"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" made its premiere June 30th
at a press event. The movie was screened and the cast and crew were on hand to be interviewed by the press.
Twentieth Century Fox has provide Comics2Film/CBR News readers with this brief Q & A session with actor Peta Wilson who plays vampire Mina
Harker in the movie.
Q: Who do you play?
Peta Wilson (PW): Mina Harker.Q: All these characters have
extraordinary powers. What exactly are hers?PW: Well she's the most extraordinary. She's a vampire. She's sort of half-human, half-vampire. She's got enough of Dracula's blood in her veins that when she gets emotional, fearful, angry, turned on, it comes out and it's inevitable death for whoever is in her grasp, or in Dorian Gray's case, she wounds him.
Q: Now she almost has a way of being safe because she's invincible. Were you able to have a little bit more fun with the character because of that?
PW: I did have fun with it but on the same foot...when I was doing the research I looked at every book or anything I could find on vampires to sort of understand it. Then it sort of took me into panthers and jaguars and cats and watching lions and they way that they are. They're very cool because it is inevitable that they will get their prey. So there's no need for them to sort of run around and be sort of peacocky and show their colors.
Mina's kind of held back because it's all just a matter of time before she gets what she's good at. She's gonna do what she can do. So there's no need for me to be all...you know I enjoy it when I do it, but the actual act of what it is kind of repulses Mina, which is why she doesn't do it all the time. She only does it when she really needs to. She finds it really unvirtuous and for that period of time, disgusting.
So, when it's happening I'm really enjoying it and as the film goes on and she does it more, she relaxes more. In the beginning of the film it's like she's a really uptight...what wrong with her? She's weird. She's out there. As it goes on you see her relax because she's fixing it. She's fixing what's...
She's really abstaining. You know Jekyll and Hyde: Hyde's got that character. You see his face all the time, talking back to Jekyll. Mina has a Hyde inside of her as well but you don't see it talking to her. It's just inside of her. So, it's there all the time
and it's about keeping it under control.
Q: How exactly does The League form?
PW: Well, we're all sort of requested to go and meet M because basically what's happened is that there's an evil overtaking the world and all the countries get together, the U.N., and they don't know what to do or how they can deal with this. So Scotland Yard step in and say, "This is what we do. We gather our worst criminals that have been banished from England and if they are successful in taking whoever's doing this then we'll forgive them. We'll pardon them. We'll let them back into society."
So that's what happens. We're all brought together but then there's a new challenge which is that because we've all been these, sort of, very tainted individuals with our big demons, we're not particularly trusting of ourselves or each other. So we get together but then it's about getting Together, about really becoming a team. So it's a little bit difficult.
Q: This takes place in the 1800s. How do you see audiences being
able to relate?PW: I don't think any of us can relate to that period of time
because we're not in it. I really don't. Very different systems in those
days. I think that...I said to my mother and father and grandmother,
who've made a big trip, my boyfriend from England, he came, that it's really
worth the plane flight because it's such a different world. To go to the cinema
and be taken to another world on a trip, we love that.I love that. I love
going to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" because it was a whole
other world. This film's like that. I think the audience will be taken away into
a whole other time and it's fantasy orientated and the whole family can go.I
think they'll enjoy it.Q: Your character has some really heavy special
effects, being able to transform into bats back and forth. How was it to finally
see that on the screen?PW: Well I haven't seen what you've seen. I've only
seen a little bit. I saw a print a few days ago that was about eight or
nine weeks old. I haven't seen all the effects, but the director was so
wonderful and his vision of it and what he described to me, I have no doubt in
my mind that it's gonna be pretty terrific. I'm looking forward to it.
"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" opens in theaters on Friday.