Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Malin Akerman, two of the stars of director Zack Snyder's much-anticipated Watchmen movie, told SCI FI Wire that the film will distill a complex story and that it does the original graphic novel justice.
Morgan and Akerman were on hand to unveil new footage at Spike TV's Third Annual Scream Awards on Oct. 18 in Hollywood, at which Watchmen was named the Most Anticipated Film of the Year. (The ceremony and footage will air on Spike on Oct. 21 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.)
"It is a pretty heavy piece of literature, [but] Zack is such a visual director, ... well, believe me: It's a heavy movie, too," Morgan said in an interview on the red carpet. "But the way he shoots, I believe it's going to be accessible to people who couldn't quite sit through that novel."
Morgan plays Edward Blake/the Comedian in the adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' seminal graphic novel, set in an alternate-universe 1985 New York in which superheroes really exist.
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Jeffrey Dean Morgan is the Comedian and Carla Gugino is the original Silk Spectre in Watchmen. (Clay Enos for Warner Brothers)
Akerman, who plays Laurie Juspeczyk/Silk Spectre II, added emphatically: "We want to please the audience. That's the reason we do this. But there is an added pressure with Watchmen, because there is a built-in fan base, and it's an amazing novel. So this [is] something that I want everyone to love, because it's such a beautiful piece of artwork that I hope we did it justice."
Morgan agreed that the pressure was high. "Sure," he said. "Everyone worked so hard on this film, from the actors to the crew to the studio, from the top down. It really was a passion project, and it felt more like an indie film that everyone loved, so much more than, like, the big studio film it is. But the pressure is tremendous, because the fans of Watchmen are expecting a lot, and we don't want to let anyone down."
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Malin Akerman (left) is Silk Spectre II and Patrick Wilson is Nite Owl II in Watchmen, Zack Snyder's upcoming adaptation of the seminal graphic novel.
It was the book that sold Morgan initially, he said. "Zack sent the novel over, [outlining what role I'd play], and I met with him the next day," he said. "I didn't even see a script. Actually, I read the novel, took a deep breath, and I read it again. I've read it some 20 times more since then, because you find something different every time you read it. It's an amazing piece of work."
Akerman said that she went through several auditions to get her coveted role. "I read the script first, and then the novel, as I went through one audition to the next," she said. "I hadn't finished the novel yet when I was cast, but I finished it because I was hooked. The movie definitely does the script and the novel justice, let's just put it that way."
After going through all those auditions, Akerman said that she is not sure why she was ultimately chosen. Snyder never told her how she won the role, but "if I had to guess, based on his casting with the other actors, I think he cast based on the novel's characters," she said. She added that she thought Snyder found actors who were already close to the characters so they'd have less of a process to go through. "I guess he just saw something of Laurie Juspeczyk in me," she said.
Watchmen opens in the US on March 6, 2009.
-Staci Layne Wilson
