thought I was in pain or I was hurting or something was wrong with me because my waist was so small. But I enjoyed it and I wish they would come back into style. [Laughs]
Were they historically accurate? Is that what women of the day or even women of the night wore at that time?
MEGAN FOX: Well, I’m not the person to ask, but I would assume so.
JIMMY HAYWARD: [Costume designer Michael Wilkinson] does his research. We were entertainingly accurate with a lot of stuff, like the trains are a few years out and stuff like that, but with the clothes Michael starts in the basis of reality and then moves off of it a little bit. We had a lot of photographic research and stuff.
Megan, did you build up a back-story for your character?
MEGAN FOX: Well, Josh and I had a conversation about what their past relationship could have been and why she would be so dedicated and so in love with someone who sort of treated her the way that he did and was not able to love. And we came up with a back-story between the two of us of what things had gone on in the past and why she was so dedicated to him and so loyal and just hurt for him so badly. So, yes.
JOSH BROLIN: It’s a beauty and the beast thing, physically, cosmetically, but then I think the parallel is that they have a kinetic connection because they’re both equally broken.
Megan, can you talk about how you brought something real and convincing to this character and avoided the stereotypical?
MEGAN FOX: I felt like it was an amazing opportunity for me to be involved in a project with Josh and with John Malkovich and with Fassbender, with all these incredible actors who were coming in to make this movie and I just wanted to be a part of it any way that I could. I don’t really feel like she’s that stereotypical. It’s something completely different than anything I’ve done and no one can accuse me of doing the same thing twice, which I’m proud of.
When you are dealing with an adaptation that already has a fan base, how to walk the line of staying true while making it your own?
MEGAN FOX: Well, I love them, but I think it’s impossible to please the hardcore comic book fans no matter what you do. Because I’m a Lord of the Rings fan and I’ll go on the forums and they complain about that Frodo is eating the Lambas bread outside of Mordor instead of the mines of Moria. And Peter Jackson and company won like thirty-something Oscars for that movie. [Laughs] So, you can’t focus completely on pleasing them because you’ll never win and then you’re excluding like a whole other world of people who weren’t aware of the comic in the first place. So, I think you have to take some sort of liberties to make it into a live action film or it wouldn’t work.
Jonah Hex is in theatres across the UAE now
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