By Gill Pringle

Joe, did you see the script first? Did you know you weren’t going to be in this all the way through?

Joe Manganiello: Yeah that’s how Brad pitched it to me. Brad and I met because I wrote a script for Dungeons and Dragons when the rights were at Warner Bros and I found out that Brad was looking to also direct a version of the film. We got on the phone and while we were talking, Brad said ‘Hey man, listen I’m in Atlanta, I’m getting ready to do this movie Rampage, I got this great role, would you want to come do it? And then we can just talk about Dungeons and Dragons all week’. I said ‘Okay sure’. I came down to Atlanta and that was it. He said it was like a miniature predator inside of Rampage and I thought ‘Perfect, great’. So yeah, I knew I was going to be killed off. But, apparently, I found this out later, there was a big talk after day 2 about figuring out how to make my character live. And then even after they started screening the movie there was another big talk about ‘Can we do reshoots and make his character live’ and the answer was no.

We wanted you to live, it was kind of shocking when he went.

JM: Maybe I survived but somehow the mutagen affected me and I became this wolf-man…

How was it to shoot that scene when you had to fight the thing that you didn’t see?

JM: Well, you know, it’s easier when you have something to do. I think it’s one thing if you just have to stand there and look off into space at this tennis ball on a stick. It’s another thing when you’re running around and shooting. They had a camera mounted on a motorcycle that was chasing me, or I was running after it. I think when you’re in motion it’s not as important looking at the thing, the action is more important; you can get lost in the action that way. But honestly, I come from classical theatre, so you’re up on a blackbox stage and the wings are visible in your periphery and there are sandbags over your head and you’re not in a real forest – so just being in a real forest in a film helps your imagination. I’m used to having to imagine everything…

Malin, you play the villain of the piece, is that why you went with the dark hair?

Malin Akerman: That was actually more a Brad thing, I think that was his vision. I was happy to go either way. But I always feel like when you do read a script, especially as a director, you have a clear vision of what your characters in a dream world would look like – down to the beard and the scars and whatever it is, and I think he had always envisioned her as a brunette. And then we have Jake Lacy, who plays my brother, who’s darker haired as well, so just kind of match them up. And perhaps it’s because dark screams a bit more evil than… blonde.

Why was Jake eating all the time?

 MA: That was just a character choice. Funnily enough, there were two bigger scenes that were cut out, unfortunately, that give a little bit more of a character description between the two of them – so their relationship, which they just didn’t have time for in the film ultimately and I totally get it, but it would have explained a little bit more. It was just more to juxtapose her, she’s so put together and he’s just constantly eating, and his side of the room is the one that had the Rampage video game and all the gadgets, and mine is meticulously clean. We just wanted to find their opposing personalities.

What would we have learned in those scenes that were cut out?

MA: There’s a moment where we finally see Claire, her brother actually sees her and realises that she’s lost the plot, that she’s actually insane, that she doesn’t care about humanity and that there’s a difference between wanting to gain power and make a lot of money, and then there’s just destroying a whole city and not having a care in the world about it. It was a nice moment between them to see why they need each other and what they need from each other – which you still get in this, I think. There were questions to Brad ‘Why wouldn’t she just shoot him, he’s kind of useless’.

Yeah, why does she need him?

MA: I think that he’s the only family that she has, he’s the only person who probably ever talks to her like a human being, and I think there’s an element of control there – that she has someone she can control. She likes controlling people, and she gets a kick out of him, he’s sort of her entertainment.

JM: He’s her pet.

Joe, are you excited for a Deathstroke movie?

JM: Uh, I haven’t really spoken publicly about a Deathstroke movie. So, I can’t comment on that at all. The red carpet took what I said out of context. They said ‘Any news on Deathstroke?’- meaning the character – and I said ‘There are things in the works’. I didn’t say anything about a Deathstroke movie. This is just bloggers going wild – whatever information they can get and kind of blowing it up and changing what you said. So, there are definitely things in the works for the character. But I’m not commenting on a Deathstroke movie.

Joe Manganiello as Deathstroke in Justice League

Going back to character choices, so was that your idea the scars on the cheek?

JM: No that was Brad’s. I had just come off playing Deathstroke for the first time in Justice League – where he’s missing an eye on his right side. I wasn’t looking to corner the market on people with mutilated right sides of their face – that was Brad’s idea. Then I came in because I’ve done so many military projects over the years – I worked with all those guys, from like undercover narcotics officers, to marines to navy seals to naval special warfare development group. But I worked so much with them that I then started sending Brad what guns I would use, all the grounded stuff but Brad had the big overall arc of that opening tracking shot, and ‘This is what it’s going to look like, this is how we’re going to introduce you, I want you scarred up on your face and your right arm’. So, there you go, that was my equivalent of Malin’s wig.

You must feel like you can do what those guys do, having trained with them so much over the years.

JM: Up until I went to study classical theatre at Carnegie Mellon, I was going to go into federal law enforcement. I was going to go play college basketball and use that to get me into a great school, and then go down that route. There is something in me that loves that and would love to do it. And some of the guys I’ve worked with have said ‘Yeah, you could do this’. So, yeah, I think there is something in me – it’s like the life I maybe could have had. Minus giant mutant…

Rampage is in cinemas now. Read our review here.

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